Question about the future versions

[oxtyt]

It seems that my question in the moddb site was completely ignored so let me try my luck here.

I have been following this mod for years, and must say I had lost hope in it few years back when it was stated in moddb that you won?t continue on the mod and leave it at one release. Nevertheless you did continue on making/supporting the mod which really made my day, I was very happy to see it get more updates. Since it does have some very very nice ideas not seen in any other mod. That being said I had few questions. Would empire of the hand get some sort of super capital ship in the future? Also would you expand the units for other factions (playable and non-playable ones) in the future versions or would you say some or all of them are pretty much done. If you do which factions would you say are pretty much done?

Thanks

[Corey]

Sorry, it wasn't ignored, I've just been really busy with the beta stuff and some real life issues, and we've been getting a really high volume of questions and emails and whatnot lately so it takes a bit to respond to everything, especially the longer stuff, and some does fall through the crasks.

Would empire of the hand get some sort of super capital ship in the future?

Definitely not. For one thing, it's unnecessary for them given their capital ship loadout as it is. The Phalanx and Syndic are good enough to be effective against SSDs so they don't need an SSD of their own  for that reason, and more importantly Thrawn thought superweapons and SSDs were huge wastes of military resources so it goes against the faction's M.O.

Also would you expand the units for other factions (playable and non-playable ones) in the future versions or would you say some or all of them are pretty much done. If you do which factions would you say are pretty much done?

Depends on the faction. For the Yevetha and the Hapans, they have all of their canonical units, except for the Hetrinar and Beta Cruiser for the Hapans and the Rakehell for the Yevethans (a single ship, not even really a class) which only have names and were never given canon designs.

For the Warlords, there's no real reason to expand on them. They have the same options as any other Imperial splinter faction, really, but there's not much point to adding more to them; they're pretty well filled in every role.

For the New Republic and Imperial Remnant, on ground they have literally no slots left so adding more units there would mean cutting others or essentially making redundant ones that replace each other through the eras. In space, the NR's build bar is basically full in every era, and so is the Remnants, and we already have all of the high-profile unit so unless people had a specific suggestion that we felt really fit, there's really not much else we could addeven if we wanted to.

The Pentastar Alignment might get a few things going forward, but that's more up in the air.

The Empire of the Hand is the least clear-cut one. They'll probably be getting one or two new units in the future, which we will probably then transfer into ICW, but for ground beyond the 2-3 new units we're adding in 2.0 they're probably done.

[Buckeye]

On the subject of more ships, could you borrow an idea from another mod?  I believe it is the Alliance 2.3X mod and what they do is each planet has to build a specific station to build certain classes.  For example, you would need to build a capital shipyard in order to build capital ships and so on and so forth.

[Corey]

That's how it's always worked in ICW since before 1.0. There's the light frigate, heavy frigate and capital shipyards, and the ones you can build are planet dependant.

[Buckeye]

Ok, true.  I guess my idea would totally change the set up then because what I meant is that one planet could only build one shipyard, or two.  For example, Kuat could build a capital shipyard but then you would have to choose between frigates or fighters, not have the options for all ships essentially.  I mean it would not free up that much room, but maybe room enough for one possibly two more ships, which is not worth redesigning the system.  Ok, just forget I suggested it. 

[oxtyt]

Corey thanks for the answers. I can see why the empire of the hand won’t get any super capital ships, although my own personal view was that at the moment they feel they could use one more maybe slightly bigger capital ship (not a ssd after learning their M.O) possibly in the last era (when Thrawn is not in power). That being said if you don’t add any I won’t complain, I am not a huge fan of mods which just add too many super capitals that you get confused and it makes some ships (sometimes even normal capital ships) to became completely redundant. If I want to use many super capital ships I could always use Imperial Remnant.

I must say I am looking forward to The Pentastar Alignment, in next version and looking forward to see what you do with them in the future.

Also with the minor factions I don’t know if this even possible to in the empire at war engine but is it possible for your faction to maybe bribe or conquer them to maybe build some of their arsenal or maybe call for them to help you out in battles. They could be sort of ally to your faction. This is just a small idea, like I said I don’t know if it is possible to do or if you like it.

One last thing I know many people will agree with me that the 29th can’t come soon enough.

[Corey]

Ok, true.  I guess my idea would totally change the set up then because what I meant is that one planet could only build one shipyard, or two.  For example, Kuat could build a capital shipyard but then you would have to choose between frigates or fighters, not have the options for all ships essentially.  I mean it would not free up that much room, but maybe room enough for one possibly two more ships, which is not worth redesigning the system.  Ok, just forget I suggested it. 

We used to have something more like that, however it doesn't really work in the current setup and the basic functionality is less desirabl. Basically, why can't a place that can build ISDs not build VSDs? Basically it would either mean you get one less Golan, or there would have to be story scripting done that would conflict with the era system.

There's still enough room in most era for one or two more ships, but not vehicles, and there's really no ships we can think of that we really wanna add anyways.

although my own personal view was that at the moment they feel they could use one more maybe slightly bigger capital ship (not a ssd after learning their M.O) possibly in the last era (when Thrawn is not in power).

They already get the Phalanx, which is bigger and more powerful than every non-SSD except the Praetor, which is pretty close to being an SSD itself. If we added in another capital ship for them above the Phalanx it'd get really top heavy and kind of redundant.

Also with the minor factions I don?t know if this even possible to in the empire at war engine but is it possible for your faction to maybe bribe or conquer them to maybe build some of their arsenal or maybe call for them to help you out in battles. They could be sort of ally to your faction. This is just a small idea, like I said I don?t know if it is possible to do or if you like it.

There's a few problems with this, leaving aside any functionality issues. As far as capturing their worlds letting you build their ships, I've never really liked this kind of feature in other mods because it really doesn't make any more sense than it would if you captured for example Kuat and then got to build every Imperial ship as the NR or EotH. We realise people might wanna use the minor faction units, which is why we implemented the planet capture rewards, where you're essentially salvaging or capturing them after a battle,  and GCs like Black Fleet Crisis and the Hunt for Zsinj where you get to basically play as all the minor factions directly.

As for allying, there's no real diplomatic system possible in EaW, so if you had the ability to summon some Hapan allies in battle as the NR or something, it wouldn't make sense in a galactic context where they're still at war. When you factor in the raid fleets and the potential for an independant Hapan (or other minor faction fleet) to come in, then if you had the NR also summoning their own Hapan allied fleet, you could end up with two Hapan fleets fighting each other, which would just get awkward.

[oxtyt]

After reading about Pentastar Alignment in wookipedia to learn about them I saw their leader Grand Moff Ardus Kaine uses an Executor-class Star Dreadnought called the Reaper. Would that unit appear in the Pentastar Alignment as a hero unit? Sorry for too many questions but since I got more free time I got more and more interested in the mod.

[Corey]

Yeah, as it is the PA unfortunately gets 2 heroes in SSDs; Kaine in the Reaper and Jerec in the Vengeance. They currently  do not have the ability to build more SSDs outside of those two heroes, however. There's no such thing as too many questions (well, there is, but you haven't gotten there yet).

[oxtyt]

That is not really unfortunate (at least from my point of view) always wanted to SSD vs SSD  . Besides nice to hear that they got Jerec. One more question, I don?t know the star wars time line that good but would the PA also get Doomgiver?

[Corey]

No, Doomgiver was Galak Fyyar's ship, who was part of Hethrir's Empire Reborn, a seperate Imperial group.

[Lord Xizer]

That is not really unfortunate (at least from my point of view) always wanted to SSD vs SSD  . Besides nice to hear that they got Jerec.

I'm also of this opinion as an old school Dark Forces II fan, I also did Jerec's voice for the mod lol always good to meet another Jerec fan