- This mod is no longer active. Instead, TobiWahn_Kenobi is creating another B5 mod that looks very promising. You can find his mod here: https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/361694
Please let this topic die in peace. -
Since it is pretty outrageous that there isn't a single mod for Sins featuring the Babylon 5 universe, I have begun working on it myself. This mod will be designed for Entrenchment, as a Babylon 5 mod just has to have starbases in my opinion.
Setting:
This mod (at least at this stage) will focus on the early Babylon 5 series, before the formation of the Interstellar Alliance. I always felt that the best part of the series were the earlier ones, with the Shadows being "the unknown hidden threat" and the younger races emboiled in diplomatic manipulations with one another. Think season 2 & 3, with the Centauri being manipulated by the Shadows to wage all-out war with the Narn, The Earth Alliance being frightened into a pact of non-agression with the Centauri while their Babylon-5 Space Station fights a series of skirmishes against Centauri forces, a renegade Minbari Sharlin warcruiser, in other words alot of possible reasons for the different races to fight eachother.
Aims:
- A summer first release, featuring:
- 4 Playable races at first release. These will be:
- The Earth Alliance
-> The Earth Alliance uses ponderous but very solid ships with impressive armor. Their ships that lack the powerful long range weapons of the other races, which is compensated by powerful although somewhat inaccurate short to medium ranged weaponry.
- The Centauri Republic
-> The Centauri use fast and highly maneuvrable ships with devastating weaponry. Their ships are however less durable than those of the other races, even though the Centauri experiment with a new type of shielding on some of their ships. Centauri fighters are superior to Narn & Earth Alliance fighters, but they generally deploy less of them as several of their ship classes are not capable of supporting fightercraft.
- The Narn Regime
-> More ponderous than the ships of the other races, Narn ships are durable and well armored. They favour powerful long range frontal weaponry, with their trademark weapon being the energy-mine launcher. Even though their frontal long range weaponry is impressive, most Narn vessels are undergunned compared to equivalent ship classes of the other races. Narn fighters are comparable to Earth Alliance's Starfuries, but somewhat less maneuvrable.
- Minbari Federation
-> The most powerful of the young races, their ships are superior in all regards to those of the other races. They are faster, have superior maneuvrability, carry extremely powerful beam weaponry, and are protected by a form of cloak that makes automatic targetting impossible. Oh, and their fighters are superior in every way too.
- At least 5 ship classes per race (plus fighters) for the initial release. Most ship models already exist, but they need to be converted to XSI which is difficult and tedious.
- One starbase per race.
- Sins pirates will be replaced by their B5 counterpart the Raiders.
- Buildings will be for a later release. Except for the Starbases I feel most Sins buildings can easily function as babylon 5 constructions.
- Integration with several other mods to change planets, planet bonusses, explosions and other such things to better suit the Babylon universe
- This mod will aim to reflect what you see in the series/movies as best as possible. Most ships will not have shields but use armor that determines their amount of migitation. The best survival a ship has is to not get hit: weapons will have a substantial chance to miss, but when they do hit it will hurt.
- Supply lines that allow you to keep your ships working at their highest potential
- Small to medium-scale conflict. No fleets of hundreds upon hundreds of vessels that insta-zerg everything in their path.
- Loosing ships will matter. Loosing an entire fleet will be a disaster. Knowing when to retreat will be important.
- Meaningful special abilities that resemble the stuff you see in the series/movies. The Centauri Mass Drivers for planetary bombardment for example.
- Fully immersive music, sound and speech.
Plans for the second release include:
- More ships.
- Completely reworked research trees that allow new ships to be researched.
The second release will also introduce the Shadows and the Vorlons as playable factions. Both of these races will have the incredibly powerful ships we know from the series, which will be balanced out by their high cost and possibly other things as well like lack of trade income, or very limited research, but that will be a future concern. Both races will be designed around their respective philosophies "What do you want" and "Who are you".
Since I am currently working on this mod on my own, it is going to take some time before a release. In addition, I do not have much modelling experience, and even though I already have most ship models so far my first attempts to try and convert a LightWave-made Sharlin Class Warcruiser to a Sins compatible XSI format were not an overwhelming succes.
So if anyone with modelling experience is interested in converting/creating models let me know. In addition if anyone knows any good models we can use for this mod let me know.
Regards,
Lord Tareq
