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

News

Imperial Civil War 2.3 Overview

With 2.2.5 wrapped, we've started to move onto the next full version of Imperial Civil War (and Ascendancy / Fall of the Republic, but their time will come). As we ramp up production, we thought we'd give a brief overview of what the main focuses are in 2.3. As always, if you prefer video versions of news posts, you can see that just below. The information in the written and video versions is the same....Priorities..."Neither Syndic Mitth'ras'safis nor I is unsympathetic toward Commander Mitth'raw'nuruodo. We wish only to protect him from his own excesses" - Admiral Ar'alani to Jorj Car'dasWhile we're happy with the results of 2.2, we know there are a lot of areas we still can and want to significantly improve it, across the board. One of the main things we decided in 2.2's development, however, is that once we had it as a basis, we would need to do a better job prioritizing how and when we would approach each aspect in order to avoid the time it took for the complete overhaul that 2.2 turned out to be. 2.2 took over 4 years, but it also involved a significant reworking of every galactic conquest, a ton of the art, and basically everything else. Rather than tackle everything at once, with 2.3 and subsequent versions, we intend to choose smaller areas to focus on, and for broader projects, to split them up into milestones so we can have slightly smaller but more focused and frequent releasesl. 2.2 also involved a lot of reworking behind the scenes to make certain things a lot easier to work on and more modular, so a good amount of that 2.2 development time should continue to pay off into 2.3, Fall of the Republic and any other future versions or projects.What follows is not an exhaustive list of what's coming, but it should give a decent idea of what you can look forward to in the next version....Factions..."The Corporate Sector is completely by the book, and when they feel they are right, according to that book, there is no stopping them." - Reen IranaWith 2.3 and subsequent versions, rather than try to do major changes for all factions at once, we've instead chosen to focus on individual factions to receive most of the focus for new or redone units. For most releases, this will mean either a new faction being added and another one receiving most of the new and redone content, or two factions receiving the new/redone content when we're not adding a new playable faction. We'll also choose one faction for whom we plan to flesh out a lot more story missions and events for galactic conquest, and one or two galactic conquests where we plan to flesh out all present factions' stories. This isn't to say nobody else will receive anything in these releases, just that we're specifically directing our attention to a more narrow subset. Each section will get its own news post covering exactly what's included in it as we go.New playable faction: Corporate Sector AuthorityNew unit focus: Eriadu AuthorityNew story focus: New RepublicGC story focus: Bacta War / Thrawn Campaign...AI...A lot of the major AI changes only started coming into the mod towards the end of 2.2's development aside from some tactical changes that Pox and I were working on, but evilbobthebob has brought the galactic AI a long way in terms of focusing its production and aggression. There will continue to be changes to the AI throughout 2.3 as well. A primary focus of this will be continuing to divide ship roles beyond what exists already so we can get the AI to more effectively build diverse fleets- not all frigates are meant to do the same thing, nor are all capital ships, so the more we can make distinctions between them and more effectively control AI fleet compositions.With 2.2, we also tried to make the AI play for the most part within the same rules as the player, depending on difficulty. With 2.3, for those who want a much more challenging experience, we want to introduce some extra optional levers to make games more challenging throughout, and maintain some resistance for longer. This will, again, be completely optional, so those who prefer to fight on a more level playing field will be able to continue on with the more fair pre-existing difficulty levels....Ground Overhaul..."General, prepare your troops for a surface attack." - Darth VaderWith 2.3 we plan to begin some of our ground overhaul changes. In future versions we have a number of basic mechanical changes that, if they work out, would significantly change how ground combat works in EaW, but that's a bit more long term. We're going to be starting off by working on fleshing out the pacing, unit roles, damage modifiers, balance and all of those factors within the existing mechanics of ICW ground combat. Alongside this will be some art reworks to props, map textures and existing ground vehicles to improve the aesthetics of ground combat, but this generally means that, except for what gets added to new factions, we generally will not be adding new vehicles in the next version or two. We'd rather focus our resources on getting what's there right and expanding from that than continue to add things in which make it more complicated to make the more basic changes. Once we have everything set up, it'll be easier to add new units within that.So that about covers it for the overview- again, that's not an exhaustive list of what we're working on, but it does cover most of the main focuses. We'll have more specific updates covering the specific sections as we go, and as with 2.2, I'll be running preview playthroughs throughout development on my Youtube channel, Corey Loses (https://www.youtube.com/coreyloses), starting with an Eriadu Authority playthrough in Art of War next week. ...

Imperial Civil War 2.2.5 Released

We've updated both ModDB and the Steam workshop version of the mod to 2.2.5, which for ModDB means all previous updates since 2.2 are now included as well. If you have the Steam version, it will already have automatically updated.ModdB: http://www.moddb.com/mods/thrawns-revengeSteam: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1125571106Code: [Select]- Multiplayer GC Support Added: Thrawn Campaign available as New Republic and Imperial Remnant- New VO for dozens of units, across all factions- Yevetha Re-Enabled in GC and Skirmish- Empires at War and Black Fleet Crisis GCs Re-Enabled- Several tactical maps added or updated for galactic conquest planets- New Skirmish map: Smuggler's Ring- Some updates to ingame tech tree dialog screens- More AI tweaks, should fix AI skirmish issues with upgrading and building units- Squadron count changes for several EotH ships (reflected in all tooltips)- Hapan fighter spam nerfed- Added a fix to prevent infinite loops causing game freezes when returning to galactic from tactical battles.- Removed ground spawns from space-only planets for Yevetha in progressive GCs- Stat display supported in mission log for all GCs and factions- Added plot elements for building Wedge in the Lusankya for all applicable GCs, changes to Rogue Squadron spawns.- Fixed issue where Carnor's era change speech would happen at the same cue as Palpatines (era changes would go on unaffected though)- Removed Eri Palle- Event added for Sil Sorrannon's revolt in BFC, which removes Yevethan heroes if you take too long winning the GC- Fixed NR starting credits in Crimson Empire and Shadow Hand- Fixed issue where Normal was getting more bonuses than Hard in some ways- Fixed Ashik, Pellaeon, Skipray FoW reveal for Skirmish- All EotH units have full stat readouts in text tooltips. Will be applied to other factions in 2.3 after feedback.- Standardized Z-layers for ships of the same class (still randomized)- Artillery health from 300->100 (MPTL, SPMAT, Plasma Mortar- More ground units switched to hardpoints for inaccuracy checks- Miy'til, TIE Raptor and ARC-170 lasers brought into line with other fighters- TIE Defender health 25 -> 30, Shield Refresh 1 -> 3, added flyby sound effects- Yevetha plex soldier icon changed- Fixed Kariek ground map causing a crash- Fixed Megamaser Texture ...

2.2.5 Overview and MP Preview

2.2.5 Patch Overview - Coming June 28thWe'll soon be releasing 2.2.5, which we hope will be the last major patch necessary for 2.2, after which we'll be moving on to full production for 2.3 (more information on that later). Below is an overview of the major changes coming in the patch. The manual will be releasing with it, available as a separate download on ModDB and included within your steam workshop files if you subscribe there. The ModDB download will be updated with the new changes and all previous patches.Code: [Select]- Multiplayer GC Support Added: Thrawn Campaign available as New Republic and Imperial Remnant- New VO for dozens of units, across all factions- Yevetha Re-Enabled in GC and Skirmish- Empires at War and Black Fleet Crisis GCs Re-Enabled- Several tactical maps added or updated for galactic conquest planets- New Skirmish map: Smuggler's Ring- Some updates to ingame tech tree dialog screens- More AI tweaks, should fix AI skirmish issues with upgrading and building units- Squadron count changes for several EotH ships (reflected in all tooltips)- Hapan fighter spam nerfed- Added a fix to prevent infinite loops causing game freezes when returning to galactic from tactical battles.- Removed ground spawns from space-only planets for Yevetha in progressive GCs- Stat display supported in mission log for all GCs and factions- Added plot elements for building Wedge in the Lusankya for all applicable GCs, changes to Rogue Squadron spawns.- Fixed issue where Carnor's era change speech would happen at the same cue as Palpatines (era changes would go on unaffected though)- Removed Eri Palle- Event added for Sil Sorrannon's revolt in BFC, which removes Yevethan heroes if you take too long winning the GC- Fixed NR starting credits in Crimson Empire and Shadow Hand- Fixed issue where Normal was getting more bonuses than Hard in some ways- Fixed Ashik, Pellaeon, Skipray FoW reveal for Skirmish- All EotH units have full stat readouts in text tooltips. Will be applied to other factions in 2.3 after feedback.- Standardized Z-layers for ships of the same class (still randomized)- Artillery health from 300->100 (MPTL, SPMAT, Plasma Mortar- More ground units switched to hardpoints for inaccuracy checks- Miy'til, TIE Raptor and ARC-170 lasers brought into line with other fighters- TIE Defender health 25 -> 30, Shield Refresh 1 -> 3, added flyby sound effects- Yevetha plex soldier icon changed- Fixed Kariek ground map causing a crash- Fixed Megamaser TextureI've also begun a multiplayer preview playthrough on Corey Loses, which you can watch here: ...

Empire at War Steam Sale

Since the Steam version of Empire at War has received several patches not available to the disk and GoG versions, we often recommend people pick it up to get the most out of the mods that they can. IT's currently on sale on Steam for 60% off, if you want to get a copy: https://store.steampowered.com/app/32470/STAR_WARS_Empire_at_War__Gold_Pack/...

[Sale] Sins of a Solar Empire - Stardock All-Star RTS Sale

Hey everyone, for those of you who are Imperial Civil War fans but have wanted to check out Ascendancy as well, Stardock is currently holding their All-Star RTS sale until the 20th, which includes Sins of a Solar Empire and all DLC. They've also been kind enough to give me an affiliate link through Corey Loses, so if you use this link ( https://www.stardock.com/all-star-rts-games/?affiliate=coreycham ), a percentage of the purchase goes towards me as well. Weève been recommending Sins for years, otherwise we wouldn't be modding it, so this is a great opportunity to pick it up if you want to get a great game and help support my work as well. Two other Stardock games, Offworld Trading Company and Ashes of the Singularity, are also available for the same sale price in the Stardock store if those interest you. All purchases give keys that can be redeemed on Steam.Since Petroglpyh has been patching EaW on Steam, and many people still only have the Disk or GoG version, we'll also try to post when EaW goes on sale so people can pick up a cheaper copy of the game. ...

[ICW] 2.2.5 Updates and Developer Livestream - 12 Years of Thrawn's Revenge

On June 8th, Thrawn's Revenge hit its 12th anniversary, so we're doing an update series to mark the occasion for all of our current projects. We started with Ascendancy Thursday, then Fall of the Republic yesterday and finally, today we'll cover Imperial Civil War. These will all have a video and a written component, though unlike usual, these will cover different things. You can follow the links below to get between all three updates when they're released:Star Wars: Ascendancy - Hapan Preview & Balance Patch OverviewFall of the Republic - Preview Video & We Could Be Heroes: CIS EditionImperial Civil War - 2.2.5 Projections & Dev StreamLast year, we also released a historical infographic, so if you wanna check that out, you can see it here: https://www.moddb.com/mods/thrawns-revenge/news/thrawns-revenge-historical-infographic...Developer Livestream...Today we're going to be talking about what's coming in 2.2.5, but first, we're also going to be doing a developer livestream on Corey Loses at 2pm EST, which you can watch on either youtube by clicking here or twitch by clicking here. We're still not sure how many of us will be able to attend, so we'll basically be answering questions and talking about the mod while playing some skirmish matches, or playing some older versions depending on who's available....2.2.5 Overview...We're approaching the fifth patch for 2.2, and that means a few things. For one, this patch will mean we update the regular download. Uploading the individual patches has been somewhat problematic, so we've left it as is, as the alternative was to re-upload the entire mod every couple weeks, which we think people would generally be opposed to. With this news post, we're only going to be covering the changes from 2.2.4 to 2.2.5, so if you play the GoG or disk version of the mod as opposed to the Steam Workshop version, you can check out the change notes here for all the previous updates.Major Changes & FixesAdded: Multiplayer Galactic ConquestBecause of the lack of multiplayer support for certain features integral to Imperial Civil War, it's taken a fair bit of work to get things setup within the mod to where we can do a multiplayer GC. Unfortunately, MP will always be a lot more limited than singleplayer, but we should be able to start getting in a few scenarios. We'll be starting off with a converted version of the Thrawn Campaign, with the Empire vs New Republic, and then we'll do individual releases of additional MP GCs designed around the other factions. Because the era system can't be used properly in MP and having multiple factions really just means a lot of autoresolving (there's no way around that), MP galactic conquests will ahve to be designed mostly from scratch, but the goal is to have at least one scenario playable for each faction in the long-term (Fall of the Republic will obviously be a lot more simple for this.Added: Faction Stat ChartEmpire at War has a helpful graph ingame which shows the relative strength of factions, their economies, and the amount of planets. The downside is that it only shows the factions which use the Rebel, Empire and Zann Consortium coding, which in the mod means Empire, NR and EotH. While we can't change this directly, evilbobthebob has added an entry to the holocron which will display these stats in numerical form for whichever factions are present. You can see what it looks like below.Re-Added: Yevetha, Black Fleet Crisis, Empires at WarUpon release of 2.2, there was a bug present with the Yevetha where, if they were invaded, there was a chance that the game would crash. Because of this, we patched them and the GCs with them as a focus out while we looked for a fix. While we're not 100% sure yet, we believe we've tracked down the issue. We've noticed an error which the game throws when attacking a faction in the 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th or 21st faction slots, regardless of how the faction is set up. The downside, if this is the real culprit, is that we can't fix it directly, however the upside for now is that we can remove the faction dividers and get the Yevetha and some other minor factions out of the danger zone. It does mean we may have to change some future faction plans, but we've also been in contact with Petroglyph about it, so they may be able to point us in the right direction.Fixed: Post-Battle FreezesThere's also been an occasional issue reported where the game can sometimes freeze coming out of a tactical battle. This seems, based on the reports and our own testing, to be related to the transaction manager that tracks things like boarding and single-unit retreat, where the game gets stuck in a loop in the script and can't get out of it. We're pretty confident we can track down the issue and resolve it from there.VoiceoversWheyloffle has been hard at work implementing the VOs submitted since we put out the call for voice actors before release, and as a result we're going to have dozens of fresh new voices in the patch, for all factions.The ManualSlornie's also been working on updating the manual with all the 2.2 content to get it ready for release. This will be uplaoded with the 2.2.5 version, as well as a separate standalone pdf.TranslationsWhile these won't be directly included with the 2.2.5 download, but we've finally got a system set up to make translations simple, painless and allow multiple people to collaborate on any given language translation. Several people have contacted us over the last few months about it, so if those people or anyone else who wants to help can either message me on Discord ( Corey on https://discord.gg/t3WJugG ) or email ThrawnsRevenge@gmail.com, we'll get you set up. We can't promise any specific languages since it depends on who volunteers, but we'll hopefully be able to get a few going....and more. There's been plenty of other smaller changes going on, including balance, AI updates, bug fixes, and even a few new maps by Rogue and one by myself that I've been making on livestreams. After this patch, we'll be moving on from 2.2 and getting the new content for 2.3 underway, including the Corporate Sector Authority, Assertor, and much more. That's also when you'll starts eeing a lot more about Fall of the Republic. I'm going to be moving early next month, so I don't want to give a solid release date just yet, but we'd love to get the patch out before then.That's gonna do it for now. Before we go, we want to thank everyone for their support over the last 12 years. It's been a long journey, but we hope we can keep raising the bar in the mod and exceed the expectations people have set for us.- The Thrawn's Revenge Team ...

Fall of the Republic - Preview Video & We Could Be Heroes: CIS Edition

Hello everyone! On June 8th, Thrawn's Revenge will hit its 12th anniversary, so we're doing an update series to mark the occasion for all of our current projects. We started with Ascendancy yesterday, then Fall of the Republic today, and on Saturday we'll cover Imperial Civil War. These will all have a video and a written component, though unlike usual, these will cover different things. You can follow the links below to get between all three updates when they're released:Star Wars: Ascendancy - Hapan Preview & Balance Patch OverviewFall of the Republic - Preview Video & We Could Be Heroes: CIS EditionImperial Civil War - 2.2.5 Projections & Dev StreamLast year, we also released a historical infographic, so if you wanna check that out, you can see it here: https://www.moddb.com/mods/thrawns-revenge/news/thrawns-revenge-historical-infographicPreview Video...I've done an early preview gameplay video as part of my 12 hour livestream on Corey Loses, which you can watch below. While we still have plenty left to do, this was basically just to give an idea of how far along we are in terms of organization and some assets. There's still a lot of balancing to be done as well, but you can see some of the new assets like the CIS Lucrehulk Battleship and Vulture Droids that weren't in ICW, as well as a few explanations of content and some Q&A throughout the video. This was the last hour of a 12 hour stream, so it's probably not my most coherent video, though. Once we're a bit farther along, I'll do a full preview playthrough with each faction, like we did with ICW leading up to 2.2.We Could be Heroes: CIS...Next up, we have the CIS hero roster heading into the first release. Our goal with this version was to get a relatively similarly-sized core hero roster for the CIS and Republic- there'll be more to come later, but these are either the more major players in the time period, or they fill a particular niche that the faction needs and otherwise lacks. Part of our focus is also to expand some of the standard fleet elements of the time, which tend to receive a bit less focus next to all the jedi, so you'll see a few more obscure captains and admirals in both factions, especially characters who would later play a much larger role in the Imperial or Post-Endor period, keeping connections between Fall of the Republic and Imperial Civil War."The best of all would be the strongest student, yes? Wisest? Most learned in the ways of the Force? Best of all, Dooku would be! Our greatest student! Our greatest failure." - Master YodaCount Dooku - Ground, Space: Providence-class Carrier/Destroyer, Lucid VoiceA powerful jedi who began to lose faith in the Order after the Battle of Galidraan in the Mandalorian Civil War, Count Dooku, also known as Darth Tyrannus, is a Sith Lord who serves as the de facto political leader of the Confederacy of Independent Systems. Under the guidance of Darth Sidious, it was Dooku's work which united the various disaffected corporations and blocs within the Republic to form the CIS.General Grievous - GroundSpace: Recusant-class Light DestroyerSpace: Subjugator-class Heavy Cruiser, MalevolenceSpace: Providence-class Carrier/Destroyer, Invisible HandGeneral Grievous was a Kaleesh warrior who was cybernetically enhanced after a bomb planetd by San Hill and Count Dooku on his shuttle left him near death. In the Clone Wars, his cybernetic enhancements and training by Count Dooku allowed him to wield lightsabers, which he used to great effect, killing multiple jedi and collecting their lightsabers as trophies. Most importantly, Grievous also served as the first Supreme Commander of the CIS forces, united what was previously a very fractious and disorganized military and allowing it to effectively challenge the Republic for much of the war.Assaj Ventress - GroundAssaj Ventress was a powerful Dathomiri Dark Jedi and acolyte of Count Dooku, hoping to be his Sith apprentice. Over the course of the Clone Wars, she fought Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker multiple times. After a command by Sidious that Dooku kill Ventress, fearing her growing power, Ventress returned to Dathomir and planned for revenge against Dooku.Sev'rance Tann - GroundTann was a Chiss Dark Jedi who left Chiss space to join Dooku's forces in the Clone Wars. Despite being a skilled warrior, she was killed on Krant only a month into the Clone Wars by Jedi MAster Echuu Shen-JonSora Bulq - GroundSora Bulq was a Jedi Master famous for his skill with a lightsaber, although he fell to the dark side after helping Mace Windu develop his Vaapad form. He was captured by Count Dooku, and then served as a secret agent of the Sith Lord, attempting to cause discord within the Jedi Order before becoming the leader of Dooku's Dark Acolytes.Viceroy Nute Gunray - GalacticAs the Viceroy of the Trade Federation, the Neimoidian Nute Gunray was one of the highest ranking political leaders within the Confederacy and a sitting member of the Separatist Council.Emir Wat Tambor - GalacticLike Nute Gunray, the Skakoan Wat Tambor was a member of the Separatist Council. He was also the Foreman of the Techno Union, and Executive of the Baktoid Armour Workshop. Baktoid was responsible for the manufacturing of many of the separatist forces' designs, including various types of battle droids and starfighters.Admiral Trench - Space: Providence-class Dreadnought, InvincibleCommanding one of a few massive Providence Dreadnoughts within the Separatist fleet, Trench was was a Harch and seasoned Admiral under the banner of the Coporate Alliance, and then the CIS.Admiral Pors Tonith - Space: Munificent-class Star Frigate, CorpulentusA Muun banker and admiral from the Banking Clan, Pors Tonight was a capable commander, although he often overestimated his own capabilities. Relatively early into the war, he was captured by Anakin Skywalker.Captain Canteval - Space: Munificent-class Star Frigate, ProfitA Muun captain, Canteval was in charge of CIS operations on Taloraan whcih had a secret treaty with Count Dooku. During the landing of their forces. While engaging Republic ground forces including the Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker, Canteval planned to ambush the Venator-class Resolute, which resulted in his ship flying into a gas giant after losing control of its engines.Captain Mar Tuuk - Space: Lucrehulk-class Droid Control Ship, ProcurerA shrewd Neimoidian tactician and student of military history, Mar Tuuk was the commander in charge of the blockade of Ryloth. After Anakin Skywalker rammed his Lucrehulk with the Defender, the CIS forces at Ryloth fell into disarray and the Republic was able to successfully liberate the planet.Admiral Dua Ningo - Bulwark-class Battleship, UnrepentantDua Ningo was a high-ranking Sullustan admiral during the Clone Wars, serving as the commander of the new Bulwark Fleet late in the war, a fleet comprised of multiple new and powerful Bulwark Battleships built at Foerost. After his success at breaking the blockade of Foerost, Ningo was tasked with planning an invasion of Coruscant, resulting in a series of battles against the Victory Fleet under the command of Jan Dodonna and Terrinald Screed throughout the core.Aut-0 - Space: Providence-class Carrier/Destroyer, Resounding CadenceAut-0 was a super tactical droid who commanded a fleet of primarily Recusants within Separatist territor, who was deactivated late in the war by asquad of droids led by R2-D2.TF-1726 - Space: Munificent-class Star Frigate, Tide of ProgressTF-1726 was a T-series tactical droid who commanded the separatist fleet of Munificent frigates at the Battle of Quell against General Aayla secura, in which the droid was able to secure a separatist victory, although Aayla was able to escape.Kalani - GroundAnother super tactical droid, Kalani was dispatched by Count Dooku to dispel resistance to CIS occupation on Onderon after the repeated failures of King Sanjay Rash, whom KAlani later executed for his failures.General Lok Durd - Ground: AATLok Durd was a Neimoidian weapons developer and general within the CIS. He was repsonsible for the creation of the Defoliator, an anti-organic artillery weapon which left droids unharmed, which he planned to test on MAridun. In the ensuing battle, he was captured by Anakin Skywalker, Ahsoka Tano and Aayla Secura.General Whorm Loathsome - Ground: AATGeneral Whorm Loathsome was the commander of the Kerkoiden military forces, as wella s the leader of the Retail Caucus' forces within the CIS. He was the notably responsible for the capture of Christophsis and the commander of CIS forces against the Republic liberation force there.Durge - Ground, Space: NovaSwird Space Superiority FighterDurge was a bounty hunter of the Gen'dai species, meanign he was able to regenerate his body from almost any injury. By the time of the Clone Wars, he was nearly two thousand years old. He harboured a deep hatred of the Mandalorians, which led to his recruitment into the war against the Clone Troopers of the Republic on the side of the CIS. He was only killed once Anakin Skywalker launched him into a star.That's it for today's post. As I said near the start, we have some other options and idea for heroes for future releases, so if you notice someone missing, feel free to suiggest them, but don't worry- much like ICW, our goal is to approach the mod in smaller chunks to make sure we're able ... ...

[Ascendancy] Hapan Preview & Balance Patch Overview - 12 Years of TR

Hello everyone! On June 8th, Thrawn's Revenge will hit its 12th anniversary, so we're doing an update series to mark the occasion for all of our current projects. We'll be starting with Ascendancy today (Thursday), then Friday will be Fall of the Republic, and on Saturday we'll cover Imperial Civil War. These will all have a video and a written component, though unlike usual, these will cover different things. You can follow the links below to get between all three updates when they're released:Star Wars: Ascendancy - Hapan Preview & Balance Patch OverviewFall of the Republic - Preview Video & We Could Be Heroes: CIS EditionImperial Civil War - 2.2.5 Projections & Dev StreamLast year, we also released a historical inforgraphic, so if you wanna check that out, you can see it here: https://www.moddb.com/mods/thrawns-revenge/news/thrawns-revenge-historical-infographic...Hapan Preview...As we've previously announced, the Hapan faction will be the next faction added to Ascendancy, which will be the main focus for 1.2. The next version we release, however, will still be focused on balance changes for the original four factions before piling more content in. Myself, Bane and Caesar's Legion have been busy testing and tweaking things to smooth out the rough edges, something Ascendancy has needed for a long time, while we've been finishing ICW2.2, working on the planning stages for the Hapan faction and getting their enitities set up. We'll be getting into the balance changes in a moment, but first, I've done a quick (very, very) early preview playthrough video as part of my 12 hour livestream on Corey Loses, which you can watch here:...Balance Change Overview...The changes here won't be exhaustive since that's impossible without a huge wall of text (we'll try to do a full changelog including bugfixeswhen the actual patch releases), but hopefully will give a general idea of where we're headed, so please keep that in mind. There are a few major areas we're hitting for each section, so we'll address them by faction.Pentastar AlignmentThe Pentastar Alignment has stood head and shoulders above the other factions in 'competitive' play, so there are several nerfs and adjustments coming to them. First off, the Venator- it's meant to be a carrier with some combat ability, but for a few reasons, it's basically both a really good carrier, and a really good everything else. To address this, first off there has been a mod-wide reduction of laser damage against frigates and capital ships. The Venator had multiple point-defense lasers, which in the mod were giving most of its anti-capital damage as well. This has been significantly reduced, without reducing their intended function (being actual point defense), and as a result, the Venator now loses to the Procursator in direct 1-on-1 combat, as it should, while still being a strong option for providing fighters. Its also had some increases to its population cost, and resource costs. The second major change with the PA is with their supply lines tech- the goal with that tech was to have a small passive regen for fighter supply, but the result was a huge passive resupply regen instead, to the point that it was next to impossible to keep their fighters down. Now, the regen should be enough that it helps strategically, but not enough that it's a tactical problem. For that, PA players will have to invest in fleet tenders. The Empire and the PA, while they're supposed to be quantity over quality factions, had that accounted for both in ship pop costs, as well as their available supply, giving them undue advantages on both counts. While they'll still get bonus pop cap out of research (where the EotH and NR get other quality improvements) their baseline fleet supply research has been standardized with all factions, so each faction starts with the same core and then gets modified from their according to their strengths and weaknesses. This should also help a little bit with late game performance and fleet management. Another tech that gave them a huge advantage over the other factions was the bank increase tech, Spread Fire- this could basically double their damage output beyond what the EotH and NR could keep up with, so this tech has been removed (it doesn't work with the Hand for technical reasons, and in general it's too powerful a tech to be worth keeping around).Imperial RemnantThe changes directly related to the Empire have more to do with the subfactions. Generally, Daala was quite strong while the others lagged behind. Daala will remain more or less unchanged, aside from what's already been mentioned and some other smaller tweaks. With Palpatine, we're generally happy with the playstyle of the faction, but there needed to be more adjustments within that. Primarily, the drawbacks for his faction make sense, but the numbers for them were too high and came all at once. The culture suppression he has is strong, and he shouldn't spread as fast as others, but it was often too hard to expand at all if you took him too early. We'll be reducing the culture penalties he has fairly significantly, and spreading them across more tech so he has more time to adapt to it. We'll also be reducing the capital ship experience gain penalty a small bit. Shield mitigation on the non-Eclipse SSDs has also been increased a bit for all factions, which should help out all the Imperials a bit more than other factions. One area we're looking at with Palpatine particularly is making the initial investment in World Devastators worth it, or at least increasing their chances of being able to scale to the mini-titan point intended if given enough time (we don't want to front-load that too much, however).Thrawn and Pellaeon are the subfaction which requires the most work. A lot of their numbers have been increased for this patch, including fleet supply numbers since their focus is on smaller ships however they lack the same clear 'hook' of Palpatine and Daala. With them, making them more interesting is as high a priority of making them more usable competitively so they will likely get a bit better with this patch, and get more fleshed out with the 1.2 release and the Hapans.New RepublicA lot of the New Republic's issues are generally solved by the nerfs to the Imperial factions- a big reason they were not really able to compete as much was because they were generally being outnumbered, as well as the target bank tech increase the PA and IR received. Most NR changes have revolved around small changes to pop cap allocation, like making the Dauntless and BAC's slot count lower, but generally alongside the other changes we've found them to be in a decent spot in our testing so far. They've also received a new tech to increase their max trainable capital ship level, further emphasizing their quality over quantity focus.Empire of the HandAside from some of the toning down with the PA and IR we've talked about already, some of the biggest problems with the Empire of the Hand were how micro-intensive they can be. A lot of their strengths involved how quickly they could move around the map, and while we want to keep some of that micro-focus, ultimately a faction that relies on speed isn't able to compete as well in the late game and relies a lot on spreading heavily in the early game. Generally, our focus here will be to strength the abilities of Empire of the Hand capital ships, giving them better access to higher levels (as we did with the NR) and increasing ship power by buffing the abilities rather than going for raw stats, leaving their ships generally more vulnerable between cooldowns but having more tools to work with when used properly if they can maintain those levels.We hope you're looking forward to these changes and the others coming with the update- we're doing our best to make the mod a fun competitive experience, and we appreciate your patience as we try to sort through everything. It's always an ongoing process, so anything we overlook in this release, we'll keep addressing as we need to in future patches. This one in particular should be hitting ModDB on Thursday, June 28th.That's going to cover it for this update. If you have any other suggestions, please feel free to leave them on the comments of this news post, or visit our forums or the Corey Loses & Gul Survives Discord server, which has channels for all the Thrawn's Revenge mods. Next up will be Fall of the Republic tomorrow! ...

Imperial Civil War 2.2.4 Patch Notes (Steam Workshop Update)

This patch primarily focuses on attempting to fix or reduce the freeze issues which sometimes occur when battles end. So far, we've had few to no reports of it since certain fixes were applied, but we can't be 100% sure without more testing. There's a potential for some transaction-relient abilities to still cause it (boarding, Single-unit retreat) so we're keeping an eye on those specifically. We've also applied several AI upgrades, along with other smaller bug fixes and changes. This patch will not be compatible with saves from 2.2.3.2.2.4 Change Log:- Several map updates (Phindar, Serenno maps added)- Re-added m,ap preview images (on invasion/base layout sacreens)-  AI Improvements:-- Improved the way defending ground forces interact with landing zones (defendedrs shouldn't care about enemy reinforcements, they can go take landing zones)-- Certain defensive plans made more accessible to AI-- Fixed EotH building namers in AI plans-- Improved AI handling of planetary weapons (factions using PA HVGun should fire it now)-- SSD asteroid collision removed to help with pathfinding-- AI now takes reinforcements into account before deciding to retreat-- Incrteased desire to upgrade starbase levels-- Added Interdictor as independent category type for AI use-- Other minor adjustments- Validusia made available to all Imperial factions- Validusia range increased, should now outrange most ships and actually be somewhat useful (2100 -> 3100)- Nerfed Ewok hunter damage- Various text fixes (including Trier, Okins and Kosh ship command text, boarding use depletion tooltip)- Lag experiements: restored AI for inactive factions, incraesed galactic movespeed (may be reverted)- Fixed Megamaser graphical effects (singles should no longer render as duals)- MMT AoE damage removed. strong single-target damage, shouldn't wipe infantry squads- Gamescoring script restored, should track end-game stats more accurately now)- Documentation updates: EotH only for now, added more stats to tooltips- Potential fix for crash opn completion of Katana Fleet mission (needs more testing)- Elrood income 220 -> 120- Oto, Empress, Validusia prices adjusted- Empress Proton Torpedo launch count 2 -> 1 for all HPs- Raid fleets temporarily disabled in era-progressive GCs- Harrsk combat bonus to own star destroyer now applies properly (Whirlwind)- Performance improvements to structure display ...