Requiem 4.0 - Rebellion Progress Thread
I'm working quite extensively on getting a pre-Endor v1.0 release which will have Empire factions (Empire and Sith) stable and balanced in the next 2 weeks. I'll probably direct copy Requiem 3 tech trees for the Empire, but I'm thinking about mixing in some Advent capabilities for the Sith faction that will represent "Force-like" powers.
It's possible a full port of Requiem 3.5 for Diplomacy will appear... but for now I'm taking this opportunity to re-examine all the mod files, tweak, re-balance, re-align with vanilla files etc. and focus on a highly stable build.
GoaFan is going to focus on post-Endor content and how he intends to approach that remains to be seen! Check back for details.
Development
Approach
- I'm adding any new manifest or string entries to the bottom of each relevent file... no more adding entries at the top or in the middle to avoid the wierd starbase bugs and make sure future Stardock patches just need a cut-paste of custom entries to the bottom.
- I'm not releasing any more downloadable alpha versions, nobody is asking for them and I don't see enough value for me to spend the time making downloads available.
Phase 2
- Re-add alliance
- Re-add Requiem 3.5 planets and bonuses
- Re-add Requiem 3.5 random events
Phase 1 Progress
- Complete
Pending
- PUBLISH REQUIEM REBELLION 4.0!
- Update Galaxy Forge with all assets for custom map making
Current 0.5
- Reduced Immobilzor 418 interdiction capability from 700% slowdown... to 100% slowdown, stackable debuff with a maximum stack of 6 (i.e. 1 Immobilzor will slow enemies in range by 100%, 6 x Immobilzors will slow you down enemy jump by 600% but 8 will only slowdown to 600% due to 6 debuff stack).
- Re-added Lamda Shuttle for diplomacy vessel, fixed textures for rebellion lightning, re-created all hud, mainview and button artwork.
- Reduced TIE Fighter exhaust size and fixed excessive laser bolts
- Optimized music soundtracks
- EXTENSIVE re-balance of all Empire craftcraft. All craft are at most 200% more powerful than vanilla (with proportional cost) and Empire bonus is overall shields +5%, hull -10%, weapons +10% compared to vanilla
- Immobilizor 418 cruisers no longer have TIE fighter ability (they were too overpowered with both firepower and abilities)
- Vindicators maintain their TIE ability but their aggregate damage has been reduced to be on-par with vanilla heavy cruisers
- Loronar Strike Cruisers are a faint ghost of what they were, their offensive abilities has been converted into command/defense functions per their support frigate role.
- Nebulon B2 long range have been nerfed heavily (too overpowered). They are now 50% stronger and more costlier than vanilla and their antistrike has been maintained a little bit but at a slight cost to missile
- Lancers have been re-balanced and defensively nerfed hard (like the other vanilla versions were) but have gained a boost to firewpoer
- All the capitals have been re-balanced against vanilla capitals, including upgrade increments to L10
- Removed siege craft from pirate raids. Pirates taking over planets in the SW universe just doesn't happen!
- Removed safety/caution imagery from Immobilizor 418 hull (for BleachOrange!)
- Re-added Nebulon B2 long range, fixed incorrect exhaust offsets and added team colors to textures
- Added Empire and Sith portraits for Empire during faction selection
- Re-added load screen graphics (figures and paintings)
- Re-added Dreadnaught anti-module and improved (I think!) the red thruster texture
- Re-added Interdictor and abilities, added team colors.
- Re-added Loronar Strike and abilities, fixed numerous texture errors and added team colors
- Re-added Acclamator and added team colors
- Re-added Vindicator heavy cruiser, added team colors.
- Re-added Lancer antifighter and abilities, added team colors and fixed numerous texture errors
- Re-added Carrack light frigate and abilities, added team colors and converted thruster colors to team blend
- Re-added Escort Carrier with complete overhaul of all textures for Rebellion lighting.
- Re-added Galofree transport with new engine particle effects
- Added VISD-II closed flaps mesh (thanks Goa) and optimized the textures for Rebellion lighting
- Added Tartan Patrol craft and abilities
- Finished Faction selection page
- Finished ingame holographic UI
- Added XQ-1 platform for Empire starbase (until Golan mesh is available).
- Added all capital ships (VSD, ISD, Venator with all Requiem 3.5 abilities
- Re-added TIE Interceptors
- Added SSD Executor as titan, with TIE Fighters and TIE Interceptors as squads
- Overhauled the ISD textures (DA, NS) for optimal lighting with Rebellion
- Re-added all Requiem 3.5 weapon particles (all green turbo lasers, ion cannons, concussion missiles, proton torpedos)
- Fixed SSD Executor mainview icon
- Re-positioned all weapon points on the SSD Executor for a titan role (weapon 0 = med turbo lasers left and right sides, weapon 1=heavy ion cannons left and right sides on the upper building area, weapon 2=heavy concussion missiles F/L/R/B positions
- Converted beam weapon tech tree upgrades to be ion type (beam not used in Empire)
Previous 0.4
- Overhauled Venator UV textures - gone is the perma red, replaced by proper team colors.
- Re-added ISD capital ship naming convention
- Cleaned up Faction selection background
- Re-added TIE Fighters
- Added maxDiffuseMipLevel 1 to all meshes
Previous 0.3
- Still looking at the feasibility of a mega port to adapt Requiem 3.5 but finding it not too difficult to simply rebuild the mod from scratch.
- Removed closed flap VISD mesh (until the pinched UV textures are fixed - )
- Added Venator mesh, and darkened the texture again (the v3.5 beta texture looks too bright with the new lighting)
- Added team colors to the VISD mesh alpha channel (what do you all think of the pattern? Better ideas!?!)
- Re-added Imperial and Alliance symbols
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Wow, that actually turned out better than I thought it would. I thought bad tangents would lead to bright spots on the dark side or worse on the shadows (or vice versa). However, it suffers quite badly from the "pixelated shadowing" shader, and is documented well in this thread (start at reply 10, and 33 has good examples). It seems to be one of the things Ironclad did to reduce the impact on performance by using a smaller shadow map, but it is a whole lot more noticeable on certain custom models. Seems they found someway to minimize it, and I wouldn't rule out something tangent related yet...
The tangent error technically isn't the tangents, its that a new line was added to the mesh file structure. I was planning on making a program to auto add it eventually. I prefer to program in python but if you don't have it set up I can do it in Java.
I didn't realize you could change the fonts in a mod. A few of them are two big for some of the places they are used, but that certainly opens up some interesting UI possibilities.
0I've done a bit more testing on the feasibility of a entire Diplomacy to Rebellion mod update... and kind of shying away from that. Finding little changes all of the place that cough up obscure errors (even support fighter templates have changed).
In the meantime, I've expanded my first mini-mod to get the Empire capitals into Rebellion. BTW your VISDII design (the one with the closed side flaps) has a texturing error (the texture is pinched) and rotating around it is giving off a weak and odd reflection. In the mod update (0.2) I've made it so that a quick start with Empire Loyalist faction will instantly spawn both VSIDs so you can see what I'm talking about.
See updated files above.
00Yeah I have a fixed version of the Victory-II that will be in the offical 3.5 update I'll do tomorrow. I thought I fixed the Venator team texture in that one too. That said, for 3.5 I changed all the textures to be brighter to better show the details in Diplomacy's limited light engine (I later learned there is an easier way to do this, so don't do it this way), however I think Rebellion's lighting fixed that problem on its own. If you're messing with textures to set them up for Rebellion, you'll probably want to go back through our old downloads (or the ones you got from Evil Jedi directly), save the earliest version as a .tga/photoshop file or whatever. That will prevent the quality degration that you'd get from repeated edits as a .dds file.
0Have you worked out how you are going to approach post-Endor yet? With all the work you've done on Requiem 3.5 and your 4X mod I can imagine you'd want to do a full 3.5 conversion to Rebellion and make it compatible with 4X.
If Harpo finishes his mod convert tool it could be quite easy as the major Diplomacy <-> Rebellion changes are just string additions for the most part. I could probably write the code myself in PERL and just worry about the Tech tree tweaking.
As it stands, I'm kind of enjoying re-building the mod from scratch
0Yup, I've been doing that and so far so good. I haven't uploaded a 0.5 alpha yet but I've got all the VSD and Venator and their abilities all working, all TIEs are back in and will have the SSD titan and XQ-1 starbase in.
Awesome, just remember I gave the VSD-II a new ability in 3.5 if you want to use that.
Have you worked out how you are going to approach post-Endor yet? With all the work you've done on Requiem 3.5 and your 4X mod I can imagine you'd want to do a full 3.5 conversion to Rebellion and make it compatible with 4X.
I have some ideas yes, though they're hardly final at the moment. I'm leaning towards rebuilding it from scratch as well. First got to get E4X to Rebellion though. BTW I finished porting the planets for it, and they're pretty much the same for Requiem. They do use a different set of planet bonuses and I messed with the explorations levels for my entire mod, but if you want them as a head start let me know. Also at least the first part of the GalaxyScenarioDef file (though that file will get some major additions in the next patch or two, so you might want to hold off on that) should fit perfectly into Requiem, or perhaps with minor find and replaces.
If Harpo finishes his mod convert tool it could be quite easy as the major Diplomacy <-> Rebellion changes are just string additions for the most part. I could probably write the code myself in PERL and just worry about the Tech tree tweaking.
That would be awesome. I've made myself a few small tools for python that deal with the entity.manifest and strings (since this file gets changes every patch), probably will make a few more before this process is done lol. The abilities of course will probably take the most work.
0Ok, I'll hold off on the planets, bonuses and what-not for now. I'm pretty much manually, file by file, re-constructing Requiem 3.5 to Rebellion right now, and will probably delete the "Rebel" factions (make them unselectable) for now as well (doesn't really add anything to the game quite yet).
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0No that's not what I meant. In 3.5 I made the colony ship with the open flaps model the Victory-I Star Destroyer, since Victory-II Star Destroyers would probably not have their atmospheric flaps open. Hence when I got the new model with the flaps closed I called that just a Victory-II Star Destroyer.
Though now that you mention it, I gave the VSD-I a custom colonize ability in 3.5 as well. The ability I was talking about on th VSD-II battleship was disruptive ion bolts.
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You guys are awesome for working on this mod for so long.
0ohdat... I sunk more time than I expected into enhancing existing meshes and textures... hopefully I will pick up pace and get both the Empire and Alliance in sooner.
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Well, either that or the new lighting engine isn't flattering to close-ups.
00http://sins.imperial.cc/im/imsins/files/sins%20rebellion%20graphics%20downgrade.png
oh, the diplomacy screens are the ones on top with the blue background. the rebellion has the darker ones on the bottom.
personally, i feel they just downgraded the graphics to make it run better. not that it's gamebreaking or destroys screenshots or cinema mode. but it's noticeable enough to grab my attention, and not in a good way.
0I didn't include the closed flap mesh yet because the flap UV texture is pinched. Did you fix that mesh yet and is it uploaded anywhere? Ok, I'll check out the custom Imp Colonize ability.
Yes, in the new official Requiem 3.5 on the main Diplomacy downloads page (beta is over). It has the fixed VSD flap, a handful of new abilities (on the colony caps and the tier 1 battleships), icons and all that other graphical stuff for the new models I added in 3.5. The full change list of 3.5 over 3.4 is here.
Also Jason, I've made a few python scripts that handles updating strings and some of the basic new lines from entity files. I don't know if you have that language set up or not but if you want them let me know.
I think I know how they optimized the textures, at least in part. I was looking at the Unity's ships on highest settings, and noticed none of them are reflective anymore. That and the ship skins don't seem to be as detailed as before.
Well its not something they did to the engine. Here's a model that was made in Diplomacy based on some advent structures. It maybe hard to tell but that blueish green glow on the bottom of the top section is reflections from the skybox. The tangents aren't set up right so it doesn't quite match up, but I even got that purple Nebula thing to reflect quite clearly on it.
http://www.moddb.com/mods/enhanced-4x-mod/images/deep-space-secrets
That said, ships aren't usually that reflective in Star Wars, so the Rebellion lighting system is much better for our purposes.
00I am not a pro at such things, and everything I know about the shadow pixelation issue I learned from here. And Sins ships aren't completely immune to the issue, at least on all graphics settings.
http://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/425215
0the engine is stretching let's say a 32x32 effect over a much larger area that is enlarging the pixels like when you zoom a bitmap. also, it seems the engine isn't devoting as much processing to the shadows for small/thin polygons as it was previously?
i can understand the concepts involved (if this is correct). since it seems the engine won't devote more capacity to get a higher resolution, is there a way to replace the existing shadow map with a much more detailed one and it will do the same thing?
0For shadows, nothing special here. From what I've seen they are rendering fine on vanilla and SW models and there isn't a way to change them... how they appear will depend on what texture the shadow effect is being rendered on.
00But the shadow pixellation thing I don't think can be adjusted. I should be releasing Requiem 4 "Empire only" after this weekend you'll be able to see things like more dramatic pixellation on high contrast textures (i.e. shadows on a bumpy, white ISD surface) and less so on relatively flat bumpmap textures (like a VSD hull).
Having said that, there are a few things that are a bit odd. The bump map texture, when done properly, I think makes the model not look as good. There is also some weirdness with the SSD light mapping which I suspect could be a mesh UV texturing issue.
I haven't gone to the extra effort of firing up 3DS Max, doing mesh conversions and analyzing the UV texturing as I felt the time wasn't worth the effort (pretty happy with the overall models state) but between the Golan and SSD issues it's beginning to annoy me so maybe I'll get motivated!
But first.. .gotta get Requiem 4 fully up and running!
0I've always felt that games which focus on the Galactic Civil War for massive battles felt a little off, as most of the fighting between the Galactic Empire and the Rebellion were not clashes of massive fleets or armies, but rather small skirmishes. Granted, I love Requiem just as it is, I've oft preferred the Clone Wars due to the proper feel of a massive empire vs another massive empire.
I've unfortunately no experience at all when it comes to modding, but I know that there is a very large mod for Empire at War called "Republic at War". If you can't get anything from SoGE, then you might want to ask them if they'd offer a little help. Though I've no idea how compatible their textures/meshes would be with Sins, it's just an idea.
00The good news is that it's not a showstopper. The models look pretty good overall.
000 I should be posting the beta in the next 12 hours or less.
Actually Requiem 3.5 has sooo many things in it beneath the surface that it will take a while before Requiem Rebellion matches it. Good thing the titans give it something that 3.5 doesn't!
Once the 4.0 base code and balancing is solid there is a LOT more to be done: Alliance, planets and bonuses, 3.5 tech tree imports, Goa will probably introduce a post-Endor race, I will introduce the Sith as the Empire Rebel faction (with a bunch of Advent-like psi abilities), I will probably introduce the CSI/Droid Army etc. etc.
00Visitor
Something I've wanted to ask, the Empire's +1 targeting banks and the Diplomacy's +1 targeting banks stack right?
00They should, yes. So that's at least 3 targets per direction your caps can fire at if you get the final pact with a Vasari player.
0I would recommend this -
an antimatter cost that allows 2-4 castings consecutively of the anti-jump ability to exhaust antimatter reserves
a limited range on the area of effect for the targeted ability (say 1-1.5 times the size of a xq-1 starbase, or 1-2 times the size of TEC starbase)
keep the anti-starfighter ability goa introduced, and make it so you can cast it 6 times before you exhaust antimatter.
i think you should allow this ability to be interrupted only by a specific ability, maybe ion cannons or something.
since it is interruptible, though, we should keep the effect on capital ships.
perhaps add a damage factor as with the starbase if you want to decrease the time more, so that the other side actually flees as they would in real combat. escaping a gravity well generator often damages your ship in some way.
the goal here is to balance it out so that the enemy fleet is slowed by say 5-10%, and you can cast the fighter ability 2-3 times, then use the anti-jump ability once before antimatter is exhausted. however you want to work that out is up to you, but i think this is a good balance to start with.
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0Yes, that was the intent. Then I realised I hadn't done the Turbolaser defense platforms and Hangar Defenses, and spent more time than I had expected fixing and improving the existing meshes and textures.
Also, some friends of mine dragged me into a game of Civ5:Kings and Gods yesterday and ate up 5 hours.
Anyway, it WILL be done this weekend!
0something makes me want to think gravity well generators act in a cone, base outwards with the point at the generator. Maybe i read it or saw it somewhere before, maybe i'm having a delusional episode. is there any way to change the shape of the casting? that would be a cool thing to do that would probably even balance out the effect without having to play around with the antimatter so much.
"Join me, and I will toss you off a balcony in your moment of triumph!"
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0I would suggest when the shield buff is active, reduce all firepower by a smaller amount in the active AOE. When the firepower buff is active, reduce all shields by a smaller amount in the active AOE.
Of course this would all be non-stacking, like the target ability for TEC.
This way you can keep movement, but balance the ability? I don't know, it just seems to me, a modular or multi-role vessel is (like an airframe) is usually a something that requires mobility for certain roles. the best way to do this seems to me to limit the ability in some other way. perhaps by making it mobile, you can make the startup and cooldown costs excessive, so you can only use it once per battle on each ship.
perhaps there is a way to decide when you build the ship which ability to choose? maybe by utilizing the cruiser/fighter squadron thing?
one thing I would recommend: make the abilities exclusive. in other words, you can't have a shield ability and a firepower ability from 2 different ships active at the same time, so the latest one overrides the earlier one. is there a way to do this?
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If they a way to reduce/increase healing(hull and shields) done? Because that's where I'd recommended the modifier go for that.
0There are a few ways possible... a channeled ability with a long cooldown; a choice of 2 buffs and using either one lasts a long time but empties your antimatter for a long time.
I'm leaning toward the long buff with antimatter preventing rapid toggling but I'd love to hear your ideas and even upload some working prototypes of new buffs approaches for the Loronar.
In the meantime, gotta finish off some stuff so I can upload the first beta for this weekend
0well, they wouldn't cancel out, the more recent casting would override the older casting, replacing it. that's what i meant by that idea.
"Join me, and I will toss you off a balcony in your moment of triumph!"
0Visitor
Canceling them out with the power of math would be easier however.
0It would be fairly easy to set up the Loronar as a support cruiser by default (with the covering fire ability I add for them or whatever else you want them to do), but then with some additional abilities that cost resources. These abilities will represent the modular upgrades, and when you research one, it will permenently disable the Loronar's abilities but buff specific stats like weapon damage or the amount of strikecraft it can carry.
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0goa, something like that would be the goal in my mind (true multirole), but it doesn't have to be done this second. the bonus with a shiptype like that is that a command ship would actually be a priority target since you would never know what ability/buff/attack it had. the only problem i could see in that case, is what would balance against a ship that versatile? we would need to make sure it balances against the vanilla races, then see if the rebels need a specific counter/response to it.
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0He wants there to be one aura total per navy as I understand it.So, if you turn on Rape Factor Ded first on ship X then Shield Augment Awesome on ship Y the aura from ship X turns off.Making them customizable would still be cool however. More fighters is never a bad thing.
Well, using some unused features in Rebellion, you could actually do that too via research. The player could choose from a set of customization options or something, and not get the other options. I agree with bleach though, the point of a modular ship like the Strike cruiser is you can build one ship that be cheaply refitted for use in several different roles, rather than build a specific ship for each.
0Visitor
Eh, I like the choosing and locking better but I'm not the one doing the programing! I think it'd be easier to balance with locking yself. How would that work then, you could just switch via a ability at anytime for a cost?
0i'm throwing ideas out here.
if you want to build a ship and select one permanent ability from several options upon completion, fine. if you want to use abilities to manage the modular nature, that's fine as well. My goal here is to help come up with the best approach, whichever turns out to be most feasible and/or balanced.
0Visitor
Switching with a large build time would solve the issue for me. We have four factions, here how I think it work out well. If you can think of another combat role add it.
Best -> Worst
Empire Loyal: Flat stats loadout, the Hanger loadout/Rape Factor: Ded, Shield Augment: Awesome
Empire Reb.: Rape Factor: Ded/Shield Augment: Awesome, the Hanger Loadout, Flat stats loadout
Alliance Loyal: Shield Augment: Awesome, the Hanger Loadout, Flat stats loadout, Rape Factor: Ded
Alliance Reb.: No idea what direction you guys are going here.
0"Join me, and I will toss you off a balcony in your moment of triumph!"
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0"Join me, and I will toss you off a balcony in your moment of triumph!"
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0Imagine you have 6 x Loronar's. You on the defensive, so you toggle the defensive buff that gives a 1% stackable damage mitiation aura with a 5000 radius. Up to 10 buffs stack for a total of 10% damage mitigation.
Imagine later, you are starting to win, so you toggle 3 of your Loronar's damage buff which gives a +1% stackable damage buff. So in the example fleet, you have 3% damage reduction and 3% damage output buff to all ships in the radius.
I'm hoping someone can start customizing the tech tree and abilities again (balanced against Vanilla) while I do the heavy lifting by laying down the mod foundations. Speaking of which, after I get these bugs fixed Im probably going to add oceanic, swamp and moon planet types in quickly before getting on with the Alliance faction as phase 2.
00Right now I've made:
LVL4 Ion Research: 2 Stages, T5, 15% shield pass-through.
LVL3 Shield Research: 1 Stage, T6, 4% DR and 10% Shield HP. Maybe just 5% Shield HP?
LVL5 Turbolaser Research: 2 Stages, T7, 10% Firerate on LASERTECH. I would get rid of the missile range increase in favor of this.
Is the SSD being so heavy on missile damage on purpose?
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