Thrawn's Revenge - A mod for Star Wars, Empire at War

News

Release in Review, 2.2.3 Release & 2.2.5 Plans

Release WrapupIt's been just under a month since the release at 2.2, so we wanted to take a moment to talk about common problems, what's coming in patches, and also release on of those patches. Overall we've been happy with the release of 2.2 so far. There's a lot still to be done and worked out, but the goal with 2.2 was to establish a new basic starting ground for the updates we want to make going forward, and we feel like we've accomplished that. There have been a few issues which we'll talk about today, but very little that's entirely gamebreaking, and very little that we're not confident we can fix. Before we get into direct plans though, we want to address some of the most common problems that have come up.Before we get into it though, as always I have recorded a video version of the update, which can be seen just below. The information in both is the same, so pick whichever medium you prefer:Issue: I get a crash/perception parsing error when the game starts/a Galactic Conquest starts/I can't build any units with the filtersThis is generally caused by another mod having installed its AI or Scripts folders to the base data folder, which will interfere with other mods. Because a lot of features in TR heavily rely on being able to use our own AI and scripts, this can cause several issues. To resolve this, you just need to go into your Forces of Corruption data folder (not the mod's) and delete the folder named Scripts if it's there, and then into the XML folder and delete the AI and Enum folders if they're there. Sometimes only one of those three will be present. Issue: Some planets blink red and can't be accessed. This has actually been one of the most common reports we've received, however this is not a bug- this is what a locked planet in EaW looks like. these are planets which have story elements tied to them (generally emergent factions or era progression). It's kind of ugly, but there's unfortunately not much else we can do with them, the functionality wasn't really intended to be heavily used by PG, so it does look kind of weird.Issue: When I try to load games, they'll sometimes crash.This is basically a base game issue caused by memory accessibility for the program. The bad news is, it's not something mods can fix as it's a base game issue, the good news is the Steam version of EaW is hopefully being patched soon to address it. This does unfortunately mean the GoG and retail disk versions will, much llke with the selection freeze bug, continue to have the issues, so we may have to make certain larger GCs where it's especially prone to occurring, like Empire's End, Steam only. Mitigating this is also why certain things like extra VO and planet preview images were left out of the initial release, and will be patched in afterwards. We'll have to make some choices about how exactly to handle that for the versions of EaW where the issues will persist. We do however recommend getting EaW for Steam (it goes on sale fairly often) to get the most stable experience as mods continue to push the boundaries of the engine, since it's currently the only version of the game receiving official patches from Petroglyph.Issue: I ran 2.15 fine, but 2.2 often lags on the galactic map in larger GCsEaW can only use a single processor core, so even the best computers will start to struggle with larger maps that have a lot of active factions on them. 2.15's largest map was about 90 planets with 3-4 active factions, counting the player, whereas int largest in 2.2 is 138 planets and up to 6-7 active factions, so there's a lot more going on that the processor has to keep up with. This is also why we have such a wide array of GCs- regardless of computer strength, you should be able to find a good amount that run smoothly for you. We are also playing with some other factors, like AI modifications, hyperspace speed, etc to reduce how much has to be processed at once, so you may see some back and forth during patches on this front while we experiment- this is one of the things that we'll be actively playing with  even after the last "full" patch for 2.2.PatchesSince release, we've been working on fixing various bugs which have arisen, and for the most part we seem to have handled the biggest ones in the 2.2.1 and 2.2.2 patches. Because Steam workshop has automatic updates, we've been testing them in smaller chunks on Steam and the ModdB releases will be updated with larger patches less frequently, to make sure people have the most straightforward installation processes. Tonight, some time after this post goes up, (May 7th) we'll be releasing 2.2.3 to both Steam and ModDB, which on top of the fixes already handled by 2.2.1 and 2.2.2, has some more experimental lag changes, focuses on stabilizing some of the era change edge cases where the script controlling some spawns would sometimes not work. The full patch notes for all patches can be found both in the download description when it goes up, and here (the same changes apply to both the Steam and ModDB versions).As we approach 2.2.5, which will be the last major patch for 2.2 before moving onto the new content for 2.3, we will have a couple primary focuses. The first and foremost is addressing any remaining major issues with era progression, which once we're comfortable it's all working properly, will include adding in other forces to some of the emergent faction events (Hapans are pretty powerful, but things like Zero Command were left kind of bare-bones to make sure they weren't causing problems before we flesh them out more). Second, we'll be trying to find out what's wrong with the Yevethans so we can re-enable them and the Empires at War & Black Fleet Crisis scenarios. Third, we'll be starting to overhaul some of the documentation in the mod, to make it more consistent and informative. In the super-short term, this will involve removing some information about weapon loadouts for ships- they'll be added back in 2.3 with full information on hardpoints, but they will be handled differently and we want to make sure translating the mod into other languages is as easy as possible, so doing it this way makes the most sense long-term. Finally, we'll be working on adding some multiplayer GC maps to the mod. This was left out because there are many features the mod relies on which can't be used in MP, so we have to basically use entirely separate unit sets for it, among other changes. We'll be starting with just one or two Empire vs New Republic scenarios, but we'll expand this when possible.After that, it's on to 2.3 where we'll be adding the Corporate Sector Authority as a playable faction and beginning the ground overhaul, as well as working on Fall of the Republic, or Clone Wars mod (and Ascendancy for Sins, of course), so there's plenty to look forward to. If you want to keep track of development as it goes, in addition to these news posts, I also do preview playthroughs and other videos on my YouTube channel, which can be found at https://www.youtube.com/c/coreyloses ...

[Patch] Imperial Civil War 2.2.2 Released

We have just pushed a patch to address a few issues. This will currently only be available for Steam Workshop copies because it allows auto-updates, but once we've compiled more changes, the ModDB mirror will be updated as well.Major Changes:- Disabled Yevetha (and therefore Empires at War and BFC) due to causing crashes on initiating tactical battles until we can find the cause.- Added Reinforcement prevention radii to Starbases and mines in skirmish- Altered stats for power to shields/weapons in skirmish- Removed power to weapons from larger ships in skirmish (Praetor, Nebula, Allegiance)- Removed 3 mines on Core Conflict- Removed Bright Jewel, Mantell Massacre, Corellian Conflict and Dark Fury skirmish maps (redundant or unfinished)- EotH starts with Krsiss instead of Nsiss in Skirmish- Added merchant dock units for all factions- Fixed several skirmish ships removing all FoW, some may still remain.- Empress station damage nerfed (6 protons per hardpoint -> 2)- Moff Resuun Tractor Beam enabled- Enforcer pop cap 2 -> 3- Fixed [MISSING] Ion cannons on Oto, added Quad Ion projectile- Fixed an issue where boarded or retreated units would sometimes spawn at dummy planets and be inaccessible.- Fixed Eriadu Lancet availability- Fixed duplicated Hailfire company- Strang and Weir added to Eriadu for era progressives- World Devastator and Praetor should unlock in era 3 and 4 respectively for Remnant, with WD relocking in Jax era. ...

[Patch] Imperial Civil War 2.2.1 Released

We have just pushed a patch to address a few issues. This will currently only be available for Steam Workshop copies because it allows auto-updates, but once we've compiled more changes, the ModDB mirror will be updated as well.Major Changes:- Fixed skirmish AI inactivity- Fixed an issue where era changes when factions are destroyed will cause a crash (until we have more time to test a better solution, this will mean the progressive GCs technically won't end)- Doing live testing of some measure to improve GC performance on larger maps. Let us know if you see a difference.Minor Changes:- Various text fixes (most prominently, deconstruction buttons have names now)- Moved Upcoming Changes button out from under Audio button- Fixed missing Eriadu and Maldrood starting heroes in era progressives (Veers, Trier, Okins, Ramier)- Fixed Gladiators not spawning fighters for Maldrood and Eriadu- Commando sticky bombs reduced in damage and blast radius- Broader KDY discounts- Yevetha Boarding enabled- Lott walker icon fixed- Kyle dropped off by Moldy Crow- Sienar Praetor discount removed- Sacheen properly refers to single-unit retreat- Nuruodo now requires only level 1 in skirmish- Shifted save warning up slightly- Ground skirmish heroes added:--PA: Rei'kas, Sariss, Jerec--Zsinj: Netbers, Lanu, Gethzerion, Melvar--Maldrood: Dengar, Lott, Boba--Eriadu: Weir, Strnag, Bossk, Veers--Duskhan League: Eri PalleIf you have the Steam workshop version of the mod, this should automatically download. Please keep additional bug reports to the tech support subforum. ...

[Release] Thrawn's Revenge: Imperial Civil War 2.2: The Warlords

...Thrawn's Revenge: Imperial Civil War...Conquer the galaxy in the aftermath of the Battle of Endor as any of 8 playable factions, with an era-based progression system- the fledgling New Republic which has formed out of the Rebel Alliance, the fracturing Galactic Empire, the secretive Empire of the Hand, the warlike and xenophobic Duskhan League, and four different Imperial Warlord factions (the Pentastar Alignment, Eriadu Authority, Warlord Zsinj, and Greater Maldrood).Play with hundreds of units and heroes in skirmish and 19 new galactic conquest scenarios, including several historical scenarios encapsulating various different conflicts in the Star Wars: Legends universe.For those who have played previous versions, the mod has essentially been entirely rebuilt, so providing a specific changelog isn't especially feasible- this is a rough overview, and the Readme goes a bit more in depth....What's New in 2.2...Greater Maldrood, Zsinj's Empire, and Eriadu Authority Added as Playable FactionsDozens of Redone and Updated Ship and Vehicle Models (ISD, Lancer, Mon Calamari Cruisers, Lucrehulk, and many more)Many New Ships, Heroes and Vehicles (Secutor, Raider, Procursator, Dauntless, Bellator, and many more)Several New Galactic Conquests AddedEra-System Overhauled, Allowing Different Ways to Progress, and New ConsequencesAll Existing Galactic Conquest Scenarios Overhauled, With More Story EventsProjectile Visuals OverhauledRedone Skydomes, Ground Textures and Asteroid FieldsOverhauled AI to Take Advantage of Mod Features, Without Ridiculous CheatingNew Abilities and Features, Including Single-Unit Retreat, and BoardingDozens of New, Updated and Redone MapsUpdated Icons for 4K MonitorsBasically, everythingWith previous versions we've included a manual- this is coming, but unfortunately we were unable to finish it in time for the release, so once it's finished, it'll be uploaded separately. [Download Imperial Civil War 2.2 - Steam Workshop][Download Imperial Civil War 2.2 - ModDB (GoG, Retail)]For installation instructions, see the readme, or watch a tutorial video by clicking here.Currently, the mod is only available in English- if you are interested in helping translate the mod into another language, please email us at ThrawnsRevenge@gmail.com, or contact me directly on Discord, ModDB, or the TR site.In order to deal with EaW's save-load problem until Petroglyph can release a proper patch, we have also removed or omitted some things (used some lower res textures, left out new Voice Overs, etc) until that gets fixed in order to help stability. If and when that gets fixed, we should be able to pretty quickly re-add those elements to the patched versions.2.2 is effectively a complete overhaul of Thrawn's Revenge, and during its development, we've been building the base from which we'll continue to polish and expand the mod. Because of the extent to which we've changed how everything works, even with the long testing period we've been through, we're sure plenty of issues will arise- if you happen to come across any significant issues, we ask that you please report them in the tech support section on our forums. We've also already begun planning the next steps for the mod, which we've covered more in-depth in a previous news post, which you can read by clicking here. In the shorter-term, however, we have some plans for supporting the mod with any issues that arise in the immediate future. With the Steam Workshop, we'll be able to immediately push updates for that version as they happen in terms of bug fixes and balance changes, since the workshop allows automatic updates- one of our primary focuses in that respect will be keeping balance patches regularly coming to help support multiplayer. It's a bit more difficult with the other kinds of downloads, so our plan there is to compile more of those updates over the space of about a month and have a more comprehensive patch release which can be downloaded separately. ...Multiplayer Community Matches & Future Version Previews...One of our other goals, now that Petroglyph has re-enabled multiplayer for EaW via Steam, is to run regular multiplayer community matches. I will be mostly running this through my YouTube channel, where I'll also be continuing to do preview playthroughs and videos of upcoming versions of Imperial Civil War, Ascendancy, and soon, Fall of the Republic, our Clone Wars mod. The channel can be found at https://www.youtube.com/c/coreyloses . The plan is to have these matches happen roughly once per week. Basically, I will schedule the events (and update the main menu with the date for the next one on the workshop version), and host all the matches live on stream. Once I open the lobbies, anyone will be free to join. We've been doing this pretty regularly for 2.15 for the last few months, and it's been a lot of fun. It also provides valuable balancing feedback, which as I said earlier, will be acted on pretty regularly (along with the addition of new maps) on the Steam Workshop copy of the mod.The first full community matches will take place Monday, April 16th at 5pm EST, and Saturday, April 21st at 2pm EST. We may woirk in a few to our release day dev stream today at 5pm EST, however.You can also join the CGB Discord server, where there are channels dedicated to the Thrawn's Revenge mods and organizing other matches: https://discord.gg/t3WJugGFinally, we want to thank everyone for their patience and support during the development of 2.2, especially to all those who participated in the open beta testing over the last two months- it's been a long time since the last release, and we especially appreciate everyone's understanding with the delay while we attempted to mitigate the problems caused by the EaW save-load issue. We hope 2.2 is worth the wait, and we hope to continue improving the mod even more in future releases.- The Thrawn's Revenge: Imperial Civil War Development Team - ...

Revan's Revenge

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Slight Delay

Unfortunately, while most of the testing process has been going very smoothly and we've made a lot of headway, some people have started to report save crashes in the beta, so in the interest of making sure the mod is as stable as possible, we have decided to move back release by two weeks to April 12th in order to try to look into it more. We will continue running the beta off of our forums for the time being, so those who do want to help test can do so there.We're sorry for the delay, but we want to make sure once the release happens, it's as good and smooth as we can make it. ...

Thrawn's Revenge 2018: Vision of the Future

As we finish up the last bits of Imperial Civil War (we're still aiming for a release this Thursday, fingers crossed), we wanted to take a moment to talk a bit about the what the future holds for Thrawn's Revenge. We've been planning to do this since Mod of the Year concluded as a thank you for all of the amazing support we were shown in 2017, but never quite got a chance with everything going on. This post will cover the rough structure for the next couple releases as well as some general information about the future of all 3 of our major projects, Imperial Civil War (Empire at War), Ascendancy (Sins of a Solar Empire) and Fall of the Republic (Empire at War), each in its own section, but first I want to talk about multiplayer.Before we hop into that, for those who prefer video versions of news posts, here's the video version of this one:Multiplayer in Imperial Civil War & AscendancyOne of the most common questions we've been asked since Petroglyph enabled multiplayer again for Empire at War is whether Imperial Civil War will support it. Basically, yes we will, but while skirmish will be available right away, because of some of the differences between singleplayer and multiplayer functionality in EaW, we need to spend a lot more time working on multiplayer-specific stuff; it's not quite so simple as just porting over a singleplayer scenario to multiplayer, considering that a lot of the new functions and features in the mod require certain things only available in singleplayer, so it will take a bit more time.More importantly, we want to make sure people who want to play multiplayer matches of any of our mods have the opportunity to do so. To that end, I will be trying to host multiplayer matches through my Youtube Channel / Twitch streams, on Corey Loses. Basically EaW-related community matches will be hosted roughly once per week, and Ascendancy community matches around once per month. I generally start the stream, open a lobby and people can join if they want to play. This is also a great source of balancing feedback for us, so generally the Steam Workshop version of ICW (since it automatically updates for all subscribers) will be receiving regular balance patches to address anything which arises, and may also be used as a testbed for new features between major releases. There's also a Discord server for Corey Loses, which includes channels for all the Thrawn's Revenge mods as well as other EaW and Sins content for anyone looking to set up a game themselves (it's the home of Star Trek Armada 3 and Phoenix Rising as well) which you can join with this link: https://discord.gg/t3WJugGOne of the biggest takeaways for us in the development of 2.2 and Ascendancy 1.1.5 has been the value of structuring the releases in such a way that we focus more on specific bits of the mod as a major theme for the update, and release more often. We never intended for the 2.2 release of Imperial Civil War to take four years, but that is ultimately what happened, and that is what we aim to avoid. While the major theme of that update has been "The Warlords," its subtitle, it has essentially evolved into an almost complete rework of the mod graphically, in gameplay, and in narrative. We're pretty happy with the direction we're taking the mod in, but there's always more we want to do, and we want to make sure in pursuing that, we don't leave people out in the cold playing on older builds when we could have more significant, focused updates more often. Most importantly, as we progress and the mod gets more and more complex, the potential to break something increases, and we want to make sure we catch those things early and don't let them break more things down the line. With that said, let's jump into the plans.Please, please keep in mind that while we're trying to include rough planned periods for when to expect the first of each mod's listed releases, any number of factors can change that wildly- we could have additional staff join that speed up the process, or an asteroid could hit my computer and very much slow it down. We're just trying to ballpark it here. Also, keep in mind that while we're listing the following two releases for each mod, the second one will typically have less specific details, because it's both farther off and contingent on what happens in the immediately forthcoming one.Our goal here isn't quite to give specific unit lists or go into every change being planned for a release (so, don't expect things like unit lists), but instead to give some idea about the major goals for each release. Some things, like general upgrades to visuals, are always going to be part of each release, but with Imperial Civil War, which is far more established than Fall of the Republic or even Ascendancy we've essentially decided on a rule of thumb where we're going to try to do about 80% redone content, 20% new content- this way we can continually try to raise the bar of the overall quality of the mod, while still providing new things to play with in each release.Imperial Civil War 2.3 - Q4 2018Primary Goals:- New Playable Faction: Corporate Sector Authority- Additional units for warlord factions (including the Assertor)- More fleshed out storylines in existing galactic conquest scenarios- Begin new designs for Hapan faction- Ground overhauls begin (gameplay and art)- Skirmish overhauls- UI overhaulImperial Civil War 2.4Primary Goals:- New Playable Faction: Hapes Consortium- Continue ground overhauls- Continue fleshing out storylinesGeneral goals for Imperial Civil War: (These will be done as we go)- Redo EotH ground and space assets where necessary (all ground vehicles)- Improve New Class Modernization Project art assets for New Republic (Nebula, Endurance, etc)- New and updated models/textures for all ground props- Review all text entry structures, add more useful information for both lore and gameplay (weapon loadouts, lore holocrons, etc)- Continue introducing new abilities- More tactical random eventsWhile the primary focus of the team since Ascendancy's last release has been to get ICW2.2 out, we have been setting the groundwork for the next couple versions of Ascendancy, with Bane in particular working on setting up some of the ship entities for the Hapans while we've been talking about some of the broader directions to take the mod in. Our original plan was to jump straight into the next faction, but we decided ultimately that the mods as a whole would benefit more from taking another interim release to focus primarily on balance and other holes within the mod. Ascendancy 1.2 - Summer 2018Primary Goals:- Address major balance issues, flesh out certain factions/subfactions more. This is the primary goal, and we'll have a more in-depth post about this as soon as we can.- Some additional militia forces (Yevetha, Ssi-Ruuvi, existing playable factions)- Updated art assets (several have been done for ICW2.2, including the Lucrehulk, Mon Calamari Cruisers, etc, which will all make their way into Ascendancy.- Increase map selectionAscendancy 1.3Primary Goals:- New Playable Faction: Hapes Consortium- Continue expanding militia- Additional mapsGeneral goals:- Add additional tech, abilities and address balance where necessary- Continue updating art assetsBecause Fall of the Republic, our Clone Wars mod, is still heading towards its first release, there's less specific information about what we want to change- basically, you can expect Thrawn's Revenge style gameplay in a Clone Wars setting. One of the bigger things to talk about here is that we've tried to streamline development between ICW and FotR as much as we can, in that we have structured things within the mod folders so that we can work on the files common to both mods at once, meaning the only things we have to edit separately for each mod are the ships and heroes specific to each instead of all the extra things like planets, projectiles, scripts, etc, allowing everything to be done much faster.Fall of the Republic 0.5 - Q4 2018Primary Goals:- Set up basic rosters for CIS and Galactic Republic- Set up core GC sets, new planetsFall of the Republic 1.0Primary Goals:- Expand CIS and Republic rosters- Establish Hutt forces (non-playable faction)On the whole any goals which apply to the Imperial Civil War, you can also generally apply to Fall of the Republic.Like I said, not super specific but that should give you a rough idea of where we're headed- we hope you're looking forward to these releases (and 2.2, of course). If you're looking to follow Thrawn's Revenge or discuss the mods, you can do so at the following places:Website/Forums: http://thrawnsrevenge.com/forums/Video Previews & Community Matches by Corey Loses: https://www.youtube.com/c/coreylosesDiscord Server: https://discord.gg/t3WJugGMod Database:ICW: http://www.moddb.com/mods/thrawns-revengeAscendancy: http://www.moddb.com/mods/star-wars-ascendancyFall of the Republic: http://www.moddb.com/mods/star-wars-thrawns-revenge-iii ...

Icon Upgrades Part 1

One of our long term goals is to redo the UI art as thoroughly as possible, and the first step in this is icons. While even that is still in progress, you can see here the first phase, some of the ship icons. The new style is much more clean, and the background on the build bar should distract from them far less. This style we plan to apply to all ships and vehicles, and then we hope to start improving hero icons as well.With 2.3, we hope to start getting into the main HUD backgrounds and start making whatever quality of life updates to the UI layout we need to to accomodate either new features, or simply make it feel a bit fresher (for now, for example, the filter buttons feel rather out of place). ...

Preview Playthrough: Empire's End as the Imperial Remnant

A little while ago, I started my final preview playthrough serie son Corey Loses for Imperial Civil War 2.2, covering the Empire's End GC scenario as the Imperial Remnant. Check it out for a full demonstration of how era change mechanics work in 2.2, and a bunch of other stuff. ...