Star Wars: A Galaxy in Chaos (Mod by Rifraf and Majestic)

[Rifraf]

I'd like to introduce a new mod I'm starting that will bring the original Star Wars Fleet Command mod for stock A2 over to Fleet Ops just like I did for the Upgrade Project 2014.

Some people prefer to mod FO directly, but I'm not ready yet so this will be a stock A2 mod playable in FO. I have every intention of releasing this as a public mod here at MSFC exclusively if I can get it to a state that I want.

I'm unsure if it'll be a stand alone mod like the UP 2014 project (I don't actually recall the exact edits I made to get my other mod stand alone,) but for now it uses UP 2014 as a parent mod so 70% of the work is already complete. I already have it playable in FO and have been testing it out and forgot how much fun it was. The graphics definitely show their age, but it's got a nice solid foundation to work from. Major A Payne has given his go ahead for the original mod permissions so I look forward to completing this within the next few months.....hopefully.

Thanks to Majestic and his work about 85% of the ship models are done as well. I do need a few more models to be able to complete this and yes that's my problem and no one else's, but if you'd like to donate your time and skills for an odd ship/station at least I would be very grateful.

I'm not sure if I'll keep the game play exactly the same though? I may keep everything in the episode 4-6 and beyond timeline like it was originally made, but I may have the game start in the Clone Wars era and then advance up to the more modern ships? We'll see.

To Do:
Update AI with UP 2014 stuff
Redo build lists
Add more research items?
Look at altering weapon ranges/fire rates
Swap out hardpoint/weapon stuff from Majestic's ships to original odf's
Balancing redo?

Ships/Stations:
Satisfied with Imperial shipyards/research stations and most Rebel shipyards. Maybe update textures?
Some Rebel stations not so sure?
Mining stations/trade stations?
Need better looking miners/constructors/colony ships/freighters

Missing ships so far:
Nebulon-B
Nebulon-B 2
Large Mon Calamari Ships (mc40, mc80, homeone)
Millennium Falcon
Assault Gunboat
Missile Boat
T-wing
Strike Cruiser
Assault Cruiser
Carrack Cruiser
Dreadnought
Lancer Cruiser
Assault Frigate
Various turrets?

 

[Majestic]

Well I got an untextured version of the turrets that appeared in EAW (rebuilt by me of course to be better quality) and the platform station, XQ1. They are on my to-do list naturally once I get the ships done.



I also want to do another 1 or 2 XQ platforms so all 3 factions that I was working on could have their own XQ platform station. I also had in the works some larger stations and odds and ends. But they probably won't be ready in time for your release. They are like half modeled and finished not close to texturing yet.

 

[Rifraf]

Those look great. I forgot to mention I'd like to consider adding in the Pirate faction as well. They wouldn't have as much stuff of course and I'd have to come up with a way to balance them/make fun to play with less ships/stations. An idea for the future.

I should have written differently about my timeline. I would like to complete the mod in the next few months, but I'm not going to release a mod with a mixture of old and new stuff so I will work on it and release once I have everything in place and properly updated. If that take all year then "so be it." (In my most evil Emperor voice)

 

[Majestic]

Well I have a couple of pirate frigates, a corvette, and couple of battleships so they should be fairly decked out. They would also probably share some designs with the Rebel Alliance as well like the Dreadnaught which is on my to-do list. I can always do texture alterations as well, so if say you want a Zhan CR70, I can make a pirate texture so they blend in with the rest of the pirates and are easily identifiable on screen.

As for a hero for them if you want one on par with the Falcon and Slave 1, Boosk or IG88 both had space transports as heroes in Star Wars Empire at War. So that could work for you. I am sure I could quickly convert the model from EAW without any difficulty, I probably already have it on my harddrive somewhere. Many of my models I used EAW stock models as guides to build them.

 

[Rifraf]

Game Ideas and Questions:

So I wanted to see what others thought about a couple of ideas for the mod. The original game is Rebels and Imperials with basically equal number of ships with similar stats. Your basic slug fest over time.

I had a couple ideas. The Empire has a lot more ships at their disposal and the Rebels are always on the run and scrounge what ships they can. The rebels would have smaller amounts of ships and smaller size ships. The big Mon Calamari ships wouldn't come in at the beginning of the game, but start appearing later. So with this thinking perhaps make the Imperial weapons have only say 50% hit chance on Rebel ships? This may give the Rebels more of a chance to compete even though they have less ships?

Then give the rebels a high hit chance to keep them in balance? Though an ISD with say 10 turbo lasers that fire at once you're going to still shred through a fleet of x-wings or whatnot fairly quickly. So maybe the hit chance has to be a bit lower still for the Imperials?

Another idea along these lines was to make the Rebel ships cost twice as much to give the impression that they can't field as many? I'm wondering though if this would impose too harsh of an artificial limit to the game instead of just playing naturally?

Adding in a third playable race, the Pirates would be even more complicated since they'll have even less ships than the Rebels? There will be research like the original, but it's all geared towards getting the next ship type/weapon type etc. I'll have to artificially lengthen the research times so you won't build up through better ships too fast. And obviously no special weapons.

I'd like to know what others think or ideas you may have.

I have another question regarding the lore of SW. Did the New Republic become the Rebel Alliance and the Galactic Empire become the Imperial Remnant? Was the Trade Federation the beginning of the Empire? I'm unsure of the timeline even though I've been googling it.

Also, I only watched episode 1 and part of 2 as I didn't like them and never say 3. So I've lived on 4-6. In the prequels the good guys fielded large ships that were basically the same as the bad guys from what I recall? It was by episode 4 that the Empire turned the tide and the Rebels lost access to all that and didn't have much to use correct? I just remember like in Adm. Zaxxon's Star Wars Fleet Ops mod both races have the same large ships. I just wanted to get that all straight.

 

[Majestic]

To start off with the lore, the Galactic Republic, aka old Republic ended up becoming the Galactic Empire after the manipulation by the Sith which started with the events in Episode 1 and continued with the Clone Wars, all a plan by Darth Sidious to get control of the Republic, destroy it from within and ultimately destroy the Jedi. The Trade Federation were pawns in Sidious plans, they ended up joining the Separatists, the other faction in the Clone Wars and ultimately were destroyed after the reformation of the Republic into the Empire.

The Rebel Alliance were created by a group of Republic senators after the new order was established to fight the Imperial fist and rule and subjugation of freedoms, that the Emperior, former Chancellor of the Republic and Sith Lord Darth Sidious had set in motion. The Early Rebel Alliance used a lot of old Separatist ships and tech.

Adm Zaxxon's mod was done as a sort of fun mod, not accurate to the Star Wars universe as the Republic and Empire are one in the same, all Republic war material, troops etc became part of the Empire.

As for factions, it would make more sense that the Empire could spam more ships and have a higher hit chance, I like that. But I'd be careful not to give the Rebels too much of a disadvantage. While trying to make a mod authentic to a series/movie is great and fun, gameplay ultimately needs to triumph. As for the Pirates, if you're going with the Zhan Consortium, they had a fleet by the Battle of Endor that rivaled the Rebellion and the Imperial Empire/Remnant (after the Battle of Endor). They utilised a lot of Mandalorian technology and many of their ship designs were also prototype Imperial designs stolen from the Empire after the destruction of the first Death Star, the Aggressor and Vengeance are both original Imperial designs. Like the Rebels many of their smaller designs are old and outdated but they had their share of new designs. They also bribed and intimidated many Rebel and Imperial officials and built quite a small fortune. I recommend checking out the Wookiepedia page on the Zhan Consortium. Wookiepedia is your friend and will tell you a great deal about Star Wars. I get all my info from there myself.

 

[CABAL]

If you give the Imperial capital ships a blind spot in their firing arcs it could help to even the playing field, making guerrilla tactics viable for the Rebels. Also, the Empire seems to favor using just a few capital ships and ridiculous numbers of fighters in the movies so giving the Rebels some AOE weapons to mop up fighters may help. Also, the Imperial TIE fighters are supposed to be cheap, un-shielded, vessels that take advantage of the Empire's sheer numbers while a Rebel X-wing, for instance, is a quality, shielded, top-of-the-line starfighter because the Rebels can't afford to lose anybody. While I doubt that all of the Rebels' equipment is as high quality as the X-wings, it's likely that at least some of it is.

With the Pirates, you could make them inefficient at harvesting resources, but give them something like the FO Klingon's resources-for-rankup to promote pillaging. For instance, make all ships and stations grant one experience point on death and make all Pirate vessels 'level up' to itself for one XP while granting resources. That way, every time you make a kill while playing as the Pirates you get money for pillaging.

 

[MajorPayne]

RifRaf. Just so your aware. I have aseriously sweet high poly model of the Falcon (its around 80,000 polys) which has been stripped as will be used to make a low poly game version. Will probably take a few days but textures may be an issue as the original model does not make for good renders. Will keep you posted.....

 

[Rifraf]

Thanks for the info Majestic and great ideas to both you and Cabal.

Major Payne that does sound awesome and I look forward to seeing your work. I got your assault gunboat that you sent. It looks beautiful. With your permission I'll see if someone can convert it to A2 for me?

I thought I'd also post some pictures of the stock ships/stations just for reference and such. I'm still working on many of the game play aspects/cleaning up files and such before I start replacing the models.

 

[Rifraf]

Final set:

 

[Rifraf]

And here are our plucky hero ships

 

[Majestic]

You're most welcome happy to help.

Also more a note, I am planning on making quite a few stations as I noticed how few are available in the community for Star Wars. The turrets are just the beginning. Keep an eye on my thread.

 

[Rifraf]

Awesome Majestic. That is music to my ears. As you note they are pretty lacking.

 

[Majestic]

Awesome Majestic. That is music to my ears. As you note they are pretty lacking.

I am really getting behind this project would be great to have an updated Star Wars mod. I am currently putting a hold on the pirates until I can nail down some more Imperial and Rebel stations. To be honest I was having a bit of trouble last night coming up with a design I was happy with for the pirate turrets. A break can be a good think sometimes.

So today I am looking at other stations for the 2 main factions. I already have a few ideas and a few stations. I am looking at doing some modeling today to try and nail down some updated stations. The screenshots you posted are helping in this endeavour. If you want to PM me a list of what stations are there in the mod so I can make replacements it should help. Obviously some designs may vary, but I feel that will just add more uniqueness to the revamp.

 

[Rifraf]

I'll PM you the info after work today. Thanks for everything so far as well.

 

[Rifraf]

I just took a few minutes to post in a couple of threads however, a sudden and unexpected death of someone very close to me has kept me off here since Friday. I'll be flying to Atlanta tomorrow and will be gone until the beginning of the week of the 7th and won't be doing any work on the mod until after I get back.

Keep up the great modeling Majestic. Everything looks fantastic so far. I can't wait to check out everything you've done and to start getting it all in game.

 

[Majestic]

I'm so sorry to hear that Rifraf, it's never a good time when that happens. Been there a few times over the past decade. Take care of yourself and I can safely say all of MSFC's thoughts go out to you during this time of mourning.

Don't worry about the mod, gives me more time to polish off some of the work I am currently doing and with any lick there should be a small truck worth of work for you to use when you get back. Including MAP's Millennium Falcon that I have get gotten the opportunity to finish.

 

[Rifraf]

Thank you for the kind words. I am now back and looking to move ahead with some work on the mod this week. You were definitely busy this week.

 

[Majestic]

Yeah I was a bit busy, still have more to do, haven't textured all the models I have done yet, have a half complete Nebulon B to finish modeling and then to texture it plus got more stations to do but I'm getting there. I should have another update in my thread within the next day or so provided I get the ships I am working on complete my then.

I really need to start collecting all of these models up and send them off to Jetfreak.

 

[Rifraf]

I wanted to post some more news and ideas and such and see what others thought. In talking with Majestic he convinced me to skip using stock A2 as a base for the mod in FO and just use FO directly. It'll be a far better project in the long run and have better options to use and will be able to utilize all FO assets without including them in the mod. I have no experience in modding FO directly so will be bugging you all with lots of questions.

My planned goals are to keep this AI friendly for single player/instant action games. I don't want the AI to have to cheat in any way, but be able to compete with the player as far as resources and build times etc on an even level. I would think in this regard that it would be perfectly fine for multi play as well?

Sounds like the races will be Rebels, Imperials and possibly Pirates (Zhan Consortium?) Majestic has some really good ideas like mining Tibanna gas from moons (dilithium,) auto generating Durasteel (tritanium) like the Borg do their resources and generating Imperial Credits (supply) from your base.

You would also get credits from killing enemy ships and possibly implement the rank up system and have warp-ins too. Still deciding about deployable fighters vs buildable fighters or a mixture of both?

I'm bouncing some stuff of Majestic and will post more again. I'll want to see what others think of ideas thrown out and go from there.

 

[Majestic]

Sounds like the races will be Rebels, Imperials and possibly Pirates (Zhan Consortium?) Majestic has some really good ideas like mining Tibanna gas from moons (dilithium,) auto generating Durasteel (tritanium) like the Borg do their resources and generating Imperial Credits (supply) from your base.

Right now I am focusing on the Imperials and Rebels, however I am very eager to have the Zhan Consortium added in maybe as an expansion or later update. They were after all my favourite faction in Star Wars Empire at War. I am currently thinking up ways to implementing some of their features from that game into the mod.

You would also get credits from killing enemy ships.

You can all thank Adm-Z for that one, he came up with the idea for his Star Wars mod and I like it that much I wanted to see it implemented into this one.

 

[Rifraf]

Speaking of Adm_Zaxxon does anyone have any alternate email contacts for him? His Hotmail contact in his Star Wars Fleet Ops Beta 2.0 mod was returned undeliverable and I haven't seen him here or over at FO in some months.

 

[Adm_Z]

Haha I will have to check on my hotmail, but the email linked to MSFC still works, I am around, but out of the modding light. Like I said in my message, feel free to use anything in my mod, which only really aimed for visual accuracy. The progress you have looks awesome, I can't wait to see the final product.

 

[Rifraf]

This is awesome news Adm_Z. Thank you so much. It'll definitely speed along the mod as I study how you did things and got them to work. I can just plug in different stuff and try it out. Thank you.

 

[Rifraf]

I'll be asking some questions regarding modding FO in this thread so it's all together. For the first question I've been taking a look at stock FO and various mods and see that in the races.odf file each race is in whichever assigned slot. However, in each race specific odf the instant action slot number doesn't correspond to the slot that race is in like it was in stock A2. I guess they are no longer tied together?

 

[Majestic]

I guess they are no longer tied together?

That's correct they can be in any order in the races.odf file. In fact I think it was the same in A2, been a while since I modded that.

 

[CABAL]

It is defined by instantactionslot in the ODF for that race.

 

[Cborg1700]

This sounds great, I can't wait for an updated and upgrade SW mod for Armada. I have always loved SW Fleet Command. It is unfortunate they were not able to complete the conversion of their ST vs SW from A1 to A2. Perhaps in the near future we will see something like that here.......

 

[Rifraf]

Thanks Cborg. I hope it turns out good. I feel a little overwhelmed starting to mod in FO, but Majestic has been a great help and everyone here and at FO is immensely helpful too.

I have another couple of questions. Can someone tell me the name of the Fed ship in FO that deploys fighters? If I recall those fighters were not controllable correct? I want to check it out and see how they did it.

Also, let's say I have an enemy base and an enemy battle ship. I want my battleship to fight theirs, but I want my fighter/bombers to attack the station. I would use a higher intrinsicvalue on the station so my fighters engage it? If the fighters aren't controllable will they single out the station over the enemy battleship? Conversely I want their enemy fighters to only counter my fighter/bombers and ignore my battleship. If their station has a higher intrinsicvalue than their battle ship what will stop my battleship from auto-targeting their station first? Is this all possible?

 

[CABAL]

I have another couple of questions. Can someone tell me the name of the Fed ship in FO that deploys fighters? If I recall those fighters were not controllable correct? I want to check it out and see how they did it.

That is the Avalon class, and no, the fighters are not controllable. They circle the ship in a cloverleaf pattern until they pick a target. One of the weapon entries is the fighter launch thing.