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
4,112,057 views 1,754 replies +2 Loading…
Reply #627 from Sins Forums Top
Well, all the screens are great and stuff, but what about a web site where we can get regular information on the progress of the mod? There was no web site mentioned in the original post, and after about 10 pages of reading, I skipped to the last page because I don't have time to waste reading all that, as most of it was 'fluff'. Do you have a web site yet? If you do, can you edit/update your original post to direct us to it?
Curtains - Customize Windows with additional styles
Reply #628 from Sins Forums Top
There wont be a website until i have something to release. I do have a web host, but until i can conjure up a halfway decent alpha i wont use it yet. All you have to do is check the last couple pages on this thread for updates if i have any.

I am not planing for a total conversion mod right now. It is more or less ships, units, sounds, art, and effects replacements (just like the original SoA mod was for Homeworld). There is still much i need to learn about the engine before i can attempt a TC.

I will try to edit the main page of this thread for any future updates (if the edit button isnt broken).

I managed to crudely fix the firing arc problems some of the ships have been having. before all the beam weapons would ether fire forward only, or all the weapons would fire a full 360 degrees if you wanted them to or not. What i did do is not a perfect solution, but it will at least keep some of the weapons from firing through the ships hulls. It will also make weapons fire in the direction intended. The weapons through the hull issue is something we will have to live with unless Ironclad codes in ways to control, and limit a hardpoints firing arc. Right now we just have forward, back, left, and right with no way to limit anything in between. For forward only firing ships this isnt an issue, but most federation ships have lots of weapons that fire to the side, and aft. It was very disturbing to watch the sovereign fire all 17 of its phasers right through its hull at one target.

Anyways when i have updates i will post them. So theres no need to ask if there is any news. When i know, You will know ;)

Reply #630 from Sins Forums Top
It was very disturbing to watch the sovereign fire all 17 of its phasers right through its hull at one target.
End of quote


 :LOL:  :LOL:  :LOL: 

Im sorry, thats just funny.

Nice work :CONGRAT: 
Reply #631 from Sins Forums Top
Just add a "Phaser Subspace Resonance Shift Coil" as a tier 1 tech which:

"Allows phasers to ignore the firing ship's hull by shifting their subspace signature to a different resonance profile than that of the ship, thus allowing for enhanced weapons coverage.
Side effects may include fried crew."

:p

Nice work on the ships though. Well done! :CONGRAT:
Reply #632 from Sins Forums Top
Updated screenshot on the header. Redragons Valdore warbird is in. I still need to work on hardpoints, texture tweaks, and what weapons she will use. Still need to figure out how to make the Romulans cloak, and move inside the gravity well at the same time.
Reply #634 from Sins Forums Top
Updated screenshot on the header. Redragons Valdore warbird is in. I still need to work on hardpoints, texture tweaks, and what weapons she will use. Still need to figure out how to make the Romulans cloak, and move inside the gravity well at the same time.
End of quote


i wouldnt give a high priority to cloaks, i'd even prefer it if they wouldnt be in. Even in star trek canon cloaks get more and more useless.

Reply #635 from Sins Forums Top
There is no cloaking, or shields right now. The Ambassador, Valdore, and Talon scout aren't even hardpointed yet. All the imported ships are using the shield and hull stats of the ships they replaced (sovereign is using the radiance battleships hull/shield stats). I have to make new shield mesh's for each new ship i import, and that is low priority being most trek shields are just bubbles that surround the ship. The shields do work without the mesh, and hit effects right now. I dont know about after 1.1.

Patch 1.1 no doubt is going to break my current build of the mod due to its graphics, and some entity changes, but from what i am reading they should be easy fix's.

Strike craft spawn in another universe! instead of out of the respective hanger hardpoints.

So no one has accepted my challenge to help me make some abilities hmmm.

BTW if you havnt noticed yet, the Vorcha is in game :D



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Reply #636 from Sins Forums Top
Looks great guys! Keep up the great work.
Reply #639 from Sins Forums Top
D-7/Ktinga is in game. Moonrakers old model looks just awesome despite the extremely low res textures. However they all fill up a 1024 sheet.. go figure.

I know i said something about not using others work, but these works i am using are quality, save time, have full permissions to use, and will be credited where its due. For now they are placeholders till i can build my own models.

This will be the last update for a bit since work calls. Be a few weeks before next update. I have enough for a 3 faction mini mod with 3 ships per side, but i wont do that till i get back. There are still weapon issues that i need to figure out.

I need someone who is an artist that can do animations, and code monkey/scripting for abilities like what i described in my challenge. If i have to learn, and do all of the work for this mod by myself which it is really looking like i am becoming the one man mod team here, and doing it all myself. It will be THAT much longer it takes for the mod to get done. However if no one wants to help me out thats fine too. The only thing left for me to do is learn the coding.

See ya's when i get back from my trip.

Reply #640 from Sins Forums Top
I'm working on that scripting you requested, but I don't want to promise anything incase things go belly-up.
Reply #641 from Sins Forums Top
Awesome,

I dont know to much about scripting, I did alot of the weapons and stuff for Ez, but I dont think I know enough to be of any use to the team. I did however do the sound pack for Ez's work, so if you wanted to use any of those it would be totally cool with me. No credit neccessary.

As a side note, I hope the Sovereign is one of the three ships for the Fed's in the mini mod ur discussing. After all, its my ship man... =P

Good luck with work & the mod....

Adm Cobbs
Reply #643 from Sins Forums Top
why don't you guys take the models straight out of a mod for star trek bridge commander called Kobayashi maru and just convert them over to sins
Reply #644 from Sins Forums Top
why don't you guys take the models straight out of a mod for star trek bridge commander called Kobayashi maru and just convert them over to sins
End of quote


the answer to why don't you take the models straight out of X game is that models made for X game are not made for sins, they are likely much lower poly and lack specular or bump or any number of things

so yeah, if you want a crappy mod i guess that's the way to do it
Reply #645 from Sins Forums Top
I have to apologize for not commenting on this sooner.
Based on what I have read and what I have seen in the pictures, this is going to be an amazing mod. Well done MajorStress. Can't wait to see it when it is done!!!

DANMAN
Reply #646 from Sins Forums Top
the answer to why don't you take the models straight out of X game is that models made for X game are not made for sins, they are likely much lower poly and lack specular or bump or any number of things so yeah, if you want a crappy mod i guess that's the way to do it
End of quote


Here's a better and more accurate answer: Most of the ships in the Kobayashi Maru mod for Bridge Commander are perfectly suitable for Sins of a Solar Empire in terms of polygon counts, however they will need to be modified to use single texture maps, and get bump and specular maps added to them. Also, another reason for why we don't just "port ships from one place to another" is because it's polite to ask permissions from the original authors to use their work. We have permissions from multiple known members of the BC community, but not all. And therefore we use a lot of "in house" created ships instead of using others.
Reply #647 from Sins Forums Top
yea i see your point but asking for permission is sort of a standard rule it sort of goes with out saying but it would take a long time to get all of those permissions but for the galaxy class if you don't have that model you should ask dj Curtis if you could use his galaxy class model wow it looks awesome
Reply #648 from Sins Forums Top
of course you would have yo fiddle around with the model if you got permission to use like you would have to modify them to use bump and spectacular and single maps but it would look amazing :D
Reply #649 from Sins Forums Top
In response to why i will NOT arbitrarily port models from some other trek mod...

For the same reason i will not give out any of the completed SoA2 work. It is all about respect to the artist in the community. Porting others work without consulting them is just WRONG.

The unwritten law of modding is do NOT use others models, or artwork without their permission. Some people like myself give out blanket permissions for some of their works (usually older outdated stuff). As long as the original authors are credited then using their work for your mod is fine. Others you have to contact personally, and ask permission to use their work. If you get no answer to your request then it is automatically assumed the answer is NO.

Using others hard work without their permission is considered to be the same as STEALING from them.

This is how the Trek community did it from the start with Starfleet Command (back in 1998). How they are STILL doing it, and it has worked out pretty well so far. With only few incidents of plagiarism usually stemming from ignorance of the unwritten rules. A quick IM, or e-mail usually fixed the issue.

The works from other of the finest Star Trek community artist like Pneumonic81 (aka Rick Knox), Moonraker, Atrahasis, Cleeve, etc, etc. I have permissions for, and/or have blanket permissions to use. Which i will respect the terms of their use by giving the proper credits where it is due.

Understand I do not want to use others work. If i have my way i will use nothing but Trekmods, and my own work for SoA2, but i also have to be a realist. Building all of the models for SoA2 by myself will just take way too damn long to do.

Most of the models for SoA2 are being ported directly from the original SoA, and FTB mods by the Trekmods team. Some models are being built by myself. The rest are placeholders from the best artist in the Star Trek community. Until i get around to building the replacements for them.

These are the rules i respect, and others in this community should do so as well.

Progress so far...

Cardassian Faction has all of its canon ships (all 3 of them) imported.

Dominion Faction has all its canon lineup imported.

Breen Faction has its sole canon ship plus 2 non canon ships imported.

Maquis raider replaces pirate corsair. Bajoran (maquis alignment) raider replaces pirate cutthroat. Need to figure out how to deal with bountys, or just eliminate them.

All 6 factions now work again.

Now working on icons and text replacement.





Reply #650 from Sins Forums Top
this looks like some good progress. :)

Did you see in the other trek thread that someone created a star trek UI for sins?