Major Stress Major Stress

[MOD WIP] Star Trek: Sacrifice of Angels 2 (updated 01/10/09)

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[MOD WIP] Star Trek: Sacrifice of Angels 2 (updated 01/10/09)

from Sins Forums

Featured (by a small mention) in the October edition of PC Gamer magazine

Candidate for Mod Database's 2008 Mod of the Year

This is the OLD "Work in Progress" thread for the Star Trek: Sacrifice of Angels 2 mod.

The new WIP topic is here https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/342747

The "Release" topic can be found here https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/322473


The mod is intended to be a hommage, and tribute to the original Sacrifice of Angels mod for Homeworld. It will use many of the same models, and effects created for that mod by the Trekmods team. Like the original SoA mod SoA2 is set during the Dominion War era of Star Trek. Using both canon, and non-canon units to recreate those battles with Sins "empire building" mechanic added. Like in SoA you can fight battles in SoA2 using hundreds of starships. Sometimes thousands if your computer can handle it ;)

While the mod was not intended as a "Total Conversion". That is exactly what it is winding up being. There is much about the Sins engine, and mechanics that we still need to learn. There are some hard coded stumbling blocks we have to overcome.

The factions will be the Federation, Klingons, Romulan, and the Dominion (with Breen, and Cardassian ally units). The main factions seen in the Dominion War. With a "Surprise" as the Pirate faction.

Factions like the Borg "may" be added in the future. LokiGodofMischief is working on a very good 3rd party Borg add on for SoA 2. It is very possible his add on may be merged with SoA 2 at a much later time.

The current version of SoA 2 is  0.03b   "The Second Dominion War". Look for it here  https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/322473

0.03b only works with Sins versions 1.1, 1.11, and 1.12.

All previous versions of SoA 2 are obsolete, and will not be supported, or hosted anymore. All older version downloads will be removed.

We will NOT port SoA 2 over to Entrenchment until after Entrenchment is out of beta, and released. Along with proper forge tool updates.

I am working on the models mostly ALONE so it may take a while for any new ship model updates.

Darkshimmer is the Balancing guru, Code monkey, and Master at arms. We do have other contributers, and the best 3rd party work from the finest artists in the trek mod community to help make SoA 2 the best it can be.

Status of Demo 0.04  "The actors are in place" 

Will update when i have news.

General Changes:

Manshooters Volumetric Explosions mod will be included as of 0.03a

May include Sins Plus (planets), but ill need to see how much that mod needs changing to incorporate into SoA 2.

SoA 2 0.03 and above is now patch 1.1, and better compatable. Sins patches 1.11, and 1.12 only address balancing, and online exploits, and have no effect on the mod.

Ships will have some anti stike craft weaponry.

Ships are still being added and balanced accordingly.

More re-balancing so that one faction is not overpowered over the other.

The Federation:

Faction is complete. Only structures left

The Klingon Empire

Faction is complete. Only structures left.

The Romulan Star Empire:

Faction is complete. Only structures left

The Dominion:

Faction is complete. Still needs balancing work.

Pirates:

They were going to be the Borg, but that idea failed. So we are looking into Random multirace ship spawns.

Planetary Defenders

Basically "Ships of the week" like the Maquis, Sona, Ferrengi, Tammarian battle cruisers and the like.

Balancing:  Darkshimmer has the Federation, Romulan, and Klingon Empire, and Unified Dominion balanced.

Gameplay: We now have a working Cloaking Device! Check the ModDB page for the WIP video. Cloaking will not be fully implemented in the mod until version 0.04

Art: We are working on an LCARS style UI, adding proper icons, and pictures for all of the new units. The UI is going to take a while to do, because of all of the redundancy of the Sins UI. SoA 2 uses 2 sets of UI textures. Instead of the standard 4 textures for buttons, and 2 textures for icons. SoA 2 uses 8 textures for buttons, and 4 textures for icons which IMO is a major waste of resources, because sins loads all these textures at startup. Unfortunetly i dont see any other way to do it. What is kind of cool is that we dont have to use the same HUD for each faction. It is possible to have unique HUDs, but again the perfomance hit, because of the extra drain on resources could be big, and not worth it.

In Planning: (No promises, or guarentees, but we will try to add these if possible.)

Troop Transport effects.

Planetary invasion animations

Tractor beams. (need a code monkey for this)

Whatever else we can think of and are capable of doing.

Future Updates:

SoA 2 0.04 is now in planning, and will be focused primarily on Proper research trees, Ability's, and adding proper Structures. More than likely demo 0.04 will be the last demo. After that then the full mod should be ready.

SoA 2 0.05 will be the final spit, and polish of the mod. It will focus mainly on re-balancing if needed. Also final artwork changes will be made here. Which will include some ship model re-builds, and re-texturing.

The Full SoA 2 1.0 mod will be released "When it is Finished". We are doing this on our own free time. We aren't getting paid to do this. We have no set schedule. We have no time limit. I want this one to be good. So it wont go online until we feel it is ready.

*NOTE: Much about Sins as we are all now realizing is hardcoded. SoA 2 is going to be far from a perfect "trek" mod due to these hardcoded issues. However we will try to do the best we can with workarounds, and compromises to get it as close as possible. Like i said some things wont be perfect. Some things cannot be done at all. Enjoy the mod for what it is, and try not to be too "nit picky".

SoA2 will be hosted on Mod Database once it is ready http://www.moddb.com/mods/star-trek-sacrifice-of-angels-2

This main header will be updated when i have news to post.





modding
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Reply #502 from Sins Forums Top
just waiting on stress to communicate with me on the updates i sent him last. Hopefully i'll hear something back and he'll get me the new ships so i can get them done.
Fences - Organize your desktop icons today!
Reply #503 from Sins Forums Top
Major stress you make me happy :D

Although I'm still more of a Star Wars fan than a Trekkie. (:(

Lol my favorite episode as a kid was "The Trouble with Tribbles"
Reply #504 from Sins Forums Top
lol
Reply #505 from Sins Forums Top
LOLZ! :LOL:
Reply #507 from Sins Forums Top
this lookes great love the sovereign class awesome :SURPRISED: any one have any idea when thus mod will be out :d
Reply #508 from Sins Forums Top
would abut star trek bridge commander or star trek trek legacy you can play as them in those games
Reply #509 from Sins Forums Top
Some comments regarding Hoags latest post:

They're just frickin expansive. And yes, the vast majority of the info on that site is cannon. They were also encountered off and on during the dominion war era. Why not have them be the pirates?
End of quote


#1: That map has absolutely no validity to it whatsoever. Nowhere has it been said or seen how large exactly the Borg collective are, and the scale of that map is totally out of order. The Federation is specifically stated to be "spread across 8000 lightyears". According to that map, it's more like 4000 lightyears. Other than that the Borg Collective comprises a large part of the Delta Quadrant, it's not the ONLY superpower in the quadrant. Many known species in the Delta Quadrant still have they're homeworlds infact, and those who don't still have large populations. The Devore Imperium would basically be categorized as a tyrrinical version of the Federation, and definitely should have a considerable size on a galaxy map.

#2: "vast majority of the info on that site is cannon". That is incorrect. In fact the vast majority of the info on that site, is pure speculation, with very little actual facts involved. If you read up on the stats for every known ship class, it lists information such as amounts of terawatts its phasers generate, how many torpedoes it can hold etc. Pure speculation. DITL has a bunch of useful information, but is generally not used when considering "Facts". Another site which contains more accurate information, as well as several topics on the inconsistencies of Trek, i'd suggest you pay closer look to the site called "Ex Astris Scientia". You'll find it on Google easily.

#3: If i'm in error on this assumption, please let me know. I'm gonna assume you haven't actually read much of the actual discussions regarding the topic of the BORG as pirates. I'll say now what i've said a few times before: NO BORG PLANNED IN MOD AT THIS TIME. The mod is set during the Dominion War conflict, and will largely comprise of ships and factions seen or mentioned during the War. The latest direct conflict between the Federation and the Borg was before the onset of the Dominion War, in Sector 001 (Earth's solarsystem). Any skirmishes the Borg had with the starship USS Voyager, has no bearing on this mod as the entire Voyager tv-series took place in the Delta Quadrant.
Reply #510 from Sins Forums Top
My understanding of cannon is Mirandas are designed by the federation to be a stop gap or bridge between TOS and TNG era starships. The Miranda was well armed for what it was in the days of the excelsior but the phasers are underpowered in comparison to the galaxy class that has type X. In that regard they were placed on the dominion lines to be extra torpedo launchers with shields. However they were not used for the most part in the initial assaults due to their limited effective phaser range. The USS Galaxy was one of the first starships that had phaser power output closer to Starbase phaser output. The starbases have been in use in TOS (movies) and are in use to modern DS9/Voyager era as well. It stands to reason with all that room they had enough energy to power larger phasers but it took time to compact that down to the size that is "realistic" (for lack of a better term) to fit on a starship.
Reply #511 from Sins Forums Top
Also have to remember the miranda class was fitted with Pulse Phasers. This became obsolete with the introduction of phaser arrays. No further research was done to retro fit the miranda class and any other class using pulse phasers. And upgrading them to arrays would not have been cost effective.
Reply #512 from Sins Forums Top
One thing that is not being mention here, is that the Movie Era Constitution class and Miranda class vessels actually used a "ball turret" style phaser system. Which we had seen being used in a pulse mode from both Starship Enterprise and Starship Reliant (Star Trek II: TWOK). However it iis noted in "Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise" that the turret system was modifiable to both pulse and beam. One of the major problems that this debate is facing is lack of screen showing of both variants in the same time period.
It is speculated that later on, Mirandas were coverted to use just the beam variant as seen in DS9's Sacrifice of Angles (Season 6, Episode 6), however there is no documentation of that occuring.

Besides, back in the 80's Pulse Phasers looked cooler :P
Reply #513 from Sins Forums Top
I am pretty much out of the picture now. Work and my lack of internet access is making it impossible for me to do day by day work on the mod. Models will continue to be built, but until i get permanent internet access updates will be few and far between.

Darkshimmer is the man in charge now. Where the mod will go will be up to him.

I agree with shimmer that ditl is useless speculation, and Ex Astris Scientia is the best source of info.

My god guys you just wont give up on this borg thing. :( Once again... There will be NO BORG in the mod! The cool TNG era borg are way overpowered, and the voyager era borg are way too retarded to even think of using in the mod. Until we find a way to use them without making them look stupid or to please just ONE fan it aint happening.

Ill be in touch next time im on the net.

Reply #514 from Sins Forums Top
Cool! I been waiting for nearly two decades to be able to play a kick ass game as the Romulans. Woohoo!!!! Vulcans = neutered Romulans
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U could play as the romulans in Star trek Armada II if i recall correctly.
Reply #515 from Sins Forums Top
The cool TNG era borg are way overpowered, and the voyager era borg are way too retarded to even think of using in the mod. Until we find a way to use them without making them look stupid or to please just ONE fan it aint happening.Ill be in touch next time im on the net.
End of quote


tbh i think "overpowered" borg could be fun in the hand of the comp. Could give you a real challenge.
Anyways the other stuff of your mod is more important and there are already borg projects in the work so this topic can be really put to sleep.
Reply #516 from Sins Forums Top
Hay hows every one doing, good good. Major stress thank you for every thing you have done and all that you will do. Borg or no Borg (me, no Borg)hopes that this mod will still come out and that it will be great. Startrek is still yet to come out with a game like Birth of the federation, and I hope you will still come out with this mod.


Thanks for your time

Beau

P.S. I was drunk when I wrote this, dont blame me for the bad grammer or spelling hehe.
Reply #517 from Sins Forums Top
As Stress has mentioned he's put the mod in my hands, However i'm still having some issues with imports through XSI. If i can't solve these issues soon, then i'll have to retract the mod into a dead state. I'm not giving up yet, but when you try 3 different models of the ships and they don't import correctly there;s a problem. I can open the 3ds files just fine in any other program and its displaying properly so its a problem with XSI
Reply #518 from Sins Forums Top
here are the images so you guys can see what i'm talking about, this is just one ship i have the same problem with a few other ships as well




This is how its suppose to look

Reply #519 from Sins Forums Top
well, from a anctious fan....


PLZ KEEP TRYIN TILL UR FINGERS BLEED ;P
I CANT W8 UNTILL THIS MOD COMES OUT!
Reply #520 from Sins Forums Top
Looks like you have a whole lot of disconnected edges there... you *could* try manually patching them up using the blend command. Or if that fails, you can use the vertex weld tool... that's a lot of work though. A third option that comes to mind is to select all the vertices around the troubled ares and edges and use the "filter points" command. All this assuming those *are* disconnected edges and not some weird conversion error. But its worth a try if you haven't done it already.

As to why the model would literally fall apart like that, no idea. But you are likely right, it must be a conversion error. What buffer format have you used when converting from 3DS to XSI (I for example always use .obj format since it turned out, at least for me, to be the most reliable one)?
Reply #521 from Sins Forums Top
Are you having to go back and re-map the textures on each ship by hand? If that's the case, then I say woooow, that's a heck of a lot of work you guys have taken on! I say bravo for your efforts no matter the obstacles, and wanted to say again we are all waiting anxiously for news on this awesome mod!

Ezraeil
Reply #523 from Sins Forums Top
Looks like you have a whole lot of disconnected edges there... you *could* try manually patching them up using the blend command. Or if that fails, you can use the vertex weld tool... that's a lot of work though. A third option that comes to mind is to select all the vertices around the troubled ares and edges and use the "filter points" command. All this assuming those *are* disconnected edges and not some weird conversion error. But its worth a try if you haven't done it already.As to why the model would literally fall apart like that, no idea. But you are likely right, it must be a conversion error. What buffer format have you used when converting from 3DS to XSI (I for example always use .obj format since it turned out, at least for me, to be the most reliable one)?
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yes its definately a conversion problem. I've tried several things already. The model has no vertex issues. already used a few filters to expose them in both 3dmax and xsi. The flat wall only shows up in xsi. I tried exporting it to an obj file and convert it to an lwo which is a lightwave file to check to see if it would give me the same thing, it doesn't. 3D Exploration shows it properly as well. Truth is i dunno what to do next. Its not just this ship either, There's at least another 4 fed ships with similar problems 2 klingon ships and 3 romulan ships the same thing. Not all in the same area either, some are wings and they really are more or less 1 sided objects created by a bad conversion process with xsi. even if i import it as an obj file it gets the same thing. I've used this particular model is 3 other mods, first time i've ever had this issue.
Reply #524 from Sins Forums Top
Are you having to go back and re-map the textures on each ship by hand? If that's the case, then I say woooow, that's a heck of a lot of work you guys have taken on! I say bravo for your efforts no matter the obstacles, and wanted to say again we are all waiting anxiously for news on this awesome mod!Ezraeil
End of quote


yes i am, its much easier than you think and it allows me to use very updated and enhanced textures. If i have the time in one shot i can ususally get one ship converted, remapped and into sins in 4-8 hours, yes thats less than a day. The problem is getting them to work on imports!

Reply #525 from Sins Forums Top
well, from a anctious fan....PLZ KEEP TRYIN TILL UR FINGERS BLEED I CANT W8 UNTILL THIS MOD COMES OUT!
End of quote


i'm dedicated but not that much, if i can't get it work, i would rather help out on a mod team that is getting it to work more heads on a project, it gets done faster. you play sooner. Its a domino affect