Thrawn's Revenge
Ascendancy [SoaSE] => Ascendancy Discussion => Topic started by: Corey on October 09, 2012, 08:27:44 PM
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This topic will be (hopefully) maintained as a general repository for information about Ascendancy. If you have a small question that doesn't quite warrant a full topic discussion, feel free to post it here as well.
1. What is Ascendancy?
Star Wars: Ascendancy is a total conversion for Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion (http://store.steampowered.com/app/204880/) with the aim of recreating the post-Endor Star Wars galaxy in a new platform. It is being created by the team behind Thrawn's Revenge: Imperial Civil War (http://www.moddb.com/mods/thrawns-revenge) for Star Wars: Empire at War: Forces of Corruption.
2. Which factions will be represented in the mod?
Since the aim is to recreate the Star Wars galaxy after the Battle of Endor, the two main factions in the mod are the New Republic (formed out of the Rebel Alliance) and the Imperial Remnant (one of many groups formed out of the Empire after the death of the Emperor). The third playable faction is the Empire of the Hand. Although these three will be the only ones available in the first release, we do intend to expand it as we go. More information on this will be provided as we go.
3. I've heard of the Remnant and New Republic, but what's the Empire of the Hand?
The Empire of the Hand is a canonical faction set up by Grand Admiral Thrawn in the unknown regions before Endor, making its first appearance in the Hand of Thrawn duology and most recently joining Jag Fel's Imperial Remnant faction in the Fate of the Jedi series. Because of the sparsity of canon sources for ships used by this faction, many of them are designed in house. We include this faction both as a reflection of Thrawn being the main focus of our mods, and as a way to eercise our own creativity while still working within the Star Wars universe. With every other faction we stick strictly to the source material, this faction gives us opportunities to expand.
4. Will any aspects of the original game be maintained?
None of the original factions or units will be preserved, and as many art assets as possible will be remade to fit with the aesthetic of the mod and the Star Wars universe. We also will not be maintaining the same scaling and balance conventions used by Sins; not every faction will have the same roster, not every faction will have the same roles filled, and there will not be such an emphasis on hard countering between units (where one ship does one function and you need a specific other ship to counter it).
5. When will the mod be released?
We will not release the mod until it's ready. We update pretty consistently, and have a large amount of the work done, however we do not have a set release date.
6. Can I test it?
Our testing process will be more thoroughly outlined later, but based on our experiences with ICW, it will most likely be as follows: Around a month before completion, we will put out a public call for tester applications, from which we'll take about 10-20 people. We'll then have a month or so of closed testing with that group, and finally after that month release an open beta. If you want to get involved in these steps, just keep an eye on one of our profiles somewhere (Sins forum thread, our site and forums, ModDatabase, Twitter, Youtube, Facebook; you have a lot of options) and you'll see an announcement eventually.
7. Why make this mod when Requiem and Sins of a Galactic Empire exist?
We're aware that other Star Wars mods currently exist for Sins of a Solar Empire, and we don't want to step on anyone's toes, but we also want to make our mod the way we want to make it. It doesn't make sense for us as a team to merge with another one when we already have so many of our own assets, and after years of working together on various projects, our own team dynamics. The bottom line is that this is a mod we've wanted to do for years, and have been laying the groundwork for it for much of that time, so we have our own visions for what we want to do. We'd be perfectly happy to cooperate with the other teams in some way, however part of the fun of modding for us is making the mod itself within this team, which is something we're not willing to give up. The end result is that while these mods are technically within the same universe, the focuses and methods being used will all be different, so each mod will have its own style.
8. Where can I get more information on the mod? Or see more fancy screenshots?
Just track us on any of our profiles. We can be found at:
Our site and forums: http://gutr.swrebellion.com/forums/index.php (We'll have a proper site up for Ascendancy soon)
Mod Database: http://www.moddb.com/mods/star-wars-ascendancy
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/ThrawnsRevenge/featured
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Thrawns-Revenge/20781119569
We also post frequent extra content between news posts on our forums for members and people who have over 50 posts on our forums to reward those contributing to the mod with their ideas and discussion, so if you're looking to find things before they're officially announced, please join the forums.
For Imperial Civil War Fans...
1. What is the relationship between Ascendancy and Imperial Civil War?
The best word to use is interdependent. Ascendancy is benefiting from a lot of the work done for Imperial Civil War, but the reverse is also true. The Mon Calamari models, for example, were done for Ascendancy but have made their way into Imperial Civil War, as will be the case with many of the model updates we do for Ascendancy.
We know there are several people disappointed about the ramp down of production on ICW and might think we're just abandoning it to work on Ascendancy. This isn't true. We reached the decision that we were happy with where Imperial Civil War is at, and aside from a few things we intend to add in 2.1, it was finished regardless of whether or not we did Ascendancy. However, with Ascendancy, it will get updated with the aforementioned models.
2. What about the Pentastar Alignment? And the Hapans?
Part of the appeal of Imperial Civil War is the interaction with all the different factions in the galaxy, in part intentionally modeled on the Total War series as well as the Sins of a Solar Empire series. Therefore, it's not something we intend to give up. However, for efficiency and organizational reasons, we're only focusing on the three main factions for the first release. We do intend to include several of the factions we did for ICW in Ascendancy at some point, and maybe a few that weren't, but they will be after the first release.
If you have other questions not answered here already, please feel free to ask them.
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The SOASE engine is a pretty drastic departure from the EaW one, and this is both good and bad. One of the major differences is the subsystem (hardpoint) damage system in EaW. Ships in SOASE just have a shields bar and a health bar, and until the ship runs out of HP, it's at full fighting power. Is there anything that can be done, or you're planning to do, to change that in Ascendancy?
How are ion cannons being handled? There is already an ion shot ability in vanilla SOASE, but its use is quite different from canonical and ICW ion cannon fire.
I'm looking forward to Ascendancy, I'm sure the TR team will do another great job as they already have with ICW.
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The SOASE engine is a pretty drastic departure from the EaW one, and this is both good and bad. One of the major differences is the subsystem (hardpoint) damage system in EaW. Ships in SOASE just have a shields bar and a health bar, and until the ship runs out of HP, it's at full fighting power. Is there anything that can be done, or you're planning to do, to change that in Ascendancy?
We can try to play with debuffs based on health, but I'm not sure if that'll yield too much.
How are ion cannons being handled? There is already an ion shot ability in vanilla SOASE, but its use is quite different from canonical and ICW ion cannon fire.
The effect from Ion Cannons we're goingfor would be more the ICW style.
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How will relations work like will the EotH have a better relation with the IR then the NR?
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For ion cannons, does Ascendancy plan to use them as actual ship weapons (ex. vanilla EaW's ion cannons), ability-based weapons, or both?
There is already an ion shot ability in vanilla SOASE, but its use is quite different from canonical and ICW ion cannon fire.
It's pretty easy to make a weapon that only hurts shields, like the ship-based ion cannons in EaW.
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They're still part of the primary armament of many ships, so in general they're going to function like they do in EaW, however we'll probably also try to work in some system disruption.
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A passive OnWeaponFired would work for that. It'll be interesting to see what you guys come up with, seeing as it's next to impossible to get a proper "apply this only if ship X has no shields" buff going; tried one in the past.
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can you make the lasers shoot mutipul targets like in phoenix rising
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Are planetary weapons like hypervelocity guns going to be included?
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Sorry for the double post, but I have couple questions.
First, will the colonizing ships be able to land marines on enemy ships to either destroy or capture them?
Second, knowing that you guys are sticking to canon armor, the Galofree will be quite less powerful than its counterparts. Maybe you could make the Bantha class transport a researchable advanced colonizer for the NR.
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Are planetary weapons like hypervelocity guns going to be included?
Ideally, yes.
First, will the colonizing ships be able to land marines on enemy ships to either destroy or capture them?
We may have some ships that do that, but not the generic transports like these.
Second, knowing that you guys are sticking to canon armor, the Galofree will be quite less powerful than its counterparts. Maybe you could make the Bantha class transport a researchable advanced colonizer for the NR.
I don't think the difference would make it worth the research. Sure it's a little weaker, but part of your job is to keep it safe, which the New Republic fleet is pretty well suited to.
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OK, cool.
One more question about flagships. Are you going to have several different flagships for each faction on a randomized? For example, the NR could have either Ackbar in Home One or E'tahn Abaht in his Endurance Class, the IR could either have Thrawn in the Chimaera or Pellaeon in the Right to Rule (I know this ship is a little outside the game's timeline, but the NR has BACs, so I thought it would be fair).
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I don't think it can be randomized.
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Ok, just thought it would be cool for some randomization. Another question, what will make up the planetary militia. Will that be dependent on what faction the planet was allied with in canon?
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We're still working out how we're going to handle starting positions.
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I don't think it can be randomized.
I don't think it can be randomized.
True, it is not directly possible with SOASE but it become possible if you think outside the box... let me explain how...
Normally, in the mod, you will have the entity, mesh and texture file for the flagship... the trick is to create some type of dynamic mod... let say that in your mod directory, you create a new directory called "random"... inside these new directory, you create two new one called "even" and "odd"... in the "even" directory, you place the entity, mesh and texture from the "Ackbar's Home One" ... in the "odd" directory, you place the entity, mesh and texture from the "E'tahn Abaht's Endurance Class"... the entity, mesh and texture name need to be identical in both the "even" or "odd" directory...
Now, you create a "randomize.bat" file. These file need to be launch one single time before a new game... the ".bat" will check the time, control the parity of the second ( by example ) and copy the content of the "even" or "odd" directory in the right game directory ( gameinfo, mesh, textures )...
Well, there is a catch !!! The method work well for single player but not for multiplayer where checksum of mods activated need to be identical... so, random feature ( run the .bat file ) can only be something used for single player...
Now, it is possible to make something more complex... by example, content of directory A copied if second are 0,1,2,3 ( 40% chance ), directory B copied if second are 4 ( 10% chance ), directory C copied if second are 5,6,7 ( 30% chance ), directory d copied if second are 8,9 ( 20% chance )...
I have mod SOASE since before the original release of the game and believe me, same if other modders or the game devs say that something is impossible, it is not always true... during the beta of the original game, i have mod it so that missile and torpedo can be shoot down... since, i was able to make animated mesh, moving texture, stealth effect ( glass like ship ), break the harcoded 50k poly limit by model, render over 6.25 million poly onscreen without slowndown ( http://www.love-from-russia.be/g4_swarm-6.25_million_poly.avi , 125 golan 4, non canon model made for a other Star Wars mod, mobile star base with over 200 weapons hardpoint, with animated part, greatly inspired from canon model like force harvester/galaxy gun/medical station/trade federation droid control ship/etc )...
Point is that i am ready to help if Corey Tream hit some "brick wall"... i will try to make the impossible become possible ( not always working )... i am a modeler/texturer but i am short on free time for modeling due to real life but i am ready to share years of experience with SOASE modding if help is needed... the "thrawn's revenge" mod is my prefered mod and it will please me to see something with equal or more quality on SOASE.
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Yeah, we've talked about some batch file related stuff in the past with ICW but considering how often I have to do tech support for people with just a basic installation process I try not to complicate it too much. Especially considering the mod is more oriented towards multiplayer, it may present too much of a barrier for most people compared to the small reward you get, especially considering there's other ways to work in other important characters if we so choose.
Point is that i am ready to help if Corey Tream hit some "brick wall"... i will try to make the impossible become possible ( not always working )... i am a modeler/texturer but i am short on free time for modeling due to real life but i am ready to share years of experience with SOASE modding if help is needed... the "thrawn's revenge" mod is my prefered mod and it will please me to see something with equal or more quality on SOASE.
Thanks, we definitely appreciate it.
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Just found this project and had to register, i just wish i could offer any help but guess that has to wait till open beta...i got lots experience in mod using in quite alot games as well as modding those mods to my delight ;D
My problem is mainly im quite new to Soase itself (bought it for Sins of a Galactic Empire which is based on a old Homeworld 2 mod i loved;) ), and havent really looked into its mod-abilities so far atm im still testing/playing the mod to its heart, already got some things id like to change but its a rather complex mod/game...but seems kinda modfriendly game to me, guess i will be spending a lot of my future time with this game^^
But after reading Coreys appreciation to fileosofts post i realized i cant offer much in the way he did besides some basic photoshop and lua skills i can offer quite a rare thing and thats time and at least 10 years experience in modding games, be sure to get lotsa feedback/bughunting from me after openbeta start -_^
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I look forward to this!
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What is Ascendancy doing for planets? Custom, or are you integrating another mod, such as the SW-oriented Novus Universum?
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Custom is the plan.
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What is Ascendancy doing for planets? Custom, or are you integrating another mod, such as the SW-oriented Novus Universum?
The last things we used that weren't ours I'm pretty sure I can count off the top of my head. The first being the EOTH Symbol Landing Zone we asked Warb_Null to make, EJ's Hapan Battlecruiser, and I think a very few Hutt models in one of the initial ICW Releases. We generally like making our own stuff.
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Of all of that, only Warb's landing zone thing is still in. We used some of Farseer's stuff as well, but since he was on the team making other stuff for us and I was on his team making UNSC vehicles I usually don't count that.
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Very nice. Now I'm really looking forwards to playing this when it's out.
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The last things we used that weren't ours I'm pretty sure I can count off the top of my head. The first being the EOTH Symbol Landing Zone we asked Warb_Null to make, EJ's Hapan Battlecruiser, and I think a very few Hutt models in one of the initial ICW Releases. We generally like making our own stuff.
And do a damn good job at making them I might add.
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Sorry about starting a new topic on this. I should've placed my query here.
"You guys are awesome. Very well done and visually appealing mods so far.
My question pertains to hyperspace travel. Is there any way to get the ships to all enter hyperspace at the same time without having to carefully position them first? In other words will the ships wait for the group you've selected to be ready jump to light speed? And will they all travel at the same rate as the ship with the slowest hyper-drive? I've only played the mods so far so I'm unsure whether the vanilla supports this already. I have so many more questions but I'll refrain from spamming you guys with my giddy excitement. THANKS!"
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Are you going to add smaller dreadnought's like the Assertor-class and the Bellator-class?
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While I would love to see those units in the game, the question would be how to balance them? If the Empire has the (lets assume they tried for all canon star dreadnoughts) Executor, Eclipse, Sovereign, Asseror, Mandator III, Bellator (although I would like to see the Bellator also, big fan of the smaller dreadnoughts and star battlecruisers). Then add in the Praetor mkII star battlecruiser (I am hoping this makes it into the game), and you're going to run into the problem of how to balance them? Even if there is a way to limit the amount of each that can be built, you're still looking at 6 different dreadnoughts plus a battlecruiser. Compared to at best the Bulwark mk III battlecruiser and the Viscount dreadnought for the NR. And of course the EoTH doesn't have any.
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well they could add the strident and Mediator and design those them self's' they do that well.
they could have you buy bulwarks in three or more group if you can do that in sins.
plus sins is more easy to balance in general.give them Bellator's the new republic had those.
you could give the empire of the hand some Battlecruisers you know nothing huge but enough to stand and fight.
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you could let them build Guardian and Lusankya
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I was curious about a couple thigns:
1. Will research be more or less the same as in vanilla (ie. research for greater damage, ships, etc.)
2. Will there be more focus on fighters (vanilla seems to just have you spit out bombers or fighters, not as much as an effect on gameplay as ICW fighters are)
3. (last one, promise) Will there be more "tactical slot" choices, or will you all stick with golans?
Thanks for all that you do!
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1. Will research be more or less the same as in vanilla (ie. research for greater damage, ships, etc.)
Some similarities, but not the same. There'll be your general generic "x% boost to income/damage" stuff as well as unlocking ships, but we want to make research involve a bit more choice and have some more noticable impacts. The thing with everyone getting a 10% damage increase and a 10% health increase is they all tend to get it at the same time, and then everyone's back at square one. We're aiming more for research things that provide something, but may come at a sacrifice to other things.
2. Will there be more focus on fighters (vanilla seems to just have you spit out bombers or fighters, not as much as an effect on gameplay as ICW fighters are)
Yes.
3. (last one, promise) Will there be more "tactical slot" choices, or will you all stick with golans?
There really isn't much else we could put there.
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Spectacular.
Ok, lied when I said that I didn't have anymore:
1. I figured that is what was going to happen (in regards to the Golans) but will you all keep the repair platform (or some equivalent) and would the there be anything similar to starbases(Golan IIIs being deployed in a similar fashion as vanilla ones)
2. Also, since the Galaxy gun will be implemented will the NR get some sort of counterish measure (such as a way to lower culture on opponent's planets to incite some sort of rebellion).
3. more of some form of hope rather than a legitimate question, will the EoTH get any additions in some future update (whether it be ship additions or some abilities unique to them)
4. Speaking of abilities does the SOASE engine allow for inventing new abilities, or are you restricted to the ones they have?
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1. I figured that is what was going to happen (in regards to the Golans) but will you all keep the repair platform (or some equivalent) and would the there be anything similar to starbases(Golan IIIs being deployed in a similar fashion as vanilla ones)
Yeah, there will be other structures like that for the IR/NR. I meant for the purely combat role.
As for the Starbases thing, no. If we were to make Golan IIIs be deployed how Starbases in Sins are it would honestly feel like we were just shoehorning things in where they don't actually fit. A Golan III is a Golan III. It doesn't have the same modular upgrade paths of stations in Sins. You'd also want way more than one per system. There's probably ways we can use the deploy mechanics for other things, but in general looking for a 1:1 correlation between Sins stuff and our stuff probably won't get you very far in general. We're aiming to go beyond just reskinning the game.
2. Also, since the Galaxy gun will be implemented will the NR get some sort of counterish measure (such as a way to lower culture on opponent's planets to incite some sort of rebellion).
I'm not sure if the Galaxy Gun will be implemented actually. It may not be possible to do it in a way that's actually satisfactory, in which case we'll look into other superweapon uses for them. But in general, yes. One of the main aims in the mod is to make it so each faction has different strengths and weaknesses, even if one isn't a direct counter to the others (and ideally that won't be how it works).
3. more of some form of hope rather than a legitimate question, will the EoTH get any additions in some future update (whether it be ship additions or some abilities unique to them)
The Empire of the Hand will have more or less the same number of ships as the IR and NR will by the time we're done.
4. Speaking of abilities does the SOASE engine allow for inventing new abilities, or are you restricted to the ones they have?
SoaSE abilities are very flexible.
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SoaSE abilities are very flexible.
How flexible are we talking? Or will that reveal too much?
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How flexible are we talking? Or will that reveal too much?
You can essentially modify every aspect that the current abilities already have and mix and match them.
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How flexible are we talking? Or will that reveal too much?
In Sins the primary limit to them is your imagination. As, unlike EaW, abilities are not a single small block of text, but they are multiple files. In general, you have a minimum of two files per ability, one that defines the ability (ex. passive, costs antimatter) and fires off the initial buff, the second file being the buff itself (aka. what is actually being done, such as shield damage). Buff files can also be set up to trigger other buff files, and so on. It is certainly possible for a single ability to have a dozen different buff files, as some modders have already done.
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In Sins the primary limit to them is your imagination. As, unlike EaW, abilities are not a single small block of text, but they are multiple files. In general, you have a minimum of two files per ability, one that defines the ability (ex. passive, costs antimatter) and fires off the initial buff, the second file being the buff itself (aka. what is actually being done, such as shield damage). Buff files can also be set up to trigger other buff files, and so on. It is certainly possible for a single ability to have a dozen different buff files, as some modders have already done.
Ah, I see so it is within the confines of what buffs/ active abilities ore in Sins but you can put whichever ones you want together? Just for sake of example could you use the novalith cannon ability to make an eclipse superlaser and/or could you push up any shield regeneration ability to give the Mon Cal ships the sort of regen rate they have in ICW?
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Giving something a superlaser is easy (we're not using the novalith for it), so is shield regens. If what you mean by Eclipse superlaser is the planet cracking part, then not so much; actual planet destruction doesn't work as a targeted ability unless you just make it irradiate the planet, but while it *technically* ends up making the planet useless, it's pretty poor presentation.
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Gotcha, well it'll be interesting to see how the abilities are stretched then! Also are superlaser ships going to stay out of Ascendancy? (they are such a nuisance)
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Sovereign.
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Alrighty, thanks for answering the question bombardment!
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Gotcha, well it'll be interesting to see how the abilities are stretched then! Also are superlaser ships going to stay out of Ascendancy? (they are such a nuisance)
In the initial release it looks to be that no superlasers will be in the mod.
This is saying that they may add it later down the line as the refine and add more units and factions depending how far they go with this.
I heard they may add the Soverign class.
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I think they're probably adding the Sovereign. Confirmed on Saint's stream.
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Damn, looks like I forgot another question. Will the process for getting capital ships be similar to in vanilla with the training of crews? I would think it'd be a bit of a pain (especially for the Remnant, due to their reliance on Capital ships). Also would the capital ships have some sort of leveling and upgrade system (similar to the one present in Sins but perhaps more specific) that could give a bit more individuality to the caps?
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The limit on capital ship crews will still be there, however it'll be a much higher percentage of your available ships, and it will vary from faction to faction. Levels will remain as well.
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A question: how will the ships be scaled in proportion to planet size? Will they be correctly scaled (making them very tiny) or will they be oversized for sake of gameplay.
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A question: how will the ships be scaled in proportion to planet size? Will they be correctly scaled (making them very tiny) or will they be oversized for sake of gameplay.
They're pretty small. I'm also pretty sure we've answered this in detail before :).
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Not only have we not answered it in detail, we've never commented on it at all from what I remember.
The planet to ship ratio is essentially the same as what it is in the original game. Making planets realistically scaled would serve no purpose and look weird.
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Ok. I figured as much.
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I'm still getting the hang of Sins, but I've got a couple of questions regarding the economic aspect of the mod:
1. Do you have any plans to modify the market rates of the two resources? I notice that when I receive an alert that the market for crystal/metal has crashed, it means that the price for said resource has only dropped about a hundred credits. Not exactly a 'crash.' I think it would be rather interesting if the prices would occasionally reach more extreme highs and lows, triggering mass frenzies of buying and selling.
2. Do you plan to add other resources besides tibanna gas and durasteel? Alternatively, would the addition of other resources throw a monkey wrench into the existing game mechanics, or just not be worth the trouble?
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2. Do you plan to add other resources besides tibanna gas and durasteel? Alternatively, would the addition of other resources throw a monkey wrench into the existing game mechanics, or just not be worth the trouble?
It's not possible to add in more resources. Only the basic Credits/Metal/Crystal can exist.
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This may seem fairly trivial and I'm sorry if it has been covered before or elsewhere but one of the things that I always liked about EaW and which remained in ICW was the ability to pause the game at any point so like during a battle you could pause, take a step back and decide upon options so I was wondering if there is going to be the ability to do this in Ascendancy?
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This may seem fairly trivial and I'm sorry if it has been covered before or elsewhere but one of the things that I always liked about EaW and which remained in ICW was the ability to pause the game at any point so like during a battle you could pause, take a step back and decide upon options so I was wondering if there is going to be the ability to do this in Ascendancy?
There is a variable speed change and pause in SoaSE.
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There is a variable speed change and pause in SoaSE.
Thanks, I've bought SoaSE Rebellion in readiness for Ascendancy, I've just not gotten around to exploring it properly yet.
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It's not possible to add in more resources. Only the basic Credits/Metal/Crystal can exist.
Oh, I see. I suspected as much... Is modification of the price rates doable though?
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Oh, I see. I suspected as much... Is modification of the price rates doable though?
That's determined by the amount of people buying and selling in the black market.
Sell too much and the price rates drop.
Buy too much and price rates rise.
Supply and demand economy there.
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1. Do you have any plans to modify the market rates of the two resources? I notice that when I receive an alert that the market for crystal/metal has crashed, it means that the price for said resource has only dropped about a hundred credits. Not exactly a 'crash.' I think it would be rather interesting if the prices would occasionally reach more extreme highs and lows, triggering mass frenzies of buying and selling.
I'm not sure if this is moddable, but honestly it's not something I'm that concerned about. The black market is essentially just in existence because of how easy it is to have a map where you're completely starved of one of the resources (I'm looking at your crystal) so making it swingier is really just a way to frustrate people.
2. Do you plan to add other resources besides tibanna gas and durasteel? Alternatively, would the addition of other resources throw a monkey wrench into the existing game mechanics, or just not be worth the trouble?
As Lavo said not doable, but also not desirable. It's going to be difficult enough with just Tibanna gas to consider, and there's really no other useful resources we'd be able to add een if it was moddable.
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That's determined by the amount of people buying and selling in the black market.
Sell too much and the price rates drop.
Buy too much and price rates rise.
Supply and demand economy there.
Okay, come to think of it I've only been playing 1v1 so far, so the prices of course would not fluctuate too much.
I'm not sure if this is moddable, but honestly it's not something I'm that concerned about. The black market is essentially just in existence because of how easy it is to have a map where you're completely starved of one of the resources (I'm looking at your crystal) so making it swingier is really just a way to frustrate people.
As Lavo said not doable, but also not desirable. It's going to be difficult enough with just Tibanna gas to consider, and there's really no other useful resources we'd be able to add een if it was moddable.
That reasoning makes sense I suppose, I'm having enough trouble managing the existent resources! I like the current system pretty well, I was mostly just curious about how flexible it may be.
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Oh, I see. I suspected as much... Is modification of the price rates doable though?
Yes, you can mod in absolutely insane black market prices, with large boom and bust cycles, with prices spiking and plummeting, versus vanilla Sins' rather plain market.
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What are you guys doing about the voices? Will you be taking them from Empire at War and various other SW games or doing them all yourselves? Or are they remaining vanilla SoSER? I don't want an armada of 15 year olds girls commanding my ships. (I'm looking at you, Advent)
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How single-player friendly will this mod be? Will there be tweaks to computer controlled AI? Never played SOASE, so not familiar with how the AI is.
Basically, I like the single-player GCs in EaW and want to know if there will be similar in Ascendancy. Thanks
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There's no way to directly mod the AI in Sins. We'll be making the mod compatable with the Sins AI so you can still play single player and it'll be fine, but the focus is on multiplayer and doing whatever makes sense.
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What are you guys doing about the voices? Will you be taking them from Empire at War and various other SW games or doing them all yourselves? Or are they remaining vanilla SoSER? I don't want an armada of 15 year olds girls commanding my ships. (I'm looking at you, Advent)
I'll do what I can for VOs
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I'll do what I can for VOs
That'd be cool, I do love the unique VOs.
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That'd be cool, I do love the unique VOs.
And I do love doing them. Especially the villains. I think my Jerec, Kaine and Thrawn were first rate if I do say so myself.
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And I do love doing them. Especially the villains. I think my Jerec, Kaine and Thrawn were first rate if I do say so myself.
Kaine and Thrawn are good. Jerec sounds OK (not that I could do any better) but that strange scratchy throat clearing sound that he makes sometimes when clicked on is kinda weird.
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And I do love doing them. Especially the villains. I think my Jerec, Kaine and Thrawn were first rate if I do say so myself.
They are quite fun though the Jerec scream tends to catch me off guard and I also really enjoy the Karrade, Bel Iblis, and Pellaeon VOs
Also, random question, I was curious if there is any chance that the New Republic would be have the ability to function "planetless" and remain alive if they have a capital ship, while it represents them better pre battle of Endor I'd think it'd be a fun addition to be able to wander everywhere and having no place to really defend. Along with that would it be possible for planets to have "rebellions" against the IR forces (just a smaller pirate fleet that pops up in IR space or whatnot) and the NR player could have vision of the rebellious fleet and they could move in and help the attackers and either control the planet or just be able to build resource asteroids there?
*Sorry if that wasn't overly cohesive*
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Another question popped into mind; will there be any campaigns where you control the planets and resources the respective faction had at one point in time or will it all be a Sins style start with one planet and build?
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We're likely to attempt some stuff like that, but it's not a priority for first release.
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We're likely to attempt some stuff like that, but it's not a priority for first release.
I'm assuming it will be something along the lines of Factions>Maps>Particles and such> extra factions > anything else that comes along?
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Kaine and Thrawn are good. Jerec sounds OK (not that I could do any better) but that strange scratchy throat clearing sound that he makes sometimes when clicked on is kinda weird.
I tried to copy Jerec's original Voice actor as much as possible(Bring up Dark Forces II cutscenes, he makes all those weird noises lol) Should have recorded more specific VOs though for situations so he wouldn't only have like 3
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It doesn't matter how many you had recorded, we could only use so many. The mod was already 4.5 gigs, and sound files add up very quickly. That can significantly impact already-long load times and general performance. Also, they don't compress at all (since the filetypes are already centered around compression) which means every megabyte of sound is one megabyte that needs to be downloaded/uploaded.
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It doesn't matter how many you had recorded, we could only use so many. The mod was already 4.5 gigs, and sound files add up very quickly. That can significantly impact already-long load times and general performance. Also, they don't compress at all (since the filetypes are already centered around compression) which means every megabyte of sound is one megabyte that needs to be downloaded/uploaded.
Oh right, I remember you mentioning something to that effect now
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So, how are you guys intending to implement the Kuat Shipyards? Will they be functional, or just eye candy?
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Neither. Planets are essentially instances of a type in Sins, not entities unto themselves, so Kuat is technically just another temperate planet; doing it any other way would mean a bunch of planets need to get their own unique type, which would have pretty serious functionality implications. As far as functionality goes, we can't really say that some planets can build certain types of shipyards while others can't.
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It's worth mentioning that Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion is 75% off on Steam currently (9.99 USD for base game and 9.97 USD for DLC).
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I'm a BIG fan for FoC. But never heard of SoSE before joining this forum. How do yall like it and how would you compare it to FoC? If you all like it I may consider buying it..
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We like it, or else we wouldn't have started another mod for it.
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Understood lol. Thanks
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Understood lol. Thanks
Also, we actually play Sins, which is a lot more than we can say for EaW.
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Not sure how this works or if the team is interested, but I play the Armada III mod and in their new hotfix they included a 'Large address aware tool' that they say allows for more than 2gb of memory to be utilized
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Already had a thread on it :P
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Great to see that I pay a attention. hah
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Have you guys ever thought about making a mod that extends into the Yuuzhan Vong war, or even later? That would be totally rad.
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That's certainly an idea.
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That's certainly an idea.
Dif Scaur should have responded to that.
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A question that popped into my head and I haven't found addressed elsewhere: are you guys keeping the artifact and planetary exploration systems, and if so, any info you care to drop on how you're incorporating them?
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Since at the moment we're focusing on factions more than the galaxy itself, this isn't something we've done too much on, however (like random events) it is something we plan to use going forward. Artifacts, like planetary bonuses, will ideally be used to add in some more canon elements of the galaxy
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Sounds good. Wouldn't mind finding a Holocron or two in my conquests. ;)
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Could you use the hero system from Star Trek Armada 3/Enhanced 4X to give the factions heroes? I find it rather curious that one of the most ingenious means of implementing named characters into Sins has gone virtually unmentioned here.
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It has been mentioned. I tend to find that when heroes get implemented they pretty much direct all gameplay around themselves ala in EaW and Battlefront 2, which is not what we want. More than anything they encourage grouping your entire fleet around them, which is counterproductive in a game where we are trying to make it so that making one massive fleet isn't always the best option. We have said we may do it, in which case they will be an option and, unlike in other mods, they will only be usable once. We already have the system (and option) implemented with the Galaxy Gun.
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I have to say I was underwhelmed with the heroes in Armada III.
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I have to say I was underwhelmed with the heroes in Armada III.
How so? I found them quite useful, with overall good abilities and being stronger versions of the normal ships, though they do encourage the usual Sins single fleet blob with their AoE bonuses. They even warp out instead of exploding, a nice touch to explain why you can call them back in.
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Not sure, I just found I didn't like them. Just didn't seem to do enough to make them worth the expenditure compared to an ordinary ship of the line of the same class (for Nebula/Sovereign). The Defiant was the only one IMO that was, since ordinary defiants got blown up like so much tissue paper.
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Not worth the expenditure? Once you do the research, they're free, aside from taking up a cap slot, and I found their abilities more than justified them - Voyager's armor and holofleet make it one of the best tanks in the game, for example. *shrugs* Not trying to argue with you here or say you're wrong, I'm just failing to understand where you're coming from. ???
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Eh, it might come down to that I found the game just horribly broken in general. Just a lot of stuff was done in what to my opinion were dumb ways. I REALLY wanted to play a Star Trek mod, but neither one that is out there is in my ecperience playable if you want a balanced, fun game. I keep redownloading it hoping it doesn't suck anymore, but I keep getting dissappointed.
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Fair enough.
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I'm asking about buildable defenses and their roles in this game. Due to the maps not having own star systems (maybe related to the SW style) I have found buildable defenses extremely weak against any form of (AI) attack. The planetary weapons are failry effective, but when you have 6-10 routes to your planets it's impossible to hold your ground or advance against AI.
AI sends massive frigate fleets against my defenses, usually in a way that when I move my fleet to defend it also attacks elsewhere (or another enemy AI, dunno if AI manages diplomacy but it surely can be an a-hole :D). AI spamming small ships is one problem, and relates to this defense issue. It's good to see nasty AI, but...
The main issue is that fully upgraded Golans and Starbase(s, ally's one) melt in a minute when enemy comes. There's no time to gather my fleet when the orbital defense is lost so quickly. In a sense it's pointless to even use resources for those since planets on full health and tech shield upgrades can endure longer, or long enough until my fleet arrives.
Huge amount of small ships can destroy orbital defenses and larger capital ships so fast it's quite sad honestly. I have read about the issues modders have when it comes to AI fleet management, and I might recall devs saying that 1.0 version has better AI fleet management unless I mix this mod to another one, but costly defenses versus their extremely low enduranse is a problem.
Some might say that "you can't just fortify every planet, AI cant survive that" and they are right. But there's a sweet spot between "OP hedgehog defense" and "useless". I just hope fully upgraded defenses would earn their upkeep, so to speak.
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In my experience, fully upgraded defenses hold just fine, at least when compared to base Sins defenses. The trick to Ascendancy is to avoid just using one giant fleet - instead, have a handful of ships serve as garrison forces above planets you're worried will be attacked. A planet with Golan 3s, repair yards, a starbase and a frigate factory can hold out for a good long while.
Now, will it hold long against a fleet of 100+ ships? No, probably not. But then, vanilla Sins defenses don't either. Honestly, the only defense issue I've got is the lack of fighter defenses - planets should be able to build hangars of a sort.
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Small fleet size, AI divides its fleet into two parts and attacks my fully fortified worlds. In a minute all orbital tightly grouped defenses lost... I kinda expected something more since I paid those defenses with all my income :'D. Big guns work poorly against huge amount of small ships, that's true. Especially since those ships are Strike cruisers and Acclamators, which both have fighter squadrons. And no AAA whatsoever, it seems. It's massacre if there's no fleet to protect those places.
If you can beat the sh*t out of fortified, armed-to-the-teeth gun platforms with frigates alone it's no good in my opinion.
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While it doesn't help a ton, the Golan III DOES get a fighter squadron, so it does have some fighter defense.
Also, 2 repair facilities is DRASTICALLY more effective than 1, as they can repair each other in addition to the surrounding golans. While yes, the Golan's still need further balancing, and needs to have laser cannons added (maybe only Golan I/II IMO), I've never lost an entire planets defenses THAT fast to nothing but Cruisers/frigates.
However, that's to be expected. Remember, this is basically just a release so everyone can see how it is, there's a TON of balancing that corey & co. haven't even STARTED on, they just wanted to make sure things WORKED first.
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Acclamator spam is why I said have some ships there - you'll want to have anti-fighter ships protecting your Golans, since they lack anti-fighter weapons themselves. Remember that in Ascendancy, ships can't just build fighters forever; they will run out of supply, and the Golans can handle the ships themselves nicely.
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At least until you start getting to larger fleets. A large fleet will crush Golans regardless. I suppose not surprisingly, the PA (currently) is actually one of the best at defense. Throw a few Enforcers and maybe a Venator, and they're actually quite affective at assisting the Golans.
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PA definitely has the best defense overall, though I'd say the NR defenses are better at dealing with super ships - ion cannon is more effective, though not by much, than two HPVs at dealing with them.
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Yeah, but 5 HPV's really trash super-ships at a good rate. The problem is when all 5 fire at a cruiser that's destroyed with the first hit, and then 4 HPV shots go flying into uselessness, totally wasting their blast.
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Playing Pentastar, I have to ask what the intended point of the Naval Class Command Station is. The description on the ability to build it, 'A military station with heavy armaments and defenses' is a far cry from the reality of the station. It's not at all powerful, maxing at 15500/15500 hull and shields and an anemic 197/75/72 weapon strength compared to the Golan 3 at 10010/10010 1040/71, yes, 5k less in each defense, but the weaponry is just so much more powerful it's quite ridiculous. I can honestly see no reason at all to build the Naval Station instead of several Golan 3's. It doesn't even protect the planet from loss by bombardment, which is a major point of starbases in the base game and all other mods I've played. In not keeping the planet from being lost, the enemy can simply ignore it totally and take the planet from the other side where the station isn't in range. Having it protect the planet means the enemy is forced to deal with it (not that this is currently hard to do, but you can also surround it with Golans to make for a decent planetary defense).
Am I missing something? I know it can make the planet a bit tougher by trading off some economy, but not enough that it seems like it would really make a difference. Oh, also when you do the defensive specialization, Enemy culture spread rate gets a green 5% modifier, wouldn't that mean that it's actually easier for the enemy to spread influence, or should it read as a 5% to enemy culture resistance?
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Overall, we're not happy with that space station; it's being replaced for both the IR/Pa in either 1.0full or 1.1. As for the effects of the abilities, they're correct. Military specialization was meant to increase military effectiveness around it, but decrease the economic/cultural aspects (hence specialization), but when we increased planet health in general, the buff wasn't changed for this.
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I'm a big fan of asymmetrical designs but I'm curious about how the Hand is supposed to be played. The defense platform packs a punch for its price point but seems underwhelming even en masse vs. later game tech from other groups. The civilian platform is neat but even with the end point upgrade I was only able to build one per planet, and the military applications are pretty underwhelming. I did alright early but the defenses couldn't handle direct aggression later on (nor could my fleet) and given the fact that you're locked into systems/lose your tech with lost structures keeps you from being entirely hit and run.
Was I going about it the wrong way or is the faction a bit lacking at the moment?
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So is th Empire of the Hand ever gonna get a Titan or Super star destroyer in both mods
In ICW Thrawn when going into the Empire of the hand he could have a SSD
In accendecy every faction should not be able to buil titans but rather "Heros" with a type of SSD or Titan
Corey this mod is awesme and I love it to Death evn tho I don't like Sins of the solar empire, it gets really messy at times :D
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So is th Empire of the Hand ever gonna get a Titan or Super star destroyer in both mods
In ICW Thrawn when going into the Empire of the hand he could have a SSD
In accendecy every faction should not be able to buil titans but rather "Heros" with a type of SSD or Titan
Corey this mod is awesme and I love it to Death evn tho I don't like Sins of the solar empire, it gets really messy at times :D
Thrawn was all about understanding your opponent in order to defeat him, which was quite different to the Tarkin doctrine of brute force.
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So is the Empire of the Hand ever gonna get a Titan or Super star destroyer in both mods
No. SSDs weren't Thrawn's style, he found them a huge waste of resources. However they will be getting more capital ships to round out their capital line as time goes on.
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In the NR, the smugglers research says that you can do black market upgrades for your fleet. Where are these upgrades located or how do I unlock them?
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Smuggler's Den. It's an ability that you target your ships with.
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I played several games just to make sure I was doing it correctly and didn't miss anything. After doing the Smuggler's Den research and building said research, when I click on it to find the ability and use it. There isn't one. The only ability there is the passive on that says it is a trade post. Is this supposed to be the way it is or am I looking in the wrong place.
Over-all this mod is spectacularly done and I know there are a lot of things that are WIP so I will limit my suggestions to only a couple. The first covers the titan for the NR. It is fantastic. A fleet in and of itself. But it only has a single ability to put points in. While the ability is nice to have in the middle of a fight, there isn't any way except to wait 10 min for the shields to fully recharge before assaulting the next planet and heaven forbid the AI decides right then to all out assault that planet. At least 3 different abilities would be great (including the one it already has) but maybe one of them massively increases shield regen at the cost of speed and dmg while the other passively increases shielding. Or something that would increase the survivability of the fleet with it like a passive increase to shield mitigation. Maybe.
And the second is simply the "String not found" on a lot of the fighters and several of the cruisers in the role script.
Again this is very very well made and I hope that everyone involved with this project is able to continue bringing the same amount of fantastic quality I have seen thus far.
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New member here--learned about the glory that is Ascendancy when YouTube recommended I take a look at the XP Gamers. I've since watched all of Shack's vids for this mod and watched a lot of Gul Dukat because he is MAGNIFICENT.
All in all, I am beyond hyped to play this.
I had never even heard of SOSE prior to finding vids for Ascendancy, but I love Empire at War and Ascendancy will offer a fresh experience for epic space battles.
Before I buy SOSE and download the mod and exhilarate myself with all of your amazing work, I have a question.
There's a Steam sale for SOSE that lasts until July 4th, and I'm definitely getting the game. However, I'm not sure if I need to get any of the DLC packs also.
Is there any content in Ascendancy that I would need to have Forbidden Worlds and/or Stellar Phenomena to access? Once I convert SOSE to this mod, I don't ever plan to return to the vanilla game--after all, Star Wars trumps all--but I don't want to miss out on any mod goodies that used DLC material as their base.
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There's some stuff, especially in 1.1 that will take advantage of the DLC, but I've been careful to make sure people who don't have it won't be too left out.
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I would recommend getting them - as DLC goes they are super-cheap, they enhance the game, and most people running multiplayer will have them.
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That makes sense. Thank you for responding so promptly!
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Got Sins and applied your mod. It was far simpler to mod the game than I expected. Played my first game last night with the puniest AI possible, with another AI as an ally to carry me while I figured out how to play. As I thought, this game is a lot of fun! I set the parameters to capitol victory, although for some reason victory was achieved militarily before I even reached the enemy homeworld.
The main thing I'm trying to figure out--moreso than actually how to play efficiently--is how to operate the camera. I can zoom in decently closely to ships, arrow to shift the camera, and right-click swing the camera in all kinds of disorienting directions. I haven't managed to find a truly cinematic angle for engagements, though, and can't seem to zoom in quite as closely as some of the videos I've watched have managed to do. Any tips on camera operation?
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You can use the arrow keys on the keyboard to move the camera's location around in space, which can let you get it far closer to a ship model than zooming in on the ship will. There's no ideal angle for every engagement, it'll always depend on how the ships are arranged. Camera use in Sins is just something you need experience with to get used to. Play a few more games, and it'll get natural quickly.
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Also, it'll allow you to zoom further if you're zooming into a fighter, or a small freighter, than if you're zooming into a giant space whale, or even ISD's. I use that to occassionally get super-close ups. Zoom in on a fighter, then move the camera with the arrows to zoom in further than it would normally allow you on the large ships.
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Random strange question. Have you considered making NR "Jedi-focused" upgrades to possibly make Elite "Jedi" versions of ships or squadrons possible, because I was looking over the lack of abilities for NR caps in the thread and thought "why not Jedi upgrade abilities?"
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Just curious, are there plans to add the Hapes Consortium or the Yuzhong Vong as factions? I have been trying to find information on this but have been unable to so far.
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We have announced the Hapans as the next playable faction, we haven't announced any beyond that yet.
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hmm, do the hapans have enough distinctive ships to fill out an entire faction with?
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We addressed that in their announcement post (http://thrawnsrevenge.com/forums/index.php?topic=6194.0).
Basically, like the Empire of the Hand, while we were really only exposed to two major classes and a handful of other stuff, we do know they had thousands and thousands of ships, and the shipyards to build and maintain quite large fleets or individual ship, so we're taking the "Battle Dragon" designation to be similar to the "Star Destroyer" designation. The typical "Hapan Battle Dragon" being just one variant or class within a much broader spectrum, much like the Imperial-class is a "Star Destroyer,"but you also have stuff like VSDs, Tectors, Interdictors, etc which fall under that general term.
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Is there a particular name for the size of the YT series being introduced in the next update? And they preform well against fighters and cap ships but are likely to be destroyed by Corvettes and frigates yes?
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Random strange question. Have you considered making NR "Jedi-focused" upgrades to possibly make Elite "Jedi" versions of ships or squadrons possible, because I was looking over the lack of abilities for NR caps in the thread and thought "why not Jedi upgrade abilities?"
I think Jedi ships shouldn't be any larger than fighters/corvettes. Capital ships with a Jedi advantage wouldn't feel right imo. An overpowered fighter unit or corvette would fit the NR theme though.
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Is there a particular name for the size of the YT series being introduced in the next update? And they preform well against fighters and cap ships but are likely to be destroyed by Corvettes and frigates yes?
We're using YT-1300s for them right now, and we're classifying them as "corvettes" in Sins terms (which is different from what we'd typically call corvettes), but yeah, the rest is right.
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Have the YT-1300's been increased in scale for better visibility? as far as I know they're relatively small in comparison to even regular frigates
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No, everything is still scaled properly. With how Sins zooming works, that's not really an issue, since there's no "standard view." With corvettes and strike craft, you're not really expecting to see them directly unless you're zooming pretty far in, and unless you made them 4-5x as big as they are, which would look incredibly weird, that would always be the case.
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Ah gotcha.
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what are the differences between lasers and turbolasers in terms of damages etc in this game? Thanks!
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Projectiles themselves don't have actual damage stats, they're controlled in bursts per bank, the actual individual shots in Sins are purely aesthetic, so you can't really say what the damage of "a turbolaser" is. Lasers are anti-fighter, turbolasers are anti-ship. The unit cards tell you roughly what the DPs of any weapon type on a ship is, although the game doesn't divide that by bank so it's not always the best picture. If you look in the beta explanation news post, there's a link to a spreadsheet which has stats for all the different banks of every weapon type on every ship in the mod.
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Corey I hate to ask again, but I can force attack cr-90s to a vessel and it seems to be doing some dmg, send nothing but cr90s to a planet and have them attack a vessel
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So, i wanted to ask if the Empire of the Hand as any Titans? I couldn't find anything in game nor in the internet.
Thanks
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They do not. Thrawn did not believe in using vessels of that scale, so they don't have any.