Star Wars Classic mod (WIP)

Hi.
I started to make Star Wars mod based on old trilogy.

Right now I'm working on terrain.

Here is sample:



Now I'm focused on basic terrain. Later will do more terrain and resources.

Please, say what you think.

EDIT:
Here info about mod I plan it to be.

For now I plan two playable factions: Rebels and Empire. Each will have different biq. First I will make rebellion.biq, later empire, and maybe multiplayer. Each of them will have different rules slightly.

There will be five non-playable factions: Smugglers, Gangsters (Hutts), Neutral, Neutral (Rebel support), Neutral (Empire support). All neutral factions represent independent systems with sympathy either to Rebels or Empire, or indifferent. I will think of proper names for these factions.

In rebellion scenario, Rebels will be in locked alliance with Neutral (Rebel support), at war with Empire. So rebels won't be able to conquer these systems, except in diplomatic way (propaganda) which will be easy (however expensive). Empire will have easy propaganda time with Neutral(Empire support) but they can conquer them in military fashion too.

There will be many preplaced wonders and resources to set planets in unique ways, allowing planet-unique structures, units, etc. (like auto-produced wookies for Rebels on Kashykk, or acces to Mon-Calamari cruisers on Mon-Calamari)
Some preplaced wonders will simulate diplomatic preference of particular systems. For example, Neutral systems supporting Empire will have wonders causing pollution (resistance), unhappy citizens, and cost money, and will become active with Rebellion goverment. Rebels will have tree branch emulating diplomacy on specific planets, that will make those problem wonders obsolete.

Neutral systems will have wonders representing 'underworld', crime that is active on any world. These will spawn hidden nationality units (pirate ships) regulary, to make 'barbarian like' activity common in galaxy.

Barracks will be very rare and have special role (for hero units). This way unit experience will play bigger role, since they start as regular, and ussually will need several fights to become elite (to make player value elite units more). Since Empire or Rebellion didn't really upgrade units (they rather make new ones), you will be able to build older units too.

Scenario will start after battle of Yavin. Luke will be inexperienced. However, with tech, he can upgrade at Dagobah (meet Yoda) to more advanced version, and later become Jedi Knight at Tatooine (which means you need to kill Jabba).

There will be Force aspect too. Darth Vader can discover force sensitive individuals and lure them with Dark Side (defeating units + 'enslave' flag). Creates unit 'Force apprentice'. With proper tech and place they can upgrade to Sith or Dark Jedi. Luke, after becoming Jedi Master, can discover force sensitive ones too(enslave again). Such new gained padawan can later upgrade , with proper tech, at Yavin Jedi Academy (if constructed) to Jedi Knight.

One of most important defensive buildings will be shield generator. It will provide complete protection from orbital bombardment, and you will need assault with ground force to take it down if you want support of your starships.

These are examples of features. I may write some again later on, when I recollect more.

Looking for your comments and thoughts.

Later I will write about mod itself, when less busy with graphics.

But you can say your ideas if you wish already.

Wow. Very pretty. I like the expanded planets, this way you can have actual SW battles.

Are those 2x2 tiles?

It looks amazing, I almost want to copy and paste it to my desktop as a screensaver. Even the mighty empire once had a despotism govt back in 4000 BC.

Too bad Firaxsis went haywire and hardcoded fog of war, it would be nice to splash some stars on it to give it a more space feel (not that pitch black doesn't), but I tried to do something of that sort just recently, and then remembered they locked the fog.

Tom

Deth McBones said:

Wow. Very pretty. I like the expanded planets, this way you can have actual SW battles.

Are those 2x2 tiles?

Click to expand...

Yeah, four tile per planet. And some smaller too.

Thank you

tom2050 said:

It looks amazing, I almost want to copy and paste it to my desktop as a screensaver. Even the mighty empire once had a despotism govt back in 4000 BC.

Click to expand...

Lol, yeah for now I mod only graphics for planets. Other things are still only in my mind (will write about them soon).

tom2050 said:

Too bad Firaxsis went haywire and hardcoded fog of war, it would be nice to splash some stars on it to give it a more space feel (not that pitch black doesn't), but I tried to do something of that sort just recently, and then remembered they locked the fog.

Tom

Click to expand...

I aslo thought of changing fog of war for other mod, to make it look like old pergamin/paper map to be written. Too bad can't be done.

Those 4 tile planets are awesome - each planet can have up to 4 resources on it which is great.

If fog of war is hardcoded how come there's a FogOfWar.pcx file in the terrain folder - is this file not used?

I put some more info about mod features I plan, at first page.
Please let me know what you think, your ideas I could use, or any questions you may have.
Thanks.

Apropos Starwars, check this out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzoeEdW-EDQ&feature=fvste2

Wow elenar, those planets are breathtaking! I'm definitely looking forward to watching you develop this mod!

da3dalus said:

Wow elenar, those planets are breathtaking! I'm definitely looking forward to watching you develop this mod!

Click to expand...

Thanks for motivation. It helps me going better than if I was making it for myself only.

AWESOME!!!!! Awesome, awesome, awesome. Back when I was active, I tried to make a map and my own terrain very much like this one, 4x4 planets and everything. I might recommend some cities, the Matrix Cities by Badi Dea. No one uses them, and they look great on planets, as they sprawl out and look huge, Corouscant style. Other ideas I had were making the irrigation and mines (or whatever they're going to be called) extra lights and city graphics, "commercial" and "industrial" areas.

Of course, this is your mod and you do whatever, but those were just my ideas when I was working on the Star Wars mod. Maybe they can help. Also, I might be pumping out a couple of Star wars units in the future, specifically Rebels...

KingArthur said:

Those 4 tile planets are awesome - each planet can have up to 4 resources on it which is great.

If fog of war is hardcoded how come there's a FogOfWar.pcx file in the terrain folder - is this file not used?

Click to expand...

I actually modified the FogOfWar.pcx and added stars and such to the black portions of it, and nothing different showed up in Conquests. Then I added various big colored blocks into many parts of the pcx, and nothing different. Then I colored the whole thing bright red and nothing.

Apparently, Firaxsis was worried about people cheating by making the fog see-through (which is very easy to change) in multiplayer games. So it does work in Original Civ 3, but not PTW or Conquests. So you could delete the FogOfWar.pcx from your hard drive and game will still work fine since I guess it's crammed into some file somewhere hardcoded in Only if you play original Civ3 (no expansions) will it need the FoW.pcx.

Tom

odintheking said:

AWESOME!!!!! Awesome, awesome, awesome. Back when I was active, I tried to make a map and my own terrain very much like this one, 4x4 planets and everything. I might recommend some cities, the Matrix Cities by Badi Dea. No one uses them, and they look great on planets, as they sprawl out and look huge, Corouscant style. Other ideas I had were making the irrigation and mines (or whatever they're going to be called) extra lights and city graphics, "commercial" and "industrial" areas.

Of course, this is your mod and you do whatever, but those were just my ideas when I was working on the Star Wars mod. Maybe they can help. Also, I might be pumping out a couple of Star wars units in the future, specifically Rebels...

Click to expand...

Thanks. Your ideas are very welcome. Actually I was pondering how to represent developped areas (roads). I got farm (tatooine like farm icon) and mine (factory icon), but roads ('commercial' or 'trade') is still dilema. Lights or something like this might work.

tom2050 said:

Apparently, Firaxsis was worried about people cheating by making the fog see-through (which is very easy to change) in multiplayer games. So it does work in Original Civ 3, but not PTW or Conquests. So you could delete the FogOfWar.pcx from your hard drive and game will still work fine since I guess it's crammed into some file somewhere hardcoded in Only if you play original Civ3 (no expansions) will it need the FoW.pcx.

Tom

Click to expand...

Too bad. They could keep it the way it works right now but allow graphics over it anyway. If graphic was transparent it would be black as it is now.

Looks great!

Looks a bit similar to something I made a little while ago, but your planets look nicer...

Very interesting work so far. It's very reminiscent of "Star Wars: Rebellion" (a.k.a. SW: Supremacy) .

Flamand said:

Looks great!

Looks a bit similar to something I made a little while ago,

Click to expand...

Thanks, nice to know someone with similar idea.

Years ago I made SW mod for Civ2 (not finished).


So i thought of making one for Civ3. With Civ3 graphic engine it is possible to make more 4 tile planet graphics (I calculated about 25-30 big planets, and some medium).
Slowly I add more terrain (because now I happen to be more thinking on sorting out some concepts related to mod, and how it will look/work).

I wonder about asteroids. Should it be just terrain, or maybe immobile animated asteroid unit with some defense, ZOC, hidden nationality, and bombard ability range 1 (I've notice AI uses bombard in such case). Starship would receive damage if they stay near asteroid field or if they try to move into it directly.
Some asteroids could be invisible and placed among others. So starships will risk, when moving close to asteroid fields, bumping into one of them. Naturally some special starship units (like pirate ships) will have detect invisible, thus travel more safely.
Also, some of these asteroids could have, for example, smuggler nationality allowing smuggler ships move through them safely.

More graphics preview:

elenar said:

I wonder about asteroids. Should it be just terrain, or maybe immobile animated asteroid unit with some defense, ZOC, hidden nationality, and bombard ability range 1 (I've notice AI uses bombard in such case). Starship would receive damage if they stay near asteroid field or if they try to move into it directly.
Some asteroids could be invisible and placed among others. So starships will risk, when moving close to asteroid fields, bumping into one of them. Naturally some special starship units (like pirate ships) will have detect invisible, thus travel more safely.
Also, some of these asteroids could have, for example, smuggler nationality allowing smuggler ships move through them safely.

Click to expand...

That sounds good... after all asteroid fields would have that effect, ZOC, etc. The visible asteroids you could give a high defense so weaker ships can't just blow them away (Atari Asteroids anyone?), but the invisible ones could be weaker as to not frustrate players accidently running into them and getting blasted

Screenshots look terrific! I'll be keeping an eye on your great progress so far.

Tom

tom2050 said:

That sounds good... after all asteroid fields would have that effect, ZOC, etc. The visible asteroids you could give a high defense so weaker ships can't just blow them away (Atari Asteroids anyone?), but the invisible ones could be weaker as to not frustrate players accidently running into them and getting blasted
Tom

Click to expand...

Good point, I will use it. Finding asteroid animation could be problem though.

Some new ideas I have:
I think rebel scenario will start after battle of Hoth, when Cloud City is already captured by Empire. Han Solo will be "Solo frozen in carbonite" capturable/immobile unit, and sit in Jabba's Palace on Tatooine. So player can rescue him and upgrade to "Han Solo" unit.

I wonder of making autoproduced versions of ships for the Empire, that have 'wheeled' flag and cannot move into sea/ocean squares. They will represent patrol force that stays near planets (coast), to improve AI defense capabilities.

I have this ideas for hero units:
-Luke, combat unit with special abilities. Later can discover force sensitive characters (enslave).
-Han Solo, after freeing from carbonite he would be combat unit, with possibility to upgrade later into 'General Han Solo' army unit.
-Princess Leia, I think she could be great leader able to start golden age or complete production. Alternatively, late in game, she could train in Force and become combat unit. So it is up to player if to use her up or not.
-Lando Carlissian, nice combat stats plus very effective worker.
-Chewbacca, no idea, I think he will not appear as separate unit but rather be considered pilot of Millenium Falcon.
-Millenium Falcon, fast,invisible ship with some transport ability, and reckon.
-Admiral Ackbar, immobile capturable unit on Mon-Calamari. Can upgrade to 'Home one' starship.
-Yoda, immobile, invisible defensive unit on Dagobah.

-Darth Vader, can discover and lure to Dark Side Force-sensitive subjects (enslave).
-Emperor Palpatine, dunno, I think immobile/defensive unit with similar ability to Vader.
-General Veers, army unit.
-Executor, powerful star destoyer.
-Death Star, incompleted death star, with weapon systems not yet fully operational (however able to destroy capital starship with single shot). Slow, and forced to orbit Endor (wheeled -can't enter sea). However, given time, it can upgrade and become fully operational space station and move anywhere (doom for the galaxy).
If rebels capture Endor, they also capture immobile unit "the shield is down" that can be upgraded to "attack Run" (nuclear unit) and destroy Death Star.

These are hero ideas so far. Your comments/suggestions welcome.