Ascendancy General Information Thread (And Ask the Makers Anything 2.0)

[Corey]

Custom is the plan.

[Kalo]

What is Ascendancy doing for planets? Custom, or are you integrating another mod, such as the SW-oriented Novus Universum?

The last things we used that weren't ours I'm pretty sure I can count off the top of my head. The first being the EOTH Symbol Landing Zone we asked Warb_Null to make, EJ's Hapan Battlecruiser, and I think a very few Hutt models in one of the initial ICW Releases. We generally like making our own stuff.

[Corey]

Of all of that, only Warb's landing zone thing is still in. We used some of Farseer's stuff as well, but since he was on the team making other stuff for us and I was on his team making UNSC vehicles I usually don't count that.

[Lavo]

Very nice. Now I'm really looking forwards to playing this when it's out.

[Lord Xizer]

The last things we used that weren't ours I'm pretty sure I can count off the top of my head. The first being the EOTH Symbol Landing Zone we asked Warb_Null to make, EJ's Hapan Battlecruiser, and I think a very few Hutt models in one of the initial ICW Releases. We generally like making our own stuff.

And do a damn good job at making them I might add.

[onlylogic]

Sorry about starting a new topic on this. I should've placed my query here.

"You guys are awesome. Very well done and visually appealing mods so far.

My question pertains to hyperspace travel. Is there any way to get the ships to all enter hyperspace at the same time without having to carefully position them first? In other words will the ships wait for the group you've selected to be ready jump to light speed? And will they all travel at the same rate as the ship with the slowest hyper-drive? I've only played the mods so far so I'm unsure whether the vanilla supports this already. I have so many more questions but I'll refrain from spamming you guys with my giddy excitement. THANKS!"

[mynameisyou]

Are you going to add smaller dreadnought's like the Assertor-class and the Bellator-class?

[tlmiller]

While I would love to see those units in the game, the question would be how to balance them?  If the Empire has the (lets assume they tried for all canon star dreadnoughts) Executor, Eclipse, Sovereign, Asseror, Mandator III, Bellator (although I would like to see the Bellator also, big fan of the smaller dreadnoughts and star battlecruisers).  Then add in the Praetor mkII star battlecruiser (I am hoping this makes it into the game), and you're going to run into the problem of how to balance them?  Even if there is a way to limit the amount of each that can be built, you're still looking at 6 different dreadnoughts plus a battlecruiser.  Compared to at best the Bulwark mk III battlecruiser and the Viscount dreadnought for the NR.  And of course the EoTH doesn't have any.

[mynameisyou]

well they could add the strident and Mediator and design those them self's' they do that well.

they could have you buy  bulwarks in three or more group if you can do that in sins.

plus sins is more easy to balance in general.give them Bellator's the new republic had those.
 
you could give the empire of the hand some Battlecruisers you know nothing huge but enough to stand and fight.

[mynameisyou]

you could let them build Guardian and Lusankya

[Settra]

I was curious about a couple thigns:

1. Will research be more or less the same as in vanilla (ie. research for greater damage, ships, etc.)
2. Will there be more focus on fighters (vanilla seems to just have you spit out bombers or fighters, not as much as an effect on gameplay as ICW fighters are)
3. (last one, promise) Will there be more "tactical slot" choices, or will you all stick with golans?

Thanks for all that you do!

[Corey]

1. Will research be more or less the same as in vanilla (ie. research for greater damage, ships, etc.)

Some similarities, but not the same. There'll be your general generic "x% boost to income/damage" stuff as well as unlocking ships, but we want to make research involve a bit more choice and have some more noticable impacts. The thing with everyone getting a 10% damage increase and a 10% health increase is they all tend to get it at the same time, and then everyone's back at square one. We're aiming more for research things that provide something, but may come at a sacrifice to other things.

2. Will there be more focus on fighters (vanilla seems to just have you spit out bombers or fighters, not as much as an effect on gameplay as ICW fighters are)

Yes.

3. (last one, promise) Will there be more "tactical slot" choices, or will you all stick with golans?

There really isn't much else we could put there.

[Settra]

Spectacular.

Ok, lied when I said that I didn't have anymore:

1. I figured that is what was going to happen (in regards to the Golans) but will you all keep the repair platform (or some equivalent) and would the there be anything similar to starbases(Golan IIIs being deployed in a similar fashion as vanilla ones)

2. Also, since the Galaxy gun will be implemented will the NR get some sort of counterish measure (such as a way to lower culture on opponent's planets to incite some sort of rebellion).

3. more of some form of hope rather than a legitimate question, will the EoTH get any additions in some future update (whether it be ship additions or some abilities unique to them)

4. Speaking of abilities does the SOASE engine allow for inventing new abilities, or are you restricted to the ones they have?

[Corey]

1. I figured that is what was going to happen (in regards to the Golans) but will you all keep the repair platform (or some equivalent) and would the there be anything similar to starbases(Golan IIIs being deployed in a similar fashion as vanilla ones)

Yeah, there will be other structures like that for the IR/NR. I meant for the purely combat role.

As for the Starbases thing, no. If we were to make Golan IIIs be deployed how Starbases in Sins are it would honestly feel like we were just shoehorning things in where they don't actually fit. A Golan III is a Golan III. It doesn't have the same modular upgrade paths of stations in Sins. You'd also want way more than one per system. There's probably ways we can use the deploy mechanics for other things, but in general looking for a 1:1 correlation between Sins stuff and our stuff probably won't get you very far in general. We're aiming to go beyond just reskinning the game.

2. Also, since the Galaxy gun will be implemented will the NR get some sort of counterish measure (such as a way to lower culture on opponent's planets to incite some sort of rebellion).

I'm not sure if the Galaxy Gun will be implemented actually. It may not be possible to do it in a way that's actually satisfactory, in which case we'll look into other superweapon uses for them. But in general, yes. One of the main aims in the mod is to make it so each faction has different strengths and weaknesses, even if one isn't a direct counter to the others (and ideally that won't be how it works).

3. more of some form of hope rather than a legitimate question, will the EoTH get any additions in some future update (whether it be ship additions or some abilities unique to them)

The Empire of the Hand will have more or less the same number of ships as the IR and NR will by the time we're done.

4. Speaking of abilities does the SOASE engine allow for inventing new abilities, or are you restricted to the ones they have?

SoaSE abilities are very flexible.

[Settra]

SoaSE abilities are very flexible.

How flexible are we talking? Or will that reveal too much?

[Rovert10]

How flexible are we talking? Or will that reveal too much?

You can essentially modify every aspect that the current abilities already have and mix and match them.

[Lavo]

How flexible are we talking? Or will that reveal too much?

In Sins the primary limit to them is your imagination. As, unlike EaW, abilities are not a single small block of text, but they are multiple files. In general, you have a minimum of two files per ability, one that defines the ability (ex. passive, costs antimatter) and fires off the initial buff, the second file being the buff itself (aka. what is actually being done, such as shield damage). Buff files can also be set up to trigger other buff files, and so on. It is certainly possible for a single ability to have a dozen different buff files, as some modders have already done.

[Settra]

In Sins the primary limit to them is your imagination. As, unlike EaW, abilities are not a single small block of text, but they are multiple files. In general, you have a minimum of two files per ability, one that defines the ability (ex. passive, costs antimatter) and fires off the initial buff, the second file being the buff itself (aka. what is actually being done, such as shield damage). Buff files can also be set up to trigger other buff files, and so on. It is certainly possible for a single ability to have a dozen different buff files, as some modders have already done.

Ah, I see so it is within the confines of what buffs/ active abilities ore in Sins but you can put whichever ones you want together? Just for sake of example could you use the novalith cannon ability to make an eclipse superlaser and/or could you push up any shield regeneration ability to give the Mon Cal ships the sort of regen rate they have in ICW?

[Corey]

Giving something a superlaser is easy (we're not using the novalith for it), so is shield regens. If what you mean by Eclipse superlaser is the planet cracking part, then not so much; actual planet destruction doesn't work as a targeted ability unless you just make it irradiate the planet, but while it *technically* ends up making the planet useless, it's pretty poor presentation.

[Settra]

Gotcha, well it'll be interesting to see how the abilities are stretched then! Also are superlaser ships going to stay out of Ascendancy? (they are such a nuisance)