new player. go easy on me, lol.

[johnchm10]

hi. so i finally decided to download this mod. ive been playing Phoenix Rising 1.2 for a while now, and i want to try something new. please, i dont want to hear anything like "this mod is better" or anything like that. i dont wish to compare them as i know that the mods are quite different. that said, as i have had EaW for 2 and a half years with over 700 hours on the game, and figure about 500 from PR in versions 1.1 and 1.2, what would be a good campaign to start off in, aside from the tutorial? one thing that is not in question would be that the mods have quite a few differences, lol
i thank you in advance for any tips, advice, etc.

[Corey]

I'd say the best introductory GC would be the Caamas Crisis as the New Republic, or Art of War Light. They give a good variety and serve as pretty good introductions to most of the major changes in the mod without throwing you all the way in right away like the full Art of War would.

Alternatively, if you prefer to play as the other factions first, here's what I'd suggest:
Pentastar Alignment: The Stars Align
Imperial Remnant: Shadow Hand
Empire of the Hand: still Caamas.

I strongly suggest reading the manual before playing, too.

[johnchm10]

wow. so 1, i am impressed with the quality of workmanship put into this mod. and 2, lol. did not expect the end product (i mean that in a good way). that said, it might be advisable for new players to also play a couple skirmish games to help get the feel of the game a bit more)

having now played the latest versions of both mods, i can make the following observation about them. both mods are the best that i know of for EaW/FoC, and truthfully, 2 of the best mods ive ever played for any game. that said, each has some advantages over the other.
a good comparison would be the Z-95-AF4 Headhunter compared to the T-65C X-wing. i wanted to use the stats from X-wing Alliance, but i couldnt find some of the stats, and PR has  meticulous stats of all their ships. and yes ive written all of them down. it hurt after a while
this mod would be the Headhunter, while the Phoenix mod would be the X-wing.

the AF4 was presumably one of the last versions of the Z95 line, and in mod is the 8th model of 10 Z95 Models. it is a radically more advanced bird compared to the original Mk1 (trust me. ok for cannon fodder, or dealing with original TIE/LN fighters, but thats about it) but is really the same fighter, but with newer parts.

the T65C is an earlier model of X-wing (3rd model of 10 in mod), itself a more radically advanced descendant of the Headhunter, (but distant enough cousin to consider it a different family), but the AF4 has some advantages over the X-wing. it is less expensive (in mod, and presumably in universe), less complicated (IU), more maneuverable (IM), has better shields (IM), and its armaments are more versatile in the mod, in that the missiles can be used against capital ships and smaller transports and fighters, but torpedoes can only be used against Corvette sized targets and above. both are still great fighters, but they are better or worse than the other in various ways, and are equal in other ways

This mod focuses more on improving the original game, and does so with much success. Phoenix Rising, on the other hand, focuses more on new innovations, again with success. but as with the Z-95, one could argue that the Thrawn mod is a more developed mod compared to the original game, with more of the kinks ironed out.
















                             Z-95-AF4                                        T-65C
Speed                  100 MGLT                                      100 MGLT
Acceleration         16 MGLT/s                                     16 MGLT/s
Maneuverability    86 DPF                                          75 DPF
Hyperdrive            Class 2                                          Class 1
Shields                 75 SDB                                          50 SDB
Hull Strength        15 RU                                            20 RU
Guns                     2 Light Lasers                              4 Light Lasers
Secondary            2 (2 missiles every 30 seconds)   2 (2 torpedoes every 40 seconds)
                             Advanced Concussion Missiles     Proton Torpedoes

[Kalo]

A BRICK WALL

Apples to Oranges. I don't think we'll ever try to be like that mod.

[Corey]

Like a few other topics, I've wanted to respond to this for a while but haven't had a chance since I've been busy. Sorry.

Anyways:

This mod focuses more on improving the original game, and does so with much success. Phoenix Rising, on the other hand, focuses more on new innovations, again with success.

I'd disagree with this characterization, and say you have it backwards. Phoenix Rising is, of the two mods, much more similar to how the original game plays and I'd say with fewer innovations.

What PR has always been good at (certainly better than us) is context and presentation, primarily in the form of documentation, even when it's not actually changing anything. They'll make what effectively end up being smaller changes to bring things more in line with how they feel things should be canonically, and do large amounts of public documentation about it. This ends up just being stat changes that I wouldn't call innovation. This isn't criticism or a value judgement about whether or not I think it's a good thing, but I think it doesn't really qualify as innovation. If you look through the news archives and the manual for Phoenix Rising, a lot of the major focal points of the mod are not so much changes to the gameplay, but changes in what that gameplay is built using. For example, canon armaments vs non-canon armaments. These changes are technically pretty small, but the way they're described in the mod give the impression of being much larger.

Where we're more likely to work out our system for planet values, put it in, and then say we've done it without really talking about the exact reasons for our values publically or to make it a focus of the mod, with Phoenix Rising you're more likely to get something like this post. Does that mean their system is more innovative? Honestly, I'd argue that it isn't, it's just better presented.

If you look at what we've done, by comparison, I'd say there's a bigger attempt to bring the gameplay away from what you'd get in the base game and to implement new features or remove those we think don't work in a productive way. I think this comes from having two different approaches to the basic design of the game, and to a certain extent to how we approach canon (in Phoenix Rising it's impossible toseperate the two). With our approach to both gameplay and canon, we take a more to-down approach. We have an overall view, and we impose that then adjust the individual elements to fit it, and put canon secondary to gameplay. We wanted the galactic map to focus on multi-region conflict between many groups, so we implemented changes like three-way galactic conquest battles, have a stronger focus on minor factions, etc. Part of the emphasis on gameplay over canon is shown in how we handled unit armaments as well. But where on PR, the aim was to put in all the weapons and determine an uprade path for each ship, then try to shape the gameplay of the mod around that, we decided on what we saw as a good range of hardpoints, what ship roles needed to be filled, and then built the representative system around that. This way we still had the same number of armaments proportionally, but we felt the end result was more conducive to fun gameplay.