Imperial Remnant Suggestions

[Lavo]

As it is in Sins, Thrawn not only has to contend with the NR's era 2 units, but he's stuck with a smaller pool of options while the New Republic has access to things spanning from ICW's era 1 to era 5.

I've been thinking about this recently, and have figured that it is theoretically possible to put an ICW-style era system into Sins. Back during the initial Rebellion beta, I was among those who played around with the SetFaction modifier. In SoGE, it's been used to lock people out of one of their faction's two Titans. Theoretically, assuming the 18 frigates/9 capital ships is enough to work with, one could set up a few eras where the a player can only build a select few number of ships (ex. for the NR's capital ships, era 1 [starting era] could be MC80 Liberty/MC80B/Home One while era 2 would be Nebula/Endurance/MC90). I know that a two era setup, aka. starting and "later" era would work, but I'd have to double check the feasibility of multi-era set ups. Further, such an era set up could have multiple tech pre-reqs, or even be almost entirely based around tech research rather than ships. If you wish, I can analyze the feasibility of a multi-era set up when I get some spare time, which I admit won't be for a long time.

Alternatively, for the Imperials, the SetFaction could be easily re-tooled into a "pick your Warlord" dynamic, where at a certain point (at the beginning, mid-way into the tech tree) a player could truly define what style their fiefdom is to be like. Additionally, while ship names cannot be tied to research, ship weapons and meshes can be. Thus, it is very much possible for say, each Warlord to have their own MTC. Of course, the AI is retarded and treats the weapons on a ship as always being avaliable even if research is required, but that's a minor issue.

On the development side, and I mean no offense to Lavo by saying this, having so many factions under development at the same time has also limited the depth of the factions because there's simply so much to do at once.

None taken. In all truth, the six factions in the game were put in before I came across SoGE at all; the NR and Vong were entirely broken and nothing more than an in-cohesive and incomplete mishmash of model assets, most of which were lacking proper texture assets at the time. Your assessment is entirely on the mark; when you have many factions in development at once you are limited by how much detail you can put into them. Sure, you can make them play very differently in terms of ship/tactical combat, but that would come at the cost of economic/cultural/diplomatic differences.

[Corey]

I've been thinking about this recently, and have figured that it is theoretically possible to put an ICW-style era system into Sins. Back during the initial Rebellion beta, I was among those who played around with the SetFaction modifier. In SoGE, it's been used to lock people out of one of their faction's two Titans. Theoretically, assuming the 18 frigates/9 capital ships is enough to work with, one could set up a few eras where the a player can only build a select few number of ships (ex. for the NR's capital ships, era 1 [starting era] could be MC80 Liberty/MC80B/Home One while era 2 would be Nebula/Endurance/MC90). I know that a two era setup, aka. starting and "later" era would work, but I'd have to double check the feasibility of multi-era set ups. Further, such an era set up could have multiple tech pre-reqs, or even be almost entirely based around tech research rather than ships. If you wish, I can analyze the feasibility of a multi-era set up when I get some spare time, which I admit won't be for a long time.

Alternatively, for the Imperials, the SetFaction could be easily re-tooled into a "pick your Warlord" dynamic, where at a certain point (at the beginning, mid-way into the tech tree) a player could truly define what style their fiefdom is to be like. Additionally, while ship names cannot be tied to research, ship weapons and meshes can be. Thus, it is very much possible for say, each Warlord to have their own MTC. Of course, the AI is retarded and treats the weapons on a ship as always being avaliable even if research is required, but that's a minor issue.

This is kind of what I was talking about avoiding before; sure you're getting all the same ships as what you'd get with the era system, but the key parts that make the era system what it is aren't there, and don't really fit into this context. The era system is, above all else, a narrative mechanism. It's important that it progresses through events, and that it's connected between factions or else it just looks and feels like a gimmicky research setup while adding a bunch of unnecessary work. Doing a more "traditional" but better developed tech system within Ascendancy would work a lot better for how the game functions. Keep in mind that "advancing" in eras isn't necessarily a good thing, that's why it's tied together. You can get better ships out of it, but your enemy is too. Or you could lose access to some of your best ships. It doesn't really make sense as something that's particular to each faction's own actions taken in a vaccuum.

I should probably clear this up a bit more:
We specifically went in to Ascendancy with the express plan to not try to recreate the era system. We know of a ew ways we *could* do stuff that sort of simulates it, such as what Lavo posted above, but the system really is much better suited to the style of play and tools that EaW provides than that of Sins and we're looking to do something new. If people want the era system they can play ICW, with Ascendancy we want to provide something else. For a lot of the people who play both mods, making a crude copy of the era system may seem more familiar to the extent that it's possible, however it really wouldn't be close enough that it's intuitive without that frame of reference. The Era system was used in EaW because EaW lacks the ability to have any satisfying research system, while having really good tools to provide a narrative structure, so we took advantage of that. Sins, on the other hand, provides much better systems for actual research and not quite as much narrative structure, so we'll take advantage of that too.

[mynameisyou]

hey I Would like to recommend the Secutor-class Star Destroyer as a hanger ship for the Empire Instead of the Venator considering It appeared around the same time as the allegiance which is used in the mod and looks more imperal in general i would have it replace the Imp 1 but thats up to you.

[tlmiller]

As discussed, any SW game that has the Empire/Imperial Remnant MUST have the ISD-I.  It's simply the Canon backbone of the Imperial fleet, even if noone actually lkes with when compred to using VSD-II's and ISD-II's instead.

[mynameisyou]

As discussed, any SW game that has the Empire/Imperial Remnant MUST have the ISD-I.  It's simply the Canon backbone of the Imperial fleet, even if noone actually lkes with when compred to using VSD-II's and ISD-II's instead.

I know but its still pointless game bloat and maybe it could be Implemented as an upgradeable base ship rather than a separate ship.

[tlmiller]

What would be cool is if they had the ISD-I in the game, and one of the researches was to upgrade them all to ISD-II spec, and after that any ISD-I's you clicked on to build would be built to ISD-II spec instead.  That way you still follow canon of having the ISD-I, yet you actually can enjoy them once you research the ISD-II spec upgrade.

Obviously, no idea if that COULD be implemented since I've barely even PLAYED sins, much less modded it, but would be cool and get the best of both worlds.

[Rovert10]

Yes it is possible to do refit upgrades.

[mynameisyou]

so any one else have thouts on implmenting the Secutor-class Star Destroyer http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Secutor-class_Star_Destroyer

[Enceladus]

As far as thoughts go, it's a pretty damn ugly ship. I wouldn't even want to look at that in-game.

[Corey]

hey I Would like to recommend the Secutor-class Star Destroyer as a hanger ship for the Empire Instead of the Venator considering It appeared around the same time as the allegiance which is used in the mod and looks more imperal in general i would have it replace the Imp 1 but thats up to you.
...
so any one else have thouts on implmenting the Secutor-class Star Destroyer http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Secutor-class_Star_Destroyer

First, having it as a replacement for the ISDI wouldn't work because they serve completely different purposes and theoretically would be available at different points in the game. Technically it would serve the same purpose as a Venator and could supercede that, except for the fact that it's much larger and we have no plans to give the Remnant Venators in the first place.

Second, there's multiple problems posed by the Secutor; the IR doesn't need a large carrier, and the size/powerspace it already filled by the Allegiance. If we were to put the Secutor in, the Remnant would be even more top heavy. The difference between the two would be that the Allegiance has more firepower (one of the few things actually known about the Secutor is that it was lightly armed) while the Secutor can spit out more fighters.t Sins does not get along well at all with huge amounts of fighters so that's not really an argument in its favour.

I know but [the ISDI is] still pointless game bloat and maybe it could be Implemented as an upgradeable base ship rather than a separate ship.

What would be cool is if they had the ISD-I in the game, and one of the researches was to upgrade them all to ISD-II spec, and after that any ISD-I's you clicked on to build would be built to ISD-II spec instead.  That way you still follow canon of having the ISD-I, yet you actually can enjoy them once you research the ISD-II spec upgrade.

The ISDI is by no means "pointless game bloat" in Ascendancy. You could make that argument in ICW, but it's there (and also useless) because of narrative reasons, because as Miller says you can't have the Remnant without having ISDs of both kinds represented. As we've said, Ascendancy has a more traditional tech tree so you won't just start off with both available, which keeps the Remnant more in line with the earlier NR and EotH capitals.

It is possible to upgrade ships with a research thing, and even change the mesh. However I'm pretty sure you can't change the actual weapon types being used, which would be necessary to have the ISDI's just all change into ISDIIs. Not to mention that we have some different abilities planned for each of the two types. More importantly, having ISDII's as upgrades from ISDIs would cause a huge power spike for the Remnant which I'm not comfortable letting them have. If you have a fleet full of ISDIs while the New Republic has a bunch of MC80's, that's fine. If the New Republic researches the MC90/MC80B at the same time as the Remnant researches ISDII's, the New Republic has to build up a force of the new Mon Cals, while the Remnant just immediately gets bumped up.