Ideti

whistles silently to himself

Aw, come on reveal some secrets

yo... didn't you make the warlords mod for HW2?

EAW was a horrible game(albeit fun, for all of 3 seconds)

Never compare it to Sins again!!!

* murders Ashbery in his sleep with a Vibroblade to the jugular*

Eville knows what he's doing. However I will pledge my help if so desired(though I'm sure he won't need help)

Holy ****, the talented EvilleJedi is posting in this forum. This guy is incredible. If any of you have seen/played the Homeworld 2 Warlords mod (Star Wars), then you'll know just what kind of skills this guy brings to the table. His models AS IS would be amazing in SoaSE. Hmmm, if he could easily transfer his models and stats, that would reduce the workload for creating this mod by about 70%. Wow, and if we can mod SoaSE maps to be open connected, this will allow for a perfect Star Wars gaming experience.

Hmmm, I'm now wondering about your recent Secret Projects...I certainly hope my suspicions prove to be true. Hehe, I am still a Homeworld 2 fan and modder, so I visit your site often enough to see what is going on.

In other matters, let it be known any further talk of EaW in a positive light shall now be considered as justifiable homicide. As usual, George Lucas drops the ball. Of course, why should Lucas Arts even try when they know people will buy their stuff, no matter how badly done.

For a SoaSE Star Wars mod to work perfectly, I think the following are necessary:

1) Open connection map: We know the game was built originally as open connected, but we aren't sure if it will be easily modded back to this original state.
-From what the developers have said so far, open connected maps will likely be available to modders.

2) Planetary Shields: We need to be able to give upgraded planets automatic shields to reduce their vulnerability to small attacks. The higher the planets level, the higher the shield strength, the more ships needed to do damage. Also, the generator needs to be a part of the planet, not a vulnerable platform in space. Since we will be using open connected maps, we don't want multiple tiny forces to be able to take out several planets at once. Also, since dead asteroids don't get upgrades, they won't be able to get shields.
-I have no idea if this will be possible

3) Tactical Sensors: Star Wars ships have sensors for tactical engagements. It would be nice to play some tactical cat and mouse, and lay ambushes.
-I have no idea if tactical sensors will be part of the game.

4) Strategic Sensors: These sensors track fleet movements in hyperspace. We could just call this sensors 'espionage' as an explanation for why we can track enemy fleets.
-Of course, this is already in the game. I am just not sure if Ironclad will implement the research for longer range detection (espionage) research

5) Big gravity wells around planets/stars/asteroids to play in.
-We already know this is easily modded

6) Strike Craft: Right now, ships acting as carriers work well for most Imperial fighters. The Tie models are all reliant on being ferried by bigger ships (we'll have to seriously increase the death timer for fighters that lose their Carrier). We just have to turn off the ability for Carriers to make new fighters while in combat (it is cheezy right now). We would also want to turn off the ability of squadrons to regenerate while in combat. The real challenge will be making the Rebel fighters who are supposed to be able to operate independently of carriers.
-We will probably be able to make tiny hyperspace capable Rebel fighters that the game just sees as regular ships. The problem is that we might not be able to make squads of Rebel fighters, just a lot of single fighter units. Don't really know what our options are here.

7) Hull hugging shields: For simplicity's sake, shields that you can fit close to ship hulls would make things easier for modding Star Wars ships.
-I've read that the other races in development have hull hugging shields, so this may be all good for us.

8) Weapon Damage versus Armor/Shield: This is critical. The ability to set this would, for example, allow us to have star fighters whose lasers could destroy other fighters, but wouldn't scratch the hull of a heavily armored/shielded ship.
-I am pretty sure that weapon damage versus target type is already implemented in the game.

9) Weapon accuracy versus target type/size: Also critical. The ability to set this would, for example, allow us to have huge turbo lasers that could devastate other big ships, but would miss a small fighter 99% of the time.
-Not sure if already implemented, but it seems like most weapons don't fire at fighters/bomber in the game as is.

10) Point defense: Would be nice. This would allow us to give certain ships anti missle/rocket/bomb targetting ability. Would be mostly used by corvettes and small frigates.

11) Hyperdrive Speed: It would be nice to be able to set hyperdrive speed on different ships (but still have them travel as fast as the slowest grouped ship). For a good Star Wars mod, we would want the overall transit time increased a bit from the basic game.

12) More realistic scaling: It would be nice to be able to scale ships/asteroids/planets/stars more 'realistically. I don't mean to an unplayable extreme, but rather just a 'bit' more realistic.
-this can likely be modded.

13) Can we blow up planets?: Hehe, we all know what this is about.
-Well, planets are actually in-game models, so who knows if it will be possible. The default Capital Ship explosion would work well for a planet explosion.

If anybody sees any points I missed, then be sure to mention them.

I liked EAW... Though I didn't necessarily buy it. Just borrowed from a friend.

I wanted to also discuss SoaSE maps in relation to a Star Wars mod. We have 2 options depending on the number of star systems that can be placed on a modded map.

Option 1 (if we can place a huge number of stars):

This is my favorite option. This would allow us to make an authentic Star Wars Galaxy map that has all the known systems (complete with correct names). Of course, we could also create several sizes of maps, so everyone has a choice for game size and likely length of play. The smaller maps would only have the really important systems on them. We would probably also want to throw in a decent number of asteroids for making secret bases and research posts.

Of course, we would probably want each star to only have a planet or 2 and a few asteroids. In the movies, most planets in a system aren't useful, so there is no need for each star system to have dozens of planets = too long a game. Hmmm, maybe we will be able to place unusable gas giants and such on the map. It would also be great if we could make planets have usable moons (there is a push for this in the forums).

Option 2 (if we can only place a limited number of stars on the map, of if too many stars can't be navigated/implemented properly):

In this case, we could make a massive single customized star system with a huge number of planets. Each planet would represent a known Star Wars system (not really a huge problem since Star Wars star systems usually consist of only 1 useful planet anyway).

We would also throw in a few asteroids that would represent uninhabitable systems, but still a good location for a base of some sort.

Maybe we will be able to tweak the appearance of this single star system so it looks more like a Galaxy map (ie, lots of star clusters in the center, and so on)


Anyway, does anybody else have any thoughts or ideas about modding SoaSE maps to better represent the Star Wars Universe? Or did I pretty much get it all?

Well its a good thing to see mod fans so early

As far as I remember, the hyper space routes in the starwars galaxy are a lot like phase lanes.

Your planning far ahead, slow down, take it one step at a time

Hmmm, if you can assign Star Wars ships a shield value without giving them a shield effect, then that would work perfectly. Better yet, it would be the easiest and simplest thing to do.

As for your Star Trek mod, shield effects will be easiest for you as the game's default shield system (at least for the TEC) is comparable to what Star Trek uses.

If we can remove shield effects altogether without removing shield values, then great. I love it when the easiest things to do are also the best things to do.

I also wanted to mention that there will be Star Trek fans/modders posting here. There is no need for anyone to spark off a Star Wars versus Star Trek forum war. In fact, politeness and working together for modding purposes only benefits all of us and SoaSE....ughh, I am starting to sound like a sniveling, cowardly, overly diplomatic Star Trek captain (joking!).

Anyway, let's be civil with our fellow modders and see what we can milk out of this game engine together.