52 replies to this topic

[Darth Stalin]

Okay, more trimming underway...
The rebels (and sometimes also the Imperials) have a bunch of shipyards of various levels. which allows reduction of fleet sizes (and thus reduction of Pirate fleets) - the Pirates will also have their shipyards constructed - yet as an Idea for PR 1.3 I believe that having each Shipyard being equipped with its own compliment of ships and fighters would be a great benefit to that.
I've also decided that at least on key Rebel planets the AI will have more advanced ships already at start (like Libert MC80a & b as well as Reef Home a & b etc.) to allow reduction of fleets without losing too much of the fleet firepower. Together with level 1 shipyards (fighter production) and other shipyards already available for the AI that may help the AI keep quite potent fleets with keeping the lag at acceptable level.

What I also saw as a strange feature is that when I place a hero as upgraded in the start of a campaign, he also appears "free for building" on his planet of origin. Thus to prevent Player from having two Daalas I made all Player heroes starting as "basic" - the AI heroes will be of not so great importance - and having them dead after battle with their ships means that at least part of them will be already available for construction by the AI.

[Darth Stalin]

Minor tweaks include [...] as well as command ships for several Rebel heroes, eg. Bob Hudsol, Evram Lajaie, Jan Dodonna etc. The command ships are nothing overpowered, mostly hero variants of CR90's or EF76 Nebulon-B escort frigates. The Rebel Alliance also starts with Juno Eclipse in the Salvation.

Hey, Chich, how did you add the command ships for those afforementioned Rebel heroes? And how can be Juno Eclipse made into Rebel hero with Salvation ship?
Could you upload/e-mail the changed necessary files?

[Darth Stalin]

Okay, after some trials and tweaks and lots of trimming, I've finally produced something that can be played quite smoothly, with relatively minor lag (IMHO not greater than in original GFFA campaign). Currently it's during tests... but it's week 7 or so and the game runs smoothly (though scrolling the galaxy map is best done when game is paused), loading time is pretty short, as well as saving time, and still there was no crash during saving - with save game files of only 60MB size, not over 110MB as in previous version, which crashed almost instantly.

However, the file is "filled" only in Imperial part - i.e. the player can play the campaign as Empire only - to play as Rebels one should (IMHO the best solution) cut out the "Imperial" part and paste it into Rebel section of the file and trim it to fill its needs - i.e. reduce the number and quality of rebel ships, increase the same for Imperial ships (and mabe also reduce Rebel planets with increasing number of Imperial planets etc.).

The trimming was possible due to greater variety of Rebel and Pirate ships as well as great reduction of starting Imperial forces. The rebels got also smaller number of ships but of better starting quality (i.e. Reef Home and Liberty models "a" and "b", as well as Ardent mod "b" and "c" etc.; Pirates have - which depends of technological advantage of a given world as well as its affiliation - higher models of ships, like Invincible Mark II and IV - for CSA planets, Mark III reserved for "independents" like Mandalorians or Hutts etc.; also Dreadnaught Mark II, Victory II (for Rendili, other CSA worlds and some "top dog" independent worlds), Venator II, Acclamator II, Recusant Mark II and so on.
Neither side has its large compliment of fighters/bombers, with Pirates equipped with Fleet and escort carriers (which reminds me about an idea to provide a fighter'bomber/ship compliment for Shipyards and Asteroid bases - that would be veeery helpful and could allow more variable creation of "planetary defence fleets").

On the ground I've greatly reduced the number of infantry units present, leaving mostly "heavy equipment" like tanks, crawlers etc., but I've "built up" the Pirate planets (and many rebel, too) to the limits - with battle stations, shipyards etc., as well as buildings - barracks IMHO suit better than "plain" infantry, as well as reduce variety of units. Besides, a planet with Espo barracks, Soldier barracks and two modelsof crawler factories, with some "loose" repulsor and heavy tanks and airspeeders seems to be much harder nut to crack, especially if equipped with Shield - all these building spawn quite decent infantry and vehicles, which makes - for example - CSA planets not an easy prey.

Also the Rebel heroes have been added ALL, and IIRC mostly in their most advanced "form" (i.e. on their highest level), thus making the Rebellion harder to crush and giving the opportunity ofencountering all of them in battle, either on land or in space. And to deal with Wedge's Lusankya you have to use something bigger than just "Black Squadron" - maybe the Emperor himself in his Sovereign weapon of terror

Oh, one more thing as I've almostforgotten: the campaign is tailored to accomodate 216 planets (yes, good you can see) - the only exception being Lwhekk, which I've tossed away due to 3 reasons:
1. Ssi-ruuvi are completely "out of the stroy and their homeworld doesn't even appear as an object to conquer... except some Chiss activities... which is completely out of the table as the Chiss Ascendancy and Empire of the Hand also do not appear in the mod)
2. Proper implementations of Ssi-ruuvi themselves and their ships using available ones is just impossible
3. I've needed space contained by the Lwhekk and its hypelane (to Bakura and also somewhere else) to add more hyperlanes, so that all 216 planets have someform of connection with each other. These hyperlanes are taken directly from campaign files, yet some of them were cut - like Coruscant-Empress Teta - to give more space for others - the mentioned hyperlane is not necessary as there's Soruscant-Kaikielius and Kaikielius-Empress Teta; also there's no need for ET-Byss, as there's "Byss Run": Byss-Prakith and Prakith-Empress Teta.

Nothing more to say, here's the file (attached to the post).


In order to play it, rename the file cutting off the "_DS_trimmed" section from file's name, paste it into .XML folder and replace (previously making the back-up copy of course!) the original "CAMPAIGNS_GALAXY_FAR_FAR_AWAY.XML" file. Then star the game, choose the GFFA campaign in game menu and mark "Empire" as the side to play with. Make appropriate adjustments of money... and play.
And remember: Do not underestimate the power of the Dark Side of the Force!

Attached Files

•  CAMPAIGNS_GALAXY_FAR_FAR_AWAY_DS_trimmed.XML   430.09KB   223 downloads

Edited by Darth Stalin, 22 October 2012 - 07:00 AM.

[Chih]

Hey everyone! If anyone was interested in the changes I was doing, I'm sorry for disappearing. I kind of stopped playing EAW for a while and forgot the whole thing. I recently dusted it off again though, so here we go now. My modified version of Phoenix Rising for Galaxy Far Far Away. 

 

DOWNLOAD LINK

 

Information and installation instructions are in the readme file which I recommend checking out. Any feedback is of course appreciated

 

@ Darth Stalin, I can't remember from the top of my head exactly what I did to make Juno Eclipse a Rebel hero with Salvation as it was a long time ago I modified those changes. You can probably copy it from my files though if you want to experiment.

 

 

[onlylogic]

I've just joined and am catching up on what you've been doing in the phoenix rising submod. This, however, caught my eye and I was wondering whether you plan on continuing it. About to try it now!

[Chih]

I'd recommend just trying the submod. The submod is basically a more and more refined version of this. And no, I will only work on the submod as I barely even have time for that

[a.fake.name]

I'd recommend just trying the submod. The submod is basically a more and more refined version of this. And no, I will only work on the submod as I barely even have time for that

 

 

Any plan, once you get the submod at a fairly complete level, to apply it to skirmish ?
 

Edited by a.fake.name, 12 July 2013 - 03:26 AM.

[onlylogic]

I actually hopped into your submod before trying this one to see what it looked like. Then I went ahead and tried this one. I just wanted to see what it's like to start with a ton of Star Destroyers at the height of the empire's power. I like it, I like it a lot Still some issues with performance, but nowhere near PR's GFFA. If you haven't seen it already by the time I post I've got some ideas for performance btw that I'll leave in community suggestions. Maybe you could try putting it together if it makes sense and is doable. Thank you for both of these submods!

[a.fake.name]

Actually only what Chih did was a submod, PR is more of a total conversion mod, which is a polite way of saying they did the game companies jobs for them.

[P.O._210877]

 

they did the game companies jobs for them.

 

And much more... You have dedicated fans working for free, just for the love of SW (and gaming ). I can honestly say that I have never encountered a group quite like the PR team. Take my word for it those guys are A+ and the results reflects this. It's an honor to be able to work with them!

 

To the guys on the team: Yes, that's really how I feel, but don't let it go to your heads, not yet, there's still so much goodness to squeeze into the mod.

Edited by P.O._210877, 13 July 2013 - 06:29 PM.

[onlylogic]

I should have clarified, I know PR isn't a submod. I was considering Chih's GFFA's both individual submods. The one that was released in this thread and the more proper submod that starts in 18BBY as opposed to 2BBY like this. It's pretty fun btw. Rebels have been hassling me at Kessel all day with an Independence Class 120 which has destroyed two SD's and have already taken severalof my planets for their own including Sriluur, Kessel, and Bonadan among several independents. So it's not too over powering to have the empire canonically powerful. I've took back Kessel and Sriluur with a Praetor 1. I've secured most of my original sectors now, built the Death Star, and have two Executors on the way in order to crush the Rebellion in one fell swoop

[onlylogic]

And I second (I guess third) all that P.O. and fake.

[twentysand]

The download link for this is dead.  Anyone know of another place to get this?