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Topics - Corey

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41
If you would like a visual demonstration of how installation works:


Download .zip version (GoG and Disk) : http://www.moddb.com/mods/thrawns-revenge/downloads/imperial-civil-war-22-the-warlords
Download Steam version: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1125571106


STEAM:

We recommend using the Steam Workshop copy of the mod for Steam ( https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1125571106 ):
Step 1: click subscribe.
Step 2: Once it finished downloading, either launch it using the ingame mod launcher, or add the following to your launch options in Steam by right clicking EaW in your library > properties > set launch options:
STEAMMOD=1125571106

To install it using the downloadable copy:

Right click the ICW22.zip and select "extract here"
Place the mod into C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Star Wars Empire at War\corruption\Mods (Default)

To play the mod via Steam:
-Open Steam and go to Empire at War, right click and select Properties.
-Click Launch Options and add sweaw MODPATH=Mods\Imperial_Civil_War
-Close Properties and click Play, selecting Forces of Corruption.
-To play the original game just reverse the second set of steps and remove MODPATH=Mods\Imperial_Civil_War22 from the Launch Options.


RETAIL DISK:

Right click the ICW22.zip and select "extract here"
Place the extracted Imperial_Civil_War folder into Forces of Corruption\Mods,
Place the .bat file into your Forces of Corruption folder (should be with your swfoc.exe).

Result:
C:\Program Files (x86)\LucasArts\Star Wars Empire at War Forces of Corruption\Mods\Imperial_Civil_War22\Data\etc...

Double-click the .bat to play


GOG / GOLD PACK:

RETAIL DISK:

Right click the ICW22.zip and select "extract here"
Place the extracted Imperial_Civil_War folder into EAWX\Mods,
Place the .bat file into your Forces of Corruption folder (should be with your swfoc.exe).

Result:
C:\Program Files (x86)\GOG Galaxy\Games\Star Wars - Empire At War Gold\EAWX\Mods\Imperial_Civil_War22\Data\etc...

Double-click the .bat to play



COMMON PROBLEMS:

1. If you experience crashing on Startup/Perception Failure error/crashing on Starting a GC:
This is generally caused by another mod's AI files being installed to the Data folder for the base game, which interferes with all other mods, sometimes causing crashing. To resolve this, go into your corruption\Data\XML folder and delete the folders named AI and Enum if they exist.

If you experience the above with a disk or retail copy of the game and step 1 didn't work, make sure you have the FoC RAM fix installed:
http://www.moddb.com/games/star-wars-empire-at-war-forces-of-corruption/downloads/windows-vista-and-windows-7-fix

2. Trying to launch the mod only launches the base game
This most commonly happens if it was extracted improperly and an extra folder got added in between the real folders, ie you end up with:
Mods\Imperial_Civil_War22\Imperial_Civil_War22\Data
In this case, remove the extra Imperial_Civil_War22 folder from the path.

Planets are flashing Red and I Can't Move to Them
This is not a bug - some planets, specifically the Transitory Mists and the Hapans within them, the Duskhan League planets around N'zoth, and Byss and the Maw, are all locked until you reach a certain point in the game. While the graphical effect is annoying, it appears to be an un-editable one from the base game.


42
News & Updates / [Patch] Imperial Civil War 2.2.1 Released
« on: April 16, 2018, 03:15:33 PM »
We have just pushed a patch to address a few issues. This will currently only be available for Steam Workshop copies because it allows auto-updates, but once we've compiled more changes, the ModDB mirror will be updated as well.

Major Changes:
- Fixed skirmish AI inactivity
- Fixed an issue where era changes when factions are destroyed will cause a crash (until we have more time to test a better solution, this will mean the progressive GCs technically won't end)
- Doing live testing of some measure to improve GC performance on larger maps. Let us know if you see a difference.

Minor Changes:
- Various text fixes (most prominently, deconstruction buttons have names now)
- Moved Upcoming Changes button out from under Audio button
- Fixed missing Eriadu and Maldrood starting heroes in era progressives (Veers, Trier, Okins, Ramier)
- Fixed Gladiators not spawning fighters for Maldrood and Eriadu
- Commando sticky bombs reduced in damage and blast radius
- Broader KDY discounts
- Yevetha Boarding enabled
- Lott walker icon fixed
- Kyle dropped off by Moldy Crow
- Sienar Praetor discount removed
- Sacheen properly refers to single-unit retreat
- Nuruodo now requires only level 1 in skirmish
- Shifted save warning up slightly

- Ground skirmish heroes added:
--PA: Rei'kas, Sariss, Jerec
--Zsinj: Netbers, Lanu, Gethzerion, Melvar
--Maldrood: Dengar, Lott, Boba
--Eriadu: Weir, Strnag, Bossk, Veers
--Duskhan League: Eri Palle

If you have the Steam workshop version of the mod, this should automatically download. Please keep additional bug reports to the tech support subforum.

43
Please check existing patch notes in this post before reporting. ModDb downloads will always be a little behind the Workshop version (we'll be making compilation patches). I'll be deleting posts as they get addressed, in the interest of keeping the thread clean, so if yours disappears, that's a good thing.

If you receive an error on loading the mod, or on starting a GC, or your AI does nothing: This is generally caused by another mod's AI files being installed to the Data folder for the base game, which interferes with all other mods, sometimes causing crashing. To resolve this, go into your corruption\Data\XML folder and delete the folders named AI and Enum if they exist. Also, if you have the GoG or Disk version, make sure you have the FoC RAM Fix installed.

The Yevetha currently are unstable. We'll be disabling them in 2.2.2 until we solve their issues.

There is a known issue with EaW where crashes occur sometimes on saving or loading, sometimes deleting the saves. This is more likely to happen in large GCs- Petroglyph is working on a fix.



Patch 2.2.1 (April 16th, 2018)

Major Changes:
- Fixed skirmish AI inactivity
- Fixed an issue where era changes when factions are destroyed will cause a crash (until we have more time to test a better solution, this will mean the progressive GCs technically won't end)
- Doing live testing of some measure to improve GC performance on larger maps. Let us know if you see a difference.

Minor Changes:
- Various text fixes (most prominently, deconstruction buttons have names now)
- Moved Upcoming Changes button out from under Audio button
- Fixed missing Eriadu and Maldrood starting heroes in era progressives (Veers, Trier, Okins, Ramier)
- Fixed Gladiators not spawning fighters for Maldrood and Eriadu
- Commando sticky bombs reduced in damage and blast radius
- Broader KDY discounts
- Yevetha Boarding enabled
- Lott walker icon fixed
- Kyle dropped off by Moldy Crow
- Sienar Praetor discount removed
- Sacheen properly refers to single-unit retreat
- Nuruodo now requires only level 1 in skirmish
- Shifted save warning up slightly

- Ground skirmish heroes added:
--PA: Rei'kas, Sariss, Jerec
--Zsinj: Netbers, Lanu, Gethzerion, Melvar
--Maldrood: Dengar, Lott, Boba
--Eriadu: Weir, Strnag, Bossk, Veers
--Duskhan League: Eri Palle



2.2.2 - April 21st, 2018

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




2.2.3 - May 8th, 2018

- Fixed several instances of scripts ceasing to work in era progressive campaigns for certain spawn events. Still some cases likely left.
- Some galactic lag optimizations
- Fixed issue where ships would stop rendering when too far from camera
- Fixed Battledragon Death Clone
- Fixed Covell Crash on Deploy
- Fixed Quad Ion Cannon
- Some icon/text fixes
- Fixed issue where Zero Command would not break off properly in Endor Aftermath
- Fixed spawns for Okins, Ramier, Trier, Strang, Weir and Veers for Teradoc and Eriadu in various GCs
- Added NR progression holocron entries with era overviews (coming later for other factions). NR and IR now say exactly how progression works.
- Progression automatic timer reduced from 100 to 80 weeks, Thrawn -> Palpatine sub-era gap from 20 to 15 weeks
- Some skirmish FoW reveal fixes (others likely still remain)
- Company prices adjusted from 10,000 standard to other more suitable prices
- Many ground weapons (currently mostly Empire) moved to hardpoints from in-unit weapons, allowing for accuracy changes. Will be done for other factions as we go.
- Other, less interesting changes that I forget.



2.2.4 Update: 26 May
Edit
- 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 sinmgle-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


44

...Thrawn's Revenge: Imperial Civil War...



Conquer the galaxy in the aftermath of the Battle of Endor as any of 8 playable factions, with an era-based progression system- the fledgling New Republic which has formed out of the Rebel Alliance, the fracturing Galactic Empire, the secretive Empire of the Hand, the warlike and xenophobic Duskhan League, and four different Imperial Warlord factions (the Pentastar Alignment, Eriadu Authority, Warlord Zsinj, and Greater Maldrood).
Play with hundreds of units and heroes in skirmish and 19 new galactic conquest scenarios, including several historical scenarios encapsulating various different conflicts in the Star Wars: Legends universe.



For those who have played previous versions, the mod has essentially been entirely rebuilt, so providing a specific changelog isn't especially feasible- this is a rough overview, and the Readme goes a bit more in depth.

...What's New in 2.2...
Greater Maldrood, Zsinj's Empire, and Eriadu Authority Added as Playable Factions
Dozens of Redone and Updated Ship and Vehicle Models (ISD, Lancer, Mon Calamari Cruisers, Lucrehulk, and many more)
Many New Ships, Heroes and Vehicles (Secutor, Raider, Procursator, Dauntless, Bellator, and many more)
Several New Galactic Conquests Added
Era-System Overhauled, Allowing Different Ways to Progress, and New Consequences
All Existing Galactic Conquest Scenarios Overhauled, With More Story Events
Projectile Visuals Overhauled
Redone Skydomes, Ground Textures and Asteroid Fields
Overhauled AI to Take Advantage of Mod Features, Without Ridiculous Cheating
New Abilities and Features, Including Single-Unit Retreat, and Boarding
Dozens of New, Updated and Redone Maps
Updated Icons for 4K Monitors
Basically, everything

With previous versions we've included a manual- this is coming, but unfortunately we were unable to finish it in time for the release, so once it's finished, it'll be uploaded separately.

[Download Imperial Civil War 2.2 - Steam Workshop]
[Download Imperial Civil War 2.2 - ModDB (GoG, Retail)]

For installation instructions, see the readme, or watch a tutorial video by clicking here.

Currently, the mod is only available in English- if you are interested in helping translate the mod into another language, please email us at ThrawnsRevenge@gmail.com, or contact me directly on Discord, ModDB, or the TR site.

In order to deal with EaW's save-load problem until Petroglyph can release a proper patch, we have also removed or omitted some things (used some lower res textures, left out new Voice Overs, etc) until that gets fixed in order to help stability. If and when that gets fixed, we should be able to pretty quickly re-add those elements to the patched versions.



2.2 is effectively a complete overhaul of Thrawn's Revenge, and during its development, we've been building the base from which we'll continue to polish and expand the mod. Because of the extent to which we've changed how everything works, even with the long testing period we've been through, we're sure plenty of issues will arise- if you happen to come across any significant issues, we ask that you please report them in the tech support section on our forums.

We've also already begun planning the next steps for the mod, which we've covered more in-depth in a previous news post, which you can read by clicking here. In the shorter-term, however, we have some plans for supporting the mod with any issues that arise in the immediate future. With the Steam Workshop, we'll be able to immediately push updates for that version as they happen in terms of bug fixes and balance changes, since the workshop allows automatic updates- one of our primary focuses in that respect will be keeping balance patches regularly coming to help support multiplayer. It's a bit more difficult with the other kinds of downloads, so our plan there is to compile more of those updates over the space of about a month and have a more comprehensive patch release which can be downloaded separately.



...Multiplayer Community Matches & Future Version Previews...

One of our other goals, now that Petroglyph has re-enabled multiplayer for EaW via Steam, is to run regular multiplayer community matches. I will be mostly running this through my YouTube channel, where I'll also be continuing to do preview playthroughs and videos of upcoming versions of Imperial Civil War, Ascendancy, and soon, Fall of the Republic, our Clone Wars mod. The channel can be found at https://www.youtube.com/c/coreyloses . The plan is to have these matches happen roughly once per week. Basically, I will schedule the events (and update the main menu with the date for the next one on the workshop version), and host all the matches live on stream. Once I open the lobbies, anyone will be free to join. We've been doing this pretty regularly for 2.15 for the last few months, and it's been a lot of fun. It also provides valuable balancing feedback, which as I said earlier, will be acted on pretty regularly (along with the addition of new maps) on the Steam Workshop copy of the mod.

The first full community matches will take place Monday, April 16th at 5pm EST, and Saturday, April 21st at 2pm EST. We may woirk in a few to our release day dev stream today at 5pm EST, however.

You can also join the CGB Discord server, where there are channels dedicated to the Thrawn's Revenge mods and organizing other matches: https://discord.gg/t3WJugG



Finally, we want to thank everyone for their patience and support during the development of 2.2, especially to all those who participated in the open beta testing over the last two months- it's been a long time since the last release, and we especially appreciate everyone's understanding with the delay while we attempted to mitigate the problems caused by the EaW save-load issue. We hope 2.2 is worth the wait, and we hope to continue improving the mod even more in future releases.

- The Thrawn's Revenge: Imperial Civil War Development Team -


45
News & Updates / Revan's Revenge
« on: April 01, 2018, 10:06:11 AM »

46
News & Updates / Slight Delay
« on: March 27, 2018, 07:24:08 PM »
Unfortunately, while most of the testing process has been going very smoothly and we've made a lot of headway, some people have started to report save crashes in the beta, so in the interest of making sure the mod is as stable as possible, we have decided to move back release by two weeks to April 12th in order to try to look into it more. We will continue running the beta off of our forums for the time being, so those who do want to help test can do so there.

We're sorry for the delay, but we want to make sure once the release happens, it's as good and smooth as we can make it.

47
News & Updates / Thrawn's Revenge 2018: Vision of the Future
« on: March 25, 2018, 03:44:07 AM »
As we finish up the last bits of Imperial Civil War (we're still aiming for a release this Thursday, fingers crossed), we wanted to take a moment to talk a bit about the what the future holds for Thrawn's Revenge. We've been planning to do this since Mod of the Year concluded as a thank you for all of the amazing support we were shown in 2017, but never quite got a chance with everything going on. This post will cover the rough structure for the next couple releases as well as some general information about the future of all 3 of our major projects, Imperial Civil War (Empire at War), Ascendancy (Sins of a Solar Empire) and Fall of the Republic (Empire at War), each in its own section, but first I want to talk about multiplayer.

Before we hop into that, for those who prefer video versions of news posts, here's the video version of this one:


Multiplayer in Imperial Civil War & Ascendancy
One of the most common questions we've been asked since Petroglyph enabled multiplayer again for Empire at War is whether Imperial Civil War will support it. Basically, yes we will, but while skirmish will be available right away, because of some of the differences between singleplayer and multiplayer functionality in EaW, we need to spend a lot more time working on multiplayer-specific stuff; it's not quite so simple as just porting over a singleplayer scenario to multiplayer, considering that a lot of the new functions and features in the mod require certain things only available in singleplayer, so it will take a bit more time.



More importantly, we want to make sure people who want to play multiplayer matches of any of our mods have the opportunity to do so. To that end, I will be trying to host multiplayer matches through my Youtube Channel / Twitch streams, on Corey Loses. Basically EaW-related community matches will be hosted roughly once per week, and Ascendancy community matches around once per month. I generally start the stream, open a lobby and people can join if they want to play. This is also a great source of balancing feedback for us, so generally the Steam Workshop version of ICW (since it automatically updates for all subscribers) will be receiving regular balance patches to address anything which arises, and may also be used as a testbed for new features between major releases. There's also a Discord server for Corey Loses, which includes channels for all the Thrawn's Revenge mods as well as other EaW and Sins content for anyone looking to set up a game themselves (it's the home of Star Trek Armada 3 and Phoenix Rising as well) which you can join with this link: https://discord.gg/t3WJugG



One of the biggest takeaways for us in the development of 2.2 and Ascendancy 1.1.5 has been the value of structuring the releases in such a way that we focus more on specific bits of the mod as a major theme for the update, and release more often. We never intended for the 2.2 release of Imperial Civil War to take four years, but that is ultimately what happened, and that is what we aim to avoid. While the major theme of that update has been "The Warlords," its subtitle, it has essentially evolved into an almost complete rework of the mod graphically, in gameplay, and in narrative. We're pretty happy with the direction we're taking the mod in, but there's always more we want to do, and we want to make sure in pursuing that, we don't leave people out in the cold playing on older builds when we could have more significant, focused updates more often. Most importantly, as we progress and the mod gets more and more complex, the potential to break something increases, and we want to make sure we catch those things early and don't let them break more things down the line. With that said, let's jump into the plans.


Please, please keep in mind that while we're trying to include rough planned periods for when to expect the first of each mod's listed releases, any number of factors can change that wildly- we could have additional staff join that speed up the process, or an asteroid could hit my computer and very much slow it down. We're just trying to ballpark it here. Also, keep in mind that while we're listing the following two releases for each mod, the second one will typically have less specific details, because it's both farther off and contingent on what happens in the immediately forthcoming one.



Our goal here isn't quite to give specific unit lists or go into every change being planned for a release (so, don't expect things like unit lists), but instead to give some idea about the major goals for each release. Some things, like general upgrades to visuals, are always going to be part of each release, but with Imperial Civil War, which is far more established than Fall of the Republic or even Ascendancy we've essentially decided on a rule of thumb where we're going to try to do about 80% redone content, 20% new content- this way we can continually try to raise the bar of the overall quality of the mod, while still providing new things to play with in each release.

Imperial Civil War 2.3 - Q4 2018
Primary Goals:
- New Playable Faction: Corporate Sector Authority
- Additional units for warlord factions (including the Assertor)
- More fleshed out storylines in existing galactic conquest scenarios
- Begin new designs for Hapan faction
- Ground overhauls begin (gameplay and art)
- Skirmish overhauls
- UI overhaul

Imperial Civil War 2.4
Primary Goals:
- New Playable Faction: Hapes Consortium
- Continue ground overhauls
- Continue fleshing out storylines

General goals for Imperial Civil War: (These will be done as we go)
- Redo EotH ground and space assets where necessary (all ground vehicles)
- Improve New Class Modernization Project art assets for New Republic (Nebula, Endurance, etc)
- New and updated models/textures for all ground props
- Review all text entry structures, add more useful information for both lore and gameplay (weapon loadouts, lore holocrons, etc)
- Continue introducing new abilities
- More tactical random events



While the primary focus of the team since Ascendancy's last release has been to get ICW2.2 out, we have been setting the groundwork for the next couple versions of Ascendancy, with Bane in particular working on setting up some of the ship entities for the Hapans while we've been talking about some of the broader directions to take the mod in. Our original plan was to jump straight into the next faction, but we decided ultimately that the mods as a whole would benefit more from taking another interim release to focus primarily on balance and other holes within the mod.

Ascendancy 1.2 - Summer 2018
Primary Goals:
- Address major balance issues, flesh out certain factions/subfactions more. This is the primary goal, and we'll have a more in-depth post about this as soon as we can.
- Some additional militia forces (Yevetha, Ssi-Ruuvi, existing playable factions)
- Updated art assets (several have been done for ICW2.2, including the Lucrehulk, Mon Calamari Cruisers, etc, which will all make their way into Ascendancy.
- Increase map selection

Ascendancy 1.3
Primary Goals:
- New Playable Faction: Hapes Consortium
- Continue expanding militia
- Additional maps

General goals:
- Add additional tech, abilities and address balance where necessary
- Continue updating art assets



Because Fall of the Republic, our Clone Wars mod, is still heading towards its first release, there's less specific information about what we want to change- basically, you can expect Thrawn's Revenge style gameplay in a Clone Wars setting. One of the bigger things to talk about here is that we've tried to streamline development between ICW and FotR as much as we can, in that we have structured things within the mod folders so that we can work on the files common to both mods at once, meaning the only things we have to edit separately for each mod are the ships and heroes specific to each instead of all the extra things like planets, projectiles, scripts, etc, allowing everything to be done much faster.

Fall of the Republic 0.5 - Q4 2018
Primary Goals:
- Set up basic rosters for CIS and Galactic Republic
- Set up core GC sets, new planets

Fall of the Republic 1.0
Primary Goals:
- Expand CIS and Republic rosters
- Establish Hutt forces (non-playable faction)

On the whole any goals which apply to the Imperial Civil War, you can also generally apply to Fall of the Republic.



Like I said, not super specific but that should give you a rough idea of where we're headed- we hope you're looking forward to these releases (and 2.2, of course). If you're looking to follow Thrawn's Revenge or discuss the mods, you can do so at the following places:








48
A little while ago, I started my final preview playthrough serie son Corey Loses for Imperial Civil War 2.2, covering the Empire's End GC scenario as the Imperial Remnant. Check it out for a full demonstration of how era change mechanics work in 2.2, and a bunch of other stuff.


49
News & Updates / [ICW 2.2] Era Progression Overhaul
« on: February 10, 2018, 11:04:25 AM »
In this update, we talk about  changes to one of the core features of Imperial Civil War, the era system. As usual, I have recorded a video version of the update for those who prefer that over reading.


For those unfamiliar with the previous versions of the mod, the era system was the system by which tech is determined in Imperial Civil War. There were 5 distinct eras, each with different rosters for the factions based on what the time period was- these were the Isard era, Thrawn era, Palpatine era, Daala era and Pellaeon era, and players would progress through the eras by killing the Imperial leader. The purpose of the system was to tie story and tech into each other. While this goal was accomplished to some extent, there were a few major issues this presented. First and foremost, while the Empire of the Hand and New Republic would always benefit from an era change, Imperial players were often unaware that while the number was getting higher, they did not necessarily benefit from era changes in the same way- it's not a direct tech system, so higher isn't always better. Secondly, while it was meant to be a narrative system, and it certainly added some depth for those who were familiar with the lore, it was not especially intuitive to players who were less familiar with this period in Star Wars. Finally for those Imperials who understood the limitations but still wanted to get to other eras, the only method available to them was to to try sacrifice their heroes directly. In 2.2, we're attempting to solve or at least mitigate all of these issues. We're adding a bit more depth and variation to era changes and the method by which they occur, adding more story to their occurrence, and even changing some of the circumstances for how they occur. In this post, we'll go over the new eras and changes, and how they can occur.

Some of you may remember that one of the first changes we announced for 2.2, before it took on the scope it has, was a "regicide" feature, where you can purchase an upgrade and it will progress to the next era as if the leader had died. We ultimately decided that this could be expanded a lot more to work better into the story. Each era now has three ways they can progress, generally- voluntary, involuntary, and timed. The timed events basically occur with events that were happening independent of factional choices within the lore, and put some pressure on the Imperial player to take advantage of their power points when they can, and also help keep the game progressing when not playing as the Remnant, but the timer tends to be quite long (it's unlikely to make it to era 5 through timers alone, except in the most drawn out campaigns). Generally, there is some advantage to being proactive with era changes over losing the hero or the timed events. These can all have different effects, depending on the leader, the map and the era. There tends to be more events within the eras, and we plan to expand on this in future versions as well, but this should give an idea of where we're going. Ingame, there will be holocron entry and leader speech events to help provide more background for each event.





Era 1 Part 1
Imperial Leader: Sate Pestage (Economic hero)
Voluntary Progression: Isard proposes your help in Project Ambition, deposing Sate Pestage. This grants the Lusankya, along with extra heroes (ie Grand Admirals Makati and Takel, Ait Convarion).
Involuntary Progression: Either Sate Pestage is killed, or Coruscant is taken. Isard still takes over on Lusankya but with a smaller hero roster.
Timed: 60 weeks in, Isard completes Project Ambition on her own and takes over, but without extra heroes.

No matter which method is chosen here, if Abregado-Rae and Kalist are under Imperial control, Blitzer Harrsk will split off to form Zero Command


Era 1 Part 2
Imperial Leader: Director Ysanne Isard
Flagship: Lusankya
Voluntary Progression: Grand Admiral Thrawn offers his services, can be directly recruited.
Involuntary Progression: Lusankya is destroyed in battle.
Timed: 100 weeks after Isard takes over, Thrawn will complete his preparations and return to lead the fleet. Isard flees the Empire.

No extra positive or negative effects occur based on progression type currently


Era 2
Imperial Leader: Grand Admiral Thrawn
Flagship: Chimaera
Voluntary Progression: Emperor Palpatine informs you of the massed Imperial fleets at Byss, orders resources to complete the Dark Empire forces. You enter era 3 directly.
Involuntary Progression: Thrawn dies in battle, and the Ciutric Hegemony splits off if under Imperial control. Era 3 still requires the Dark Empire upgrade to complete, or the timer.
Timed: 100 weeks after Thrawn takes over, Rukh assassinates Thrawn, with the same effects as Thrawn's death in combat.


Era 3 Part 1
Imperial Leader: Reborn Emperor Palpatine
Flagship: Eclipse
Voluntary Progression: Carnor Jax informs you he's been poisoning the Emperor's clones, contributing to their degeneration. If you choose to help him, once Palpatine dies no Imperial territory will rebel.
Involuntary Progression: Palpatine dies in battle (on the Eclipse, or in a ground battle). Several Imperial planets potentially split off to rejoin Warlord factions
Timed: 100 weeks after Era 3 begins, Jax's assassination attempts are successful. Jax takes over, and several Imperial planets potentially split off to join Warlord factions.


Era 3 Part 2
Imperial Leader: Carnor Jax (Crimson Empire)
Voluntary Progression: Admiral Daala asks for your allegiance in her attempt to reunite Imperial forces. Imperial heroes from previous eras will remain if you join voluntarily.
Involuntary Progression: Carnor is killed in battle. Control switches to Daala, and all pre-existing Imperial heroes are removed.
Timed: Kir Kanos kills Carnor Jax. Daala emerges from the Maw and begins her campaigns against the New Republic. All previous Imperial heroes are removed.


Era 4
Imperial Leader: Admiral Natasi Daala
Flagship 1: Gorgon
Flagship 2: Knight Hammer
Voluntary Progression: Daala decides she is not the correct commander for the Empire, offers her resignation in favour of Pellaeon. Will return in era 5 with other Replacement Warlord forces.
Involuntary Progression: Daala dies in battle. Does not return as an era 5 hero.
Timed: 100 weeks after Daala takes over, she resigns. Pellaeon takes over.


Era 5
Imperial Leader:  Gilad Pellaeon
Flagship 1: Reaper
Flagship 2: Chimaera

Gilad Pellaeon is the final leader of the Empire

That's gonna do it for today. There are other era-based or time-based events in the mod, but this covers the actual method of progression. We're closing in very quickly on the beta phase, and so far we think we should be able to hit our target release date of March 28th for 2.2. Keep in mind though, it's still just an estimate.


50
I will be wrapping up the 2.2 preview playthrough series with two final playthroughs- the New Republic in the Thrawn Campaign, and the Imperial Remnant in Empire's End in the leadup to the beta starting next month. I'll be showing off some of the gameplay and graphical updates to the mod as I go, talking about future changes, and a bit of what's still to come in 2.2. The first episode can be seen below, with new episodes being posted every Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday on Corey Loses.


51
News & Updates / [ICW] Testing Process & Release Date
« on: January 13, 2018, 11:42:14 AM »
That's right, the time has finally come for us to tell you all when the time will finally come for you to be able to play Imperial Civil War 2.2. As usual, this news post is available in both text and video form:



Before we go any further, I do want to stress that everything you're about to see is a tentative guideline, not a guarantee. We can't see the future, so we don't know what circumstances will come up, but we're fairly confident in what we have planned.

That being said, as we've discussed in previous updates, the testing of the mod will be handled in a few progressively more open phases. We've been testing the mod internally and with the permanent testers as we've gone, so there's a lot of issues which have been caught and dealt with already, but broader pools of testers make it far easier to test the less common occurrences and figure out things like balance issues, while exposing as few people as possible to the more major issues that tend to come up at the beginning of any testing phase. The goal with this structure is to find the easiest way to get a progressively bigger testing pool while allowing the dev team to focus on actually developing the mod, as opposed to herding a bunch of testers or trying to manually select a huge pool of potential testers.

With that goal in mind, the first bit of open testing will take place on the official Thrawn's Revenge forums in the Admiral's Lounge section. This is a post-restricted board, which requires 25 posts to access. It can be accessed whether you've posted 25 times before, or during the testing period- there is no cutoff date beyond the end of testing. We know there are plenty of people who love the mod and have been just as if not more active in other places, whether that's ModDB, Discord, YouTube comments on Corey Loses, or the Steam Workshop, but the point of this is not to somehow reward or punish anyone for activity or lack thereof- as I said above, this is the simplest way for us to get a narrower but still considerable starting pool of testers that requires the least direct management by the team so we can focus on the more important bits of actually developing the mod. This is about testing it and making it as bug-free and ready for widespread play as possible, not about rewarding anyone with early access or something like that. The forums also provide the best platform to handle the posting of feedback (which is far, far less manageable in the instant-message or comment thread style of, say Discord or Steam), distribution of instructions, patch notes, and the other bits that actually go into testing. This is also not an invitation to spam, which will just annoy us and put us off of doing any sort of open testing in the future if it becomes a problem. When we've done similar testing methods in the past, some people have either tried to spam their way in, or protested that it's unfair, which is why I again reiterate, this is not about who does or doesn't deserve access or something, testing is a very important part of development, and this is the way that lets us maximize feedback and minimize how much effort goes into managing and collecting that feedback instead of actually working on the mod and acting on that feedback. We promise, we are doing our best to make sure 2.2 is as enjoyable as we can make it, and we want as many people to be able to enjoy it as possible, as soon as possible, but we need your cooperation in this

The planned date for the testing to begin in the Admiral's Lounge is:
February 15th.

From here, we'll be testing for around 2-3 weeks in that stage as necessary to work out all the major issues that we can, and finalize any of the content that's still being worked on. Once we have all of that done, we'll be opening the testing board to all forum members to continue on with any balancing changes, bug fixes, etc. Once we're confident that we've sorted out everything we reasonably can, we'll be moving on from there to the final, full release of the mod. Currently we plan to have a version uploaded to ModDB, EaW Nexus, and we'll update the 2.15 Steam Workshop copy to 2.2, so if you haven't subscribed to that, make sure to do so. The Demo workshop item will be removed near the end of testing. Once the testing process is over, we plan to ask a few of the people who contribute feedback and bug reports during the process to stay on as permanent internal testers for our projects going forward.

Our target date for this final release is:
March 29th, 2018

Around that time, we'll start posting about our plans with 2.3 and Ascendancy 1.2, some of which has already started, as well as have a lot more information and content about Fall of the Republic, our Clone Wars-era mod. That's it for now though.

- The Thrawn's Revenge Team

52
News & Updates / [FotR] Faction Profile: Confederacy of Independent Systems
« on: December 16, 2017, 01:33:58 PM »
Before we get into the update, we want to first thank everyone for their fantastic support so far through the first round of Mod of the Year. With your support, we have made it into the top 100 with not one, not two, but all three of our current projects. If you would like to vote for any of our mods in the final round of voting, you can do so by clicking on the appropriate button below, which will take you to the voting page. There you just click the "VOTE" button next to the mod's name. You can vote for as many mods as you like in this round, too. Again, we appreciate all the support!







As has become our new common way to do news posts, this update is also available in video form. The video form doesn't include the historical context blurbs, but does cover both this update and the previous Republic one:







The Confederacy of Independent Systems

Leader: Count Dooku, as Head of the Separatist Council (de facto Darth Sidious)
Capital: Raxus Secundus

Historical Context
"Our friends from the Trade Federation have pledged their support. And when their battle droids are combined with yours, we shall have an army greater than any in the galaxy. The Jedi will be overwhelmed. The Republic will agree to any demands we make."
―Count Dooku

Initially, the separatist forces were more of a loose association of largely-independent forces sourced from various disenfranchised sectors and organizations within the Republic organized in the wake of the Raxus Address by Count Dooku, a call to action against the Senate and Jedi and what they saw as the corruption in the galaxy. The formation of the Grand Army of the Republic, and its effective sue against these individual forces caused them to more strongly integrate. Chief among these groups were organizations like the Commerce Guild, Banking Clan, Techno Union and Trade Federation, which sued their vast resources to fund the production of arms through companies including Bactoid, the Colicoid Creation Nest, and Geonosian Industries. Each of the major contributors to the CIS would operate and organize their forces somewhat independently, however with the appointment of General Grievous to command all of the separatist armies, the chain of command was unified and forces integrated more fully.

Addressing the Cartoon. Again

Although our initial reveal post pretty much covered this, one of the most common questions we still get about the mod is whether we'll be covering the newer cartoon "or" Legends. This, like Imperial Civil War, is a Legends mod. As we covered back then the newer cartoon is part of Legends though, and has been since it started, it just also happens to have been the one thing kept along with the movies in the creation of new Canon. Yes, there are some contradictions between the cartoon and other sources, however not as many as you might think, especially on the scale where the mod is able to reflect the storyline in the first place. It also provides access to several new ship designs and characters which we would otherwise have to do without, especially on the CIS side. Besides, several contradictions already existed between previous sources- this is Star Wars, everything contradicts everything to some extent. Typically, the best indicator of where we're going with the mod is the book Essential Guide to Warfare and its endnotes by Jason Fry, which, since its release, has been effectively a production bible for us in the creation of Imperial Civil War, and now Fall of the Republic. It does a very good job of sorting out the inconsistencies and providing a broad overview of every era in Legends, while putting it all into 'historical' context.

Roster Overview

The initial releases of FotR will cover the three years of the Clone Wars, making each into its own era. One of the goals within this is to represent the move from independent command within the CIS to the unified command under General Grievous between the first and second eras, the specifics for which will be fleshed out and discussed more fully as we get further into development. There were also some other types of local forces which were involved (ie Umbarans), however these will not be fleshed out until later versions.

As we're planning to do an initial beta release (0.5) and then a more fleshed out release (1.0), there will be some units left out until the latter release, allowing more time for testing while the additional assets are finished and ideally getting something playable out as soon as possible. The regular text below are unfinished 0.5 units, green are finished 0.5 units, and italics are units planned for 1.0. As ever, plans can change at any time during development, so don't take any of this as being set in stone. Some things will also be added in releases past 1.0, so if you notice something missing, don't worry, we just don't want to overload the first build (also, things like landers aren't included in the list, but will be included in the mod).

Space Unit Roster
Subjugator, Lucrehulk (Multiple Variants)
Providence, Bulwark
Recusant, Munificent, Geonosian Cruiser, Captor
Diamond, Gozanti, Lupus, C-9979
Vulture Droid, Hyena Bomber, Trade Federation Bomber, Belbullab, Nantex, Rogue, Tri-Fighter, Mankvim-814, Ginivex

Ground Unit Roster
Octupterra, Crab Droid, Hailfire, AAT, GAT, HAG, HMP, MTT, MAF, Spider Droid, Persuader
B1 Battledroid, B2 Super Battledroid, Magnaguard, BX Commando, Droideka, Droideka Mk II, STAP

Heroes will be covered in an upcoming post. Spoiler: There will be some acolytes.


53
News & Updates / [ICW] MotY Round 2 & Systematic Upgrades
« on: December 12, 2017, 12:50:53 PM »
Before we get into the meat up this update, we want to first thank everyone for their fantastic support so far through the first round of Mod of the Year. With your support, we have made it into the top 100 with not one, not two, but all three of our current projects. If you would like to vote for any of our mods in the final round of voting, you can do so by clicking on the appropriate button below, which will take you to the voting page. There you just click the "VOTE" button next to the mod's name. You can vote for as many mods as you like in this round, too. Again, we appreciate all the support!





As usual, this update has a text and a video version. The contents are the same, it's just a matter of which medium you prefer. The video version can be seen here:



Over the development of 2.2, we've done several updates talking about new content and content changes, and while there's plenty of documentation in both text and video form of the mod as it changes, we haven't really taken an update to talk about the more structural changes to how the mod works, or addressing what we and other people have seen as the weaker points of the mod in previous versions, so that's what we'll be doing today. Some of these things we've touched on in some ways before, and some reaches forward a bit more into 2.3, but it's good to have it all in one place. This will be divided into a few different points/categories.

1. The number of projectiles (and some other factors) in the mod make it feel arcade-y/reduce the visual quality of the mod.

We definitely agree with this in 2.1. Essentially, the projectile counts in 2.1 were meant to most easily and clearly represent the canon armaments of ships, however while it made it more clear in one sense, it made the game less readable in other ways. While we are keeping the representative armament system in the mod, the total amount of projectiles is significantly lower. Even SSDs, while they put out a lot of firepower, won't be covering your screen in sheets of lasers. Health has also been proportionally increased across the mod, making ships feel a lot more solid.





2. Lack of abilities and similar ranges contribute to a feeling that there's not as much unit diversity in the mod in terms of actual role as there could be. Also, why are Praetor's weapons so long-ranged? And TIE Defender spam?

To address the second last part first, the reason Praetors and other larger ships have such high ranges is because we were attempting to mitigate the tendency for ships to spin when they can't use as many weapons as they'd like. We've since found other, better ways to do this, and frankly the benefits aren't worth the tradeoff of the Praetor being so powerful, so that particular change has been removed. Praetors are meant to be damage sinks, not snipers, and their new range will reflect that. In general, ships will have a broader... well, range of ranges helping to contribute to their ability to fill different roles. There's also going to be a split in the Concussion Missile weapon type, with one anti fighter type (which is what is currently in the mod), and an anti-ship variant, the kind you'll find on ships like the VSD, which will help them become more dedicated capital ship killers. A lot of the changes in weapon types, among other things, are to help smaller ships become more viable in general. In addition to the weapon changes, there have been changes to population cap to help some units feel less clustered near the bottom, and make super ships like the Executor feel like more of an investment. The new space cap is 60 instead of 40, with the cost of mainline capital ships brought up to 6 from 4, which provides us with extra space to distribute some of the smaller ships. In the case of the top-of-the-line fighters like TIE Defenders and Furions, their pop cap value has been increased to 2, meaning only 30 squadrons can be fielded at once instead of 40, and they have also been nerfed in other ways.

Abilities have also been given another look in the mod- we've never liked the idea of just renaming Power to Weapons a couple times, slapping it everywhere, and calling it a day, so while the base game abilities will be making more of an appearance than before, we've also added in some fully-custom abilities to flesh units out even more. In the mod right now are the new single-unit retreat and microjump abilities, as well as boarding abilities, the ability to rotate space stations on command, and in future versions we will continue to flesh out this list with more abilities. Some more general, others specifically tailored to individual units.

3. AI Improvements

In previous versions, we didn't edit the AI from the base game much beyond adding in the necessary tags for the AI to sue our new units, and that sort of thing. There are a few technical reasons for this which I won't go into, but in 2.2 this has changed, so in 2.2 and beyond you can expect to see some significant changes to AI behaviour. A lot of the reworking will come in 2.3, but we've already implemented or at least started to implement certain behavioural changes which should make the AI's actions make way more sense and remove some of their more exploitable tendencies. For one, units will no longer idle below allied space stations and allow themselves to be picked off. While they will still prefer to hang out near their stations, their ships will now move out to meet approaching enemies (prioritized by type, though that's fairly rudimentary so far). This also applies to ground unit behaviour, which should no longer exclusively hang out around bases either. The other major space tactical change for 2.2 is that the AI will no longer use corvettes and fighters to randomly scout the map, and this is a fairly impactful change. Instead, they will focus on actually fulfilling their roles. Which brings us to...

4. SSDs are just too powerful, and too common. It's too easy to win once you get one.

When you fight an SSD, or use an SSD, it's supposed to feel somewhat rare and cool. In 2.15, they were everywhere, and once you got them, you essentially could win any engagement. Once you knew how to handle them, they could still be beaten by the player but the AI couldn't really handle them. We've made several changes to address this, as well. First, build limits are significantly reduced. The typical cap for SSDs is 1 at a time, and a lifetime max of 3. The exception are Bellators, which are a lifetime cap of 4, and a current limit of 3. We've also made it so their weaknesses are more pronounced, making them easier to take down with proper tactics, and as importantly, easier to lose. They have become significantly more vulnerable to bombers (which combined with the AI's proper usage of bombers, makes it so you need to defend them a lot more and can't drop them in haphazardly), and have the oft-requested engine hardpoint to help stop them from escaping with 5 turbolasers left, which was incredibly annoying in previous versions. No longer does an SSD mean victory, it just means you have an powerful ship which excels in its niche against capital ships, as it should, but with especially pronounced weaknesses where it struggles against groups of smaller targets.





5. The era-system is lacking in some ways story-wise, and it's not always clear that higher era doesn't necessarily mean better tech for the Remnant players.

We wanted to bring this up to acknowledge it, but the next news post will be specifically about the multi-era GCs and the changes to era progression, so we'll hold off on that discussion until then.

6. Everything moves really fast in ground battles, and it feels weird.

Our attitude towards ground battles in previous versions was that they were bad, and they weren't entirely fixable, so we weren't even gonna try- we were just gonna make them as painless as possible, and move on. This was the wrong attitude, and is certainly a valid criticism of existing versions. However, this won't be an issue we tackle all at once. There's a few key things we've done in 2.2, namely infantry firing while running and trying to add a bit of variety within them, removing the worse and larger ground maps, working on a better distribution of ground maps so it feels less repetitive (there's now generally at most 2, in a few rare cases 3 planets using any given map between 250 planets in the mod, so you shouldn't notice as much repetition), and some balance changes, along with reverting the aforementioned pacing change. In 2.3, we want to do a more thorough retooling of some ground systems, so we'll talk more about that when the time comes and we've fleshed it out even more.


So that's obviously not an exhaustive change list, but hopefully it's assuaged some concerns for people, or convinced people who may not have been as keen on 2.15 to give 2.2 a shot. We're always looking to improve the mod, so we're always happy to hear feedback both during development and afterwards for the next version. So far, we're very happy with the direction we're going so far with 2.2 and into 2.3, so we hope all of you enjoy it as well.


54
News & Updates / [FotR] Faction Profile: The Galactic Republic
« on: December 06, 2017, 01:10:46 AM »

We said in the initial announcement for Fall of the Republic that we'll be focusing solely on Imperial Civil War 2.2 until release, save for some art assets, and while that has been the case (so no FotR-specific screenshots quite yet), as we get closer to the Imperial Civil War release we'll be able to start talking about Fall of the Republic a bit more. Keep in mind, while ultimately the mod will cover a larger time period, the first two releases will solely cover the 3 years of the Clone Wars, and that's what this faction profile covers as well.





The Galactic Republic

Leader: Supreme Chancellor Palpatine (22BBY-19BBY)
Capital: Coruscant

Historical Context

The Galactic Republic, for the years leading up to the Clone Wars, did not have a standing regular army. Instead, it relied on sector forces to control their own affairs and deal with any impending threats with occasional help from the Jedi, as in the cases of the Mandalorian Civil War, Stark Hyperspace War, and the Separatist Crisis at Naboo. Some of these sector forces stood out as more powerful than the others, like the Seswanna Defense Force under Ranulph Tarkin, and the Kuati Sector Forces, but all were subjected to strict limits on armament and hyperspace capability by the reforms of the Ruusan Reformation 1000 years prior. Large ships like the Mandator and Praetor classes had long served in these regional forces, sometimes flaunting the longstanding regulations. Ranulph Tarkin in particular spent years attempting to form a more organized defense fleet for the Republic and from 57 BBY to 22 BBY when the Clone Wars began, the Republic Outland Regions Security Force attempted to fill that void with the leadership of Ranulph and later his nephew, Wilhuff Tarkin. After this point, with the outbreak of the Clone Wars, the Republic fully organized and moblized its armed forces, bolstered by millions of Clone Troopers ordered in secret by Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas and supported by all new state-of-the-art warships.


Roster Overview

Within the first two versions of Fall of the Republic, the three eras present will be the three years of the Clone Wars. During the earlier years, there will be a heavier reliance on the sector forces, with the later eras involving more of the Grand Army of the Republic's units and some of the units they developed leading up to the declaration of the Empire. If the two primary factions of FotR could be reduced to their simplest form, then the CIS is quantity over quality, while the Republic is quality over quantity. While their and vehicles ships tend to be smaller than their CIS counterparts, they tend to be a bit better proportionally, and in terms of fighters, significantly outclass the Separatists.

As we're planning to do an initial beta release (0.5) and then a more fleshed out release (1.0), there will be some units left out until the latter release, allowing more time for testing while the additional assets are finished and ideally getting something playable out as soon as possible. The regular text below are unfinished 0.5 units, green are finished 0.5 units, and italics are units planned for 1.0. As ever, plans can change at any time during development, so don't take any of this as being set in stone. Some things will also be added in releases past 1.0.

Space Unit Roster
Praetor I, Imperator, Tector, Mandator II
Acclamator I, Acclamator II, Dreadnaught, Venator, Victory I
Light Assault Cruiser, Carrack, Arquitens, Charger
ARC-170, Delta-7, Eta-2, V-19 Torrent, H-60 Tempest, Z-95, Y-Wing, Alpha-3 Nimbus, NTB-630, PTB-625

Ground Unit Roster
AT-RT, AT-PT, AT-AP, Juggernaut A5, Juggernaut A6, AT-TE, BARC Speeder, LAAT, TX-130 Saber, TX-130T, AV-7, ISP, UT-AT
Clone Troopers (P1), Clone Troopers (P2), ARC Troopers, Jedi

Heroes will be covered in an upcoming post. We do have a poll going where you can vote on which jedi heroes get included by clicking here.



It's currently Mod of the Year time, so if you're so inclined you can vote for any of our projects by clicking on the links below and then the "vote" button on their page. We haven't shown much of FotR, but we'd still appreciate your vote for Ascendancy or Imperial Civil War if we haven't quite won you over yet with the bits we have shown.

Imperial Civil War
Ascendancy
Fall of the Republic


Also, as with ICW and Ascendancy, Corey will be doing some preview FotR livestreams and playthroughs on his Youtube/Twitch channels as the mod progresses. The pages for those can be found hbere:
YouTube
Twitch

So, hopefully that gives you a decent idea of where we're going with the faction. The CIS breakdown shouldn't be too far off.


55
News & Updates / Mod of the Year 2017 - We Need Your Support!
« on: December 01, 2017, 04:18:15 PM »

Video version:


Mod of the Year has once again started on Mod Database. For the unfamiliar, it's a yearly competition where players get to vote on their favourite mods. There are two phases. In the first, any mod is eligible, and you can vote for as many mods as you like. In the second, the Top 100 vote-getters in the first round are voted on to get the final positions.

2017 has been a big year for Thrawn's Revenge. We've released the 2.2 demo for Imperial Civil War, the 1.1 update for Ascendancy, and announced the return of our Clone Wars mod for Empire at War, Fall of the Republic. While most of this has been setting us up for an even bigger 2018, we hope that our work this year has earned your consideration for support in the 2017 awards. If you are so inclined, you can follow through on any of the links below to vote on that mod for the initial phase of the 2017 awards by clicking on the "vote for this mod" button below the description, and we'll be posting some extra content over the week (including the Ascendancy beta).

Vote for Imperial Civil War

Vote for Ascendancy

Vote for Fall of the Republic

Thanks for your support everyone! And if you decide not to vote for us, we hope what we have coming next year changes your mind for when MotY 2018 rolls around.


56
News & Updates / Era 5 Breakdown & 2.2 Release Process
« on: November 18, 2017, 06:24:26 PM »
After a long hiatus between regular news posts, we're back with the fifth and final era breakdown, and some discussion on what's left to do, and how we'll be structuring the release. We're also gonna be trying out something new, where we have the regular text version of the post, and a new video version. The information in each will be the same, so it's just whichever media you prefer. First, here's the video version:




Era 5

Era 5 begins in 12 ABY when Pellaeon took over the Imperial leadership after the resignation of Natasi Daala. While Pellaeon took a more pragmatic approach to the New Republic than any of his predecessors, there were still several times when conflict broke out, especially considering this is the longest of any of the 5 eras. For the events in this period in previous releases, we used to cover them in two GCs - one dealing with the Black Fleet Crisis alone, and another dealing with all the New Republic and Imperial (and Empire of the Hand)-related events all together. This was not ideal, so we've not broken it down into four total GCs.

The Orinda Campaign
"You must be strong. Follow your own convictions. We need an opportunity to recover from such a debacle. We need your strength. You are in command of the Empire now, Pellaeon."
―Admiral Natasi Daala



Time Covered: The Orinda Campaign, Adumari Civil War (12-13 ABY)

The Orinda Campaign was the last real cause for hope under the newly-united Empire. With Pellaeon having the combined fleets of the Warlords, now based in the newly-absorbed Pentastar Alignment, Orinda was chosen as a symbolic target to project Imperial strength. The Empire was able to take advantage of the combined might of three super ships, being the Reaper, former flagship of Grand Moff Kaine in the independent Pentastar Alignment, and Dominion and Megador, two ships recovered from Blitzer Harrsk's holdings, of which the New Republic was unaware. Pellaeon believed that Orinda, as the former home of the Ruling Council, would be valuable enough a target for the display of force to discourage further New Republic advances, without being enough to provoke a massive retaliation. Within the New Republic, the campaign was also characterized by an internal struggle, with one side favouring the use of large battleships to combat other large battleships in the wake of Shadow Hand's calamitous use of them, leading to the recommissioning of the captured Lusankya under the command of Wedge Antilles, and the other favouring the further development of smaller capital ships supported by more advanced fighters, a position symbolized in the campaign by Admiral Areta Bell.

We've talked in the past about wanting to use slightly different victory conditions in some GCs, and this will hopefully be one of those GCs. For the New Republic, the primary goal will be to destroy the Dominion, Megador and Reaper. For the Remnant, the goal will be to hold Orinda by the time a certain week hits. Story-wise, there will also be some events related to the Adumari Civil War and Restored Empire in this GC, when complete (these may be some of the events which don't make the 2.2 cut). Also, the specific classes of the Dominion and Megador are never explicitly stated. Based on the limited information, we have gone with the assumption that the two related-but-different vessels are the 8000 meter long Mandator II for the Megador, and the 7200 meter long Bellator for the Dominion. In 2.2, both will be Bellators, but ideally in the future we'll be able to make the Megador a proper Mandator.

Playable Factions:
New Republic - Coruscant
Imperial Remnant - Bastion

Non-Playable Factions:

Restored Empire's Forces - RZ7-6113-23



Black Fleet Crisis - Yevethan Faction Expansion
"Our claim to these stars is natural and ancient. Our eyes have owned them since the beginning of our days. They are alive in our legends. They call to us in our dreams. We draw our strength from the All. The purity of the All inspires us to perfection. Our claim to these stars is not a shallow thing of greed, or politics, or ambition. It is not a claim we would ever surrender."
―Viceroy Nil Spaar



Time Covered: The Black Fleet Crisis (16-17 ABY)

The Black Fleet is the name given to Black Sword Command, an Imperial fleet which mostly went missing in the aftermath of Endor. The ships and shipyards had actually ben captured by a technologically adept but xenophobic and militaristic society called the Duskhan League (or Yevetha). They used this fleet and their own Thrustships to attack the New Republic, hoping to expand out into the galaxy, but were shut down by the modernizing New Republic fleet under Etahn A'baht.

In layout, the GC is fairly similar if not identical to the 2.1 version, however the Yevethans as a whole have received some other major changes. We don't want to sacrifice the Black Fleet Crisis' position as a small, quick and focused campaign, however it has commonly requested that the Yevetha themselves be developed more. So, we have buffed up their infrastructure, added a couple more units and heroes to their roster (including the boarding shuttle, which they can use to capture enemy ships- the heroes will be covered in a future post), and they will also be both present and playable in at least a few of the era-progressive Galactic Conquest scenarios, most notably Art of War. They will, however, likely stay unplayable in skirmish, considering the Thrustship is available in other ways.

Playable Factions:
New Republic - Coruscant
Duskhan League - N'zoth




Final Imperial Push
"When the dust from the conflict finally settled, Pellaeon's Empire had been pushed back into a mere eight sectors of a strategically barren section in the Outer Rim."
―Voren Na'al



Time Covered: Imperial Skirmishes (17 ABY)

After 5 years of declining tensions between the New Republic and Imperial Remnant, the Imperial Moffs began to suspect renewed New Republic ambitions to take more Imperial territory. In order to pre-empt this, the Moffs contacted Daala, who had united the remaining core 'Replacement' Warlords since her abdication, convincing her to lead one half of a pincer attack from the deep core against the New Republic, while Pellaeon attacked from the main Imperial territory, with his forces having been bolstered by Imperials who had successfully escaped the Duskhan League in the wake of the Black Fleet Crisis. Pellaeon disagreed strongly with the plan, and so rested his hopes on being able to quickly eek some victories to give the Imperials a stronger foothold to begin proper peace negotiations with the New Republic. Initially, the campaign went well for Pellaeon, but as soon as Daala was defeated, the combined might of the New Republic fleet began converging on him, culminating in the massive and final defeat of the Imperials at Anx Minor.

Playable Factions:
New Republic - Coruscant
Imperial Remnant - Bastion




Caamas Crisis
"If we're destroyed—if we all die—the concepts and ideals of the New Order die with us. But if we surrender, we can keep those ideals alive. Then, if and when the New Republic self-destructs, we'll be positioned to rise again. Maybe then the galaxy will finally be ready to accept us."
―Gilad Pellaeon



Time Covered: Caamas Crisis (19 ABY)

Where other single-era GCs tend to focus on specific conflicts, with the addition of Final Imperial Push and The Orinda Campaign, we're able to take the Caamas Crisis (formerly Final Imperial Push, and before that it was originally called Caamas Crisis) in a slightly different direction, trying to represent the larger galactic situation before the Vong War. While there will be events tied into the Crisis itself, and the Sinister Triumvirate's attempt to prolong or reverse the fortunes of the war efforts of the Empire, or the Empire of the Hand's hope for a united galaxy and the return of Thrawn before the invasion of the Far Outsiders, Caamas Crisis serves as more of a flashpoint where various things could have gone different ways, and no longer has the problem of trying to represent around 7 years at once. Most of the work here will be done to bring things more specifically into line with the 19ABY starting date. The layout is most likely to change out all the announced GCs, as it's currently only a few minor edits to the existing 2.1 version.

Playable Factions:
New Republic - Coruscant
Imperial Remnant - Bastion
Empire of the Hand - Nirauan




Mod Progress, Release, and Structuring

As we're entering the last stages of development, we've started clamping down on some of our priorities for 2.2, and deciding on what makes more sense being left to 2.3. Considering the major changes between 2.1 and 2.2, not to mention the huge time gap, there reaches a point of diminishing returns with what we can add or change at this point, especially as any significant overhaul projects will take longer to settle. So while we're making some changes to the AI and to ground combat in particular, those will primarily be left for 2.3, along with some of the additional fleshing out of story events.

Because we want to make sure the final release is as stable as possible, and we get as much feedback as possible, we have internally begun discussing how to handle the beta process. While we do have a team of internal beta testers, which we hope to increase throughout the rest of development, we're now planning to add an additional phase of open betas to make sure as little slips through the cracks as possible. This will be handled in three steps.

1. Internal Testing
While development is finished on basic features, internal testing team will do initial runs through content.

2. Open Beta
As we did with Ascendancy, which seemed to work fairly well, we will be using a github repository and our forums on www.thrawnsrevenge.com/forums to have a wider but still not fully 'released' beta period, where anyone can join, but for our sanity, we will only be running it out of the forums. For those unfamiliar, github (and similar programs) allow us to essentially update whatever we need to and give those changes to everyone with the mod without having to reupload and redownload the entire mod when something does get changed.

3. Full Release
We put the mod up on ModDB, Steam workshop, etc.

In order to get through these stages as quickly and efficiently as possible, some Galactic Conquest scenarios will be left out of the initial beta, to be finished while we iterate on feedback we receive during the beta period. These are:
- Despoilers of an Empire
- Empire's End (formerly Imperial Civil War)
- Bacta War
- Isard's Revenge
- Crimson Empire
- Final Imperial Push

Before anyone asks, it's impossible to know exactly when this will be. Too much can change, but the afct that we're laying out beta plans should indicate we're getting very, very close. So next, here's an overview of what's in 2.2, what's done, and what's left to do.



Mod Progress, Release, and Structuring

This is a rough overview of everything done and being done in 2.2, though it's possible there's some stuff I'm forgetting- this is essentially just to give an idea of where we stand, moreso than being an exhaustive changelog for the new version.

1. Overhauled GFX and Skydomes (Skydomes to again be revisited along with planet models in 2.3)

2. Updated Models: (Red means still in progress)
Asteroid Props, MC40a, MC90, MC80, Home One, Imperial I Star Destroyer, Imperial II, Victory I / Victory II, Tector, Praetor, Lucrehulk, Krsiss Clawcraft, K-Wing, TIE Fighter, TIE Bomber, TIE interceptor, TIE Defender, TIE Droid, Carrack Cruiser, Vindicator, Enforcer, Immobilizer-418, Eclipse SSD, Executor, Assault Frigate, Quasar, A-Wing, X-Wing, Y-Wing, BAC, CR90, Nebulon-B, Battledragon, Ton-Falk Escort Carrier, Sentinel, Lambda, Acclamator, Venator, Stormtrooper

3. New Units/Structures: (Red means still in progress, yellow means previously announced units likely being held for 2.3)
Allegiance, Bellator, Intego, Peltast, Afthonia, XQ Platform, Cardan, Empress, Validusia, Raider Corvette, Secutor Star Destroyer, World Devastator, Droideka, B1 Battledroid, Army Troopers, ULAV, Trade Station, ARC-170, Providence, Procursator, Arquitens, Jump Trooper, Neutron Star, Oto, AT-TE, Vigil Corvette, Imperial II Frigate, Sorannan, Torpedo Sphere, Dauntless, MC30c, Gladiator, Customs Frigate, Espos

4. Playable Factions - Green means new
- New Republic - Adjusting hero spawns for all GCs, more diverse roster based on specific conflicts.
- Imperial Remnant - Same as New Republic. Mostly just working on last hero changes and era change mechanics.
- Pentastar Alignment - Major work complete. One hero being finished.
- Empire of the Hand - Finishing some tech options, and Intego model. Ground units major focus of 2.3.
- Warlord Zsinj  - Primarily done, just finishing ULAV coding.
- Eriadu Authority  - Finishing some last changes to 2.2 roster, will likely receive some of its unique units in 2.3 instead.
- Greater Maldrood  - Mostly finished, re-sorting fighter spawns, finishing one more hero, and adding one more fighter class for them.
- Duskhan League - Roster and building options increased, heroes increased. Fixing some bugs introduced during 2.2 development, and setting up functionality for other game modes/GCs.

5. Non-Playable Factions - Green means new
- Hapes Consortium - Largely unchanged for 2.2
- Corporate Sector Authority - Working out initial base roster. Will be expanded in 2.3.
- Zero Command - Finishing initial base roster and heroes, emergent events.
- Minor Imperial Warlords - Consolidating down to one faction because of hardcoded limits to leave room for other groups.
- Other groups to be expanded on in 2.3

6. New Abilities and Mechanics - Red means still in progress, yellow means announced features being moved to 2.3
- More in-depth Era Changes - Regicide options for IR players to change eras themselves, different events based on how the era changes, additional effects for changing eras.
- Emergent Factions - In some GCs, certain events will cause new factions to become active on the galactic level.
- Single-Unit Retreat - Some ships have the ability to leave battle alone, without the rest of the fleet retreating.
- Directing Structures - Most defensive structures can be rotated to face any desired direction to more effectively use their firing arcs
- Boarding/Capturing Units - Use boarding shuttles to capture enemy units in tactical battles.
- Microjump - Some units have the ability to make small hyperspace jumps within a battle to reposition themselves.
- Raid Fleet Changes: Changes made to spawning mechanisms to make them more interactive, further changes planned for either 2.2 or 2.3.
- Other In-Battle Random Events

7. Survival and From the Ground Up Game Modes:
- New unique maps for PA, EotH, NR and IR Survival Modes
- Edited unit rosters for Survival mode
- Survival Mode for new playable factions will be added in 2.3
- Unique layouts for FTGU for all factions

8. Miscellaneous
- Significant changes to balancing, primarily in space. Some work done on land, moore significant land changes coming in 2.3
- SSDs have engine hardpoints. No more retreating.
- Infantry reverted to regular squads instead of individual units from demo.
- AI updates: Fix logic for some situations, primary work on AI will be done in 2.3.
- GC scenarios: All layouts planned, most coded, most starting forces set, primarily working on final story scripting

57
News & Updates / 2.2 Ability Preview: Capturing Ships (With FAQ)
« on: November 15, 2017, 09:27:24 PM »
A few days ago, I released a video showing one of the new abilities Pox has been working on for 2.2, unit boarding. We've held off on posting this in other usual news sources because I wanted to take some time to respond to some of the more common questions that go along with it, which I'll be doing after the video:



Although it was specifically mentioned in the video that the exact numbers (success chance, unit price) you were seeing were not the actual numbers and instead just to make it as easy as possible to get the video showing the basic mechanics, one of the primary concerns raised by people was about balancing. First, I want to re-iterate that the boarding units will be expensive, in both credits and pop cap, typically similar to a capital ship in both areas. This is not a unit you will be spamming and trying to do so would be an incredibly bad idea. Your success chance with boarding is almost nothing if the target ship is anywhere near full health, and your boarding shuttles are incredibly vulnerable- successfully capturing an enemy ship will require something of a concentrated effort, and after you've captured the ship, it will typically be very heavily damaged- something you will need to protect, not something you will be using to help you win that engagement. we're also considering turning off major subsystems after a successful boarding (as you'll only have a skeleton crew).

So, other FAQ:

1. What can be captured?

The typical rule of thumb will be ships between 500 meters and 2000 meters will be capture-able. There will be some exceptions, but that's essentially how it works. This includes things like Hapan Battledragons, Star Destroyers and most things in between. This does mean SSDs will not be boardable in this way.

2. Who will have this ability?

Right now, the New Republic, Duskhan League and era 2 Remnant have it, with era 5 Remnant being another possible candidate. It's undecided how far it will go beyond that.

3. Does success chance change between ships?

Success chance is currently based on proportion of total ship health, so it does take more actual damage to get larger ships down to any given success chance, but in terms of overall percent it is the same. Capturing ships is currently fairly difficult as it is, but if it ends up being too easy, this is one potential area we'll be examining.

4. Can you tell your ships not to target the ship while it's being boarded?

Currently no, however making ships invulnerable while being boarded is something we're considering.

5. What's the cooldown? Is the boarding shuttle removed after being used?

Currently we're undecided whether we're going to use a direct cooldown, a limited amount of tries for the ability per shuttle in any given battle, or both. Currently, the shuttle is not removed after successfully (or unsuccessfully) being used. While removing them for a successful boarding may sound like it makes it less powerful, in practice, they're quite fragile, quite expensive and because of the pop cap value they take up, keeping them in the battle afterwards makes more sense in keeping the attempt to capture a ship a primary focus of a battle, instead of something you just incidentally do.

6. Will fighter compliments reflect the new or the original owners?

Currently they stay with the original loadout, but this is something I'd like to change for the first patch post-2.2. It shouldn't be an especially difficult one to make, but there's certain other variables I want to change to certain fighter loadout situations, and it makes more sense to implement it all at once than doing piece by piece.

So, hopefully that gives you an idea of how the ability works. If you still have questions feel free to post them here, on the video comments, or in our official discord channels on the CGB Coalition server: https://discord.gg/t3WJugG


58
Hey everyone, it's once again time for me to do another preview playthrough in 2.2, this time as the Pentastar Alignment in Art of War. That being said, while we are closing in on release, there's also some other upcoming news posts:

1. Ability Preview (Boarding)
2. Era 5 Breakdown
3. Hero and Roster Changes for NR/IR/PA/EotH/Yevetha


60
News & Updates / New Republic Bacta War Preview Playthrough
« on: October 06, 2017, 05:10:43 PM »
My preview let's play series as all of the 2.2 factions is continuing, this time with the New Republic in the new Bacta War GC. Check it out on Corey Loses for a look at some of the new abilities, UI changes, story events and more coming in 2.2. Episodes will be posted Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.


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