Xathos, your assessment of Firefly is imho wrong.  There is a difference in, "It was not a show I liked or was interested in" versus, ""It was not good or well done."

Firefly was a character driven show that came out of the gate at an acting and production level of shows that have aired for five years.  It was further under the constraint of continuous random network schedule interruptions, network re-sequencing of aired episodes with no thought for continuity and network threats of cancellation from the second episode until its end.  In all this they had to constantly change story arcs, abandon them and shorten or skip character development.  

With all this in mind, Firefly is a brilliant show from it's conception.

Shows that stay on the air for more than  a year aren't necessarily "good"--they just have mass appeal that generates revenue.  By these standards, "America's Funniest Videos" should be getting Emmy and Oscar awards for 25 years of uninterrupted network and syndication airing.

In Hollywood, quantity is not quality.

 

Andromeda had a lot of potential, premise-wise.  Poor execution, imho..

 

The show had two strong philosophical threads running through it: the Magog and the Nietzscheans.  Roddenberry's trademark, I guess.

So--about that firefly mod idea...

Well, like I said, I can do textures and models, although a few more artists on the team would be nice, and I'm rusty with the whole actually-getting-the-models-to-work-in-game-thing. I did make some custom models for my own personal use for the Stargate Invasion mod and got them working in-game.

Here's a list of the tools that I'm proficient to expert in:

 

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Illustrator

ZBrush

3DS Max

I am also a writer, and can write produce some background/lore, and can script unit dialog.

Here's some ideas I have for the mod, in no particular order:

1. The Brown Coat Loyalist fleet will be very a-typical. Composed of cheap frigates and anti-titan units, many of its units, while structurally weak, can fire from outside of retaliatory range, and are among the fastest in the game.

Their fleet is very rag-tag, and for fan service, most of their ships will be based on the Firefly design. For instance, I can see their heavy cruiser being two heavily armed Fireflies, one mounted above the other, with a single weld joining the two. Each will sport forward-facing cannons.

I also see them having a ship-type similar to that of the Norlamin in the Maelstrom mod:  dedicated miner.

Their "diplomatic" ship should be a floating brothel that is capable of distracting and subsequently neutralizing Alliance frigates.

 

2. The Reaver Loyalists will be designed to be mobile, much like the Vasari Loyalists.

3. The Brown Coat Collaborators, feeling that the water is becoming a bit hot, have re-pledged their allegiance to the alliance,and have in return been given a spattering of Alliance ships, and a few capital ship designs. A hybrid faction, they are both fast and deadly, as they employ technologies from both sides of the war.

4. Both Alliance factions are capital ship-heavy, and have little use for small frigates.

5. The Alliance are the only race with beam weapon tech

6. The Reaver loyalist Titan is capable of boarding and taking control of entire fleets of enemy vessels.

7. The Reaver Dissidents, having become immune to the effects of the drug that created them, and knowing that they will never be welcomed into civilization, become aggressive about their desire to create a structured society of their own. Armed with the best warships of each faction, they are territorial and deadly.

 

Of course these are just rough ideas in early form, and its up to the community and/or team that forms to decide what direction the mod should actually take.

The one thing that would be essential is good voice acting. I wouldn't want an audio clip of "I aiiiiim to miiiis-b-have" ala  Microsoft Sam playing every time someone builds a light frigate .

Well, I don't hold out a lot of hope on this personally. Many people underestimate the sheer amount of work to mod this game, let alone create a TC.

That said I enjoyed Firefly a lot and look forward to seeing any models you make.

In the end I'm glad they canned Josh, otherwise he may not have moved on to bigger and better things. I think his talent for developing characters is superior to anyone else directing scifi right now.

 

No offense, but making the entire Browncoat fleet variants of the Firefly is a bad idea in my opinion.  I know I would rather have a unique, fan-created fleet for the Browncoats that shows that they're rag-tag freedom fighters with ships begged, borrowed, or stolen from across the 'verse rather than a club of Firefly owners.

I'm familiar with Joss Whedon's work, and I've watched plenty of the Buffyverse shows to know it well, but the quality dipped thereafter, especially with Dollhouse.  Having an "open mind" has nothing to do with anything.  This would only apply if I haven't seen the show.

Also, premium channels are very different in terms of quality of show. HBO is a GOD amongst networks with Showtime it's bitch and Starz a little ankle biter.

Once the show got established in the first season, the second season, and the fourth seasons were the best.  It's another mess of a show.  The problem is that once RHW left due to bullshit, the show took too long to reestablish itself.  Too many empty plot holes and pointless stories.  It is one of those shows I was going to mention, but regardless of the issues, it still survived for a full 5 season run.


Ouroboros was the last episode he wrote, but the rest of the season is still his work based on his notes and meetings with others.  He actually reformatted his HD before he left.  TROLOLO, anyway?  Regardless, read the Coda screenplay.  He wrapped up the show after the fact, and made it fit in with the ending.

DS9 was fucking brilliant.  The writing staff on there was AMAZING.  Best Star Trek show, period.  It's also creepy all the post 9/11 themes that occurred in that show, some 8 years before the fact.

Actually he has no credit outside of the very basic premise (no specifics of races).  All those details are Robert Hewitt Wolfe in action.  The man is amazing.

Why did the movie flop and not reestablish interest in the IP?  It had a second chance to succeed and failed.  Is there anything wrong with the show, cast, crew, story, setting, or anything else involved with the IP?  Not necessarily, but it did fail to appeal to enough people outside of it's niche.  Shows CAN come back.  Look at Family Guy.  Look at Andromeda (yes, it returned through Sci-Fi).  Bottomline, what I'm saying, is that it's a good series, but it's not good enough nor is it as great as the fanboys make it.

Double post, FTW.

@ Xathos, you are ignoring the realities of the TV and movie business. Just because something isn't as commercial as something else, doesn't mean it isn't great. Great shows like Firefly get cancelled and muck like Andromeda stays on for 5 years because most of the TV audience are stupid, and don't want to have to do any kind of thinking.

And before you point out that shows like House MD stay on the air..consider that they are really soap operas wrapped around an intellectual core. 

 

The fans fought hard for a new Firefly series, but the network execs didn't think it had enough profit potential. They only got the one movie because they made it quite clear to the studio that they would pay to see it.

Agreed that Dollhouse was not so great.

Firefly flopped because Joss doesn't know his audience.  The horse opera in space audience is primarily middle aged.  He wrote his characters more in line with a show idiot youths watch, and gave it a country music theme song to finish it off.

 

My family watched the first episode, saw the wonderful cast that included a professional whore, a pathological slut, and a couple man whores to round things out.  That content didn't bother me like it did my far more respectable parents, but I knew it was dead from the moment I heard the intro music.

 

It may not be logical, but the theme song has far more to do with success than any other factor.  Catchy themes do the best(see Friends) and bad ones will kill even the best shows, TOS anyone?

You conveniently left out the Preacher. If I was writing a show, I wouldn't want you watching it.

Don't judge a show by its characters..judge it by its entertainment value. All of those elements come together to form a theme and an ambiance. I guess you prefer black and white characters, rather than shades of gray. Kailey may have been a "slut," but she was by far the best human being among the crew.

 

 

 

Once you turn off half your audience in the first episode, they're not going to find that out.

And the stellar examples of other fantastic shows on TV is just overwhelming.  Firefly can't hold a candle to them.  Wipeout and Big Brother are just in a league of their own and let's not forget Glee.  Wow--the bar is raised so high.

Some great episodes that showed some of the promise of the show are, Out of Gas, Ariel, Our Mrs. Reynolds and Objects in Space. It's original science fiction--not regurgitated themes that have been done a million times.

On the mod itself, I'd start just with getting enough models in and textured.  If you can do that, it might flesh out and get some volunteers.

 

Codexehow, I can do .entity coding for you, leaving you free to model and texture.

 

Ability modding for the 'verse would be pretty basic.  It's getting the Firefly models done and with enough variety to make it work that will be a challenge.

So someones mom and dad didn't like the moral ambiguity in firefly, lol.

and someone else thinks josh whedon dipped off after buffy, lol.

 

That would be awesome. I'll get a few models completely finished so that we might be able to drum up some more interest.

...

 

BOOM!!!!!!

 

Now that I have your attention!

 

Didn't the Rebels have their own space navy, with their own ships etc, some captured, etc etc ... just a smaller force? They were all really apart of the same expeditionary and colonization force just that the Browncoats ultimately had most of their ships destroyed in action and were not able to replace them or resupply them properly etc etc etc ... Firefly was one of MANY ships the Browncoats used ... this is why I stated we need to figure out EXACTLY WHAT IS ALREADY IN THE UNIVERSE ... right now we are just conceptualizing and flinging things around willy nilly. The fact that the Browncoats often times used hit and run tactics, guerilla warfare, mob style raids, though still did stand up fights is very important to note. Not sure how well this translates to Sins but basically you are making (in simple concept) a civil war game for space

 

Please go here as a start ... http://firefly.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

-> Specifically this: http://firefly.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Firefly (Under 'The Verse') & http://firefly.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Transportation (if you're lazy )

You also have the comic series by Dark Horse which depicts other spacecraft from both sides, both military & civilian.

From Wikipedia ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_%28Firefly%29

-> "The Alliance operates a massive fleet of spaceships, resembling huge floating cities, that act as both military and police for the distances between the various planets of the Firefly Universe. Alliance ships have the registry prefix IAV (Interstellar Alliance Vessel). Examples include the IAV Dortmunder and IAV Magellan. The pilot episode of the series reveals that the large city-ships carry smaller craft referred to as 'gunships', though the gunships themselves are never identified and their specific characteristics are never revealed. In the episode "Bushwhacked", it is revealed that Alliance ships have nurseries.

In the film Serenity, we see a fleet of sleeker, more streamlined warships, suggesting that the Alliance has a wide variety of space vessels for various purposes."

Here is a big (I mean HUGE) boatload of official ships as seen from the shows and movies recreated both as models and also as 2d images both for TEXTURES & and for proper model construction.

-> http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=3144.0

 

I could go on and find more ... but I ask and plead and beg of you to properly structure a list in the OP of what is KNOWN to be canon and what has already been fan created on other sites ... and then you can place these ships into their proper military and civilian roles. That will show what slots need to be filled.

 

Please keep in mind that I am merely giving links based on a short google search plus a few of my own book marks. I don't have the time to help with this mod, as much as I would like to, so please do your homework first on what it has and what it needs. You can go from there.

 

Enjoy and carry on!

 

This is a great resource Bashimi, thanks. I'll go through the lists and update the OP on what is known about each faction ASAP.

Thanks again.

 

@ everyone:

Does anyone know what the polygon limit is per model? or just a general figure? I'd much rather use ZBrush, but it tends to want to make very high polygon models.

Thanks

 

Here is a map for it if you wish to use it.

 

I'm going to remake this map since I think, unless I'm mistaken, the "verse" is one huge star system. Also, I think this was last updated for Entrenchment.

Yeah, ZBrush models will send Sins running in panic.  I think it is 13k max for capitals, and I don't know what the limits are for strikecraft and frigates.  One of the actual modelers could tell you more.

Ok, thanks. Since most of the detail comes from the texture, I think I can get by with using zBrush at the very lowest subdivision levels. I'll have to check. The thing is, its a lot faster to work in Zbrush.

 

You should probably have everything you make conform to TSOP specifications for better framerates and decreased memory usage.  PM Major Stress for more information on that.

Will do, thanks.

BTW...it's "tenative".

When I can not be harassed with work projects (likely tomorrow) I'll post up some of the official RPG ship info.