Here we go at last! I have decided to release a portion of the visual content which will be included in the Last Stand mod as a separate mini-mod, ready to be merged at your convenience with whatever is your current content of choice.

The background of and reason for this mod is simple - I am not satisfied with explosions in either vanilla game or improved versions of several graphic mods out there. The concept of this feature is that a battle should tell a story - when hundreds of ships are pounding at each other with weapons of incredible power, I wanted to see that power reflected directly on the ships themselves. I wanted to see pieces breaking off, sparks flying into space, thick smoke and fire billowing out, atmosphere escaping from cracks and finally, a glorious detonation befitting something which has fought hard, and lost.

However, words can be cheap - I have a preview video of what I meant by "carnage in space", one of the early names I had for this mod, before it got merged into the Last Stand. It's called "Face of War" and this is how the combat will look like in the Last Stand mod. Ok, I'll shut up now and hope you enjoy it!

Preview video (standard quality) download here: Mediafire(30Mb)

Streaming video (YouTube):

Also, here is a new preview video showcasing the new ver 1.0 effects: Mediafire (29Mb)

And on Youtube:

MOD DOWNLOAD: Volumetric Damage & Explosions Effects ver1.2 (Mediafire, 14.04Mb)

COMPATIBLE WITH SoaSE 1.18/Entrenchment 1.41

Entrenchment FIX

This fixes a bug where racial explosions wouldn't show up in the Entrenchment version. Keep in mind that due to the nature of the necessary changes, the currently available Dynamic Battle System version is no longer compatible with this mod. A new version of the DBS will be uploaded in its respective thread.

Download: Volumetric Damage & Explosions Effects ver 1.2 - Entrenchment fix

Version 1.2 change log

-added new explosion effects for all three factions. Now Vasari ships explode in a different fashion than Advent or TEC. Vasari explosions are green tinted while Advent are more to the purplish side.
-added new explosion sound effects for all main ship explosions. The effects are more numerous now and have a greater variation/complexity
-removed bodies from spilling when a ship is critically struck. Bodies still float around for a short while after a ship is destroyed
-optimized ship explosions for heavy duty battles. You should notice a lot less of a FPS drop when lots of ships blow up in a short amount of time

KNOWN BUGS/ISSUES:

None.

This version is meant to be merged at will, so merge away, just credit me. The preview video includes improved particle effects by Bailknight. To merge this mini-mod with others, install those mods FIRST, then overwrite the files with the ones from this mod. Note that if you have any special explosions listed in your .explosiondata file, they will be overwritten. Also note that if your ships .entity files invoke any explosions of non-standard names, you will get a minidump, so take that into consideration when merging.

A final note - I am very much interested in hearing how this performs on your machine, so you are welcome to comment upon that and don't forget to include your system specs! I also playtested this for a few hours and so it should be free of error, but if you do notice something missing or odd, do tell.

This much from me for now, hope you'll like the new stuff!