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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
4,162,040 views 1,794 replies
Reply #52 from Sins Forums Top
Outstanding work man. Those ships are really uniques, they will add a lots of new fun to the game...
WindowBlinds - Free yourself of the default settings, customize your desktop.
Reply #53 from Sins Forums Top
Interesting-looking ships! You're doing some impressive work, I look forward to seeing more of it.
Reply #54 from Sins Forums Top
cool new model! keep up the good work!
i'll definetely try this out!  :CONGRAT: 
Reply #55 from Sins Forums Top
Thanks for the praise!
The quest for impressive destruction effects continues with some success. However, I am *still* unable to figure out how the shield hit effect is handled. Seems likely that it is hidden/hardcoded. I hope not though, because I have truly nice shield effects in mind. Hopefully more information on that and simmilar issues will be released soon.
Reply #56 from Sins Forums Top
Oh, I am SO downloading this when it gets out. I clap for you and your ideas good sir! Go! Go and create the mod of your dreams!


Ha. That made me laugh. Although i completely agree. This mod makes me more and more excited with each screenshot. At first i kindof thought it was too much to create a new race and actually do it right but seriously, this looks right on the money. So yeah, I clap for you too, and you should go create the mod of your dreams.
Reply #57 from Sins Forums Top
I love the designs I will be looking forward to this for sure.
Reply #58 from Sins Forums Top
Just out of curiosity, are you taking any inspiration from Babylon 5? Some of the Xin ships look very Vorlon-esque. This is not a critique at all (B5 ships are some of my favorites of all time).
Reply #59 from Sins Forums Top
Well, its a common practice when designing, to borrow shapes and ideas from various stuff you've seen and mould it into your vision of what the final stuff should look like (for example, the "head" and the "shell" of the Scout I took from the Spielberg's movie "War of the Worlds", since I liked the "brooding eye" effect when you looked at the tripods from the front). And even if you don't do it on purpose, we have so many fantastic designs of spaceships out there, its hard to really be unique 100%. :)

So while I have watched B5 for quite some time a while ago, I din't have Vorlons in mind when designing the Xin ships, no. But its very easy to find common factors between them and every other ship design which borrows from nature's shapes.

Since I'm already writing, a little bit of news as well:

The final concept of the Xin race has been formalized. They are going to be the turtlers race. Their ships have 80% higher defensive and offensive capabilities, but also cost more (with a twist - you don't need credits to play Xin, but you do need a lot of metal and crystal) and have double the supply cost. This means the Xin player will always be numerically disadvantaged. But his ships will be able to tear a new airlock on any hapless tincan they encounter to compensate. Also, they are going to be somewhat slower in space (about 15%) and 50% slower in phase. However, they are going to have the ability to build (low slot requirements) Quantum Phase Portals in orbit of their planets, which effectively increases their phase speed to an incredible degree. The effect is simple: on their home turf, the Xin will be very hard to surprise. On the flip side though, they are going to have to work for it.
The numbers are just estimates, pending adjustment during the play testing phase.


Also, by observing the speed at which I am able to make new models and game adjustments, I have decided (bar unforeseen circumstances) to have the mod come out in three installments. The final goal is to have every ship, structure and most if not all of the effects in the game replaced. First out will be the gameplay changes and the Xin race.
The second installment will see the demise of TEC and the rise of The Remnant. Think desperados, underdogs with trash ships, but very cheap and lots of them. Design simmilar to Minmatar from EVE, if anyone plays.
And the third installment should see the merger of the Vasari and Advent into the Hegemony. Where Xin are the turtlers dream come true, and the Remnant cater to zergers among us, the Hegemony would be the balance in between.

Anyway, I'm having lots of fun so far, and making of new stuff has been easier than I thought, so why not. Not to mention the space battles will look a *lot* better if my initial results with the Xin Plasma Cannon are to be an indicator. ;)
Reply #61 from Sins Forums Top
looks great love the idea of this mod
Reply #62 from Sins Forums Top
Wow, some of the best models i've seen put in-game. Is your anti-aliasing turned on in those shots? Other then slightly jagged edges (which the in-game models might have too) these look like official stuff coming out of IronClad!

Your first model that was like a whale actually reminded me a ton of Moya from Farscape (this is not a bad thing!) :-)

See a picture of Moya here: http://home.earthlink.net/~x1nebula/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/deskb10.jpg
Reply #63 from Sins Forums Top
Thanks Ironwill. :) As for anti-aliasing, I honestly can't remember. Looking again at the screenshots, it doesn't look like its on. I actually booted the game up to check out and with AA on the jagged edges don't show up, so the screens were probably taken with it off. I have a few new shots coming up soon, going to make sure the AA is on this time. ;)
Reply #64 from Sins Forums Top
ManSh00ter,
Congrats so far, a very interesting mod. I see that you got the whole "adding a race" thing down. I would love to download this when it is available. How are you creating the 3D models? They look awesome. Also, did you create them from scratch, or did you load in the game's original files as a base. I am trying to do the same for my mod, but can't seem to work with the original files, and I don't have time to make them from scratch.
In either case, excellent work so far. I like the organic theme, much like Genesis Rising. Keep up the good work, I look forward to it.

DANMAN
Reply #65 from Sins Forums Top
I can't believe I've missed this mod, it slipped under the radar so to speak. The new models and textures for those ships are outstanding. A very unique look to them, unlike most 'new' races in many games, they actually look completely different to the Vanilla 3. Your texturing and modeling skills are sublime, keep up the excellent work. (Sorry for taking so long to notice this gem ;))
Reply #67 from Sins Forums Top
Wow, I think my ego just increased its resolution to 4096x4096 :p Thanks for the compliments, I try my best.

Here is a new update I promised, this time its the AntiFighter drone:



Ignore the slight texture errors here and there, they are going to get cleaned up before release.

The Star'ok Point Defense Drone is meant to serve the role of the anti-fighter frigate for the Xin, but it has a twist. Its full firepower is more than twice that of the other races, but... it has to get real close to use it. It has two weapon systems, instead of just one. The first weapon, long-range, is actually weaker (about 50%) than standard, but has three times the range of normal antifighter frigates. It consists of plasmid sub-drones being expelled through the aperture on the bottom of the central sphere. The second weapon has 50% greater firepower than normal frigates (bringing the total DPS to about 200%) but only half the usual range. It consists of shaped charged plasma strikes (which look very much like lightning bolts shooting from those spikes).
Tomorrow I'll be making the particle effects for these weapons, then I'll show them in action. Maybe even put together a little movie.

Oh and Danman, the models are made from scratch, as well as textures. I use XSI for modelling, Photoshop for textures.
Reply #68 from Sins Forums Top
WOW I VOLUNTEER FOR BETA OR ALPHA TESTING       


I want in too!

Anyway, that drone looks sexy. I can't tell if those are just spikes or if the weapon is firing though?
Reply #70 from Sins Forums Top
IMO
Moms are more usefull then Titans
:p
and if you guys don't know what to do with it... Can I get your ISK?




Your new race is incredible.
good work!
Reply #71 from Sins Forums Top
Wow more cool models, you rock!

I'm up for beta testing too once you get this going.
Reply #72 from Sins Forums Top
Another update and another comment from me, telling you how excited i am that someone is making some new content for this game. Not that i am sick of the old content, but it just sounds awesome and looks freaking awesome. Completely unique. No copying. That is admirable.
Reply #73 from Sins Forums Top
@TheGreatEmperor

any MOD that enchent the game never is a bad thing...sinds it's a MOD you can chooise witch part you like and what you don't like...
Reply #74 from Sins Forums Top
Had some extra time today, so I've put together two teaser images (always wanted to do that :p ). Played with the concept for the Remnant to take a break from alien stuff. Though I managed to churn out two brand new meshes today... and now I'm spent. I need a break. ;)

Anyway...



As for testing, the beta version will be up for grabs as soon as its done, of course! So everyone will be able to enjoy the stuff (and hopefully hunt down embarassing bugs which are inevitably going to rear their ugly heads...)
Oh and Scp121, those spikes are not shooting, since the weapon effects are not done yet. I have in fact put particle editing on standby for now to see if the Particle Forge will be released. No sense in doing it by hand when I can spend the time making stuff which *must* be done by hand.

Cheers, and thanks again for the support everyone! Working on this is loads of fun, but extra motivation always comes in handy! :)
Reply #75 from Sins Forums Top
extra motivation always comes in handy!


that's why were here........and to play with your mod when your done......but mostly motivation....im sure everyone can agree......right? right?? yep.