INTERDICTORS!!!! yayayayayayayaaaa + =

Will there be a Last Stand episode 2?

Makbar, no worries, my prime goal is to make the Last Stand fun and engaging to play, not frustrating. It will require more planning and awareness of what is going on with your empire, but not in an annoying way.

Gamerking, my thoughts exactly.

Hex357, there wouldn't be any sense in having Episode I otherwise, eh? Episode II will feature the arrival of the Clans Remnant Nomad Fleet, the main strike force of the Hegemony. They'll spend the entirety of Episode II cooking up trouble and blowing up  ships, making commando raids on enemy planets, blowing up ships, nuking starbases... did I mention they will be blowing up ships? And then in Episode III, the Hegemony Star Fleet will arrive to show these barbarians what proper civilisation is all about (and to hit the Xin, who have been running amok and eating people, about head and neck).

Six factions. Huge, epic background story (who knows, by that time we may even get a campaign editor). Nukes in space. Singularity cannons. Fireships. Oh yeah.

could you get any of your newfound friends to draw up a pic of what the xin might look like, (ps. im not pointing any fingers but i have been known to be able to draw...)  anyway, i dont know anyone who can draw on these forums and is willing to draw an alien rece but you never know there might be a few willing participants... me!me!me!(if i can by an explaination)

That's it.  I seriously thought this couldn't get any better.  Really.  ManSh00ter, the universe is going to implode from your mod.  Seriously, it is so awesome I think the laws of physics don't agree with it.

So stop being so awesome!

Hey will any of the new races hav strike fighters hangers??? I think the number of strike fighters for each hanger shud increase.. along with structure hit points, so tht the planets defence and othr structures stand a chance till backup arrives..

Since the gravity wells will b bigger, u cud also increase the tactical and logistic slots... so with more logistic slots a faction cud survive and research for longer with a smaller number of planets... and with more tactical slots it will really feel like a real defence grid... tht will reduce the problem of fleets back peddling in time.. and also make planets reals chalenges to take.. no force will go in underestimatin a planet....

i just noticed somthing about entrechment that would allow you to bring back my old idea of a mobile factory, you can now upgrade ships to have new abilities and to change appearance(somthing or other building??) not quite sure of the name...but anyway, the clans remnant can have a mobile factory, so what about it??!!

Change appearance of ships??? isnt tht Galactic Civilizations??? i dont think u can do tht in this game.... but havin a battleship frigate factory wud b cool... remnants r supposed to hav weaker and smaller units as companered to xin and attack usin numbers right??? so i was thinkin a capital ship tht acts as a moving repair rig, with repair bots, plus it can hav suport features like targeting to increase the damage of surrounding frndly ships... tht wud suit the remnants well

no no no, i mean  modular building, building somthing and then adding somthing to it to increase power or give it new abilities, i just didnt know the name...

I am the Terminator of ships....!

SpardaSon21, everybody loves singularity guns, eh? Wait until you see the Wraith plasmids attacking a ship... but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Gamerking, I had the concept of making the Remnant as mobile as possible since the start (hence their alternative name, the Nomad Fleet), all the way to having mobile production facilities... well, mobile everything. BUT, I do not want to force people to have to get Entrenchment in order to be able to play the mod. So if the mini-expansion enables modding of new entities without requiring players to have it in order to play with the modded content, fine. If not, I'll find a way around it.

Makbar, the Remnant will not be very big on having utility ships... their style revolves more around overwhelming the enemy with numbers and Lots Of Guns(tm) ship design approach. A Remnant player will have to trouble throwing around twice as many ships as the other factions... four times as many that the Xin, though the Xin ships will go through them like a hot knife through butter. Of course, there's gonna be lots of butter.

Utilility approach will be the province of the Hegemony, where you will be able to generate crazy fleet bonuses from certain massed ship abilities... for example, scouts will have the Synchronized Telemetry ability which will increase the chance to hit and damage for all ships in the fleet. The idea is that a single ship will provide only a small bonus, something like 0.5 or 1% increase... but ten scouts will provide a 10% increase. So you can have lots of scout ships in your fleet and have a major damage bonus, but the drawback is that you have lots of scouts in your fleet and they're not exactly front-line ships. These are just arbitrary numbers, and the idea needs to undergo actual testing (I don't even know for sure that bonuses can stack, though I think they can).

ManSh00ter, where did you get the idea for the Clans Remnants?  They remind me of the Orks from WH40K with their spam tactics and love of explosions.

Well, if you think about it, the three races, Xin, Remnant and Hegemony only follow the assymetrical balance standard set first by Starcraft. Aside from that, there are many influences, from Star Wars (organic based ships), various Sci-Fi books, other games (particulalry EvE Online, Clans Remnant, for example will have that rusty look the Minmatar "boast").

Other than that I just took the basic concept and expanded upon it in a logical manner, not copying anything in particular. You have your nomadic race which lost their homeworld to the Xin when the Bulwark Line was established and got adopted by the Hegemony who gave them means to fight back and get their vengeance (they are still not done). Fiercely independant, they accepted help in form of resources, but refused to adopt ship-building practices of the ancient Hegemony - thus their rather primitive ships lack any sort of shields and have comparatively weak armor, utilize mainly kinetic and explosive weapons, with only the most expensive and advanced ships being fitted with exotic weaponry like railguns or nuclear missiles. On the flip side this would mean they are easy to produce and maintain. So I ended up with a "zerg" race, only a mechanical variant.

Here is a picture of the Xin Attack Cruiser model, just so you guys can see how it looks before I slap a texture on it.

I still feel like the Remnants shud hav a somethin to as movable repair ship or platform... tht can repair many ships at a time.. tht will definately hav a huge impact on game play... im not the type of player tht likes to throw as many ships to their death as possible...

And hav the fleet upkeep bein lowered for the Remnants?? coz they need to b, as huge fleets hav to b made...also the max limit for a fleet shud also increase.... incase the player is a late gamer....

well, in a perfect world stardock wouldnt charge for these"mini expansions" but it isnt so they do so that makes my whole plan fall down the drain... ahh well, ill just go and cry myself to sleep

ps. the offer is stll open for me to draw a concept art for the xin race.  just pm me.

Hey if any of u modders r makin a new ship from scratch cud u make a video of it and put it on youtube?? it wud really help all the noobs like me dreamin of makin our own designs.....

I wud love to see how a ship as detailed as ur Xin ships are made but atleast somethin simple for starters.. u know.. the trainin vids for makin shapes and stuff dont help tht much... it doesnt giv a good idea how the shapes must come 2gether.....

Makbar, the theme for Remnant is zerging, that is "throwing as many ships to the fray as possible". You will lose a lot of them, but you can also replace them more quickly and easily than other factions. If you prefer a more defensive style of playing, then perhaps the Xin will be up your alley, since they have very tough, very powerful and quite expensive ships.

Remntant's fleet upkeep and max slots for both regular and capital ships will be increased to allow them to field roughly double the amount of ships regular factions have. I'm looking forward to the challenge of designing their ships, as they will have to look both good and be relatively low poly in order not to bog down the engine.

I'd post a video of me making a model, but since that process usually takes several days and involves a bit of backtracking and remodelling I doubt it would be very enlightening. And without audio commentary such videos tend to be on the cryptic side for new users. If you want to get into modelling, be prepared for the long haul. I can design ships like these only after several years invested in 3DMax and about 6 more months invested in learning how to use XSI efficiently. My next step is character modelling... well, it should be coming up real soon because I need to put a face to the alien menace.

Which brings me to the concept art Gamerking mentioned. I already have an idea of what the Xin should look like - completely alien. That rules out humanoid. I want them to be as strange and distant as possible, while still retaining the organic fleshiness (so that they do not appear transcendent or something). Their background must also be taken into account, that is, they evolved on an oceanic world, so they are aquatic by nature.

Actually, I thought of simply taking your common squid and mixing in some insect features and armored "clothing" and see how that will look like. But if you can make some interesting concepts, I'm open to new ideas and suggestions! If I like it, you'll get credited for design. It doesn't have to be a squid-like creature, but it has to have the following features:

-non humanoid shape. That means no two legs, two arms, and a plastic alien head.

-usable appendages. Fins are great, but you cant hold a hammer with them.

-menacing look. Teeth, spikes, bug eyes, or even just a general body shape, it has to convey a feeling of a born predator.

-aquatic race. It has to be recognized that these creatures swim and that their ships are full of water.

And that's pretty much it.

ill get started right away

here is one idea(not really)lol

lol "crab people!"

What about humanoid-ish sharks?  Sharks are plenty menacing.  Or how about Moray Eels with arms?

... why does everyone always propose bisimmetrical organisms?

How about large quadrisimmetrical burrowing seaworms? stantiating life-forms make much more believable sophonts than itinerant ones do.

Hey y not bring back the blob?? from the 60 i guess???

tht wud b so wacked man!!!! Anyway thnks for explainin abuot the vid thing... most ppl dont even reply to anythin like tht... im more of an enggineering designer, i know autocad and a bit of ProE..

Hey which is the best software to try image designing??? Maya, 3Dmax or XSI??

I know an idea but it may not be very original; how about a squid like creature? it would make sense, ltos of digits  to use tools  and squid are intelligent. And ebst of all they are as un humanoid as it can get.