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[MOD] Sins of a Solar Empire: INVASION (new screenshots, May 28th, 2012.)

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[MOD] Sins of a Solar Empire: INVASION (new screenshots, May 28th, 2012.)

Previously known as "The Last Stand"

from Sins Forums

 

 

Sins of a Solar Empire: INVASION is an addon project aiming to expand upon the existing universe of the Sins of a Solar Empire, providing original and high-quality content on top of the original game. Aside from the new content, the addon will also include multiplayer-friendly gameplay changes as well as reworked or new visuals/sounds.

ETA: To Be Announced

Planned changes/content will include:

  •  A new playable race, created to the highest quality standards. The Xin are a race of utterly alien origin, and the massive fleets of their living, semi-sentient ships have been ravaging the galaxy for millenia. Countless races have perished under their onslaught - and now TEC, Advent and the Vasari will have to face this terrible enemy and win - or die trying.
    Assume the role of the defenders and try to stem the tide of death and destruction, or take command of the invading armada and destroy the impertinent insects wherever they choose to make their last stand. 
  • Volumetric Explosions & Damage Effects, providing not only greater excitement to your space battles by transforming all explosions and persistent damage effect into true 3D affairs, but also better visual cues as to how the battle is going, enabling you to spot at a first glance the hotspots and even the level of damage on particular ships.
  • Dynamic Battle System, where each ship class' strenghts and uses are not determined only by its stats and abilities, but also by its flight characteristics. Certain ship classes will be able to move during fleet battles, which, coupled with the reworked stats of all ship classes should prevent "cookie-cutter" or "spam" strategies.
  • New Ship Classes for the new faction, ranging from specialist ships such as the Warmaster or Emperor Battlecruiser all the way to Titans acting as mobile superweapons capable of facing down an entire fleet on their own or even destroying an entire gravity well in one powerful surge.
  • Reworked Balancing, aiming to further focus various ship classes on their roles, removing any overlapping advantages which ultimately make one ship type or the other the ship to produce. Changes will also include increased gravity wells as well as greater class difference in turning rates and top speeds in order to further accentualize fleet placement, strategic positioning of forward bases and other such details which a great admiral make.
  • New Planet Types, which will also be visually enhanced, primarily by increasing their size in order to make them a true centerpiece of a given sector. New planet types will provide greater variety without providing game-breaking advantages to players.
  • Enlarged Gravity Wells which, coupled with the dynamic nature of space combat, will challenge players to an even greater level, requiring careful placements of planetary defenses and orbital structures, as well as fleets.
  • Unique Structures for the new faction, ranging from formidable Heavy Defense Batteries to deployable Outposts which will be capable of guarding even sectors around otherwise uninhabitable astronomical bodies such as stars or gas giants.

==MEDIA SECTION==

 

==SCREENSHOTS==

 

==TRAILERS==

DRONE SPOTLIGHT I

A short ingame exposition of the Scout, Assault and Siege drones.

 

 

 

==BACKGROUND LORE==

Pangalactic War Timeline 

Clicking the above link will lead you to the download of a .pdf document detailing the rich and dynamic history of the factions which will play a major role in the Last Stand mod, so if you are into background lore, be sure to check it out!

 

==UNIT INFORMATION==

 Pending.

 

modding
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Reply #326 from Sins Forums Top
I thought that those sounds were speech but that it can't be fullу expirienced by human's ears or brain;)

Reply #327 from Sins Forums Top
I agree with what you said about the moons because they do mess up the hole size perspective of the game. Anyways can't wait for this thing to come out gonna kick ass to have a race that is basically official.
Multiplicity - Control multiple PCs using one keyboard and mouse
Reply #328 from Sins Forums Top
so i was thinking are the worlds in the last stand going to have more the one size? oh and i love what your doing
to the game!
Reply #329 from Sins Forums Top
JKE J, hey, who says you are not right and not I? What do I know, they're aliens. :p

David, maaaybe. But that is sort of on the bottom of the list. Once I wrap up the first edition, and there's a LOT of work yet to be done (finishing up the last cruiser and will now start working on the first capital ship), then I may play with purely cosmetic stuff like that. Though personally, I'd love to put something like that in.
Reply #330 from Sins Forums Top
By the way, couldn't resist mentioning this... "modded" Mass Effect so that the bodies stay forever now. Nyeh, nyeh, nyeh. :p

And their official forum devs or whatnot have no clue what they're talking about. Corpses have no clipping so that lame argument about "corpses blocking up doors" is completely bogus.

Anyway... khm. Back to work. Yes.
Reply #331 from Sins Forums Top
Actually, if you look up a bit in the BIOGame.ini, there is a variable for allowing physics on dead bodies, haven't tried it yet, but plan to soon.



But, to be on topic, mod looks great so far.
Reply #332 from Sins Forums Top
(finishing up the last cruiser and will now start working on the first capital ship)
End of quote


It looks like they are going to be totaly astonishing!;)

Reply #333 from Sins Forums Top
Hopefully. ;)

In fact, I am experimenting with a new texture styling which should emphasize the alien building techniques of the Xin. The new style cuts severely on the "layered plating" style and relies heavily on the hexagonal and "stained glass" plating, which is at the same time more irregular and still synthetic enough... the result is a nice blend between the organic shape of the ships and the inorganic materials used for their building.
Also added dents, scratches and smudges to make the materials feel more "real".

Anyway, the new cruiser sports such textures, and if I like the end result I'll repaint the other three ships to match. Since I am using modular textures it shouldn't require a lot of work...
Reply #334 from Sins Forums Top
Here are the results.

First, the newly minted Minelayer:


And to compare, the Carrier Cruiser with the touched-up skin:


I think the new skin style is much better than the old one, as it abandons the old "technical" plating in the favor of a cleaner, more "armored" look. Plus, the pattern of cracks and individual plates makes the hull look like its covered with a weird sort of metallic hide. At least to me. :)
Reply #335 from Sins Forums Top
who cares about a sins expansion, we have ManSh00ter. :D

Seriously, once again outstanding work and i cant wait to see the mod in action.
Maybe you could do a little video of your current work just so we can get a little sense of how its gonna look in action?
Reply #336 from Sins Forums Top
Amazing :CONGRAT: 

This may be looking too far ahead, but are you going to make a seperate ship for each faction that lays mines or are you going to give a ship of each faction a mine laying ability or is the mine laying going to be unique to the xin?
Reply #337 from Sins Forums Top
LinkesAuge, the first "teaser" video will be released when I finish the first capital ship. That little piece is sort of needed for the final scene... ;)

Thomas, each new faction will get a ship capable of laying mines, while the vanilla factions will have their support cruisers retrofitted for interdiction and minelaying, but will not get a totally new ship.

Mines will differ among races. The Xin, for example, will have two types, a Spider Mine and a Spitter Mine. Designed to work together, the Spiders will slow passing ships down, while the Spitters will pepper them with plasma shots. Vanilla races will get proximity mines. Remnant will get homing proximity mines, and so on.

This is to make players pay attention at whom they are attacking. Dealing with a static proximity mine field is quite different than having that field slowly crawl its way towards your fleet, or having mines shoot your ships repeatedly at a distance.
Reply #339 from Sins Forums Top
Amazing work. Those new textures look brilliant.
Reply #340 from Sins Forums Top
just wondering if you have any concept art or anything like that for the remnant as they sound really interesting, by the way the xin are amazing! easily could have replaced vasari!
Reply #341 from Sins Forums Top
Wow they look SOOOOO good! Can't wait to see their capital ships! *drools :LOL:
Reply #342 from Sins Forums Top
will this mod be released in sections or all together?
looks good :CONGRAT:
Reply #343 from Sins Forums Top
as always, your work is fantastic. the mine layer looks awesome and the new texture for the cruiser is suiting. i agree that the tiled metal look suits it more. it just looks right. you got it right on. it is so insanely alien-ish....and i suppose christian....looks like stained glass....but yeah...it looks spectacular. lol.

and the mines themselves. the concept sounds spot on. i never could understand why the hell Stardock/Ironclad never put mines in the game. it just seems like they would be there. mines have been annoying navies here on earth for a hundred years, why should that change in space?? lol. the thought of a mine field moving toward a fleet is a scary one. the tactical importance of such a thing is staggering and gameplay-altering to an extreme. kinda makes it easier to protect your phase lanes from unexpected visitors.

and on a side note. where do i go to get the infinite dead bodies in mass effect. that sounds tight. i jumped around in the config files and some other stuff but i don't have the patience to go through it like i did oblivion and the source engine and chance crap around. so im curious what file to fiddle with. and did you find anything else worth noting about mass effect?? (totally off subject. je suis desole')
Reply #344 from Sins Forums Top
this is incredible... as i came across it i felt my smile getting bigger as i saw how many pages there were... i was praying to god there wasa playable demo or something... o well i will definitely checking back this is INCREDIBLE
Reply #345 from Sins Forums Top
Hi there manshooter, really exciting stuff your working on, I actually was hoping to contribute to the "how to research titans" debate, (sorry I'm late  :p  )

Anyhow, I read that you were leaning towards earning them by cap-ship leveling, and I must say that I completely disagree for a number of reasons. First and foremost, is that as a mod, your contribution to the Sins Universe will be PRIMARILY a single-player expeariance, and "earning" things against a computer, is neither fun nor challenging (just slaughter pirates and ta-da  :NOTSURE: ) In fact it seems more like an unessecary chore which detracts from the sandbox elements of this game more than anything else.

I could see the whole concept of "earning" your titan as both rewarding and exhillerating in large(small maps would be difficault as previously discussed) drawn out multiplayer conflicts where skill and tactics are REQUIRED to outwit human opponents. Sadly I think we all know how limited mods are when confronted with online play between large groups of strangers.

Thanks for listening, and keep up the good work  :CONGRAT: 
Reply #346 from Sins Forums Top
Milk Mclane, well right now all the concepts for the Remnant are in my head. :) But yeah, they're really cool. :p

Admiral_Kiernyc, you shouldn't wait long. A capital ship (battleship to be exact) is in da works.

Gamerking345, the mod will be released in three episodes. The first will see the Xin invade the known systems of the galaxy we worked so hard to rip to shreds so far.
The second episode will introduce the Remnant and the third will bring the Hegemony into the fray.
This is done so that players don't have to wait a year or more before they can (hopefully) have some fun. :)

Bss08380, the redesign continues. For an ingame version of that same model, I decided to bring some purely organic surfaces into play. I like the effect - so all surfaces where you can see windows will lose the techno look and get a pure organic flesh look. Coupled with a subtle effect where the actual windows slightly bulge out of the fleshy mass, it gives a whole new air of alien menace to the ships. Screenshots coming soon.

If it isn't obvious, I am sort of bent on details. In my opinion, too many mods settle for too many compromises to save time, and result is often sub-par to what it could have been. Little things like making your ships look the best you can make them look, not skimping on effort to make immersive special effects and so are important. They add to the overall "polished" feel and that's important for any game, be it a mod or otherwise.

General_Sherman, thanks. :)

Sylenall, you're not too late as Titan concept has not been finalized yet. Anyway, it is still in the works, so nothing has been decided yet. What I definitely want to do is make Titans special. Whether through research, resources requirements, level requirements or all three (or combination of either) is yet to be decided. A Titan is an extremely powerful weapon. To give them to players too early in the game is to water down the challenge. So steps must be taken to ensure that a player can get a Titan only late in the game, when they will actually need them.

As for multiplayer, since the Last Stand hopes to be a sort of "unofficial" expansion, all new races are balanced for play with the vanilla factions. So basically, you could play against others playing vanilla races with no issue, something you cannot do with, say, a Star Wars mod since their ships are so very different in terms of firepower and defense.
Reply #347 from Sins Forums Top
As promised, here are a few igname shots of the minelayer:



Lore:

The Xin Minelayer is, like all Xin ships, a semi-organic entity; its original biological form heavily modified by the alien race to serve its new purpose and then grafted with mechanical sub-systems such as propulsion, shield generators and weapons or other task-specific mechanisms, while crew accomodation and life support remain integral to its biological shape and functioning.

In this regard, the Minelayer is somewhat different. Where other ships of simmilar purpose would normally carry a cragohold full of mines ready for deployment, the Xin variant actually gestates them within special onboard "egg-sacs". When the need arises, and there is enough antimatter to provide energy for the finalization of the gestation process, a single mine each is squeezed out through dual sphincter membranes at the rear end of the ship. Each mine is also alive; posessed of a simple, single-minded conciousness and tough outer skin which can protect it indefinitely from the rigours of space (though not from the rigours of enemy fire) it is capable of sitting quietly in the dark for prolonged periods of time, waiting for some hapless ship to stumble upon it.

Minelayers have been known to seed large swaths of space with hundreds of these biological traps; each minelayer is capable of deploying two types of mines - one, a so-called "Spider Mine" has been reported to exhibit weak gravity effects in its immediate vicinity and is rumoured to be able to slow down passing ships, especially when encountered in large quantities.
The second type has been dubbed "Spitter Mine" because of its ability to launch a gob of corrosive frost-resistant liquid at passing targets. While this type of attack is rather weak and innefective (especially against shields), when dozens of Spitter Mines open fire, even the larger ships can find themselves in dire straits indeed.
Reply #348 from Sins Forums Top
This mod looks quite interesting. The XIN ships remind me of the Scrin from CnC 3 Tib wars. Nice job peoples
Reply #349 from Sins Forums Top
I wish I had an once of your modeling skills.
Congrats on a job well done. Can't wait until its out!

DANMAN
Reply #350 from Sins Forums Top
I must say, this looks to be amongst the most promising mods. I wish you good luck, I know how difficult it is to sustain a mod.

- PR-0927