Some Thoughts on Making BSG a Playable Race in A2 V1.1

[thunderfoot]

Thought all you BSG fans out there might like this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipvReIc1wnU

 

[Chiletrek]

Hello:
I just noticed in the video that the mod is dedicated to me?. The truth is that you left me out of words, thank you very much for that and I am sorry I was not able to be of much help for your mod as I wanted to do.
The video is great, nbice selection of music and scenes, I wish I could do that too.
keep it up!!

 

[Adm_Z]

Wow thunder, thats awesome!:Y

 

[Starfox1701]

Good work man.

 

[thunderfoot]

A change is in order. I cannot really say anymore this is my work only. Many people have been generous with their time and talent. So henceforth, the group responsible for this will be known as

Viper Squadron Seventeen - The Wraiths​

Viper Squadron Seventeen are:

EAS_Intrepid
Jetfreak
kjc733
Majestic
mikemckeon007
Thunderfoot

Yeah, I know. It is kinda silly, isn't it? Kinda fun anyway, though. Kidding aside, the people who've helped me out deserve as much credit for this thing as I do. They did the work, I just fit the pieces together so it all functioned.

 

[thunderfoot]

Just a short update. The mod is complete and tests out to do what I wanted it to. All I am waiting on is EAS_Intrepid to finish up the Vipers and a Mining Ship I asked him to do. Worth the wait for quality work, I'd say. Since we currently are on hold for sending in uploads, no real reason to be in a hurry at this point. Hopefully, as soon as I get the SOD files, I can press the upload key about two seconds later. It will be as fast as I can hit said key. I can tell you that.

Spent the day implementing changes and suggestions from kjc733. He started out testing things and then sorta kicked it up a notch. The final version of this is as much his work as mine. So tell him, "Thanks", the next time you see him. The mod is much the better and a lot more polished from all of his hard work and very good advice. He is working hard on build lists for the Colonials at the mo'. Not an easy task when I change the techtree on him every five minutes. He has two qualities I admire in people a lot. Tenacity and flexibility. He has been dead bang serious about this thing almost from the minute I had the idea. He actually told me he was sorry for harping on getting the build lists to work. I find this a refreshing change from the normal way people mod which is a little slower paced. Unitl I met him, I thought I was the only one who'd sit and stare at ODFs and textures for days on end without sleep until I got what I wanted, lol.

The other thing I did today was work out all the bugs in the Assault Marines special weapon, which was originally suggested by EAS_Intrepid and kjc733. Intrepid told me in a round about way I was smart enough to make such a weapon for myself. How can anyone fail when someone else believes in their abilities this much? Turns out he was correct. I am not nearly as dumb as advertised, lol. The Assault Marines special weapon will be found on Colonial battlestars and allows them to board and storm enemy vessels and stations. It also allows the Colonials to recrew a ship during combat ops. It is not a perfect weapon. It still sounds thlInGan during and afterwards. But the ship and station will be Colonial, regardless of what the voice may indicate.

 

[Terra_Inc]

Just a short update. The mod is complete and tests out to do what I wanted it to. All I am waiting on is EAS_Intrepid to finish up the Vipers and a Mining Ship I asked him to do. Worth the wait for quality work, I'd say. Since we currently are on hold for sending in uploads, no real reason to be in a hurry at this point. Hopefully, as soon as I get the SOD files, I can press the upload key about two seconds later. It will be as fast as I can hit said key. I can tell you that.

Spent the day implementing changes and suggestions from kjc733. He started out testing things and then sorta kicked it up a notch. The final version of this is as much his work as mine. So tell him, "Thanks", the next time you see him. The mod is much the better and a lot more polished from all of his hard work and very good advice. He is working hard on build lists for the Colonials at the mo'. Not an easy task when I change the techtree on him every five minutes. He has two qualities I admire in people a lot. Tenacity and flexibility. He has been dead bang serious about this thing almost from the minute I had the idea. He actually told me he was sorry for harping on getting the build lists to work. I find this a refreshing change from the normal way people mod which is a little slower paced. Unitl I met him, I thought I was the only one who'd sit and stare at ODFs and textures for days on end without sleep until I got what I wanted, lol.

The other thing I did today was work out all the bugs in the Assault Marines special weapon, which was originally suggested by EAS_Intrepid and kjc733. Intrepid told me in a round about way I was smart enough to make such a weapon for myself. How can anyone fail when someone else believes in their abilities this much? Turns out he was correct. I am not nearly as dumb as advertised, lol. The Assault Marines special weapon will be found on Colonial battlestars and allows them to board and storm enemy vessels and stations. It also allows the Colonials to recrew a ship during combat ops. It is not a perfect weapon. It still sounds thlInGan during and afterwards. But the ship and station will be Colonial, regardless of what the voice may indicate.

Sounds good, are we ready for the beta phase soon?

 

[thunderfoot]

Sounds good, are we ready for the beta phase soon?

Actually, we're about halfway between Sigma and Tau phases.

And in Tau, we are strong, lol.

 

[thunderfoot]

EAS_Intrepid informed me via PM yesterday he is taking the next level of training/exams for his EMT job. Because of this he may be a bit delayed in getting the last four BSG models to me. Real Life should always take precedence over modding/gaming. I am sure all of you will join me in wishing him good luck and success on his exams. As to when he does finish the models, they'll be every bit as good as we've hoped.

 

[thunderfoot]

This extra time allowed by events is being put to good use. I've finally gotten the Loading Screen to work. Adm_Z, the pic frakkin' Rrocks! Thanks again for doing it. I've been fine tuning the sizes of the ships. In Stock, they looked sorta...odd. The Raptors and Vipers will not be accurately scaled to the battlestars. Makes them too hard to see. They will be scaled to each other as closely as I can get them. The battlestars are re-sized to slightly bigger. Looked peculiar to see the tail fins of the Raptors sticking out the top of the flight pods whilst being built. I am going through the ODFs using FG's STAUM 2.0 to double check them and make sure any and all possible bugs are removed. Some of the ships have recieved the "Akira Treatment" and look much nicer for it. Probably gonna post some pics later on this week to show off a little. I've dropped the Cylons from the mod. They really deserve the care and attention we've given the Colonials. They should not be added as an extra. So later on, we're gonna make the Cylon Half Race Mod. I also went back and checked some hardpoints on some of the ships to make sure I have weapons fire coming off the model from the right spots rather than from some place silly. Like the engine exhausts. I've set up two Stock A2 v1.1 games and installed from the mod using the directions to make sure I did not leave anything out. A few members of my LAN group have as well. So far, no worries and no foul ups.

I feel the need to speak a little more about the LAN group I am proud to be a part of. These friends are highly supportive of nearly everything I do and they've been invaluable over the years to my modding efforts. We get together about once or twice a month and play. It has long since evolved into a social gathering rather than a hardcore game fest. We aren't fussy about what we play, either. We're just as likely to play Monopoly as we are HALO. The point is socializing with each other rather than winning. It all started long ago in the days of PnP gaming. I sometimes feel people whom have never had the pleasure of playing face to face with an opponent are missing something. It is one of the reasons I do not play online so much. My opponents and allies are mere photons on a screen, rather than flesh and blood. If you're not part of a LAN group which games or you've never been to a LAN party, I highly recommend the experience. It is most definitely worth the effort.

Here are some of the people who've seen all this before.

Redneck 'PuterHeads LAN Group.​

John(Rippah_MacStinkee)
Sam(Who?Me?201)
Tony(YeahImItalian)
Mark(HardTarget)
Kathy(YeahImDaOtherItalian)
Horace(BikerDude1175)
Cyndi(DaTeach)
Annette(Kettenhunde)
Mike(Goat)
Allen(Paintball Guy)
Bobby(Chartered)
Emanuel(Pointer)
Alex(Scout Kitty)
Bubba(Rookie_Stripes)​

 

[Adm_Z]

lol, I had the same problem with my fighters. I had to make them about 2-3 X the size they should be inorder to look good, and not be too big or small.

the pic frakkin' Rrocks! Thanks again for doing it.

np man, I really didn't think it was that good. the shot itself is what deserves praise

 

[thunderfoot]

Been playtesting this quite a bit with the placeholder models while waiting for EAS_Intrepid to finish up the Vipers he's doing. He's busy training/testing for the next level of his EMT certification. So no nastygrams here about, "What's taking so long?". Real Life is more important than an eleven year old computer game. I am quite sure you'd much rather he be better prepared to save your life if he comes across you during an emergency than have this mod sooner. I know I would. The models will be done when they are done and not one minute sooner.

Discovered the Colonials can stockpile the daylights out of either metal or dilithium. They run out of crew fairly quickly, though. What happens is a surge of shipbuilding and then a somewhat lengthy pause whilst the crew pool increases again. Meanwhile, the Mining Ships and Tylium Prospectors are busily scrounging up every last molecule so when the crew rebuild rate finally catches up, it is possible to build a decent fleet which can pretty much hold its own against stock races until the second set of system upgrades and the final Special Weapons are completed. This seems not quite right. The Colonial player should start stretched out a little and never really have all the resources he needs, I think. I'm trying for a slight feeling of desperation here. Which is a near constant undertone in all of the episodes. I'm going to do a quick recalculation on the metal and dilithium costs of each ship to see If I can impose a little longer delay on when the Colonials finally get everything.

Why am I doing this? Because it feels and looks right. Also because I am EBIL! mua. ha. ha. ha. ha, Baby!

 

[Starfox1701]

I am EBIL! mua. ha. ha. ha. ha, Baby!

Careful, Their are rules about tinkering in the afairs of men, the white light balls will come after you and hurt your ears

 

[thunderfoot]

Discovered an oversight which I have corrected. One of the things I wanted to include in this is to make the civilian ships valuable to a player. The set up currently requires a player to build civilian ships to be able to build warships. It is sort of a poor man's techtree. I wanted enemy ships to go after the civvies first since this will work well when the Cylons are brought online. The oversight was not checking the attackPower and intrinsicValue settings in the ODFs. These values were all wrong for nearly every Colonial ship. I have reset the values and just got done trying out a quick battle. A fleet of eight Galaxy class under AI control attacked the Rag Tag Fleet which was under my control. They all began by engaging the nearest civvie ship. Galactica launched Vipers as a screen and then this group swept around from the left flank towrds the enemy fleet. Pegasus Jumped to a spot just behind and high relative to the attackers. The Galaxys would fire on the warships only when attacked by them. As soon as the Colonial warship was neutralized, they resumed attempting to kill every civvie ship in range. This was an effect I wanted from the beginning and now I have it. A Colonial player will have to not just build but also protect his civilian fleet. The civilian ships can Jump away, but the Stock AI will then begin to scout for them along the vector they Jumped. I have not tried this yet with any of the improvements to the AI which Freyr has done, but I can only assume it will work far better than it does right now.

 

[Terra_Inc]

Discovered an oversight which I have corrected. One of the things I wanted to include in this is to make the civilian ships valuable to a player. The set up currently requires a player to build civilian ships to be able to build warships. It is sort of a poor man's techtree. I wanted enemy ships to go after the civvies first since this will work well when the Cylons are brought online. The oversight was not checking the attackPower and intrinsicValue settings in the ODFs. These values were all wrong for nearly every Colonial ship. I have reset the values and just got done trying out a quick battle. A fleet of eight Galaxy class under AI control attacked the Rag Tag Fleet which was under my control. They all began by engaging the nearest civvie ship. Galactica launched Vipers as a screen and then this group swept around from the left flank towrds the enemy fleet. Pegasus Jumped to a spot just behind and high relative to the attackers. The Galaxys would fire on the warships only when attacked by them. As soon as the Colonial warship was neutralized, they resumed attempting to kill every civvie ship in range. This was an effect I wanted from the beginning and now I have it. A Colonial player will have to not just build but also protect his civilian fleet. The civilian ships can Jump away, but the Stock AI will then begin to scout for them along the vector they Jumped. I have not tried this yet with any of the improvements to the AI which Freyr has done, but I can only assume it will work far better than it does right now.

Wow, that sounds GREAT! It seems that this mod gets better and better every week. So I can't really decide if I'd like to see it released in two days or two weeks or two months or right now!
Great work, TF, keep it up!

 

[Achilles]

How's it comming along TF? oh and is this an open beta, I am eagre to take her for a spin

 

[thunderfoot]

Achilles, please go and check your email.

 

[Achilles]

the link, she has expired

 

[thunderfoot]

New link to new upload sent to you via PM.

 

[Achilles]

thanks, I got it now. I'll let you know how it goes

 

[thunderfoot]

Just completed adding in new Vipers and Mining Ship which Achilles hardpointed for us. The ODFs are done as well. Achilles wants to give the beta a quick spin and I am sure he'll find something somewhere we ovelooked.

MIGAWD! it's...it's DONE! YEEEEEHAAWWW!

As soon as we hear from Achilles and the uploads issue is sorted out and someone posts here to give us the launch signal, this is sent in exactly one nanosecond after. It is one month later than I wanted but it is still done. And it all works, except for the AI using the Colonials. kjc733 is working hard on this and I think he'll have something in the near future. The problems are difficult but not insurmountable. Like every other A2 mod, there is a work around somewhere. All that remains is to find it. So MSFC will have the first A2 BSG Mod! It may not have all the bells and whistles yet, it certainly does not have Cylons. But it will allow a player to play as the Colonials. A2 players who are BSG fans will only have to wait just a teensy bit more. MSFC will also have the first FleetOps BSG Mod as well, when Adm_Z releases his work here.

All in all, a good day to sign up for hitch in the Colonial Fleet, no? Man, I am so stoked right now. Think I'll go burn down some Toasters. Oh, wait. There are no Toasters. Guess I'll have to go find some and put out a Cylon Half Race Mod. Waddya think, people?

 

[Adm_Z]

Hah, Can't wait. Thanks again guys for those models. I haven't tried them out yet, but I"m sure they are much better than the ones I have currently.


Oh, and feel free to use my missiles for your cylons whenever you get around to doing them

Spoiler: a literal Spoiler

not to burst your bubble, but your is not the first BSG mod.(though it is definitly the first decent and complete one) It may be MSCF's first, but mikemckeon007 beat you to it. He released a full[~ish] Colonial race mod on FF a while back

 

[thunderfoot]

Yeah, I know about Mike's mod. Mike and I had had a standing agreement about each other's work being freely accessible and useable by the other person. What he released on the other a2 site was a beta of a mod he had been working on for awhiles. He had already released most of the ships as individuals. I grabbed anything BSG he released and spent a lot of time working it over to get it to function. Some of the ODFs were pretty rough and to say the files were incomplete is a kindness. I started fixing things here and there and then would send Mike a copy of anything I did so he could use it as he saw fit. He never got around to releasing a final, completed version of this mod. Eventually he lost interest in A2 and the Community, I think. I haven't heard anything out of him in over a year now and all my emails and PMs go unanaswered. Could be he decided not to respond to me for whatever reason. I am glad you like the new models which Achilles did of the three ships. I look forward to seeing them strafing Borg ships in FleetOps.

 

[Terra_Inc]

As soon as we hear from Achilles and the uploads issue is sorted out and someone posts here to give us the launch signal, this is sent in exactly one nanosecond after.

I hope that it is released soon, can't wait to play it!

 

[Achilles]

had a look through the files and models, looks great. Going to watch Iron Man 2 then I'm on it, I'll look over the AI if it helps.

 

[Adm_Z]

It doesn't come out here until May 7...

And, yeah, I did the same thing, (grabbing all the models mike released I mean) Were good for the time, and I didn't noticed the odf problems, cus I had to write my own. But now I have Majestics stuff

Anyway, you asked for it Thunder.

 

[Achilles]

well I just ran through a couple of games and got no problems... certainly no CTDs.

I'd think about adding some more info to ship descriptions, maybe just indicating they are combat or part of the tech tree or what resource they collect. nothing more than a one liner.

Also the weapons miss completely until you point them at their target, I really only noticed this on the solaria to be fair (I'm a dreadnought builder ) and it didn't affect balancing or anything.

 

[thunderfoot]

Same results we've noticed already, Achilles. Thank you for confirming what I already hoped was the case. especially glad to hear you had no CTD events or any other problems. I suppose we could add in a little more info on the descriptions. All of the weapons are multi target and this missing or firing at nothing seems to be something we've had difficulties with from the very beginning. I do not know what can be done to fix it and I've tried every combination of additional code I can possibly think of to stop it from doing so. I think it is hard coded into the game and if this is true what we have is as close as A2 will allow, I think. Fleet Ops or the Patch Project may allow a little more. I'd love to be able to recreate the BSG experience exactly as shown in A2, but our modest efforts are far better than nothing at all or something which may or may not be available someday. We are planning on releasing updates as we discover new things about the game or new ships become available. As with the Physics Project, we just cannot seem to leave something alone. lol

 

[Achilles]

oh yeah, well the physics were sweet.

 

[thunderfoot]

oh yeah, well the physics were sweet.

They certainly ought to be, considering. lol. It was actually the easiest part to get them to move as I wanted. Just had to watch the Pegasus episode over and over again. The hard part was balancing them so they did not blow everything stock out of the water five minutes after the poor Borg dropped out of warp right on top of them.

I really wanted to include the "Flak burst" effect. This may actually be possible but I haven't found a way to do it yet. Tried a few things but they just looked silly. Obviously, there will be an update later on. Unless no one wants one?

One of my favorite parts is the Assault Marines which EAS_Intrepid and kjc733 lobbied so hard for. They came up with a brilliant concept which was remarkably easy to include and worked as advertised the first time I tried it out. It is now possible for the Colonials to take over an enemy installation or ship. With all the advantages which a Stock race receives from doing so. I may adapt this further and allow the Marines to assault and occupy a planet. This would solve their crew problems a little too neatly so currently I am undecided.

I have one more SOD which Mike McKeon sent me. It is a part of the Scorpion Shipyards. The thing is bloody huge and would take up an entire map all by itself. Might make a fun map to play on. Once I get some decent Cylons.