Major Stress Major Stress

[MOD WIP] Star Trek: Sacrifice of Angels 2 (updated 01/10/09)

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[MOD WIP] Star Trek: Sacrifice of Angels 2 (updated 01/10/09)

from Sins Forums

Featured (by a small mention) in the October edition of PC Gamer magazine

Candidate for Mod Database's 2008 Mod of the Year

This is the OLD "Work in Progress" thread for the Star Trek: Sacrifice of Angels 2 mod.

The new WIP topic is here https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/342747

The "Release" topic can be found here https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/322473


The mod is intended to be a hommage, and tribute to the original Sacrifice of Angels mod for Homeworld. It will use many of the same models, and effects created for that mod by the Trekmods team. Like the original SoA mod SoA2 is set during the Dominion War era of Star Trek. Using both canon, and non-canon units to recreate those battles with Sins "empire building" mechanic added. Like in SoA you can fight battles in SoA2 using hundreds of starships. Sometimes thousands if your computer can handle it ;)

While the mod was not intended as a "Total Conversion". That is exactly what it is winding up being. There is much about the Sins engine, and mechanics that we still need to learn. There are some hard coded stumbling blocks we have to overcome.

The factions will be the Federation, Klingons, Romulan, and the Dominion (with Breen, and Cardassian ally units). The main factions seen in the Dominion War. With a "Surprise" as the Pirate faction.

Factions like the Borg "may" be added in the future. LokiGodofMischief is working on a very good 3rd party Borg add on for SoA 2. It is very possible his add on may be merged with SoA 2 at a much later time.

The current version of SoA 2 is  0.03b   "The Second Dominion War". Look for it here  https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/322473

0.03b only works with Sins versions 1.1, 1.11, and 1.12.

All previous versions of SoA 2 are obsolete, and will not be supported, or hosted anymore. All older version downloads will be removed.

We will NOT port SoA 2 over to Entrenchment until after Entrenchment is out of beta, and released. Along with proper forge tool updates.

I am working on the models mostly ALONE so it may take a while for any new ship model updates.

Darkshimmer is the Balancing guru, Code monkey, and Master at arms. We do have other contributers, and the best 3rd party work from the finest artists in the trek mod community to help make SoA 2 the best it can be.

Status of Demo 0.04  "The actors are in place" 

Will update when i have news.

General Changes:

Manshooters Volumetric Explosions mod will be included as of 0.03a

May include Sins Plus (planets), but ill need to see how much that mod needs changing to incorporate into SoA 2.

SoA 2 0.03 and above is now patch 1.1, and better compatable. Sins patches 1.11, and 1.12 only address balancing, and online exploits, and have no effect on the mod.

Ships will have some anti stike craft weaponry.

Ships are still being added and balanced accordingly.

More re-balancing so that one faction is not overpowered over the other.

The Federation:

Faction is complete. Only structures left

The Klingon Empire

Faction is complete. Only structures left.

The Romulan Star Empire:

Faction is complete. Only structures left

The Dominion:

Faction is complete. Still needs balancing work.

Pirates:

They were going to be the Borg, but that idea failed. So we are looking into Random multirace ship spawns.

Planetary Defenders

Basically "Ships of the week" like the Maquis, Sona, Ferrengi, Tammarian battle cruisers and the like.

Balancing:  Darkshimmer has the Federation, Romulan, and Klingon Empire, and Unified Dominion balanced.

Gameplay: We now have a working Cloaking Device! Check the ModDB page for the WIP video. Cloaking will not be fully implemented in the mod until version 0.04

Art: We are working on an LCARS style UI, adding proper icons, and pictures for all of the new units. The UI is going to take a while to do, because of all of the redundancy of the Sins UI. SoA 2 uses 2 sets of UI textures. Instead of the standard 4 textures for buttons, and 2 textures for icons. SoA 2 uses 8 textures for buttons, and 4 textures for icons which IMO is a major waste of resources, because sins loads all these textures at startup. Unfortunetly i dont see any other way to do it. What is kind of cool is that we dont have to use the same HUD for each faction. It is possible to have unique HUDs, but again the perfomance hit, because of the extra drain on resources could be big, and not worth it.

In Planning: (No promises, or guarentees, but we will try to add these if possible.)

Troop Transport effects.

Planetary invasion animations

Tractor beams. (need a code monkey for this)

Whatever else we can think of and are capable of doing.

Future Updates:

SoA 2 0.04 is now in planning, and will be focused primarily on Proper research trees, Ability's, and adding proper Structures. More than likely demo 0.04 will be the last demo. After that then the full mod should be ready.

SoA 2 0.05 will be the final spit, and polish of the mod. It will focus mainly on re-balancing if needed. Also final artwork changes will be made here. Which will include some ship model re-builds, and re-texturing.

The Full SoA 2 1.0 mod will be released "When it is Finished". We are doing this on our own free time. We aren't getting paid to do this. We have no set schedule. We have no time limit. I want this one to be good. So it wont go online until we feel it is ready.

*NOTE: Much about Sins as we are all now realizing is hardcoded. SoA 2 is going to be far from a perfect "trek" mod due to these hardcoded issues. However we will try to do the best we can with workarounds, and compromises to get it as close as possible. Like i said some things wont be perfect. Some things cannot be done at all. Enjoy the mod for what it is, and try not to be too "nit picky".

SoA2 will be hosted on Mod Database once it is ready http://www.moddb.com/mods/star-trek-sacrifice-of-angels-2

This main header will be updated when i have news to post.





modding
4,107,447 views 1,754 replies
Reply #251 from Sins Forums Top
ZOMG!!!! I think I just wet myself.
Reply #252 from Sins Forums Top
I just got Sins, after looking for a game that would emulate Birth of the Federation, which is an old turn based strategy game which was incredibly awesome. I remember that BotF had alot of extra Romulan and Cardassian ships created to fulfill specific roles, such as planetary bombardment and colonisation, I was wondering, does the team know of BotF and will you try implementing some of the ships/gameplay elements from that game?It seems to me that Sins would be a perfect fit for BotF, if anyone knows what I am talking about do you have any idea if a diplomacy/intelligence system could be implemented like in BotF, with sabotage/espionage and minor races?A BotF mod for Sins would be the closest thing to a real BotF2!



I rember BOTF, gotta be one of my favorite startrek games! What I would love to see once this mods finnished and more mod tools are releases is to have a startrek mod which starts from the beginning of trek. This game would lend itself very nicely to a game like that starting from entiprise and going through to TNG era.

The biggest problem with a mod like that is getting over the 15 ship classes cap.

I would be tempted to start a mod like that myself but havent the time myself at the moment plus I would need to find someone with experiance in ship moddling.


Fences - Organize your desktop icons today!
Reply #253 from Sins Forums Top
this looks amazing, and yes i rememer BotF. I just pulled it out of mothballs the other day and started playing again. Got a friend back on it to. had several hours of extreamly fun (though rather slow at times) multi player old school style. brought back many a memory  :CONGRAT: 
Reply #254 from Sins Forums Top
Oh wow I am looking forward to this mod. Thank you. Hopefully Uzii's mod will be compatible with yours adds a nice dimension with the extra planets etc.

BOTF was awesome but the tactical 3d combat graphics were awful unfortunately. Great game though otherwise.
Reply #255 from Sins Forums Top
From the coding perspective, I'm planning on making the ST mod shell as clean is possible, because previously quite a few folks expressed interest in combining TCs into a supermod of sorts (Star Trek, Battlestar, Star Wars, Stargate all in one mod, basically).

So, I'll try to make this mod as unique as possible (I'm even considering going through all the 5k strings in the string file and giving them unique IDs so they wouldn't be overlapping with anything, but that would obviously be a rather major undertaking :P).

In any case, once we have a more solid/complete mod, I'll definitely be willing to work with any other modders that want to make the two compatible. That's ways off, obviously, but yeah I've thought about it :)
Reply #257 from Sins Forums Top
Not gonna happen, not in the first release anyway.
Reply #258 from Sins Forums Top
From the coding perspective, I'm planning on making the ST mod shell as clean is possible, because previously quite a few folks expressed interest in combining TCs into a supermod of sorts (Star Trek, Battlestar, Star Wars, Stargate all in one mod, basically).So, I'll try to make this mod as unique as possible (I'm even considering going through all the 5k strings in the string file and giving them unique IDs so they wouldn't be overlapping with anything, but that would obviously be a rather major undertaking ).In any case, once we have a more solid/complete mod, I'll definitely be willing to work with any other modders that want to make the two compatible. That's ways off, obviously, but yeah I've thought about it


Hey Annatar thank you so much that is great news.

I finally caught up in this thread and what is up with all the Borg requests lol. Pirates I could see be Orion or Maquis but not the uber Borg.
Reply #259 from Sins Forums Top
Ok, I have alot of input on a Star Trek mod for Sins. As I outlined in my last post in this thread I think the game Birth of the Federation would be an excellent model for elements to be modded into sins. Firstly races and new ships, the spaceships in BOTF could easily form the majority of the roster for this sins mod. Each race in BOTF had a scout ship, a light destroyer, a heavy destroyer, a colony ship, a strike cruiser (for long range combat and planetary bombardment) a flagship, a battleship, and usually some race specific vessels, like the defiant for the Federation, the Kvort class for the Klingons, the superfast Marauder vessel for the Ferengi.
These ship classes could easily translate into the sins type classification. Although I am assuming that you are planning to mod the layout so that could be changed to suit.

Purely talking about ships the Cardassian superweapon could easily be the dreadnaught ship, for annihilating plant populations. Another major aspect worth porting over from BOTF is troop transports/outposts and starbases. One thing I feel is lacking from Sins so far is the inability to construct outposts or starbases in neutral sectors for strategic defense. BOTF created starbases for all the races, the recognisable ones for the Federation and the Cardassians, but also believable ones for the Klingons, Romulans and Ferengi. Some kind of constructor ship that can travel to other systems and build these outposts and starbases.

I personally think that either the Borg or the Ferengi would serve as the best "pirate element". The Ferengi totally fit in with the pirate scheme, but BOTF showed that the Ferengi can be a great playable race too, with significant economic advantages. I think the Borg could be in there, but only as they appear in BOTF, as a random event in the late game, one cube randomly moves around space annihilating planets, and requires a significant fleet to destroy.

Then aside from the ships side of things, BOTF has the best potential to upgrade the civ side of sins. Planetary development, defences, research, diplomacy and intelligence are all fantastic elements of BOTF and would significantly upgrade sins gameplay in that regard.
I have a lot of input for this project, and many ideas from Star Trek Armada and BOTF which I think could improve this mod alot. So if you want any help/input/ideas I am fully willing to do what I can.

Reply #260 from Sins Forums Top
Ok, I have alot of input on a Star Trek mod for Sins. As I outlined in my last post in this thread I think the game Birth of the Federation would be an excellent model for elements to be modded into sins. Firstly races and new ships, the spaceships in BOTF could easily form the majority of the roster for this sins mod. Each race in BOTF had a scout ship, a light destroyer, a heavy destroyer, a colony ship, a strike cruiser (for long range combat and planetary bombardment) a flagship, a battleship, and usually some race specific vessels, like the defiant for the Federation, the Kvort class for the Klingons, the superfast Marauder vessel for the Ferengi.These ship classes could easily translate into the sins type classification. Although I am assuming that you are planning to mod the layout so that could be changed to suit.Purely talking about ships the Cardassian superweapon could easily be the dreadnaught ship, for annihilating plant populations. Another major aspect worth porting over from BOTF is troop transports/outposts and starbases. One thing I feel is lacking from Sins so far is the inability to construct outposts or starbases in neutral sectors for strategic defense. BOTF created starbases for all the races, the recognisable ones for the Federation and the Cardassians, but also believable ones for the Klingons, Romulans and Ferengi. Some kind of constructor ship that can travel to other systems and build these outposts and starbases. I personally think that either the Borg or the Ferengi would serve as the best "pirate element". The Ferengi totally fit in with the pirate scheme, but BOTF showed that the Ferengi can be a great playable race too, with significant economic advantages. I think the Borg could be in there, but only as they appear in BOTF, as a random event in the late game, one cube randomly moves around space annihilating planets, and requires a significant fleet to destroy.Then aside from the ships side of things, BOTF has the best potential to upgrade the civ side of sins. Planetary development, defences, research, diplomacy and intelligence are all fantastic elements of BOTF and would significantly upgrade sins gameplay in that regard.I have a lot of input for this project, and many ideas from Star Trek Armada and BOTF which I think could improve this mod alot. So if you want any help/input/ideas I am fully willing to do what I can.


Right now the dev team are focusing on the dominoion war but with anyluck they may expand it to include other eras.

If not I'm thinking of creating my own BOTF mod if theres aenough demand and support for it.

Alot of the idea listed above cant be done yet on the modding tools that have been released.

In reguards to the ferangi they should never have been a mofor race in BOTF, that was one of my major complaints with the game.

Reply #261 from Sins Forums Top
We're starting it out in the framework around the Dominion War, yes, because we'd like to actually finish it in this century ;) There's so much that can be added that we just can't do it all at once.

We do have plans to expand future versions of the mod so it becomes more of a "Star Trek Universe" mod. You'll note MajorStress mentioned that in this thread. Likewise, we haven't said "No Borg, ever!" ;) We just said "No Borg in the initial release" ;)

A lot of things will come in time, but for now our hands will be full for a while creating 6 races pretty much from scratch :P
Reply #262 from Sins Forums Top
Romulans/Klingons combined ...... plz no...I was thinking the same thing. It is a scary thought. The Klingons should be with the Federation.


Heck no Klingons should be killed just like other alien scum. Remember your roots Cpt. Kirk killed tehm not talked to them.

Reply #263 from Sins Forums Top
I worked on a map a few weeks ago to fit most of the races in. I made 2 versions of the map lil smaller with around 6-8 planets each and another one with a good 14 planets or so each empire wise. I put the frengi in there with only 2 planets but a boat load of asteriods as a style of "cornering the black market" Any of the designers wanna send me a PM i'll send them the 2 maps to check out. I just didnt add the Breen and most dominion planets need names. (I went mainly by this one startrek star chart online.
Reply #264 from Sins Forums Top
Major Stress,
Thanks for undertaking the Star Trek Conversion for Sins. I had an idea for you after reading your description. Even in the 24th century there was problems with pirates, instead of making them all Maquis, you could throw some of the classic Orion Pirate vessels in there.

Just a thought,
CaptJono
Reply #265 from Sins Forums Top
I worked on a map a few weeks ago to fit most of the races in. I made 2 versions of the map lil smaller with around 6-8 planets each and another one with a good 14 planets or so each empire wise. I put the frengi in there with only 2 planets but a boat load of asteriods as a style of "cornering the black market" Any of the designers wanna send me a PM i'll send them the 2 maps to check out. I just didnt add the Breen and most dominion planets need names. (I went mainly by this one startrek star chart online.



i'm already working on a Trek universe for the alpha quadrant which will allow us to put all the ufp worlds in a system, klingons in another, frenegi in another (raiding purposes), Romulans, breen, cardassians, and off in the very far top left will be dominion space, and it far enough away that traveling there would take you a very very long time, but you can take the wormhole right next to bajor!
Reply #266 from Sins Forums Top
Vote for next model to be worked on/ show pictuers:
Oberth or Miranada class
Excelsior Class or
BOP (Klingon or Romulan)

the is starten to look great, not tying to push you guys to do more, just hopeing the next pictures will be of something more classic trek. I like the sovy but i cant wait to see what some of the other iconic ships can/will look like

Keep up the Hard Work
Reply #267 from Sins Forums Top
Stress needs to quit his job so he can sit at home and model all day ;)
Reply #268 from Sins Forums Top
Stress needs to quit his job so he can sit at home and model all day

Agreed


@ lathorien: My vote would be Excelsior.
Reply #269 from Sins Forums Top
Hi, just skimmed through the thread, I have a few thoughts on the subject.

You seem to be trying to fit the ST mold into the Sins mold. My understanding of the game engine is that you can mold it into whatever you want. So dont compromise the ST universe to fit how the game works now, just break the mold and make it do what you want it to.

Just an example that came to mind. Making the Borg into the pirates. As the game works now you are correct, the borg would be ridiculously powerful, or you would have to nerf them big time, again unrealistic. Now lets just break the mold so we can have the Borg in the game. Pirates right now frequently send in fleets that attack all your ships and infrastructure, also you can bribe them to akkack other civs. Break the mold...
1 Make attacks less frequent, this fits the ST mold as Borg attacks were quite rare.
2 Make Borg ships ignore all other ships, bases ect, they go straight for the planet, waste it(assimilate) and leave. This is true to ST mold, the Borg dont really care about a bunch of insignificant little ships, they go straight for the prize, assimilation of the planets population.
3 Instead of bribing the borg to attack other civs, just make it so they go for the top civ.
4 Make one system the Borg's, this is where The Cube leaves to go assimilate some planet then returns to. Notice I said The Cube, singular, Thats becuase The Cube is special and doesnt attack ships, but if you invade the Borg home system and the cube doesnt defend you'll take it over easy, unrealistic. So in the Borgs home system you would have cube v.2, this version never leaves the system but will attack anything that enters the system, thus making taking the Borg system almost impossible. Only if you get most all other civs to join in a joint effort should you be able to take them out.

So by breaking the games mold, you can have the Borg as the pirates. They only rarely take out a planet and becuase its from the top player its really just an inconvenience. All that needs to be done is to rebuild the planets infrastructure, even all your orbital bases will still be intact. So you have the indestructable Borg ingame and it will not be a game breaker.

Thats just one example, you should take that thought process to all aspects of the MOD, make the game fit ST not the other way around.

Reply #270 from Sins Forums Top
... easyer said then done... but yes, i do agree. Though its something that will probably be best done by an individual as an "add on" mod to the "vanilla" stat trek mod. I would love to see the Borg put in, but... dang, read what has already been talked about. They already have their hands MORE then full just trying to do the basics. and the Borg WILL NOT be in the initial release, a fact i am perfectly ok with.
Reply #271 from Sins Forums Top
that wasnt just for you Giedi, that was also for every one else above you there that havent seemed to have read back through the discussion. You at least brought something new(ish) to the table, a fact i appreciate. People who just say, ADD BORG, are annoying.
Reply #272 from Sins Forums Top
Wow, excellent idea prima, and a great post. I understand that you want the borg in this mod as much as we all do, but the stress has made it clear , that there will not be borg in the first issue of his mod :). Still, as i have read previously, he hasnt said that there Wont ever be borg. Just atm no borg. :) I personally want this mod to be perfect. and am willing to wait as looooooooooooong as it takes for this one to come to fruition. And remember, stress has been at this for a while, he knows what he's doing. And it is his mod... he can if he so choses to stop creating at any time. I say, let him get the mod to where he wants it... first. As, he's stated like 50 times already, this is a dominion war mod. The borg just wouldnt fit in ATM.

I personally want him and his team to just surprise us with a great mod that we all can enjoy. Now, dont get me wrong. I want this mod an much as everyone else. But I can deal with the game as is for now until the mod is realeased :)

Well, not really as is hehe (Distant stars 1.0, bailknights graphics mod, textures and stars mod, Uzi's sins plus mod) Major props to all the devs of these highly acclaimed and fantastic mods. You guys are all what makes sins gaming fun. Keep up the fantastic work!
Reply #273 from Sins Forums Top
... easyer said then done... but yes, i do agree. Though its something that will probably be best done by an individual as an "add on" mod to the "vanilla" stat trek mod. I would love to see the Borg put in, but... dang, read what has already been talked about. They already have their hands MORE then full just trying to do the basics. and the Borg WILL NOT be in the initial release, a fact i am perfectly ok with.


I was not really pushing for the Borg to be in the MOD, more like getting the modders to think Star Trek, the Borg was just an example. It's just that I see this shaping up as Sins of a Solar Empire with Star Trek models, rather then a Star Trek game. The Sins game mechanics would work great as a Star Wars MOD with minimal changes, but it doesnt really fit the Star Trek theme. So as another example I would ditch fighters and bombers from the game. I would get rid of the whole, cap ship, frigate, cruiser classes too, its not ST, theres pretty much one class of ship in ST, starships, they come in different sizes but they are all starships. One bonus of fewer ships is that you could make huge starmaps without lag. Another example would be warp, theres no lanes that needed to be followed, you just warp. You leave in the part where you have to get outside of the gravity well but from there you can go anywhere, then just add techs to change how fast you move while in warp, warp1 warp2 ect. I understand that first things first, you have get the models in game and working, but you should be thinking about where its going. Why waste time making up ST ships that dont exsist just so you can fill in 5 frigate slots and 5 cruiser slots and 5 cap ship slots, when in ST everything is pretty much a cap ship. The modders will do what they want, I am just giving an opinion, if this is just going to be sins with ST models then... meh.
Reply #274 from Sins Forums Top
i pretty sure stress mentioned to me that originally he didn't want gravity wells in the trek mod, but unfortunately they are hard coded. Borg right now is not going to happen, but there is plans to incorporate them later on. With the Borg it basically breaks any type of ballance, but i've already been putting together a plan for stress to review on how we can make the borg work and be balanced. I've already got the weapon sets created for them, just have some faith and patience. We're trying to get everything else rolling, but once it starts going at a good pace you won't be disappointed!
Reply #275 from Sins Forums Top
i would suggest doing the Next Generation era with Terrans vs Klingons vs Romulans...
Ferengi as pirates(since they are a capital wealth driven race)...