[WIP] Suliban Full Race Mod

[Dan1025]

Some time ago, I posted a thread over on FF showing my gradual building of the Suliban Helix, along with a few other ships & stations. I’ve been working on it on and off for a while now, and I’ve made enough progress with both units and general ideas that I’m going to tentatively call this a full race mod.

I use the word ‘tentatively’ because whether or not this gets released as a full race depends upon me finding someone who can put a Suliban GUI together for me, along with a few other minor details that I’ll bring up as the mod progresses. If I can’t find someone to help out with the parts of this that I can’t do, I’ll simply release all my Suliban work as a large pack, so either way they will be up for download.

I’m not sure how often I’ll be able to update this mod, with my return to university I have a lot less free time, but modding is a fun hobby and I will do as much as I can whenever I have the time.

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First, here’s the back story on the Suliban featured in this mod:

Spoiler: Backstory

In the late 24th century, the various powers of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants became embroiled in a war against a powerful and ruthless enemy known as The Dominion. The war devastated the Cardassian Union, left the Klingon and Romulan Empires in disarray, and ensured that Starfleet would be occupied with peacekeeping, humanitarian, and patrol duties for years to come.

While half the galaxy was busy rebuilding, an enemy no one had encountered for centuries saw their opportunity to spread out and claim new territory once again. For more than 200 years, the Suliban had been silent, hiding in isolated and inhospitable regions, building ships, space stations, and even new Helixes. Since the end of the Temporal Cold War and the death of the Cabal leader Silik, the Suliban had been on their own, cut off from their mysterious benefactor from the future, and faced with enemy threats from all sides.

It was decided that they should retreat to the various concealment zones they had established around their Helixes in order to plan their next move. Over the next 2 centuries, the Suliban gathered resources and established outposts in far flung areas of space where no other species were present. They traded small amounts of information about their advanced 28th century inspired technology to various races and minor powers in exchange for additional raw materials, supplies, and even intelligence on the other races.

When the Dominion War ended, the Suliban saw the opportunity they had been waiting for, and they began to leave their hiding places and prepared for conflict. They began by annexing systems on the outer edge of the other races territory, knowing that it would take time before the weakened powers noticed the incursions. By the time the various powers noticed the Suliban presence, they had already lost control of several systems each. Attempts to retake them were foiled by the presence of massive Suliban fleets, and heavily armed space stations seemingly capable of moving through space to counter any attempts by the other races to retake their territory.

Once entrenched at various points in the Alpha & Beta Quadrants, the Suliban moved their new Helixes out of hiding, and projected their power forwards from more than a dozen large staging grounds. The advanced technology given to them by their benefactor from the future, combined with the sheer number of cell ships and other combat vessels the Suliban had built over the centuries gave them enough of an edge to meet the larger warships of other races in combat, and despite taking heavy losses, the Suliban became a grave threat to the security of half the known galaxy.

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Okay, so the basic idea behind this race is ‘strength in numbers’, Suliban ships (particularly the smaller Cell Ships) will be very easy to destroy, and do very little damage on their own, however in large numbers they are a considerable threat. Basically, think of them like bees - on their own or in small numbers, they are easily managed, but in a swarm they’re far more dangerous.

Some information about how the Suliban will play:

- Smaller ships will be quick and cheap to build, but will do very little damage and will be easy to destroy.
- Larger ships (cruisers, assault ships e.t.c), will be less common than the smaller cell ships.
- They will not have dozens of ship classes or station types, their fleet is built on numbers, not diversity (a single ship class can fill many roles).
- They will not have access to battleships or super weapons, you will need to use stealth and swarm tactics to prevail late-game.
- The majority of their stations will be mobile; a few exceptions will be made (turrets being one example).
- You will be given a single unit at the start - a Helix - you cannot build more Helixes (smaller Outposts take the place of the usual Starbase).
- A lot of their techtree will be dependant on the Helix, so if it is destroyed you will lose the ability to build certain ships & stations, as well as access to certain weapons & technology.
- Any station capable of movement will only be able to do so slowly (think 8472 Mother, but a little faster).
- Almost all their units will have cloaking capability, combat ships will always have access to it, stations will have to research it, and non-combat ships will not have it at all.
- Every unit, with a few exceptions (construction ship, freighters and a few others) will have weapons of some description (stations included); they will of course vary in strength and type (pulses, phasers e.t.c).

Possible feature - they have the ability to detach the various ships from the central cores/superstructures of their space stations (like the Helix in ‘Broken Bow‘).

I’m sure there’ll be more points I think up as the mod progresses, but that‘s what I have so far.

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This is a list of units that the Suliban will have, green means completed (model & texture, since nothing’s hardpointed yet), blue means partially completed (model/design only), and red means not started yet:

- Note that this list may very well change as I come up with more ideas for the mod -

Stations:

Helix (command base & starting unit)
Outpost (buildable base)
Processing Station (mining station)
Shipyard (shipyard)
Listening Post (sensor array)
Pulse Mine (basic/pulse turret)
Research Facility (research station)
Orbital Extractor (orbital mining station)
Trading Post (trading station)
Particle Mine (advanced/beam turret)

Ships:

Construction Vessel (construction ship)
Resource Freighter (mining ship)
Cargo Freighter (cargo ship)
Salvage Vessel (repair ship)
Colony Vessel (colony ship)

Cell Ship - Class I (scout, basic defence/attack ship)
Cell Ship - Class II (scout, escort, basic defence/attack ship)
Cell Ship - Class III (scout, escort, basic defence/attack ship)
Long Cell Ship - Class I (scout, patrol, escort, defence/attack ship)
Long Cell Ship - Class II (scout, patrol, escort, defence/attack ship)
Heavy Cell Ship (destroyer, light/medium attack ship)
Assault Pod (cruiser, assault ship, medium/heavy attack ship)
Cruiser (cruiser, heavy attack ship)

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Well whether you’ve just read all that or not (I’m hoping so but it’s up to you lol), I hope you’ll follow the mod and offer your thoughts & opinions.

Now then, enough of the wall of text, on to the pics:

Spoiler: Cell Ship - Class I

Spoiler: Long Cell Ship - Class I

Spoiler: Salvage Vessel

Spoiler: Listening Post

Spoiler: Resource Freighter

Spoiler: Processing Station

Spoiler: Shipyard

All taken in MS3D since I haven’t started hardpointing and putting things ingame yet.

I’ll be posting more soon, so stay tuned

 

[SciFiFan]

Very interesting. I will be watching intently.

 

[Majestic]

This looks awesome Dan, and if no one else offers I'll do a GUI for you. I plan on doing new GUI's for my personal mod anyways and one more won't hurt.

 

[Starfox1701]

interesting idea dan

 

[Jetfreak]

Hehe, good timing! I'm actually watching a great deal of ENT as of late.

Retreat and going into long term hiding is the most reasonable course of action for the race in general. Like the Xindi, they would pretty much seclude themselves and rebuild after all that Temporal Cold War hoo-hah. I'd also imagine that their ship tech in general would stagnate so I've got no problem if they resemble their ENT versions that much.

 

[USS_Excalibur]

I have a Suliban Helix Starbase.

I admit these are interesting.

 

[Dan1025]

Very interesting. I will be watching intently.

interesting idea dan

I have a Suliban Helix Starbase.

I admit these are interesting.

Thanks guys, glad you like my ideas

This looks awesome Dan, and if no one else offers I'll do a GUI for you. I plan on doing new GUI's for my personal mod anyways and one more won't hurt.

Brilliant thanks mate! I'd love for you to make the Suliban GUI for this mod. It'll be a little while before I reach that stage so no rush. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with, let me know if you need anything

Hehe, good timing! I'm actually watching a great deal of ENT as of late.

Retreat and going into long term hiding is the most reasonable course of action for the race in general. Like the Xindi, they would pretty much seclude themselves and rebuild after all that Temporal Cold War hoo-hah. I'd also imagine that their ship tech in general would stagnate so I've got no problem if they resemble their ENT versions that much.

Glad you agree with my thinking mate

Yeah I put a lot of thought into creating a scenario that would be realistic and make sense over 200 years after the last canon appearance of the Suliban. The way I see it, their technology was given to them by their benefactor from the 28th century, so they'd already have an advantage over the other races, so a lack of real advancement during their isolation wouldn't put them far behind the other powers.

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Right an update - today I finished the Trading Post, which means all the stations (unless I come up with more) are complete.

I've also made a little bit of progress on the Assault Pod textures, though they aren't where I want them just yet. Hopefully soon I'll be able to make a start on the Colony Vessel.

Here's a few more pics for you:

Spoiler: Cell Ship - Class II

Spoiler: Long Cell Ship - Class II

Spoiler: Cargo Vessel

Spoiler: Outpost

There'll be more soon, stay tuned

 

[Adm_Z]

Wow, these are really cool! I am not a fan of the brown texture(it looks very cardassian) and would go with more of a grey, but the modeling work is amazing! What is the average poly count of a station built like that?

 

[Starfox1701]

Wow they arn't big on outside lights are they.

 

[Majestic]

You're right Dan. All I need is a texture to work with, so the GUI will match.

 

[Dan1025]

Wow, these are really cool! I am not a fan of the brown texture(it looks very cardassian) and would go with more of a grey, but the modeling work is amazing! What is the average poly count of a station built like that?

Thanks!

The texture I went with is as close to the canon Suliban look as I could get, they actually are that shade of orange-brown in ENT:

Spoiler: Suliban Fleet (ENT)

As for poly counts; I use lower poly versions of the cell ships to build the stations to avoid them going too high. The Outpost is around 5000, and most of the stations are similar.

The ships are all very low so you can mass produce in the true Suliban fasion, most of the ships are very low poly (the Class I Cell ship for example has a poly count of 56, and the Cruiser is just over 1100).

The highest poly model they have is the Helix, I couldn't build that design and make it look good without a fairly high count, I think it's just over 12000 or so, but since you'll only have one of them at any time you should be OK.

Wow they arn't big on outside lights are they.

Haha nope. They don't need them, the blue panels on the ships are as close to windows as they get. The Cruiser has some small faint windows but that's the only one.

The Suliban are a stealth-based race remember? Windows and running lights could give them away...

You're right Dan. All I need is a texture to work with, so the GUI will match.

No problem, I'll send you a pack of textures soon so you've got plenty to work with.

Thanks again

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OK a small update - I've finished the textures for the Assault Pod, and I'm trying to create a suitable design for the Colony Vessel, so I should have all the units fully modelled & textured soon, then it's on to the hardpointing.

And a few more pics:

Spoiler: Cell Ship- Class III

Spoiler: Heavy Cell Ship

Spoiler: Construction Vessel

More soon

 

[Dominus_Noctis]

Really quite lovely

 

[Starfox1701]

So are you doing a normal build set up or a refit/evolve setup?

 

[Majestic]

No Problems Dan.

They are looking good, and if you are going the way I am going with COE and YY (which you can't build the starbase it's only a starting unit and once loss you can't build anything any-more) then you can get away with a bit more in the poly count.

 

[Avon]

Looking good Danny boy. Glad to see you are still going in this direction with your mods. What with Vulcans, Suliban, and dare I say it Xindi, makes me kinda wonder who's next.
You know if it's Andorians, i'll dust off my copy of milkshape in a flash

 

[Majestic]

Yes, I love the Andorians.

 

[Dan1025]

Really quite lovely

Thank you

So are you doing a normal build set up or a refit/evolve setup?

It'll most likely be a combination of the two; you'll have buildable units and stations, and there'll be a few ships you can upgrade & improve with refits.

No Problems Dan.

They are looking good, and if you are going the way I am going with COE and YY (which you can't build the starbase it's only a starting unit and once loss you can't build anything any-more) then you can get away with a bit more in the poly count.

Thanks

Yeah the Helix won't be buildable so I went with a higher poly count than the other stations

Looking good Danny boy. Glad to see you are still going in this direction with your mods. What with Vulcans, Suliban, and dare I say it Xindi, makes me kinda wonder who's next.
You know if it's Andorians, i'll dust off my copy of milkshape in a flash

Thanks mate, and yep the Xindi are still planned for the future, though maybe not as a full race since I don't have enough models for them (only 1 station e.t.c.).

I'm still looking forward to your Hirogen full race mod ya know

Yes, I love the Andorians.

As for the Andorians, I'd love to do a race mod for them, the only thing stopping me is the lack of models available for them (and my inability to make them myself) so if you'd be interested in working together on an Andorian full race mod then count me in

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OK time for another update; I've built and textured the Colony Vessel (along with the pod it'll launch at planets) and I've finished the textures for the Assault Pod, so all the units are ready for hardpointing.

Just one pic this time, so I can show off the Suliban Cruiser. Of all the stuff I've made for this mod, the Cruiser is what I'm most proud of:

Spoiler: Cruiser

I used images of the actual model from Drex Files to get the model right and texture it, so it's as acurate to the original design as I can make it.

Ingame, the Cruiser will be the most powerful Suliban ship you can build. Armed with multiple particle weapons, cloaking technology, and some kind of special weapon (more on that in a later update). Built in enough numbers, and backed up by other Suliban ships, the Cruiser can bring down almost any foe.

 

[Starfox1701]

Ah a real warship (rubs hands mamiacally) HeHeHe

 

[Majestic]

Very nice cruiser, nice mesh work. However I would've personally had the textures match the rest of the units you've done as it looks out of place next to them.

 

[Avon]

Love the Cruiser. That's always been my favourite Suliban ship, you've done her proud
And personally I've always liked a subtle variation in textures, looks more realistic.

Thanks mate, and yep the Xindi are still planned for the future, though maybe not as a full race since I don't have enough models for them (only 1 station e.t.c.).

Well, it's your call, but we could always try and throw some stations together. For me, the only problem I saw was getting the probe weapon, and super weapon built as they are animated which I cant do.

I'm still looking forward to your Hirogen full race mod ya know

Well if I'm honest, you, Jet and Maj, are the only ones who ever really expressed an interest in them, so I was never really that motivated to finish them. Although, I do have some time off from work coming up, so we'll see

As for the Andorians, I'd love to do a race mod for them, the only thing stopping me is the lack of models available for them (and my inability to make them myself) so if you'd be interested in working together on an Andorian full race mod then count me in

Well I'd always meant to go back and build some (after loosing my old ones on a dead pc). Definately something I could be interested working on some time in the future.

Anyway, keep up the good work, mate. If there's anything that inspires me to want to mod again, it's watching other people putting together cool stuff like you are doing here

 

[Majestic]

Well if I'm honest, you, Jet and Maj, are the only ones who ever really expressed an interest in them, so I was never really that motivated to finish them. Although, I do have some time off from work coming up, so we'll see

Well if you don't want to finish it up, I am more than happy to. I love the Delta Quadrant, Voyager, Hirogen and well basically anything from Voyager and the Delta Quadrant. Plus you do such quality work and it would be a shame to not see them complete.

 

[Avon]

Well if you don't want to finish it up, I am more than happy to. I love the Delta Quadrant, Voyager, Hirogen and well basically anything from Voyager and the Delta Quadrant. Plus you do such quality work and it would be a shame to not see them complete.

Thanks for the offer, mate. To be honest Dan made a similar offer a while ago, and I've put off giving them to him, in the hopes I would get motivated and finish it myself. Either way, I intend to get them dealt with, one way or the other, within the next few weeks.

 

[Majestic]

No problem, just thought I'd put it on the table. I look equally forward to this as I do to Dan's Suliban race. Looks like we have some very interesting mods coming our way in the next few months.

 

[Achilles]

great work on the cruiser Dan.

 

[Dan1025]

Ah a real warship (rubs hands mamiacally) HeHeHe

Yep

Very nice cruiser, nice mesh work.

Love the Cruiser. That's always been my favourite Suliban ship, you've done her proud

Thanks guys, yeah the Cruiser was always my favourite Suliban ship as well, so I made sure I stayed true to the design

However I would've personally had the textures match the rest of the units you've done as it looks out of place next to them.

And personally I've always liked a subtle variation in textures, looks more realistic.

Yeah I prefer them to be slightly different as well, different roles require a different hull strength/composition e.t.c

Well, it's your call, but we could always try and throw some stations together. For me, the only problem I saw was getting the probe weapon, and super weapon built as they are animated which I cant do.

Yeah with a few more stations I could at least make them a map race or something, at the moment I only have a shipyard. That would require someone else doing the modelling though, so if you'd be interested then I'd of course use whatever you put together

Well if I'm honest, you, Jet and Maj, are the only ones who ever really expressed an interest in them, so I was never really that motivated to finish them. Although, I do have some time off from work coming up, so we'll see

Oh I'm sure people would download them if you got them released. there are always lurkers who won't post comments on the forum but will download the mod anyway.

Well I'd always meant to go back and build some (after loosing my old ones on a dead pc). Definately something I could be interested working on some time in the future.

Yeah just let me know when you're in the mood to start making them and I'll put a plan together for them

Anyway, keep up the good work, mate. If there's anything that inspires me to want to mod again, it's watching other people putting together cool stuff like you are doing here

Thanks

Well if you don't want to finish it up, I am more than happy to. I love the Delta Quadrant, Voyager, Hirogen and well basically anything from Voyager and the Delta Quadrant. Plus you do such quality work and it would be a shame to not see them complete.

Thanks for the offer, mate. To be honest Dan made a similar offer a while ago, and I've put off giving them to him, in the hopes I would get motivated and finish it myself. Either way, I intend to get them dealt with, one way or the other, within the next few weeks.

Yeah I made the same offer a while back lol, glad to hear you're gonna be looking into finishing them sometime soon anyway, like I said before the offer to help you finish them is always open

No problem, just thought I'd put it on the table. I look equally forward to this as I do to Dan's Suliban race. Looks like we have some very interesting mods coming our way in the next few months.

Thanks, and yeah there should be a few good things to download coming out over the next while

great work on the cruiser Dan.

Thanks mate, glad to see you around here again

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Right update time - I've started the slightly tedious process of hardpointing the models, which will probably take a little while since I'm busy with uni, and it's not exactly the most fun part of modding so I'll be doing it in bits and pieces rather than all at once.

And as always, here's a few pics of the Suliban units:

Spoiler: Pulse Mine (pulse turret)

Spoiler: Orbital Extractor

Spoiler: Particle Mine (beam turret)

Spoiler: Research Station

The Pulse & Particle Mines (turrets) are the ones that will rotate to face their targets (assuming I can get the coding to work and everything lol).

Stay tuned, there'll be more soon

 

[Adm_Z]

wow, such simple station designs, and yet they look soo awesome!

I really like the orbital extractors.

 

[Dominus_Noctis]

Hrm, didn't really figure that the Suliban would be much of the researchers - more of the 'intelligence gatherers' (though that of course could be done with simple name changes, such as "acquiring alien [blah blah]")

I agree though, the station designs look really nice

 

[Majestic]

Very nice dan, and in reference to the moving turrets, the files I sent you from COE should allow them to move when firing. If you put a firing arc on the weapons they'll work even better.

 

[Jetfreak]

Looking sharp Dan, "Future Guy" would be proud of ya' if you know what I mean.

Research stations for them would also be reasonable. Welcome to the 24th Century Suliban.

 

[Terra_Inc]

I'm not an ENT fan, but these are great designs. Looking forward to seeing moar.