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
4,108,208 views 1,754 replies
Reply #276 from Sins Forums Top
Posted a thread in our forums at the digital-Underground site for those interested in joining the mod team (my post has a list of current available positions). More positions may become available down the line.

digital-Underground
Reply #277 from Sins Forums Top
One thing that bothers me a bit about how this sounds is that cap ships in Sins are very rare, while in Star Trek most fleets have large numbers of capital ships.

I would suggest one flag ship for each empire, like the Sovereign class for the Federation that may only have one model in service at a time. Or simply requires a much larger amount of resources or research to unlock.

Federation: Sovereign.
Romulan: Scimitar.
Klingons: Imperial Negh'Vhar
Breen: Err, fancy nifty Breen supership mark 2?
Dominion: A more powerful version of the Jem'Hadar battle cruiser

Tweak the capital ship requirements so the flag ship has to be researched. For the other capital ships, perhaps allowing more to be in service by allowing 3 or 4 per cap logistics research, then weakening them a bit. It would make it seem a lot more realistic. During the Dominion War especially, you never saw a single Warbird operating without other Warbirds supporting. Also, there were entire wings of galaxy class ships, along with more than one defiant class. Thats the only thing kinda bothering me about the current plan for the mod,as I can see it.
WindowBlinds - Free yourself of the default settings, customize your desktop.
Reply #278 from Sins Forums Top
One thing that bothers me a bit about how this sounds is that cap ships in Sins are very rare, while in Star Trek most fleets have large numbers of capital ships.


In Star Trek the very definition of "capital ship" is practically non-existant :P
Reply #279 from Sins Forums Top
One thing that bothers me a bit about how this sounds is that cap ships in Sins are very rare, while in Star Trek most fleets have large numbers of capital ships. I would suggest one flag ship for each empire, like the Sovereign class for the Federation that may only have one model in service at a time. Or simply requires a much larger amount of resources or research to unlock.Federation: Sovereign. Romulan: Scimitar. Klingons: Imperial Negh'Vhar Breen: Err, fancy nifty Breen supership mark 2?Dominion: A more powerful version of the Jem'Hadar battle cruiserTweak the capital ship requirements so the flag ship has to be researched. For the other capital ships, perhaps allowing more to be in service by allowing 3 or 4 per cap logistics research, then weakening them a bit. It would make it seem a lot more realistic. During the Dominion War especially, you never saw a single Warbird operating without other Warbirds supporting. Also, there were entire wings of galaxy class ships, along with more than one defiant class. Thats the only thing kinda bothering me about the current plan for the mod,as I can see it.



They can just change the cap limit. Hell I already have myself lol They can easily set the limit to whatever they want.
Reply #280 from Sins Forums Top
Well I would like to see the Fergs in the game as either pirates or a playable race. The Fergs were a big part of TNG and most of the following spin offs with the exception of Voyager of course. If anybody remembers "Birth Of The Federation" you could play as the Fergs in it. I would like to see the mod as more of a revamped version of that game really, I mean this 4x Iron Engine sounds awesome. I think adding that stuff into the mod would be great. If the game can be as massive as it has been described why not include all the major races at some point? Just to be clear I would consider the Fergs to be right up there with the Cardies, Feddies, Rippleheads, Pointed ears, as for the Breen and Dominion yeah why not? I've never really seen much of their tech and it would be kind of interesting to see but would a lot of that stuff have to be invented? Now where the Borg are concerned in BOTF they were used as a random event that went around the map destroying your colonies and ship until you amassed a force to destroy the cube. You could also ally with other players to accomplish this feat. I own Birth of The Federation, Armada 1 and 2, SFC 1-3 and lastly that piece of crap Besthesda released called Star Trek Legacy. I understand that you guys will be working on this mod in your spare time but, please take it all into consideration about which races to include. I've been playing RTS's and starship simulators for over 10 years now and I am looking forward to buying Sins especially if there is a Star Trek mod in the works...I'll most likely buy four copies of Sins; one for the wife, one for myself, and one each for a couple friends of mine.
Oh and nobody is making a Stargate mod because Stargate sucks...that's my opinion and I'm entitled to it. LOL... oh yeah and LONG LIVE THE ROMULAN STAR EMPIRE! I WANT A SCIMITAR too!
Reply #281 from Sins Forums Top
Well I would like to see the Fergs in the game as either pirates or a playable race. The Fergs were a big part of TNG





I hope you realize, and you probably dont, that the ferengi's offensive and defensive capabilities on even the biggest ferengi ships wouldnt go toe to toe with even a federation science vessel..


Before you go on touting the greatness of the ferengi empire you should probably realize that the Soase is not an environment conducive to their survival.


also this mod isnt going to be based off of TNG but off of the dominion wars of DS9



Reply #283 from Sins Forums Top
One thing that bothers me a bit about how this sounds is that cap ships in Sins are very rare, while in Star Trek most fleets have large numbers of capital ships.


frigates dont work for that matter either, well for most races. Neither do fighters really outside the magui and "federation" kinda. just classing them based on power/usfulness (ie. Defiant has a crew 100-300 same as a Sins Frigate, but it dosent belong on the Frig line) i think just keep the more "non-combat" and older ships at the bottom and work you way up to the newest biggest most advanced ships.

Game play Example:
5-10 min into the game.
1 - Cap (Sovrein, Galaxy, or ???)
5ish - Oberth Class
5 min later start adding some Consitution Refits? or Miranda Class

Eventually you add another cap or two and some of the more larger modern classes (excelsior, defiant, Steamrunner ect). Sounds "drool worthy" to me :)
Reply #284 from Sins Forums Top
The argument about what's a capital ship and what isn't is kind of goofy, since there's really no such thing as a capital ship. It's all relative - the term simply means "the biggest ship you've got."

I seem to recall that the Ferengi were initially conceived as a major enemy of the Federation; a new opponent to get away from TOS enemies like the Romulans and the Klingons. But they moved away from that idea, since a ruthlessly capitalistic enemy made no sense in a universe where you can replicate anything you want. But because they were initially set up to be a threat, the D'Kora class Marauders were pretty powerful (they had to be able to threaten a Galaxy class starship). However, there's never been any indication that there's a cohesive Ferengi fleet - it's more like a loose affiliation of traders. With that in mind, they don't really make sense as a playable faction, especially considering they played no role in the war. Like the Breen, you'd have to create an entire fleet of ships based on one design. That's a lot of work you're asking them to do.

Also, every source I can find (none of them terribly reliable) backs up my recollection of the Defiant's crew being in the area of 50, not 100-300.

Lastly, I'd just like to point out that the Scimitar is not a Romulan ship. It's Reman, and it was one of a kind. And overpowered. And ugly.
Reply #285 from Sins Forums Top
I imagine ships in this mod would be much more of a smooth curve than divided into classifications. The Sovereign and Prometheus are really the only big combat-only ships..may just be better to stick them all in one shipyard or divide it up into smaller ships/bigger ships and give the bigger ships the CapitalShip entity type so that you can have experience on em.
Reply #286 from Sins Forums Top
Well I'll be damned, Stress Puppy and Dasher. Pos_21 from TGU here, though I would be litterally shocked and awed if you remembered me ;)

You guys should stop back in GD some time and say hi. There's still a handful of the old crew who drop in on a somewhat-regular basis.

Regardless, good luck with your new SoA :P

Keeping a weathered eye on the horizon...
Reply #287 from Sins Forums Top
Hi Stress, You may remember me from the SoA days as Flashfire, sup, how be? :D

And... more relevantly just yesterday infact, I discovered that I hadn't lost that Excelsior model I put together for SoA! I've not gone through them yet, but I found a directory full of LWO's stashed somewhere, so I've probably got the nice phat ~2400 poly Excelsior mesh that I slaved over for months whilst turning myself obsessive, and you have my full permission to make use of it. :)

I do of course mean this one
and a beauty shot

I _should_ have a copy of that in LWO format amongst the hidden treasures I stumbled into in a subdirectory under a subdirectory under a subdirectory. thought I'd lost it all in a disk crash yeaaaaaaaars ago. heh.
Reply #288 from Sins Forums Top
Actually, the term capital ship generally denotes a certain power level, primarily that of enough to lead a fleet. Crew compliment isn't as important as the idea that a commanding officer, such as an admiral, can be relatively safe on the ship knowing it is a dangerous enough and sturdy enough to hold up in battle.

Also, Ferengi did indeed give the Enterprise a bit of trouble from time to time. their ships were not as powerful as a rule, but often had extra bits not allowed in normal rules. Similar to the aliens in Insurrection. I don't terribly like the Ferengi, as I think their society is a bit ridiculous. I'd love to do a few episodes on them though in a series, just to take up the challenge of exploring and justifying their societies existence.
Reply #289 from Sins Forums Top
Ok, I see some of you have no idea what you're talking about when it comes to the Ferengi and have most likely never heard of the said before mentioned game called Birth of The Federation by Microprose. The Ferengi are known for having cheap ships they may not be the nicest in the cannon but in numbers they can cause problems anybody that has played BOTF knows this. Now if exp is thrown into the equation for ship crews... what looks like a fair fight might not be considering the crews exp levels. Now why would somebody think that while the Federation has created the Sov class that the Ferengi weren't stealing or updating their own tech? We did see a new Warbird type in Nemisis and as far as the Scimitar goes we could buy them in SFC 3 as long as you could find one up for sale on Dynaverse. The games I know aren't considered cannon but if you stuck just to the cannon we wouldn't have most of the ships we do for our games that we play. Plus like the Romulans wouldn't have stolen or seized the plans to the Scimitar as soon as Shinzon was dead. I'm sure the Tal Shiar knew all about that ship.

As far as the Sins not being an enviroment that the Ferengi could survive in from what I've read sure it is! It seems this game isn't all about the might of your ships but cultural influence also just like Galtic Civ. The Feregni Empire has a huge cultural base they trade with everybody than can. Their influence is all over the Star Trek Alpha Quadrant and in a good portion of the series that were released. Yes they maybe merchants but every merchant has a line of security. You better bet they've got a fleet to protect the empire's profits. Granted I have mentioned BOTF a lot and I have beaten human players as the Feregni. With the wealth the Feregni can generate and the bounties ability in Sins I think it wouldbe awesome to use Feregni credits on other players in the form of bounties or to fund my allies war machines as I have in BOTF. Their ships are also quite fast they have some of the fastest movement rates in that game. Their ships are cheap, fast and in numbers they work well or if they have exp the better. Now if you mean the science vessel as being an Oberth Class against a Marauder the Marauder would crush it. If you mean a Nebula class vs a Marauder it would be a pretty good fight but I think the Marauder would smoke it.

Reply #290 from Sins Forums Top
Reaper I hear you about the Ferengi, BOTF showed that they can be a playable race, while they might not be technically or militarily dominant, their amazing economy bonuses makes the loss of any individual ship easily replaceable. In BOTF they can afford to simply buy more ships than other races, and make up for their inferior strength with numbers and maneuverability.

However that being said I gather that at least for the initial release, this mod is focusing on Dominion War era races, which is a good idea, and is surely more than enough for the team to be getting on with. However I cannot overstate how much I think this game could be theBOTF 2.

I am keen to see whether the next patch might implement a deeper diplomacy system, or perhaps spy/intelligence assets, or ground invasions for taking planets/colonies. These are some great elements of BOTF's gameplay. The way I see it this game already has 'minor races' in the form of the neutral militia which randomly defend certain planets. Has anyone thought about a system whereby these could be made into minor races which have specific 'artifacts' on their planets that would act as the equivalent of the minor races special abilities in BOTF. i.e. Vulcans would have a research bonus on their planet, which you could then benefit from if you convinced them to join your empire, or subjugated them (likely as Cardassians, Klingons, Romulans or Dominion).

Asides from these points, any plans to implement outpost/starbase construction in the Trek mod?
Reply #291 from Sins Forums Top
I have heard of BoTF. I have also heard of a bunch of completely terrible Star Trek games that made up all kinds of non-canon things that I wouldn't want to see in this mod, either. The Ferengi make as much sense in this context as a Wal-Mart faction in Command & Conquer.

And no, I don't assume the Romulans would just take the plans for a Scimitar and start building them any more than I assume they'd do the same thing with a Sovereign or a Negh'Var. That's never been done in the Star Trek universe - the closest thing was when the Romulans bought Klingon D-7 battle cruisers in TOS, and they still weren't building them themselves. No race has ever built another race's ships. And you may have been able to get a Scimitar in SFCIII, but in SFC I you could play as the Lyrans and the Hydrans, which they completely made up. So let's not go using those games as a source of reliable information.

And the Tal Shiar was reported as all but wiped out in the prelude to the Dominion War when Enabran Tain led a combined Obsidian Order/Tal Shair fleet to attack the Founders' home world and was ambushed (DS9 - The Die is Cast). I'm sure they were still around, but in a greatly diminished capacity. I wouldn't assume they knew much about anything after that.

In any case, the mod team has already stated what they're going to do, and I sincerely doubt that any amount of whining about Birth of The Federation is going to change their minds.
Reply #292 from Sins Forums Top
Originally i was not going to include Borg at all in the mod, but i am going to check Shimmers plan out, and see how it goes.

Maquis will be the pirates for now being that the original mod will be mostly Dominion War era with a few exceptions (Soveriegn, Valdore, 90% of the Breen faction, and a few new non-canon Cardassian ship designs).

Bickering about what is, and is not a capitol ship in Trek is pointless. The Excelsior can be considered a capitol ship (it was the largest fed ship in the TMP era). Yet it is in a frigate slot in the mod. What slot a ship is in is irrelevant. What its specs are is.

While for right now we are focusing SoA2 on the Dominion War, It is our hope that it can evolve into a full blown Next Generation era mod. Including Borg, Sona, Ferrengi, etc. etc. factions. All of this of course depends on how moddable Sins truly is, and our teams capabilities. We are recruiting so check out shim's post. If you are interested sign up.

I wont be online for a while. I have another work trip, and a final move to my permanent residence. It will be a busy summer for me so I am leaving Thomas Marrone, and Darkshimmer in charge till i can spend some time on this.

Greets to all the TGU buddys :D

Reply #293 from Sins Forums Top
umm... yay!

Gl with your move hope everything goes alright :)
Reply #294 from Sins Forums Top
ND,
Other races don't build enemy ships but they do occasionally take technologies form captured ships and implement them into their own designs. However with the Scimitar, just because it was lead by Remans doesn't mean it isn't a Romulan ship. It would have been built with imperial resources, at an imperial shipyard. The schematics would be carefully hidden within imperial databases.

So its not really the same as Ferengi building a Sovereign. Its within an empire, so continued construction is partially believable with the exception of the superweapon they used. I believe it was using forbidden technology that the empire agreed was forbidden. So that would not be present in a mass produced version, I imagine. Not with out crazy McClone in charge.
Reply #295 from Sins Forums Top
Umm didn't the Romulan's and Klingon's have a treaty where they traded ship designs with each other such as the TOS Bird of Prey and one of the D type cruisers? If I remember correctly they did.
As far as the Lyrans and Hydrans go I thought they we in the board game and that's why they justified putting them into SFC.
I'm glad to see that somebody has actually Played BOTF in here. I do hope the mod will be the RTS version of BOTF we've been waiting for. Minor races and the bonus structures would be cool too.
Reply #298 from Sins Forums Top
I will be happy no matter what, unless I see some stupid Borg cube.


Since Major Stress is thinking of incorporating the Borg now, then maybe you should clarify what you consider "stupid". Stupid looking (ie poor model/texturing)? Or you just hate the Borg?
Reply #299 from Sins Forums Top
I will be happy no matter what, unless I see some stupid Borg cube.Since Major Stress is thinking of incorporating the Borg now, then maybe you should clarify what you consider "stupid". Stupid looking (ie poor model/texturing)? Or you just hate the Borg?


Stupid is as stupid ...
Reply #300 from Sins Forums Top
Stupid is as stupid ...



Wow, way to turn a phrase. You should probably take your own advice and consider what you say before you say it.