Battleship Mod

[Rodglas]

I have this side project I've been working on for the past few days but has been working through my head in various incarnations for months.

First of this will be for Armada 1, though with some outside help there may be a A2 version.

The idea, bring the concept of PreWW2 Navy fleet structure to the Armada engine. This will still be a space based mod but fleet structure will reflect battleship centric philosopy.

This will not be a heavy mod in terms of ships types. I'm envisoning very simple divsions, Destroyer, Cruiser, Battlecruiser, and Super Dreadnaught, but not every side will follow this exactly.

The main race will be the Terran Star Republic. Large and settled polical empire with over 1000 years of history. Ships here have been heavily influenced by the universe of Honor Harrington in design but are not a direct copy of the Honorverse in all respects. Low poly is the name of the game for this side as large fleets are the entire point. Not a single ship will be over 1000 polies though they will be heavily armed (aka the trade off)


The Poth Edar, who are influenced conceptually by the Elven races of fantasy, are the "old empire" in this mod. Poly count will be less of a concern here as fleets will be smaller due to long build times and large resourse investment. Taking on a single (and rare) Poth Edar battleship would require a strong fleet of heavy Star Republic warships. The Poth Edar are a dying Empire despite employing the most powerful ships humans have ever seen.


The as yet un-named third race are influenced by the Goauld of Stargate-Sg1culturally if not physically. They don't pose as gods, but they do live a very opulent and Imperial lifestyle (the rulers at least). There ships are Diamond/Pyramidal and highly focused on the big battleship type. There are support ships but they are smaller ships (think Alkesh).


The Dread are the final race and the primary villian. They are like locusts ravaging entire worlds. Though not technologically advanced in comparison to the Edar, they have over the centuries decimated the ancient Poth Edar Imperium and even attacked Star Republic worlds. There is some Magog (Andromeda) influence here particularly in the use of swarm tactics. The great advantage the Dread have is the use of some impossibly ancient technology that predates the Poth Edar (the oldest known race) by thousands of years. Their ships are very low poly and not heavily armed but they do have lots of them, lots and lots of them. I'm considering one or two large warship designs but they will largely be a 1 ship fleet (probably some varients).


The ancient race (think Alterrans, or First Ones) would constitute the only NPR sort of. Some maps may include objects that combined with research would result in newer and more powerful warships.



I'm not sure how much of this will play out in the mod, but this is the idea at this point.

Any questions, comments would be welcome. I'll post some pics if there any interest.

Rod


Rod.

 

[Majestic]

I must admit it's something I find quite interesting, something new and original not just another Star Trek mod.

I hope to see and hear further development on this as time goes by.

 

[Rodglas]

Thanks Majestic.

This mod will be unabashed in showing its influences without actually being those things wich influenced it. I've been reading alot about Honor Harrington lately without actually reading the books themselves and I just find it very interesting.

Its not going to be overly complicated but you will want to use the right ships in the right situations. You are going to want to build battleships to fight battleships, a fleet of battlecruisers may not be enough to face a fleet of battleships but the difference will be in armour and survivablity not types of weapons.

The Poth Edar are the exception, their ships will be balanced by low numbers as a cruiser for them would match the might of a Battleship at least.

Rod

edit to add, the un-named third race will be called the Dyntai Grand Empire

 

[Dan1025]

Nice original idea, I look forward to seeing how this develops

 

[Rodglas]

Everything is progressing smoothly on the modeling side of things as most of the combat ship models are now done. The TSR(Earth) fleet is in game and only requires research stations to be modeled and a few stations to be put in game to replace stock Fed stations.

Dyntai combat ships are by in large modeled but only a few are in game. Stations are yet to be modeled except for 1 yard which I will likely replace.

I have three designs built for the poth Edar warships which I really like. One, the main battleship, I love and its going to be particuliarly UBER in the game. The Edar are the only race that I'm not imposing strict poly limits on as they will be balanced by more powerful ships and slower build times. I have a outpost and a yard built.

The Dread have not had much done yet. I have a design for the main swarmship which I like but may be to close to current Dyntai designs and will likley be replaced, and yard which is not strictly speacking a Dyntai design (though it is controled by them).


There is no tech tree yet, no research, no buildbuttons or wireframes and no AI for any race. GUI is a question I haven't even thought about yet.

I'll post some pics and maybe some screenies either today or sometime this week.

Rod.

 

[Rodglas]

The Big Gunz

This is the first publicly released pic, a quick snapshot showing the big guns of the Terran Star Republic.

The Bottom right is the Medusa Class Battleship.
To its left is the Lancaster Battlecruiser.

The top ship is the Super Dreadnaught currently known as the Trajan Class and will be Earths most powerful warship.

Rod

 

[Aerilon]

Different, I'll give it that. When I started to read, I thought this might end up something like that Naval Armada Mod that was done.. some time ago, I don't recall when exactly.

Sounds interesting nevertheless,

 

[Majestic]

Looking good, I hope to see more progress soon. If only I could get my A1 to work.

 

[Rodglas]

When I started to read, I thought this might end up something like that Naval Armada Mod that was done.. some time ago, I don't recall when exactly.

Sounds interesting nevertheless,

That was actually one of my first thoughts as I was pulling this idea together.
As for it being interesting, I certainly hope it will be once finished.

Looking good, I hope to see more progress soon. If only I could get my A1 to work.

I think I'll probably get some pics together tonight and show off some models.
Let me know if you get A1 working I may need some help.

Rod



edit

Poth Edar Cruiser

The Edar's main line warship, often more powerful then full battleship in other Fleets

Poth Edar Battleship

The most powerful active warship in the known galaxy, powered by a small Artificial Star and armed with weapons designed specifically to eliminate the Dread threat and take out multiple warships quickly and effectivly.

Poth Edar vessel

I have not decided what role this ship is yet, destroyer, cruiser, etc but I really like it and want to show it off.

Rod

 

[Rodglas]

Sorry about double posting

Here is a new pic

It features the Poth Edar's non combat ships. The top ship is the construction ship and the lower (green) ship is the Freighter.

My wife thought the construction ship looked kinda like an onion which was neat because I've been striving for a very organic feel to the Edar ships.
The Freighter was inspired more or less by a pea pod.

Rod.

 

[Majestic]

I love the organic look you have going here Rod, reminds me a little of the Vorlons and it seems to me you are trying to have each race different in their own way, which I think is an excellent idea.

 

[Dan1025]

Yeah they both look really good, and yeah I'm a reminded of the Vorlons a little too.

 

[Rodglas]

Vorlons were part of the influence for certain but there are others including the Elves from LOTR and nature. The four splines on the Battleship are like blades of grass, the ship in the third pic is like a flower bud.

Each race will be very different in style and hopefully in combat as well.

Rod

 

[Majestic]

Well those pictures have really peaked my interest even more than the description you posted at the start of this thread. I am really looking forward to seeing more soon.

 

[Rodglas]

The Dyntai Grand Empire

The Dyntai were the fourth race concieved for the and I'm still working out the basics of their backstory.

Here is what I have so far. The Dyntai are in fact two races from the same planet, the ruling Dyn conquered the less advanced Tai centuries ago and then proceded to war on one another using massive Tai armies as fodder.

Constant warfare pushed the Dyntai forward as new weapons and technology were developed to help defeat their rivals. Eventually they moved out into space were they encountered other races for the first time. Eventually they unified under a singal ruler and began claiming more territory.


The Dyntai homeworld is has no oceans or many particularly large bodies of water. The planet is dotted with billions of small deep lakes drawing from massive aquifers deep underground. All this means that the Dyntai never developed any substantial Navy and consequently many of their space vessels take after the massive fortress and ground vehicles of their land armies.

Dyntai Gavitics is generally more advanced then on the Star Republic's ships


Star Base

Destroyer

Light Cruiser

The Destroyer and Light Cruiser are more along the lines of "normal" warships with one linear thrust vector.

Heavy Cruiser

Battleship

Star Fortress (Dreadnaught)

Rod.

 

[Syf]

Those look great. I look forward to seeing them ingame.

 

[Majestic]

I really like the backstory behind the Dyntai, they made me think of the Freyman from Dune a little.

 

[Rodglas]

Those look great. I look forward to seeing them ingame.

Thanks, things have been coming along nicely.

I really like the backstory behind the Dyntai, they made me think of the Freyman from Dune a little.

The Freyman.?. I didn't have them in mind but is does work actually what with the way Paul uses them to fill his own ends.

I was thinking of the Goauld for the most part (thus the pyramidal ships). The relationship between the Dyn and the Tai is more symbotic (without actual symboites) but the Dyn are clearly in charge and unlike the Jaffa there is no equivilent to a Tai "First Prime" all officers and command personal would have to be Dyn.

And the Tai are most certainly not "Free-men" as the Dyntai government structure would be more fuedal then anything else.

Rod

 

[Aerilon]

Looks to be coming along quite well

 

[Dan1025]

Nice designs, I like the designs based on the Goa'uld ships. Keep it up

 

[Rodglas]

Here is the Terran Star Republic's Harrington Class Heavy Cruiser, she is a fairly representive ship for the style of the TSR fleet.

I'm looking for an opinion, should I add a "bridge" or other distiguishing feature so you know what way fore and which is aft?

Rod

 

[Majestic]

I think some more parts would make the model look better, more spaceship like.

 

[Rodglas]

The primary purpose of course is to keep the poly count low. With the sole exception of the Poth Edar side each race will be building vast amounts of warships to match and defeat the enemy.

Its a about a galactic arms race essentially.

So currently no TSR ship boils over 1000 polies, not one ship not one station. Adding details to the mesh adds polies and therein lies my problem.

I'll give a break down of TSR tech and why the ships look the way they do later tonight if a get the chance.

Rod

 

[Rodglas]

Considerations on Terran Star Republic warship design:

First of real world considerations,

The idea is to allow the player to go ahead and build that oversized battlefleet that secretly everyone wants to play around with even if only sometimes. The ships are decidedly low poly for that reason.

In addition, TSR ships are inspired, though not copies of ships described and designed for the Honor Harrington series of Novels by David Weber.


Now the in-universe considerations,

Naval design architecure having a long history on Earth strongly influenced starship design and while modern starships look nothing like their wet navy counterparts they do own a debt of basic architecure of design.

Gravity based drive systems are the primary means of propulsion in all the mod races, Earth ships are no exception. The buldge both fore and aft on TSR ships carries the two gravity drives aboard ship. Working in tandem these drives serve to propel Earth Ships forward by creating a gravitational gradient around the ship and producing forward movement. An addtional benefit of the drive is that allows the ship to project a kind of force field strong enough to help defend the ship against attack.

Unlike trek ships there are no warp nacels or impulse drives, there are no ion engines like B5 or Star Wars and no obvious bridge (not yet anyway). These ships are built for war, that is their primary concern.

Unlike certain Dyntai ship , TSR ships produce only one linear direction of thrust. Also unlike the Dyntai and even the Poth Edar, pure function is the primary guide to human ship design.

Primary weapon systems aboard TSR ships are anti-ship Particle lasers and missile/torpedo systems. Smaller ships may only carry Laser batteries while larger ships, like the Cruiser seen in the above post carry both. Torpedos have been based on a theory by Brandon Bray of B5tech who makes a compelling arguement that ST Photon Torpedos are in fact glorifed cannon balls in most canon appearances. In any case the glow of the torpedo is infact its own overloading shield generator working to overload the shields of the enemy warship.

A Harrington Class Heavy Cruiser has 8 medium P-Laser, 2 in each firearc and 7 missile tubes in each broadside (14 total).

Thats it for now.

Rod

 

[Majestic]

Thats fair enough, keeping models low poly is a topic that Syf and I are focusing on.

 

[Dan1025]

You could try texturing the additional parts on, to save on pollies. I like the idea of basing a race and its fleet on pure function, and I look forward to seeing how this mod progresses

 

[Rodglas]

I'm playing around with some texture ideas, but I'm not very good at texturing yet and worse at making my own for the most part.

I'm working on an "obs" deck/bridge structure, testing it on the Harrington but it adds a few hundred polies.


Rod.

 

[Amateur]

Perhaps a small indent at the front would serve the purpose? then a simple cuboid extrusion could serve as a command deck.

Theoretically, this would be implemented as it gives the command centre two very thick walls either side of it that are not directly connected.

Otherwise looking good, I'm no good with textures either so always apply a generic hull texture using UVW maps. Soemtimes I'll add in a subtle effect in Photoshop but not often.

 

[Jaing Skirata]

Very nice work. Your propulsion system sounds alot like the impeller systems used in Honor Harrington series and the ships look like what the RMN Fearless does in my mind, and in it's description from the book. And, with that thought in mind, I think a special ability of TSR ships should be to create the famous impenetrable(nearly) sidewall from the books. On the other hand, the ships are different so I don't confuse the ships there and the ships here. The Elven-looking ships do indeed look like something the Elves out of LOTR would create, or maybe the Scrin from C&C3....

 

[Dan1025]

Well depending on what the poly count of the model was to start with, a hundred or so extra pollies shouldn't make too much difference.