nice, I though my nephilim race was somewhat unique in space

Don't worry, yours is completely different from the WC-verse Nephilim so I would still call it unique minus the name

Thunderbolt as anti-frigate and Dragon as anti-cruiser would work if the Dragons end up mounting Flash-Paks.

I don't think I can give fighters abilities per say so that would be more of a flavor text thing I would think.

Flavor text is fine as long as there's a reason why they're wrecking cruiser-grade vessels without torpedoes.

One thing that bothered me about the WC series was that a small fighters. Even the light fighters could take down huge cap ships. Least until Prophecy. In Prophecy the way fighters took down caps made more sense by bombing engines, and the bridge. What made it better was that turrets would target the incoming torpedoes, and take them down. In Sins you cant really "duplicate" those game mechanics. However we can sort of "simulate" them.  Same with many other game mechanics of WC. You can't duplicate them exactly. Not without re-writing the engine. but with a little improvisation you can work around them, and simulate those mechanics as "best you can". Will it be perfect? Of course not. The fans of the mod should understand this.

In other words. Use your best judgement on how to pull off the mechanics. If it works great. If not then just do the best that you can, and get it as close as possible.

Bombers should be exactly that. Bombers. Not as fast as fighters, but have heavy anti cap ship weapons. Maybe have some anti strike craft capability, but they shouldn't have a much survivability vs fighters.

Fighters in sins you cant really diversify except for their weapons load out, and hit points. They will always behave like anti fighter units unless there are no enemy strike craft. Then they will attack everything else. Obviously a dragon will be superior than an arrow. However arrows should serve a purpose.. Even if it is just to draw fire from the dragons, or the Kilrathi/Nephilim equivalents. IMO their weapons should be anti strike craft, and not do too much damage to other units.

Double Post.. Sorry.

Major..off topic a bit but since you brought it up..

Could the Devs slow down bombers in Sins to half the speed of fighters?

Wouldnt that help with the bomber spam everyone complains about? If they could be targeted easier would that make them less effective? In Sins 2 you should be able to target sub systems...it would open up a whole new level of strategy.

Damage modifiers control targeting priorities, so if a fighter's weapons do maximum damage to cruisers, it will automatically target cruisers.  If a ship or strikecraft has multiple damage types, the one that deals more DPS takes priority, so anti-fighter weapons on bombers must do less DPS than anti-capital weapons or the bombers will prioritize fighters over warships.  Bombers and fighters differ via statCountType, but from what I remember of your experiments roleType governs combat mechanics, not statCountType.

EDIT:  Nightreign, there are some ChanceToHitTargetType modifiers in Gameplay.constants with different values for fighters and bombers.  Perhaps you could experiment with those to see if they do anything, and if strikecraft with the FighterBomber statCountType can be made more vulnerable to anti-strikecraft weapons through increased hit chances than FighterCombat strikecraft.

That is a great idea SpardaSon21. I will take a look at the ChanceToHitTargetType and run some simulations to try and get the feel for bombers vs. fighters. My hope is that by reconfiguring the fighters to target specific types of ships (frigates, cruisers, caps, fighters, and bombers), there will be more strategy in what you build since different ships/carriers carry different types of fighters. I'm not sure how it will play out yet, but I have high hopes.

As for the overall feel of the game, there will have to be some forgiveness in the fact that Sins is a game that focuses on larger ships, not the individual fighters. However, for those of us that are big fans of the WC-verse, the carriers are just as important as they were the base of operations in the game (Tiger's Claw probably being the most famous). For us hard core fans that have read the novels based on the games (not the movie novel), other cap ships also play their part.

For right now I'm still putting together the English.str file and coming up with abilities for the cap ships. I'm also trying to hunt down meshes that people will let me use. Once that is done, I will get into the entity files and start playing around with numbers and see what happens.

WBino I can't say what the Dev's will do, or will not do with Rebellion, or the hypothetical Sins 2 itself. I can pass your suggestion their way, but can't guarantee any response. Why don't you bring up Bomber speeds in the Rebellion forums, and see where it goes from there? Hopefully the trolls wont drown the topic out.

As far as modded strike craft are concerned. You can adjust strike craft speeds in their respective entity files. Making bombers slower would help avoid that unstoppable "alpha strike" issue that has been around since Original Sins, or at least give any anti-strike craft weapons a chance of taking down ships before they can launch that alpha strike.

I will certainly play around with it since I'm going to be messing with those files anyway.

I've found myself amazed at all of the work that needs to get done to pull off a mod. So much stuff to write, models to create and graphics to design. I think I may have taken for granted the mods that people put out. There is sooo much work that goes into these things and I think we should always remember to thank them for the effort they put into these things.

That said, I have been busy with the vast amount of work that needs to get done to even get this mod off the ground. Just a little progress report from me.

1. Modelling. I'm probably going to need help with this. I took a look at the Softimage Mod Tool and I was completely lost on where to even begin. This will take the longest of everything. Thankfully, I have managed to gather some models (mostly 3ds files which are apparently a pain in the ass to convert) with textures that date back to the 90's that will need to be updated/refined.

2. Graphics. There are a whole bunch to make, thankfully I know my way around Photoshop CS5 very well and so this won't slow me down too much I hope. I've got race profiles done already along with a load screen, main menu updated, loading screen done (figure and plate images).

3. Coding. I've really only been messing with the English.str file right now and using that as a baseline for branching out into entity files. Probably 40% done with this.

4. Research and Abilities: Haven't even started here yet.

5. Ships. I haven't coded any of this yet and I don't have any models to test it with, but I've been scirbbling out ability ideas for ships which I've gone ahead and noted below. There isn't a lot of theme to these powers as of yet, but they will be fine tuned as I get further along.

Cruisers

Bengal-class strike carrier

• Iceman Maneuver – % dmg/speed to strike craft
• Strike Craft – Thunderbolt, Broadsword (pick 3)

Hades-class missile cruiser

• Laser Guidance System – -% speed, +% dmg

Tallahassee-class utility cruiser

• Ion Discharge – -% accuracy, -% speed
• Big Duke Special – remove antimatter (00) 

Waterloo-class Intel cruiser

• Damage Control Team – Repair Hull (000)
• Quantum Accelerator – +% antimatter recovery 

Gettysburg-class heavy cruiser 

• Tachyon Collider – high powered attack

Capital Ships

Concordia-class fleet carrier

• Strike Craft – Arrow, Thunderbolt, Broadsword 3+2/level
• CIC Uplink – strike craft +% damage self
• New Recruits – gain +1 squadron self
• Magnum Launch – Rapid Craft Construction self
• Ace Pilot (6th level) – squadrons gain +% hit points permanent

Vesuvius-class mothership carrier

• Strike Craft – Arrow, Thunderbolt, Dragon, Broadsword 4+2/level
• Colonize – colonize a planet target
• Increased Bays – +1 fighter within squadrons self
• Repair Craft – increase shield regen target ship
• Alert Fighters (6th level) – create temporary strike craft duration

Exeter-class support destroyer

• Strike Craft – Hellcat, Dragon 2+1/level
• Precision Shot – disable weapons target ship
• Flash Pak Launcher – disable move, disable shield target ship
• Manic Piloting – increase move, hull regain target ship
• Last Stand – increase damage allies aura duration

Gilgamesh-class battleship

• Strike Craft – Thunderbolt, Broadsword 2+1/level
• Leech Cannon – disable abilities for duration target ship
• Point Defense –strike craft/bombers take damage
• Broadside – full gun assault
• Warhorse – increase hull/shield/antimatter, decrease cooldown 

Paradigm-class heavy assault battleship

• Strike Craft –Dragon, Broadsword 2+1/level
• Marine Battalions – Increase planet damage
• Fusion Mixture – splash damage to attacks
• Deploy Missile Turret – deploy turret
• Torpedo Spread – waves of torpedoes 

Washington-class unique battlecruiser

• Strike Craft – Hellcat, Dragon 2+1/level
• Cloak Jump Point – disable Phase drive
• Advanced Training – reduce cooldown
• Sonic Emitter – Reduce armor target ship
• Shield Extension – shield regain

Titan

Midway-class megacarrier (Loyalist)

• Strike Craft – Hellcat, Thunderbolt, Dragon, Broadsword 3+2/level
• Heart of the Tiger – Regain hull all ships
• Wing Commander – Increase fighter Armor
• Tolwyn’s Determination – reduce weapon cooldown
• Blair’s Luck – Strike craft invulnerable duration

Behemoth-class super dreadnought (Rebel)

• Strike Craft – Arrow, Thunderbolt, Dragon, Broadsword 2+1/level
• Fusion Cannon – single focused attack
• Black Lance Fear – burst disable ability
• Charged Fusion – explosion and splash 
• Last Hope – invulnerable before death 

I did not do the mesh for this fighter. I did try to redo the texture. It isn't top notch yet, but I don't think it is too bad as a first attempt.

.3ds files aren't difficult to convert, assuming you have access to 3DS Max, or a modeling program that can open those files. Then you just need to export them as .obj, then you can easily open them in Softimage.

yeah, it is the converting from .3ds to .obj that is proving the difficult part. Trying out some different programs to see what works best since I don't have 3DS Max.

If you're a student, you can get it for free from Autodesk. That's what I've done personally.

Milkshape 3d exports to most known formats as well. It is a cheap low end modeler, but it comes in handy especially for conversion.

If you can get your hands on Deep Exploration. that is also a handy tool for converting meshes.

All you need to do if follow the modding documentation for softimage. You dont have to make the model itself in softimage, but you will need softimage to do the finishing touches, and get it ready for Sins import. like hooking up materials, adding the mesh points, and tangents.

Thanks for the advice. I will look into those!

WC rocks. Just not the movie.  My true first action game aside from Silent Service 2. Rocked my old 386sx-16 back in the day with that massive 1mb of ram.  I think I still dream about the pilots running to their ships cut scene before every launch

I dont suppose it is possible to use excalibur fighters from the WC3 era is it. maybe as a fan wank lol

It is possible to use excalibur fighters. I initially decided not to use them since they were really designed as a SpecOps fighters and really only saw use on the Temblor Bomb run and by Black Lance pilots.

Though I could probably find a place for them if people want it in there. Maybe as a special fighter used by starbases.

In WC Prophecy, and Secret Ops a few missions IIRC you got re-enforcement squadrons, and they were mostly Excalibur's. With a mix of others from WC3. Point is they were flying Excaliburs all the way into Prophecy.

Though RL has gotten busy, I'm still working on this mod and self teaching myself 3ds Max so it is slow going on getting anything up off the ground.

For those wanting pics, I have a semi-done pic of the Concordia class carrier. The texture needs some touch ups, but you can get a good feel for the design already.

7DS has some Wing Commander vessels in it.  If you download the mod for entrenchment, I'm sure you could find the meshes/textures.  We converted some of the models found on the WC site mentioned posts prior so go ahead and use them if you'd like.  Using anything else from the mod, however, please ask.

Good Luck.  I loved the WC series.