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[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
4,107,232 views 1,754 replies
Reply #201 from Sins Forums Top
Just like to point out before I begin that I agree with the devs, NO BORG, at least not at first, if they want to add them in later, thats fine, the more the merrier. but I would much rather have the dominion, cards, roms, klingon and breen then the borg. Now, points for the borg. First Contact occurs on stardate 50893.5 which is the last point we see the borg in the alpha or beta quadrants. The dominion war, from what I can see, started shortly before 51107.2 which was like 3 episodes into the war and ended until 52645.7 so to the best of our knowledge the borg WERE NOT around during the dominion war. We REALLY don't know how strong the borg are. Yes they defeated 39 ships at Wolf 359 but AFTER they had assimilated Picard (the Federations Flagships captain) which probably gave them a HUGE tactical advantage. Just like his knowledge of the borg in FC allowed them to defeat that cube. We really dont know how many ships fought the borg or were destroyed by them in FC. The borg in voyager were really dumbed down, there was no point in them not just assimilating the voyager crew. There was no reason they wouldn't have been able to get the specs from the docs databanks and as was stated previously, the cubes were messed up by the bioships but all it did to voyager was send it spinning. Bottom line, borg or no borg, this mod is gonna rock and will get a insta dl from me the minute it's out.

P.S. There is a thread about a B5 mod, but I'm not sure if any work has actually started on it yet.
Reply #202 from Sins Forums Top
ok so i had an idea while looking at the maps of the fed space shown earlyer. Plus i was watching the DS9 eppisode Prophet Motive... why not make the ferengi a minor race that was not quite so minor. Unplayable, but able to creat orbital structures and able to trade! you could form a trade aliance with them, or simply invade thier space. However you probably wouldnt want to invade because all their allies wouldnt be too happy. acording to the mape theres like, idk, 3 or 4 systems that they own. This could be a really cool extra aspect to the game that would help emersion. Maybe not for the first release but eventually it would be really cool see in this mod. What do you guys think?
The Political Machine 2024
Reply #203 from Sins Forums Top
AWesome to see that a Star Trek mod is in the works... any website up yet? And if you need someone to help with beta testing the mod let me know... dont really have much experience with modding but I'd love to offer any help/suggestions along the way... SINS is definately a game that is well suited for a great Star Trek mod :)

(P.S. -- don't worry... I promise not to suggest adding the borg :P
Reply #204 from Sins Forums Top
No website, No forum until we have something to release.

For the last time. NO BORG! At least not just yet until we can find a way to do them justice in the mod. The only way is to use the TNG era Borg through a random event (1 deadly cube).

No Prometheus (That ship is from Voyager. Not DS-9). We cant do MVAM, or separation in sins anyway. The Centaur is the only "Frankenstein fleet" ship in our list.

We have a shiplist for all of the six factions that will utilize all 15 slots per faction. Plus all of the autonomous NPC's like fighters, traders, colonizers, and yes.. troop transports.

Abilities for each cap ship will be determined after they are imported. Some abilities that are in the planning stages are the Tractor Beam, but i dont want every ship in the game to be spamming tractor beams. Quantum Torpedoes would be a Defiant, and Soveriegn ability. The "Nemesis Upgrade" would be a lvl 6 Sovereign ability that would give it all the extra torpedo firepower seen in nemesis. As said these abilities are just in planning, and we wont know what will, or will not be used until after we see the ships in action in the game.

I will work on getting the Sovereign in game this week, and use what i learn as the foundation for importing the other ships.

I am only back home for a week so ill try to get as much done as i can.

Reply #205 from Sins Forums Top
Glad to hear things coming along so nicely :)
I had an idea the other day for a possible Galaxy-Class ability... "Warp Power to Shields"
Something they did in at least a couple of episodes of TNG, an ability that could be ported to the game... perhaps doubling the total shields of the Galaxy Class at a cost of movement and/or phaser fire rate.... just an idea though :P

True i suppose ANY ship could do that, but it would make sense for the Galaxy since she lacks maneuverability anyway so making a last stand with her wouldn't be a bad idea.
Reply #206 from Sins Forums Top
"Auxiliary Power" is a cap ship ability we are considering (Shield/Weapon buff). The versatility of Federation ships will make it hard to determine which ships will receive which abilities. Most fed ships are "jack of all trade/master of none" with 2 exceptions. Those being the Defiant, and the Sovereign. Those two ships will be easy to add on abilities, because their purpose was clear.
Reply #207 from Sins Forums Top
This mod thread has revived some serious DS9 nostalgia for me. Just for fun, I went back and cobbled together an extended battle scene from the episodes The Jem'Hadar, Defiant, The Die is Cast, Call to Arms, Sacrifice of Angels, Valiant, Tears of the Prophets, The Changing Face of Evil, and What You Leave Behind. The result is five and a half minutes of solid action that almost makes sense as a battle where a Federation/Klingon/Romulan fleet intervenes in a Dominion attack on DS9. I spent several hours of my life editing this together that I'll never have back, so please, enjoy the show!
Reply #208 from Sins Forums Top
No website, No forum until we have something to release.


When you are almost ready let me know and I will be glad to provide you with an entire site dedicated to the Star Trek Theme if you wish.. over at thespaceponies.com

WWW Link
Reply #209 from Sins Forums Top
Not trying to compete or anything with SpacePonyLordMike but just offering that if you need a forum try sgnonline.com as the mods there are willing to freely host anything you need there. Anyway can't wait to bring some Jem'Hadar ships against my enemies! :D
Reply #210 from Sins Forums Top
Bad idea. So while you guys are playing this mod, we will have fewer players online for multiplayer.

I hope the vast majority of players will not play your mod.
Reply #211 from Sins Forums Top
Bad idea. So while you guys are playing this mod, we will have fewer players online for multiplayer.I hope the vast majority of players will not play your mod.


we will be online.... playing our mod!! There are more than enough people playing sins for ahealthy online community the issues resolve with connecting issues 80% of people cant host for multiple reasons. Once thats fixed there will be room for multiple mods to play online and you should still be able to find a vanilla game at anytime.
Reply #212 from Sins Forums Top
Bad idea. So while you guys are playing this mod, we will have fewer players online for multiplayer.I hope the vast majority of players will not play your mod.


I hope for a great many things to happen to people like you. Alas, we can't all get what we want ;)
Reply #214 from Sins Forums Top
"Auxiliary Power" is a cap ship ability we are considering (Shield/Weapon buff). The versatility of Federation ships will make it hard to determine which ships will receive which abilities. Most fed ships are "jack of all trade/master of none" with 2 exceptions. Those being the Defiant, and the Sovereign. Those two ships will be easy to add on abilities, because their purpose was clear.



Any chance I could sneak a peak at the ship lists for each race? I realise you all have things in mind as far as special abilities may go but I'd love to brainstorm and throw a few ideas your way. If not no big deal I'd just love to be able to help in some way :)
Reply #216 from Sins Forums Top

Starbases could be a solution to world colonization. Destroy the enemies starbase instead of bombardment, cause even the federation will blow up a starbase. A colonizing ship could build a small base quickly, which gets upgraded with more offensive or defensive capabilities instead of planets. i.e. adding a habitat ring to increase population, pylons to support torpedo launchers, and hanger bays for fighters, etc.

If an enemies culture gets too high, the natives rise up and take over the station as a neutral like Bajora, who then sided with the federation wiht their high influence

Also, trade structures could be ferengi, with neutral ferengi traders who can be bribed for intel or sabotage instead of direct combat
Reply #217 from Sins Forums Top
Hey Dan, that is great footage! thanks for posting it.
Reply #218 from Sins Forums Top
Bad idea. So while you guys are playing this mod, we will have fewer players online for multiplayer.I hope the vast majority of players will not play your mod.


I hope you stop, reread your post, and think about how STUPID that comment is. This mod will do nothing but BRING IN MORE players.
Reply #219 from Sins Forums Top
Not trying to compete or anything with SpacePonyLordMike but just offering that if you need a forum try sgnonline.com as the mods there are willing to freely host anything you need there. Anyway can't wait to bring some Jem'Hadar ships against my enemies!


hey we all have diffent things to offer, so don't worry about it. I would like to thank you for your consideration in thinking about me before you posted.. Very classy! almost poniesh... :p 
Reply #220 from Sins Forums Top
is it done yet? :SURPRISED:
Reply #221 from Sins Forums Top
I think it should just be federation, klingons and romulans

They have always had ambitions of taking eachother over throughout all star trek history. Never really allied or enemies too long due to them all being major powers in the alpha quadrant.

Dominion aren't really a threat to them with the wormhole properly blockaded, and knowing that the major powers in the alpha quadrant will join forces to defeat invaders such as the dominion and/or the borg, I feel we don't really need to see that battle in a game... Just my two cents

Reply #222 from Sins Forums Top
I think it should just be federation, klingons and romulansThey have always had ambitions of taking eachother over throughout all star trek history. Never really allied or enemies too long due to them all being major powers in the alpha quadrant.Dominion aren't really a threat to them with the wormhole properly blockaded, and knowing that the major powers in the alpha quadrant will join forces to defeat invaders such as the dominion and/or the borg, I feel we don't really need to see that battle in a game... Just my two cents

Uh... why would you want fewer options in the mod? If the team is offering to do more, you accept it and you say thank you. Besides, the mod is set during the Dominion War, not after, so the Dominion is very much a threat.

Reply #223 from Sins Forums Top
is it done yet?


Yes, and we're all having fun playing it and laughing at *you* because you can't :LOL:

But only you, because there's only one true koscy!
Reply #225 from Sins Forums Top
ye me too, and pics :D