Posted by: mynameisyou
« on: September 16, 2012, 06:20:51 PM »Sweet 
Posted by: Corey
« on: September 16, 2012, 05:58:07 PM »All I'll say on that is we're more comfortable working with Superweapons in Sins than in EaW.
Posted by: Senza
« on: September 16, 2012, 05:57:30 PM »It's certainly possible to do a superlaser like ability in Sins, and you can actually destroy planets and convert them either into asteroids or asteroid fields using a tech already in game for the Vasari Loyalists called Stripped to the Core. Whether or not the team will implement this, I don't know, of course :p.
One thing I think might be interesting though would be the galaxy gun, you could basically just rename the Novalith and give it a new model and you'd have it :p
One thing I think might be interesting though would be the galaxy gun, you could basically just rename the Novalith and give it a new model and you'd have it :p
Posted by: mynameisyou
« on: September 16, 2012, 05:45:47 PM »will there be super lasers 
Posted by: Senza
« on: September 16, 2012, 05:27:06 PM »Good, honest answer Corey, cleared up my questions pretty nicely! I am glad that things will be more robust, will hopefully allow for multiple strategies to be viable, just like in TR.
Posted by: oxtyt
« on: September 16, 2012, 05:14:50 PM »It's important to remember this is a total conversion, not just a reskinning. So saying "how are you doing pirates" or "how are you doing loyalists vs rebels" really aren't the right questions. We're using the tools the game gives us to make Star Wars.
That is pretty amazing
. Since I know pretty much nothing about modding I thought that you had to stick with the games rules but seeing you don't have to I would love to have a real start wars game on sins engine with all the possibilities that comes with it. Also will looking forward to what surprises you would add to the game like you did with the era system of ICW.
Posted by: mynameisyou
« on: September 16, 2012, 05:10:46 PM »cool
Posted by: Corey
« on: September 16, 2012, 04:47:37 PM »We don't really want to give out too much information on specifics yet, but there's some general stuff I'll cover.
Lavo is talking about how it is set up in the backend; in the coding they are distinct factions, just given the same assets and put on the same side of the menu, which is meaningless. There's no degree of similarity that has to be kept between those factions, the difference in structure, only in substance. In any case, we're only doing the three main factions to begin with. We might add more but we want each faction to have a more unique playstyle, so having Remnant and then Warlords and PA would kind of be redundant. The way the mod build is setup now, we have it so you're essentially scrolling through and the "pages" that had the loyalist and rebel versions of a faction before now have the EotH on the left, IR on the right and then you go to the next page and it's like a cycle with EotH-NR, etc. The ships and everything shown on those pages that the faction share in the original game are actually put into the window not as some hardcoded pooled asset thing, but it's directly coded into the GUI.
It's important to remember this is a total conversion, not just a reskinning. So saying "how are you doing pirates" or "how are you doing loyalists vs rebels" really aren't the right questions. We're using the tools the game gives us to make Star Wars.
If you're familiar with flagship victory, the current plan is to do those with an important military figure from each faction. We may implement other heroes if we find a satisfactory way to do it without hurting gameplay.
There will be SSDs but in general our plans for unit lists in Sins is to make them more robust for several reasons. Where the era system in ICW allowed/made us put in multiple ships for the same role, in Ascendancy we're being a lot more stringent with that. There are both performance and gameplay reasons for this, however the basic structure of the Remnant faction in the mod is planned to be centered on the Palpatine way of doing things, pending balance tests.
We really don't want to have pirates in the traditonal Sins sense. It wouldn't make sense in Star Wars. You don't pay off the Hapans to go attack another faction. We'd like to implement more factions in various capacities in the future, but the plan for the first release is to focus on the three main factions.
The weapons systems we're using are fairly similar to balancing in ICW, but again, we're trying to emphasize factional differences. For some factions an SSD is going to be the backbone of your fleet, and a major strategic asset. For others (Empire of the Hand), they're still not going to be present. We want an IR player to have to think differently from an NR player, from an EotH player, etc.
This isn't something we've decided or put much research into yet, since it'll depend a lot on how the engine handles things. There are some nuances here that get back to the factional differences thing, as well. Some aspects of this I'll cover in my next answer as well.
Actually it is correct; it is set as 2 different sub-faction for every race, which have just different titans and different technological upgrades and so on. Calling them entirely different factions would be going very far. Even in the faction selection menu they are called the same faction. But maybe it could be modified in such a way to make them feel more different and much more unique.
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Sins rebellion has a system of rebels and loyals as I am sure you are aware of it, so using this system you could easily make the empire in to two distinct factions as loyal as the Imperial Remnant and rebel as the Pentastar Alignment. Due to the fact that they use mainly the same ships and units and defenses. Was wondering was this really what you plan to do with it or do you have some other amazing idea for the rebel and loyal system and going to surprise us with it?
Lavo is talking about how it is set up in the backend; in the coding they are distinct factions, just given the same assets and put on the same side of the menu, which is meaningless. There's no degree of similarity that has to be kept between those factions, the difference in structure, only in substance. In any case, we're only doing the three main factions to begin with. We might add more but we want each faction to have a more unique playstyle, so having Remnant and then Warlords and PA would kind of be redundant. The way the mod build is setup now, we have it so you're essentially scrolling through and the "pages" that had the loyalist and rebel versions of a faction before now have the EotH on the left, IR on the right and then you go to the next page and it's like a cycle with EotH-NR, etc. The ships and everything shown on those pages that the faction share in the original game are actually put into the window not as some hardcoded pooled asset thing, but it's directly coded into the GUI.
It's important to remember this is a total conversion, not just a reskinning. So saying "how are you doing pirates" or "how are you doing loyalists vs rebels" really aren't the right questions. We're using the tools the game gives us to make Star Wars.
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Also would you try to add heroes to sins of a solar empire?
If you're familiar with flagship victory, the current plan is to do those with an important military figure from each faction. We may implement other heroes if we find a satisfactory way to do it without hurting gameplay.
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Many many questions ahead. So since sins handles them better could we expect more SSD (number and type wise) or same as the ICW?
There will be SSDs but in general our plans for unit lists in Sins is to make them more robust for several reasons. Where the era system in ICW allowed/made us put in multiple ships for the same role, in Ascendancy we're being a lot more stringent with that. There are both performance and gameplay reasons for this, however the basic structure of the Remnant faction in the mod is planned to be centered on the Palpatine way of doing things, pending balance tests.
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And lastly which faction will became the pirates? Would it be the hutts or warlords or some other faction?
We really don't want to have pirates in the traditonal Sins sense. It wouldn't make sense in Star Wars. You don't pay off the Hapans to go attack another faction. We'd like to implement more factions in various capacities in the future, but the plan for the first release is to focus on the three main factions.
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I am curious how you guys are going to handle SSDs as well, I am hoping they will not be as important as Titans are in Rebellion, them having tons of firepower is fine.. but I really don't want to see this turn into an AoE fest like Rebellion is.
The weapons systems we're using are fairly similar to balancing in ICW, but again, we're trying to emphasize factional differences. For some factions an SSD is going to be the backbone of your fleet, and a major strategic asset. For others (Empire of the Hand), they're still not going to be present. We want an IR player to have to think differently from an NR player, from an EotH player, etc.
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Also, another question, in regards to Strike Craft. I'm assuming we'll probably have to unlock various types of Strike Craft via research, since it wouldn't really make sense to have TIE Defenders be available right off the bat. Is it possible to create Strike Craft that can phase jump, or Strike Craft that have fleet supply/ resource costs? Or perhaps will we only be able to build certain types of Strike Craft on certain types of ships?
This isn't something we've decided or put much research into yet, since it'll depend a lot on how the engine handles things. There are some nuances here that get back to the factional differences thing, as well. Some aspects of this I'll cover in my next answer as well.
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Sweet! Grin what about choosing what fighters spawn from your carrierThis is basically how Sins functions in general, and it's not something we really want to change or could change I don't think, but either way I'm pretty sure there's a hardcoded limit of 4 possible strike craft for each carrier. Essentially on older or lower tech ships, you'll have access to the lower-end fighters (Y-Wings, X-Wings) whereas on newer ships you'd have the better fighters (K and E wings)
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I'm hoping that its possible to attach costs to strike craft squadrons, to make them less easy to just mindlessly spam, since in Sins bomber spam is basically the only viable late game strategy, and I'd like to see it at the very least be harder to achieve a massive swarm of single ship squads.The hyperspecialization that's inherent in the Sins universe isn't realy a problem in Star Wars. Each ship still has a role, obviously, but it's not the same degree of "only build this" or "if you don't have this you're screwed".
Posted by: oxtyt
« on: September 16, 2012, 03:32:52 PM »This is incorrect. Rebellion has the loyalists/rebels set up as entirely different races/players, not as a sort of sub-faction.
Actually it is correct; it is set as 2 different sub-faction for every race, which have just different titans and different technological upgrades and so on. Calling them entirely different factions would be going very far. Even in the faction selection menu they are called the same faction. But maybe it could be modified in such a way to make them feel more different and much more unique.
Posted by: Senza
« on: September 16, 2012, 02:42:55 PM »I'm pretty sure that's possible, anyway, I don't know for certain since I don't know much about sins modding, but the ability system opens up a lot of possibilities for customization.
And yes in regards to fighters/ bombers (or strike craft as they are called in Sins) that is certainly possible in Sins, and is indeed how it is done in the base game, though I do not know how the team will choose to implement this, since it might make certain fighters overpowered by allowing you to easily spam them. Just imagine spamming carriers and making like 200 squads of TIE Defenders... yeah that would be pretty ugly for your opponent.
I'm hoping that its possible to attach costs to strike craft squadrons, to make them less easy to just mindlessly spam, since in Sins bomber spam is basically the only viable late game strategy, and I'd like to see it at the very least be harder to achieve a massive swarm of single ship squads.
What you could do with the MTC would be to give it a few different abilities with only 1 purchasable rank, one could be a passive that increases strike craft capacity, one could be similar to the Revelation's Clairvoyance ability, allowing it to spy on nearby systems (or however clairvoyance works... nobody uses the Revelation), and other appropriate abilities.
And yes in regards to fighters/ bombers (or strike craft as they are called in Sins) that is certainly possible in Sins, and is indeed how it is done in the base game, though I do not know how the team will choose to implement this, since it might make certain fighters overpowered by allowing you to easily spam them. Just imagine spamming carriers and making like 200 squads of TIE Defenders... yeah that would be pretty ugly for your opponent.
I'm hoping that its possible to attach costs to strike craft squadrons, to make them less easy to just mindlessly spam, since in Sins bomber spam is basically the only viable late game strategy, and I'd like to see it at the very least be harder to achieve a massive swarm of single ship squads.
What you could do with the MTC would be to give it a few different abilities with only 1 purchasable rank, one could be a passive that increases strike craft capacity, one could be similar to the Revelation's Clairvoyance ability, allowing it to spy on nearby systems (or however clairvoyance works... nobody uses the Revelation), and other appropriate abilities.
Posted by: mynameisyou
« on: September 16, 2012, 02:38:54 PM »Sweet! what about choosing what fighters spawn from your carrier
what about choosing what fighters spawn from your carrierPosted by: Senza
« on: September 16, 2012, 02:02:23 PM »I suppose they could have it start as a blank slate, and you could purchase a single rank of an ability for it to allow different "variants" to exist.
Posted by: mynameisyou
« on: September 16, 2012, 02:00:04 PM »can you make the Modular Taskforce Cruiser modable with this system.
Posted by: Senza
« on: September 16, 2012, 01:52:06 PM »I am curious how you guys are going to handle SSDs as well, I am hoping they will not be as important as Titans are in Rebellion, them having tons of firepower is fine.. but I really don't want to see this turn into an AoE fest like Rebellion is.
Also, another question, in regards to Strike Craft. I'm assuming we'll probably have to unlock various types of Strike Craft via research, since it wouldn't really make sense to have TIE Defenders be available right off the bat. Is it possible to create Strike Craft that can phase jump, or Strike Craft that have fleet supply/ resource costs? Or perhaps will we only be able to build certain types of Strike Craft on certain types of ships?
Also, another question, in regards to Strike Craft. I'm assuming we'll probably have to unlock various types of Strike Craft via research, since it wouldn't really make sense to have TIE Defenders be available right off the bat. Is it possible to create Strike Craft that can phase jump, or Strike Craft that have fleet supply/ resource costs? Or perhaps will we only be able to build certain types of Strike Craft on certain types of ships?
Posted by: Lavo
« on: September 16, 2012, 01:44:29 PM »Sins rebellion has a system of rebels and loyals as I am sure you are aware of itThis is incorrect. Rebellion has the loyalists/rebels set up as entirely different races/players, not as a sort of sub-faction.