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[MOD] Sins of a Solar Empire: INVASION (new screenshots, May 28th, 2012.)

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[MOD] Sins of a Solar Empire: INVASION (new screenshots, May 28th, 2012.)

Previously known as "The Last Stand"

from Sins Forums

 

 

Sins of a Solar Empire: INVASION is an addon project aiming to expand upon the existing universe of the Sins of a Solar Empire, providing original and high-quality content on top of the original game. Aside from the new content, the addon will also include multiplayer-friendly gameplay changes as well as reworked or new visuals/sounds.

ETA: To Be Announced

Planned changes/content will include:

  •  A new playable race, created to the highest quality standards. The Xin are a race of utterly alien origin, and the massive fleets of their living, semi-sentient ships have been ravaging the galaxy for millenia. Countless races have perished under their onslaught - and now TEC, Advent and the Vasari will have to face this terrible enemy and win - or die trying.
    Assume the role of the defenders and try to stem the tide of death and destruction, or take command of the invading armada and destroy the impertinent insects wherever they choose to make their last stand. 
  • Volumetric Explosions & Damage Effects, providing not only greater excitement to your space battles by transforming all explosions and persistent damage effect into true 3D affairs, but also better visual cues as to how the battle is going, enabling you to spot at a first glance the hotspots and even the level of damage on particular ships.
  • Dynamic Battle System, where each ship class' strenghts and uses are not determined only by its stats and abilities, but also by its flight characteristics. Certain ship classes will be able to move during fleet battles, which, coupled with the reworked stats of all ship classes should prevent "cookie-cutter" or "spam" strategies.
  • New Ship Classes for the new faction, ranging from specialist ships such as the Warmaster or Emperor Battlecruiser all the way to Titans acting as mobile superweapons capable of facing down an entire fleet on their own or even destroying an entire gravity well in one powerful surge.
  • Reworked Balancing, aiming to further focus various ship classes on their roles, removing any overlapping advantages which ultimately make one ship type or the other the ship to produce. Changes will also include increased gravity wells as well as greater class difference in turning rates and top speeds in order to further accentualize fleet placement, strategic positioning of forward bases and other such details which a great admiral make.
  • New Planet Types, which will also be visually enhanced, primarily by increasing their size in order to make them a true centerpiece of a given sector. New planet types will provide greater variety without providing game-breaking advantages to players.
  • Enlarged Gravity Wells which, coupled with the dynamic nature of space combat, will challenge players to an even greater level, requiring careful placements of planetary defenses and orbital structures, as well as fleets.
  • Unique Structures for the new faction, ranging from formidable Heavy Defense Batteries to deployable Outposts which will be capable of guarding even sectors around otherwise uninhabitable astronomical bodies such as stars or gas giants.

==MEDIA SECTION==

 

==SCREENSHOTS==

 

==TRAILERS==

DRONE SPOTLIGHT I

A short ingame exposition of the Scout, Assault and Siege drones.

 

 

 

==BACKGROUND LORE==

Pangalactic War Timeline 

Clicking the above link will lead you to the download of a .pdf document detailing the rich and dynamic history of the factions which will play a major role in the Last Stand mod, so if you are into background lore, be sure to check it out!

 

==UNIT INFORMATION==

 Pending.

 

modding
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Reply #626 from Sins Forums Top

A quick update - what's a big fleet without a suitably large planet to conquer? One of the features of this mod is also a rescale of all astronomical bodies, so that they feel larger and more of a centerpiece of any sector, as they should be, and also to make a suitably impressive backdrop for those epic fleet battles we so love.

Here are a couple of screens showing a TEC weapons research lab in low orbit around a terran type planet:

 

 The planets will be resized up to three times - naturally, not all planets will be of the same size, so you will have several types of terran worlds, desert, ice, volcanic, and a selection of Uzii's planets as well. Some of the textures I will simply adapt for the new models (unfortunately when the planets are resized the animated cloud layer ceases to function and has to be disabled due to graphical glitches, so a permanent cloud layer has to be painted onto the texture), and some I will paint from scratch - the planet above is the result of today's experimenting with various painting methods.

The gravity wells well be also increased up to three times. This has a side effect of making, well, everything take longer to get from point A to point B... which is sort of ideal for setting up blockades or maneuvering your fleets to get a first hit before the enemy reaches you... or your planet (or vice versa).

Oh and if all goes well with the testing and the big planets hit the production, bombardment will look much better as well.

Reply #627 from Sins Forums Top

Yup, I know them things, that's a planet, that is! :drool:

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Reply #628 from Sins Forums Top

wow that's amazing :drool:  

thats the size a planet should be.

Reply #629 from Sins Forums Top

:dur:  

 

 

can i be a beta tester, just to see epic sized planets?

 

Need a Dispenser here:jafo:   Need a Dispenser here :jafo: Need a Dispenser here:jafo:

Reply #630 from Sins Forums Top

i was wondering, with these bigger plantets and such, will you be attempting to re-activate the z axis control?  and also, will there be colonizable stars?, also, i wiouldnt mind to be a beta tester as well when the time comes.

Reply #631 from Sins Forums Top

ME ME ME!!!  I WANNA BE BETA TESTER!

I got all the time in the world....screw university!

This is WAY more EPPPPPPPPPPPPPPIC! 5*

 

:cylon:  Long live BSG! Cylons -------------> DIE!

Reply #632 from Sins Forums Top

Where cna I get this mod when it comes out?

Reply #633 from Stardock Forums Top

most likely this thread or filefront!

But I wouldn't get to excited since the first episode is not due till Christmas! IF theres no complications (which I suspect will happen when 1.1 comes out)!!!

Butt hell Ill be here all the way! 5*

Reply #634 from Sins Forums Top

Well, I have decided that *if* the mod is not entirely complete by the announced deadline (but still relatively done) I will go ahead and push out a, say, 0.8 Beta version of Episode I, so that people get to play with what is esentially a slightly unpolished version, instead of having to wait. Besides, no mod is perfect when it comes out, so I fully expect bugs to be ironed out in either case.

 As for big planets and other visual enhancements, you will get all that sooner than expected. Won't say more at this time. :p

Oh yes, the mod will be available for download from multiple locations, I already had a few nice offers from people willing to host it, and of course it will be available via Filefront and through the mod section of this website, if they can handle big downloads. I'll try to package it well, but still, expect a fairly large download in excess of a couple of hundred megabytes.

I will soon activate a special forum just for this mod, courtesy of Slipstream Productions, the guys behind the Dawn of Victory mod, where people will be able to discuss the mod, and later, help iron it out to become hopefully one of the best mods out there for SoaSE! :)

Reply #635 from Sins Forums Top

wait...you know the people behind  Dawn Of Victory????8(|

Reply #637 from Stardock Forums Top

At least it will add a bit of life to the Dawn of Victory website which seems to be on stand-by :(! Too bad!

It looked exquisite...

Reply #638 from Sins Forums Top

Well, I know them to the extent of being offered to have forum hosted on their message board. As far as I can tell, their message board is pretty active. :) The mod itself will probably get its own website which I'll put up when Episode I nears release.

A Titan will make its debut probably in the final teaser video which should be released a few weeks prior to release of the Episode I... you know, like, to make people go, er, slightly berserkish. :p

Which means I should probably go and put something cool on paper. Been cooking design ideas for weeks now.

Reply #639 from Stardock Forums Top

Screw design we want Fully-implemented ships ready to space war wagging!

LOL..just kidding! Take your time!

If worst comes to worst...you've got the entire SoaSE gaming community behind you ;)!

Reply #640 from Sins Forums Top

slightly berserkish
End of quote

 

Only slightly?

Reply #641 from Sins Forums Top

my question was never answered, will you be re-implementing the z axis control to make the space battles more strategic?

Reply #642 from Sins Forums Top

Sorry. :) As far as I know, you can use the z-axis in vanilla as well, just hold the "D" key and adjust the height. However, in order to have the AI employ true 3D tactics would require me having access to whatever program modules control AI. So in short, no. Not because I don't want to but because AI behaviour is not modable.

Instead of this, a more significant degree of strategy should be achieved by employing larger gravity wells, more meaningful static defenses, mine fields etc. It actually takes some time now for a ship to cross a gravity well, and wrong positioning of defending or attacking fleets can have an initial impact, for example sending your fast attack ships to take out enemy fortifications quickly before their defending ships add their firepower into the mix is one possible scenario which was not encounterable in the vanilla games due to the small size of the gravity well.

The new races will be designed with this in mind specifically. It can already be noticed with the Xin, whose ships are quite slow when it comes to sublight speeds, even in their territory. So a wise Xin defender will pay attention to the correct placement of their ships, or risk being badly outmaneuvered. Doubly so when the Episode II comes around and people get to play with Remnant ships.

Reply #643 from Sins Forums Top

so, from what you are saying is that the mod will include bigger gravity wells to the extent that even if you have a gigantic Tank (a.k.a Xin) you can still get beat by little roaches (remnants)

i winder who got that classic reference? Tank......Bugs.......:|

Reply #644 from Sins Forums Top

Well, having an unbeatable race would get old pretty quick, don't you think? :)

So no, the Xin will be very well off when it comes to fighting on their own turf, thanks in no small part to their static defenses, but they will certainly be beatable, either through sheer overwhelming firepower, or through cunning exploitation of their weaknesses. In the case of the Xin, that's speed and lack of numbers. Oh, and did I mention their units cost more and take longer to build?

Awesome battle performance comes with a price tag...

Reply #645 from Sins Forums Top

I'm still annoyed that no one got this reference......and they say that they're RTS players.....

tanks......Bugs......

Reply #646 from Sins Forums Top

Starcraft, yes? Never finished it. :p

Reply #647 from Sins Forums Top

do you expect the devs to take notice of this mod?

Reply #648 from Sins Forums Top

Where do you think they got the whole super-starbase idea from? (do not say Star Wars!) :p

Anyway, the only thing I expect is to make the best mod I can and to have fun doing it... so far I haven't been dissapointed. ;)

Reply #649 from Sins Forums Top

ohh i loved the visuals of this mod... i watched in on youtube... i was like u got to b kiddin :drool: i loved the sides of the ships hav tht golden kind of designed ingravings or somethin.. its like its showin the grand nature of their superior civilization.. it kind of reminded me of the empire in the movie "Chronicles of rick rodricks" :D awesome!!!!!

Hey wudnt it b cool if some civilization had a ship tht cud form a warp hole with another of its ships so tht  u cud call for bckup directly without goin thru 3-4 planets.. i was thinkin bout it when i saw a movie in which ships had to jump to othr locations by goin thru a big gateway... imagine a ship tht was a gateway (direct phazelines).. ofcrse givin a ship like tht too this civilization wud b too much they wud b too strong.. but othr modders cud use tht idea if their factions r too weak... :D just an idea...

Reply #650 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting makbar59, reply 24
ohh i loved the visuals of this mod... i watched in on youtube... i was like u got to b kiddin i loved the sides of the ships hav tht golden kind of designed ingravings or somethin.. its like its showin the grand nature of their superior civilization.. it kind of reminded me of the empire in the movie "Chronicles of rick rodricks" awesome!!!!!

Hey wudnt it b cool if some civilization had a ship tht cud form a warp hole with another of its ships so tht  u cud call for bckup directly without goin thru 3-4 planets.. i was thinkin bout it when i saw a movie in which ships had to jump to othr locations by goin thru a big gateway... imagine a ship tht was a gateway (direct phazelines).. ofcrse givin a ship like tht too this civilization wud b too much they wud b too strong.. but othr modders cud use tht idea if their factions r too weak... just an idea...
End of makbar59's quote

1) please try to be legible

2) 7 Deadly Sins has something like that already

3) ManSh00ter might put it in for the Xin