Planetfall

I've not made much in the past week or so due to exams. Should start making things again soon

Can we have flamethrower anti-worm units? I'd like that ;D

Plasma flamethrowers...

Lookie: http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=8157

In fact, there are loads of units which can be transplanted into the mod with a little reskin and the owner's permission [I doubt people would really ever refuse, but it's nice to be asked and given credit].

http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=cat&id=51&page=2&sort=date

The_Reckoning said:

Plasma flamethrowers...

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Yeah I've thought about that as well.

Problem though is , if we'd want to give that weapon an anti-psi bonus, it couldn't really be fitted anymore in a unit system à la SMAC: chassis-weapon.

Of course it could be made into a special ability: some units of the squad carrying plasma throwers. However I don't know if the plasma thrower graphic could still be used then. I assume we'd need someone more knowledgable on these unit graphic matters to tell us that.

Maniac said:

Problem though is , if we'd want to give that weapon an anti-psi bonus, it couldn't really be fitted anymore in a unit system à la SMAC: chassis-weapon.

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Why not? Alien Crossfire managed to pull it off with stuff like Resonance Lasers and such. Or is there an issue with the coding keeping the programming team from repeating stuff like that?

Wow, great, I loved SMAC! One question though; is this mod attempting to simply recreate SMAC on the Civ4 engine or will you be looking to expand on the original material in some way?

Does anyone know if there's a "see-through" texture in Civ? So you could get the effect of it not being a disc, rather a sort of branching, with gaps, for the tower's "leaves"? OTW, I'll make a load of holes in the disc next.

yeh, it is possible to make transparencies for textures, unfortunately i am still yet to learn how to do this properly. you could try contacting winddelay, he is very good at transparencies. (nice looking modle by the way )

Maybe the great general code can be used to have addons to squads?

Have a worm hunter type unit as a GG, you add him to a squad and it gives and the free promotion "Flamethrower", as well as adding in the model of the flamethrower-wielding man, in place of the GG.

Our scientists have linked the atrfact to the data network and make wondrous discoveries!



Will upload the max files tomorrow.

Anon Zytose said:

Why not? Alien Crossfire managed to pull it off with stuff like Resonance Lasers and such. Or is there an issue with the coding keeping the programming team from repeating stuff like that?

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I think it's bad design. Having some weapons give unique special effects adds possible confusion and complexity without returning sufficient extra gameplay value IMO. The AI wouldn't understand it either: what's best: weapon A, or weapon B with a lower base strength but with some special bonus? In a Unit Design system, better for weapons to have a normal increase in strength and effects, where each one is better than the previous one. Special effects can be kept to special abilities.

Figaro said:

Wow, great, I loved SMAC! One question though; is this mod attempting to simply recreate SMAC on the Civ4 engine or will you be looking to expand on the original material in some way?

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Same story and themes, different specifics in gameplay if it is necessary because of Civ4 mechanics or if it creates a better strategy game. So no re-creation.

That's one awesome alien artifact.
We don't have an alien artifact unit though. There's an alien artifact resource though, and if I understand correctly nif files can be used for resources as well.

Catching back up on this thread….

Maniac said:

Same story and themes, different specifics in gameplay if it is necessary because of Civ4 mechanics or if it creates a better strategy game. So no re-creation.

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I see you've gotten a fair amount of grief for this lately – and I just wanted to pipe up to say that I think it's a good decision, and I'm excited to see what you come up with.

Back in the day, I was a real hardcore SMAC fan – but I recently fired the game back up, and was reminded of how much progress the TBS genre has made since SMAC was released in 1999.
Just for example, the way unit support was handled is tremendously obnoxious. The Civ3/Civ4 model of global unit support is vastly superior, imo. For what it's worth, I also think the way city maintenance is handled in Civ4 is an enormous improvement over the SMAC/Civ3 model of just crippling any new cities with out-of-control corruption.

And let's face it – while I think SMAC was one of the most fun games ever made, it's hard to go back and enjoy it when it lacks a lot of really great innovations that have come along since.

I think the best case scenario is one where you can save some of the best things from SMAC, and combine them with the things that make Civ4 wonderful… and it sounds like that's what you're trying to do.

I challenge the people who want a strict re-creation to go back and play SMAC for a bit like I did last weekend (home sick) – my guess is that you'll quickly get the same feeling I did… "wow, this is kind of annoying! Civ4 does [any number of things] much better than this. But boy do I love torching mindworms and showing those 'UN charter kissing' Peackeepers the errors of their ways "

I would, but I can't. I don't have a computer running Windows 98 anymore, so.

That said, the man has a point. The question that remains is, will the new features actually ADD to the game experience? Or will it only be "different", which would mean it'd be "not the same" and therefore "worse"? Time will have to tell.

General_W said:

But boy do I love torching mindworms and showing those 'UN charter kissing' Peackeepers the errors of their ways "

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That's the major thing I enjoyed about SMAC, even the 'Greens' could smack down those blue hats!

What I have loved about Civ IV is that it adopted many of the best traits of SMAC that were absent in Civ III anyway. For example, the Civics system and the cool quotes upon discovering a technology. So long as there are two different kinds of combat per the original, I think I'll be content.

hey P_L
didn't know you were a SMAC fan (or are you just moonlighting?)

(refering back to your question about squigly things i the background)

Those are mindworms they are leveled from left to right from a boil to a swarm iirc.
those critters tend to invade the skulls of inocent settlers and eat their brains etc.
the lower twon rows of pictures show the growth of a spore launcher from reight below to upper left.

ps

transparencies only work on models without team-colours, as both use the alpha layer.

This will be awesome when it's done.

Version three of Planetfall is now available for download.

Major changes:

Ellestar has been very productive this month. As a result the mod now includes a Unit Workshop and Psi Combat. Not yet perfected, but very much functional!

The Unit Workshop screen is opened by pressing Ctrl-U.

Psi combat attack value will often not be as you'd expect judging from the combat modifiers, but it should be stable. If you do get crashes, please report!

Progress on graphics includes a new interface look by Rubin, and units by The_Reckoning.

Planetfall is brought to you by:

Version 3 looks great. Can't wait to try it out.

lol, the spore launcher's scale is a bit big. Also the Peacekeeper HQ building they get at a size 4 base. Does the sealurk model work? [put them in whenever, I assume they inflate the download size]

Brilliant to see coding going in that makes a difference to the gameplay.

The interface looks great. Nice to see my colony pod model moving around. I wonder if there's a special texture code or something to make the bit of the ship which are underwater appear visible, like the submarine.

What models do we need next? Start making weapons, base buildings, terrain things? And do they work any differently to normal stuffs?

Quick notes:

The_Reckoning said:

lol, the spore launcher's scale is a bit big. Also the Peacekeeper HQ building they get at a size 4 base. Does the sealurk model work? [put them in whenever, I assume they inflate the download size]

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AFAIK you never posted a nif of the sealurk. Or if you did, I missed it.

The interface looks great. Nice to see my colony pod model moving around. I wonder if there's a special texture code or something to make the bit of the ship which are underwater appear visible, like the submarine.

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I believe <bRenderBelowWater>1</bRenderBelowWater> in XML might be responsible for this.

What models do we need next? Start making weapons, base buildings, terrain things? And do they work any differently to normal stuffs?

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Weapons and stuff would use the "change graphics through promotions" method as in Afterworld I believe. Do you understand how this works?

Oh yeah, forgot to tell, you can't get promotions for your units in this release. Will be fixed in the next DLL.