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DANMAN3712

Join Date 02/2008

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The "Ancient Ones" or Atlantians - new race

I have successfully created another race within Sins, giving it a 4th race. So far, I am making them an "advanced" form of the Vasari, and am trying to tie them into the story as these guys mabe what the Vasari were running from. This race looks like the Vasari (so far), but are much more advanced, and even older than the Vasari themselves. For now I am calling them the "Ancient Ones", or the Atlantians, since I have this thing for Atlantis and Stargate. They are Vasari, but have Psi power like the Advent. So far, they everything will be doubled with their stats, including phase space speed, entering phase space, weapon damage, hull points, and shields. They will however all cost double as well, including build time (better things require more time). I think this race would be great for players who want to "turtle" for a while while building up their superior fleet. They key to beating this race would be killing them off early, before they can build an unstoppable armada. Please let me know your thoughts and opinions or ideas you all might have. I have been reading the mod posts for awhile now, and will try to address popular concerns too.

DANMAN

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Ok,
So far, so good. The new "Atlantian" race is coming along nicely. The Vasari Battleship has been converted, and is now the Atlantian Dreadnaught. It has twice the stats, alog with extra weapons and groups of fighters. I also changed the experience leveling so that you get a new squad of fighters/bombers per level. Now the battlefield is swarming with attack craft! This ship is capable of shooting attack craft down too. It is also twice as expensive, but I am thinking about making it even more because this ship really rocks. I will let you all know my progress as things proceed.

DANMAN

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I see a lot of people who double the stats of something and then double the cost. That never seems like a fair tradeoff to me. Unless you double the stats on every ship (i.e. stupid, wouldn't change a thing) then doubling the price makes sense. Otherwise, I think the price should be somewhat more than double since these special stat ships tend to kick some serious ass.

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I agree with you,
I experienced that the new Atlantian Battleship I created is very powerful, almost too much. I am now considering increasing the cost even more, and perhaps require tech advances to unlock them to make things more balanced. When I am done, all ships for this new race will have double the stats, but with triple the price and build times, and perhaps some will have a research requirement. This will balance them out more, and allow a player using them to have a challenge until they get the ships built, and if you are playing against them, you can try to wipe them out before they get too powerful. Once the ships get built though, they will totally kick stellar butt. I plan on making lots of changes to make this race much more balanced, because they will take over everything quickly now. This race will feel its benefits much later in the game, when you go up against an armada of the the enemy fleet and your few ships can hold their own, better maximizing the ship cap in the game. Here, tech rules against a wave of inferior ships and races. I will keep you all posted as things progress.

DANMAN

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cool... triple sounds good... especially early on it will make things interesting.

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But everyone gets a free cap at the beginning. Just get the atlantian capital that bombs planets the best and it is a fast game. Or maybe Nerf the cap at the beginning until you research the right techs.

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or maby forget the whole price thing, and make the cost something else... like pure build time and fleet points (requires TWO cap points maby??)

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Sorry to be such an ass, but the traits these Atlantians have is a bit clishe. Mix the races + double costs + double efficiency is a kind of trick which every race in every mod-able game has been a victim of.=/If you are going to make a new race, why not make a new one? Anyways, maybe you'll manage to turn it into a good thing. good luck

EDIT: Oh yeah, like the poster above me said: Try to balance out the Capital ships in order to not make the first one to imbalanced.

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An interesting project for the community. Many are considering doing such a thing but are not sure if it is possible. I hope it all works out well and the process is well documented if successful.

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Thank you all for your input.
I have been playing around in the files to find the option to turn off the first free capital ship. That would make it harder for the Atlantian race to get that first cap ship out, and will not be able to rule the game early on. The other thing I am trying is to have research requirments for these ships, in order to delay them coming out. So far, I have the battleship and carrier done, and they are amazing. They can still be taken down though, so that are not "uber" by far.
As far as creating a totally new race, that includes programming and meshes that I simply do not have time for right now.
Also, as of right now, I have incorporated UZI's Ocean planet mod into mine, to serve as the Atlantian's home world.
I am going to play around with the ship textures to make them more unique from the Vasari without going into totally new ships.
Keep the ideas and comments coming please, as this fuels my creativity and allows me to create a mod that you will all enjoy.

DANMAN

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UPDATE:
So far, so good. 2 capitals now done, with new stats and textures to make them different from the other Vasari looking ships in the galaxy. I am trying to figure out how to modify the original MESH files in order to actually change the ships appearance without creating a whole new ship.

As far as the first free CAP ship getting eliminated, I am at a dead end. I cannot figure out how to turn that off. To get around this, I will make the CAP ship factory cost triple, including metal and crystal. This way it takes awhile to get it up and running. I will also boost it stats too, to make it survive longer. Anyone who knows anything about the MESH's, XSI, and 3D modeling please let me know what I can do, that would be greatly appreciated.

DANMAN

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UPDATE:So far, so good. 2 capitals now done, with new stats and textures to make them different from the other Vasari looking ships in the galaxy. I am trying to figure out how to modify the original MESH files in order to actually change the ships appearance without creating a whole new ship.As far as the first free CAP ship getting eliminated, I am at a dead end. I cannot figure out how to turn that off. To get around this, I will make the CAP ship factory cost triple, including metal and crystal. This way it takes awhile to get it up and running. I will also boost it stats too, to make it survive longer. Anyone who knows anything about the MESH's, XSI, and 3D modeling please let me know what I can do, that would be greatly appreciated.DANMAN

Screenshots?

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I am interested in how you added the 4th race, as opposed to just replaceing one of the existing ones...

Is there a limit to how many races can be added?

Would be very nice to eventualy add 10 different races so you are always comeing up against different ships/techs

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There is no limit, I have added a number of "new" races as a test, no problem. The problem is making all the different models/textures new races would need.

10 races, that would be what, 180 models? Good luck! I'll stick to adding just one.

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good for you

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TO:Rotorfib, Mansh00ter:
There is no limit, as far as I can tell, and MannSh00ter, you are right. Every race needs all of its own files and ship textures and MESHES, and MESHES are what I am struggling right now with. I have many 3D programs, and I can't figure out how to edit the ORIGINAL files. I can make brand new ones, but for the Atlantians, I just want to modify the Vasari ships for now.
Rotorfib, you have to create new ENTITY files for the race, then inlcude it in the STRINGS>ENGLISH file. For each new ship I make, I create a new ship ENTITY file, and include it in the race ENTITY file.
I have used PHOTOSHOP to change the textures, and so far I have given the BATTLESHIP additional user defined color lights, including stripes on the sides that go along with the "gills" there. It looks like tribal tatoos on the ship, very cool.
Don't worry, screenshots are coming! Keep the ideas and comments flowing please!

DANMAN

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Thank you!!! I'm a major noob at this, but I'm dedicating myself to learning how to do 3d meshes/textures lol

I was also looking everywhere for a .mesh -> anything converter and the only thing I could find is maybe 3ds max can read .mesh files, and use that to convert to something else. But I can't afford to get 3ds max atm lol. I just downloaded the free version of XSI 6 mod tool...I've got paint shop and the nvidia addons as well. Now I need a good wiki or tutorial!!

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Rotorfib,
Keep up the good work. Be sure to post any of your ideas and questions to get help. I find that we have strenght in numbers here, helping each other out. I am going to try the 3Dmax route, but I also don't have the money for that program. I might have a friend who has it and convert the files for me. I am just agitated that the prgram the Ironclad claims to have used for the original models cannot read those same files. It will load the actual file, but then there is no content at all, just a blank 3D canvas. Please keep posting help, comments and suggestions. Thanks to all!

DANMAN

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UPDATE:
Here are the screenshots of the completed Atlantian Battleship (Vasari, just modified). Now the ship looks even more mean than before! Keep the comments and suggestions coming! You can see where I added all the "tribal" stripes. The thing looks like a spider now!

DANMAN

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Looks nice. Keep it up.

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The great Uzzi comments....
Thank you! This is the mod I want to ue your new planets with. I hope you will like it. I will work on the Carrier ship next. As always, I will keep you up to date.
And I love those new planets. Very good indeed. I hope to see more from you soon.

DANMAN

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Very nice. For some reason I had imagined them being White and Gold with the blue stripes.

The battleship looks sweet.

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Yeh, i think white and gold would be a good theme for the ships, but not quite the alien sleekness of the Advent. A simple, yet smooth look is kinda what i had in mind. (why? I don't really know, except for the fact that i would classify them as a noble or wise race. Again why?)

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Captain and Pious,
Thanks for that idea. If I have time I will experiment with gold and white colors to give them a "noble" look. Since they are Atlantians, they should probably look "wise", since they are more advanced than anyone in the galaxy and created many races themselves.

DANMAN

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UPDATE:
Hi everyone, I have been busy trying to get things to mesh well, and deal with the new update from Ironclad. Here are some new screenshots. The Carrier is now done, now known as the Atlantian Hive ship. The Capital ship factory is also done, costing 3 times the normal amount, and taking 3 times as long to build. But there is a payoff, bumped up stats, and sheilds! Here are the pics. Please let me know what you think!

Atlantian Hive Ship:

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Here is the Capital Ship Factory:

I am going to see if I can add weapons too, to turn this thing into a battle platform as well (Deep Space Nine).

I will of course keep you all posted. I have also managed to retexture some of the beam weapons, as such both the Atlantian Battleship and the Hive Ship now shoot BLUE beam weapons, and BLUE planet targeting beam weapons as well. I will be posting screen shots soon.

DANMAN

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