New GC Scenario Ideas

[Lord Xizer]

It's been discussed how to make the Empire of the Hand more popular with players. Why not create a scenario with only them as a playable faction? For instance Thrawn's campaign in the unknown regions. You could have some minor factions to fight against and start the EotH with only Niraun and their Heroes and build up to the planets they start out with in Art of War.(sort of a birth of the EotH as it were)

[Slornie]

What "minor factions" would you suggest for such a GC?  And bearing in mind its the unknown regions, what units would they use?  I mean, Nuso Esva is an obvious example, but even he would require a complete set of new units (only two or three of which have the slightest mention in Choices of One and Crisis of Faith).

[Lord Xizer]

Well I would suggest for the most part Nuso Esva's forces yes with the remainder made up of pirates. For the pirates you could reuse some of the Hutt ships and troops from the earlier versions minus the bloodscars obviously. As for Esva's forces the descriptions of the Firekilns and smaller support ships give at least an outline for their appearance and overall capabilities. His fighters are described in more detail than the rest of the units so that could be something to start on. You all have done such incredible work on the EotH ships and vehicles from scratch I'm sure you could create these units. The thing is I know it would take lots of time and effort and I don't wish to add to your burdens if I can avoid it.
I was just thinking that if you had certain scenarios where you could only play as one faction without having to deal with the other two Main factions it could help people get a feel for that faction and encourage them to try said faction in the larger scenarios since they would be more knowledgeable about it. Few people know too much about the Hand, I myself find them fascinating and hope for Zhan to write more about them but most people know only the IR and NR well.
For instance, EotH vs 1 or 2 minor factions like nuso Esva or pirates with just their worlds as the battleground, so about 9 to 12 worlds.
NR could have a scenario with them vs the Yevetha with about a dozen worlds and the IR could have a scenario with them vs the Warlords with about 18 worlds or so. This way each player could feel out each faction on their own without having to wage a multitude of wars on multiple major factions with enormous resources. Kind of training grounds so to speak.
It's just an idea I felt might help in the future. I love the work you've done with the hand. You guys are the only ones I know of who have them this detailed and you have the Yevetha and the other minors as well.  I'll do what I can to try and scrounge up data on Nuso Esva's forces for you if you'd like. Thank you for listening to my ideas, i greatly appreciate it as always.
 

[Corey]

Well I would suggest for the most part Nuso Esva's forces yes with the remainder made up of pirates. For the pirates you could reuse some of the Hutt ships and troops from the earlier versions minus the bloodscars obviously. As for Esva's forces the descriptions of the Firekilns and smaller support ships give at least an outline for their appearance and overall capabilities. His fighters are described in more detail than the rest of the units so that could be something to start on. You all have done such incredible work on the EotH ships and vehicles from scratch I'm sure you could create these units.

There are a few main problems with doing some Unknown Regions/ Anti-EotH factions like that. Like Slornie said, in Nuso Esva's case there's really nothing to work off of, same goes for the Vagaari, the other main known contender of the Unknown Regions. Designing ships is a lot harder and takes a lot more time than working off some kind of concept, that's why the EotH have taken so long. Sometimes it's just impossible to think of a good design. For example, the Asendancy was around the second EotH ship to have its redesign, however it took me almost a year to get a new design I actually liked, and our hard drives are littered with renders of earlier versions of every single EotH design. There's something like 12 alternative Phalanx bridge area designs that came up. There's also the same issues with land units.

I guess the main point is that even if a faction isn't playable, it takes just as much work. If you look at any normal RTS, the typical setup is 3 factions with about 10 units each, for one single game mode, which can take a mod a long time to do. Minor faction units take just as much time and effort as a regular playable faction, as sometimes more. Especially if it's meant to be the main enemy in a GC.

As far as pirate/Hutt units go, they'd get demolished in no time by any EotH ship. This is part of the reason the Hutts got cut in the first place; waste of a faction slot and had no discernable impact on the game.

The thing is I know it would take lots of time and effort and I don't wish to add to your burdens if I can avoid it.
I was just thinking that if you had certain scenarios where you could only play as one faction without having to deal with the other two Main factions it could help people get a feel for that faction and encourage them to try said faction in the larger scenarios since they would be more knowledgeable about it. Few people know too much about the Hand, I myself find them fascinating and hope for Zhan to write more about them but most people know only the IR and NR well.

Well really if we have to do something gimmicky like that it partially means we haven't done our jobs and made them interesting to people in the first place, and if they don't want to use the EotH because of their obscurity/lack of development in general, they'd probably just ignore that GC since it'd be the EotH against another even less developed and interesting faction. I mean, it's certainly an idea that would work for it's own purposes if it were to become feasible, however as a vehicle for growing interest in the EotH I think it faces the same issues as the EotH on their own do. Any information you find on them would still be useful in case it becomes more doable in the future, however they should probably get their own thread. In general I like to keep it to one topic per thread in case anyone has anything to add without the discussions going 5 different ways in one thread.

NR could have a scenario with them vs the Yevetha with about a dozen worlds and the IR could have a scenario with them vs the Warlords with about 18 worlds or so. This way each player could feel out each faction on their own without having to wage a multitude of wars on multiple major factions with enormous resources. Kind of training grounds so to speak.

This is the general thought process behind the GCs that have been added since the initial release, starting with Zsinj's although Zsin's is being reworked to the point that it'll probably be more of a conventional era GC. Into the Cluster and Empires at War were both designed as small "bite-sized" GCs centered on essentially single-arena wars. The Yevethan conflict is definitely high on the list for future GCs.


Also, the Royal Guard units you suggested have been done. This is why you shouldn't trust me when I say something is low or high priority.

[Lord Xizer]

I understand, I know it takes a lot of effort and time to design such complexities as this mod. It's all the more incredible given that you are all doing it in your spare time without major corporate funding like the original game had.(and you guys have gone LIGHT YEARS ahead of anything Lucasarts dreamed of with the original) I'd like to thank you all for all the amazing work you do on this mod and the efforts you put into it show in all it's respects. You all listen to the community and always improve over and over. I eagerly await 1.3!

If I find any more descriptions of Nuso Esva or the Vagaari I will post them in a separate thread of course.
(thanks again for including the Imperial Royal Guard, always been a fan of those guys!)

[Lord Xizer]

I don't suppose anytime in the future Jerec and Kaine being playable in a smaller GC(kind of a Dark Forces throwback) I realize that there isn't much difference between the Pentastar and IR really to make that too different other than the Dark jedi Jerec had, so if not I understand.

We'll consider a Pentastar-centered one, but really I doubt that it would be considered interesting enough, especially when it's already pretty much covered in other GCs.

If you do an NR vs Pentastar GC to make things different than standard IR vs NR why not bring in the Dark Side Adepts(as seen in the Emperors vaults in FoC. Since the Pentastar backed Jerec, harbored Cronal and had dealings with the prophets of the Dark Side it makes sense that the Alignment would have some Dark Jedi as well as some of Cronal's Blackhole Stormtroopers. Also since Jerec and Kaine employed some of the seedier elements of the SW underworld(such as 8t88 and others) adding some of the pirate and mercenaries to the PA forces would give some diversity they didn't have before from the IR. This might also pacify those members who wanted force users in some scenarios without you guys having to skin anything new really.
Could use the IG88 model in the game for 8T88 if needed, alter the coloring of the mara Jade model hair and garment to make a Saris, with Yun being a Luke with grey tunic, the other Dark Jedi could be covered by the Dark Side Adepts models.
It's just an idea to add some diversity to the PA to make the scenario a little different and interesting, hope it helps.
Thanks as always for taking my opinions into consideration.

[Mazzic]

If you did one for the Empire of the Hand in the unknown regions you could have the nuso esva on Quethold and Oristram, the The Warlord on Kariek, the Ssi-Ruuvi on Lwhekk and the Vagaari could have some of the Empire of the Hand's current planets. Then the player would have to conquer all of the Empire's current territory and only start with Nirauan.

[Lord Xizer]

The problem is there is little to no discription of the units and ships used by those factions(other than the Ssi Ruuvi of course)

[Mazzic]

It wouldn't have to be very big though. Its one planet for the Warlord, 3 for Vagaari, a few for Ssi Ruuk, one for Empire of the Hand and 2 for nuso esva.

[Meyer]

As a new GC maybe art of war without EOTH. they weren't so big player in galactic affairs during the war and right now there is now GC that let's you play the whole war as a  fight between rebels and empire.

[Corey]

It's been added to the possibility list.

[Fireskull66325]

Are there any plans for including the Yuuzhan Vong? If so, it wouldn't be much of a stretch to have a whole confrontation between them and the Empire of the Hand. Especially considering the hands' dissapearance possibly being connected to them.

Not the whole invasion you understand, just foray groups. It would be a race with a lot of potential, so the work could definitely be applied to further time periods...

[Corey]

Well, the Empire of the Hand has come back as part of the Legacy of the Force series so they definitely survived the Yuuzhan Vong war, but we won't ever be including the Vong for a few reasons. It would be impossible to get them functioning how they actually did canonically (the models are static, can't have the whipping tentacle attack things or even visually normal tentacles moving, dovin basals couldn't function or look right, etc). We'd basically have a faction called the Yuuzhan Vong but which is really nothing like what they'd actually be. We'd rather not fuck it up like that. On top of that, we would be unable to make any of their ground units.

[Lord Xizer]

I've been meaning to ask about that, I saw the Ssi Ruuk Battle Droid fighter model you guys posted, and I know that you are all quite adept at space models. How are you going to do the Ssii Ruuk infantry though? They are basically Velociraptors with blasters. That might be almost as difficult as the Vong(which I do agree would be rather pointless to do since most of their abilities would be unable to be included as the game could not do them)

[Corey]

The difference between the Ssi-Ruuk and Vong is that the Ssi-Ruuk would be one single infantry unit, whereas the Vong are entirely organic (they don't have any conventional vehicles, it's animals all around. They're basically the Flintstones of Star Wars). The current plan is to just give the Ssi-Ruuk some of their security droids on ground, although the actual Ssi-Ruu may be manageable some time in the future. This technically still fits with their philosophy as no Ssi-Ruu would ever fight on unhallowed ground.

I mean, that being said we could probably just toss in all of the Warlords Vong models or something and call them the Vong and people would still love it just for those four letters. The only losing move with the Vong in this community is saying you're not doing them, it's really odd.

[Lord Xizer]

Ah, I see. I actually agree with your decision about the vong, they cannot be done properly in this game and to just slap some models there with Vong in the name would seem like an empty gesture.