A Babylon 5 Mod for the Final Frontier Mod

[PsiCorps]

Originally Posted by Goldflash

I never watched much Babylon Five but this mod has me interest. You all are doing a very great job!

Thanks for the encouragement, try and watch the series if you can, there's only a few episodes in the first season you really need to see, after that it all starts coming together in ways you didn't expect.

[Premier Valle]

Hello everyone,

I was just thinking on the values, first ones and rangers, ... and well, just wanted to stop for a moment before we get ahead of ourselves.

Once upon a while we decided to let these stuff for later when we had a more developed mod, it looks like we have it now , so I wanted to stop things and get back to the planning stage:

• What are we going to do with the An'la'shok?
• What are we going to do with the first ones?

The idea of using FF's values as a way to include the first ones presence is great (BTW I would change the name "values" for "ideologies" ); however, we have already started talking about having First One level ships on the hands of the player, I'm not against it, but I think we have to plan this carefully. For what I can remember these are the proposals for including the first ones into the mod:

• Whole factions (discarded)
• A faction that reaches the later stages of the tech tree achieves a first one like level (gets access to first ones ships).
• Appearance of First Ones ships as "tier 4" pirates
• Appearance of First Ones ships by means of an event
• Values
• others (the ones I can't remember)

So getting to the base question,... what do we do to include the first ones into the mod?

Now, about the rangers - again - what do we do?, we have to include B5 itself, the ISA headquarters, the ranger training facility.

If we talk that a faction that reaches the "beyond the rim" (or later stages of tech tree) gets access to first one level ships based on the chosen value, what happens to the rangers?, there is no first one ship for them, unless we use that ranger ship seen in the season 4 finale (The deconstruction of fallen stars, I believe it is named).

About The Hand, there is also no first one level ship for them (those ships seen in "The legend of the rangers" aren't first one level, remember "these are toys for the servants to play with"), unless we assume The Hand are the Thirdspace aliens (TSA) and we use the TSAs ships.

Basically I just wanted to stop and think before doing anything else. Comments please?

[Ajidica]

Couldn't you just assign First One ships and Ranger ships through events (and I think there is a tag in the EventInfos file that can restrict it to certain religions. At the very least you could handle it through civics.) This would bring the First Ones in without being overpowering while also allowing for some pretty complex stuff with event chains and python triggers if you were so inclined.

The same can be used for the rangers, events to spawn them initialy until you get to an appropriately high level tech to build the Ranger Training camp that lets you build White Stars directly. You might have to fiddle around with the number of events used, but that shouldn't be a problem.

there is no first one ship for them, unless we use that ranger ship seen in the season 4 finale (The deconstruction of fallen stars, I believe it is named).

I don't recall seeing any Ranger ships in Deconstruction of Falling Stars. Outside of some generic EA ships, the only new ship I recall seeing is the one used at the end by the 'evolved human' and that looks functionaly identical to Vorlon ships.

[Goldflash]

I've got Season 1 coming on Netflix.

[PsiCorps]

Originally Posted by Ajidica

Couldn't you just assign First One ships and Ranger ships through events (and I think there is a tag in the EventInfos file that can restrict it to certain religions. At the very least you could handle it through civics.) This would bring the First Ones in without being overpowering while also allowing for some pretty complex stuff with event chains and python triggers if you were so inclined.

The same can be used for the rangers, events to spawn them initialy until you get to an appropriately high level tech to build the Ranger Training camp that lets you build White Stars directly. You might have to fiddle around with the number of events used, but that shouldn't be a problem.


I don't recall seeing any Ranger ships in Deconstruction of Falling Stars. Outside of some generic EA ships, the only new ship I recall seeing is the one used at the end by the 'evolved human' and that looks functionaly identical to Vorlon ships.

I like the idea of using events to bring in First Ones ships (not forgetting that the First Ones also includes the Vorlons and Shadows) they don't have to actually have a unit present to do the event. The event triggers and says 'one of your ships has encountered a strange and powerful vessel, what do you do?' You are then presented with 3 or 4 options as to what you can do in the encounter which may have consequences later on depending on the decision you make. I don't know much about Python and events so I would definitley need help with that side of things.

With the Rangers there are two things we can do. Firstly, the Order 'Value' allows you access to the An'La'Shok (Rangers) which later evolves into the Rangers with the revelation of the Unity 'Value'. Both the An'La'Shok and the Rangers are similar in effect and ability with maybe one or two differences (to be decided on later).

At the moment just having the 'Values' in the game is more of a flavour thing than anything else. Filling in the details will come later on. Once we have all of the ships from Premier's Shipyard added into the game we'll be able to do some of the other things like those done in the Star Trek Mod. Scenarios that cover certain aspects of the Babylon 5 Universe such as the Dilgar War, the Earth/Minbari War, the Narn/Centauri War and the Great War as well as a historical scenario that would be played a lot like Rhye's and Fall of Civilization (Yes, I know that's ambitious but it could be a lot of fun).

I have lot's of ideas I just don't know how to implement them all. I'm currently testing a pair of new units i've added to the Mod and so far they are working well, I have a few more tests to do before I know there are no game breaking effects of the units and if all goes well there will be a new version of the mod released.

If we talk that a faction that reaches the "beyond the rim" (or later stages of tech tree) gets access to first one level ships based on the chosen value, what happens to the rangers?

Nothing need happen to the Rangers, they would still have access to their own ships we could just add some promotions that are only available to them or allow an upgrade to one of their ships that becomes available with the newly researched tech. There's lots of things we can do and it doesn't all have to be done overnight.

[Ajidica]

Originally Posted by Goldflash

I've got Season 1 coming on Netflix.

Don't be thrown off by the first season's relative cheesiness. It gets much better in season 2 when they get a new captain.

[Goldflash]

I'm a Star Trek fan, so I can handle some cheesiness

[Premier Valle]

Hello everyone!,

Originally Posted by Ajidica

I don't recall seeing any Ranger ships in Deconstruction of Falling Stars. Outside of some generic EA ships, the only new ship I recall seeing is the one used at the end by the 'evolved human' and that looks functionaly identical to Vorlon ships.

If found this in youtube, its from that episode, certainly that ship is Vorlon-like but EA, and it wears the An'la'shok logo.

Originally Posted by PsiCorps

Once we have all of the ships from Premier's Shipyard added into the game we'll be able to do some of the other things like those done in the Star Trek Mod. Scenarios that cover certain aspects of the Babylon 5 Universe such as the Dilgar War, the Earth/Minbari War, the Narn/Centauri War and the Great War as well as a historical scenario that would be played a lot like Rhye's and Fall of Civilization (Yes, I know that's ambitious but it could be a lot of fun).

Talking about the ships, its been a while since I last modelled, so before doing the last Dilgar ship I decided to remove the rust by doing other model (non B5), the Crysis VTOL.

But after the Deathwalker is finished, where shall I continue, thats par of my questions from my last post (an implicit one), so I want to know if I should consider on modelling first-one vessels (ever since we have started to include them in the mod).

Originally Posted by PsiCorps

Nothing need happen to the Rangers, they would still have access to their own ships we could just add some promotions that are only available to them or allow an upgrade to one of their ships that becomes available with the newly researched tech. There's lots of things we can do and it doesn't all have to be done overnight.

Depending on how we handle the first ones, I believe that the WhiteStar/Victory are tier 3 ships (like the Warlock or Bin'Tak) and not Tier 4 ships (like the first ones vessels).

[PsiCorps]

But after the Deathwalker is finished, where shall I continue, thats par of my questions from my last post (an implicit one), so I want to know if I should consider on modelling first-one vessels (ever since we have started to include them in the mod).

My Initial thoughts would be to do the Drazi ships. They seem to have the same basic look so they should be quite quick to deliver from the shipyard. However, as we discussed here earlier some of the Drazi Ships were used by the League races. We don't need to go into the details of why a certain civ has a unit that looks like it comes from another Civ (This should be covered in the text files).

As for the first ones ships, well, having them would be great but! I feel the would be best used as part of a scenario rather than a general unit available to all other civ's.

However they could also be used in a general game but controlled by events. IE first player to research a certain tech/build a specific unit class/building class triggers an event that generates a random(if possible) First Ones unit for players to encounter. It would be generated in an area of No Mans land that Civs then have to go out and find. Each Civ to find the First One unit gets to 'Encounter it' once. There would be a random result generated by the encounter but 99% of the time there would be no result as they ignore your childlike request to talk. That one small chance could be that the First Ones ship becomes part of your Civ or they give you a tech you don't have.

There are probably many other results that could be generated, i'm just putting my ideas out there for discussion.

There would also need to be a lot of Python coding involved (I think) as what I suggest basically means we need to randomly generate a 'goody hut' that has different results than the standard goody hut.

[PsiCorps]

Thanks to God-Emperor I am very close to being ready to upload the new version of the mod. I hope to have the new version uploaded by next weekend at the latest. Thank you all for your patience and I think you will find it a vastly different experience to the previous versions.

[AbsintheRed]

Originally Posted by PsiCorps

Thanks to God-Emperor I am very close to being ready to upload the new version of the mod. I hope to have the new version uploaded by next weekend at the latest. Thank you all for your patience and I think you will find it a vastly different experience to the previous versions.

Sounds awesome

[Goldflash]

I can't wait! I will be sure to gets it.

I only have two disks left of season one. I know you said season one was cheesy, but I am enjoying it immensely. I can't wait to meet Captain Sheridan, though!

[PsiCorps]

Originally Posted by Goldflash

I can't wait! I will be sure to gets it.

I only have two disks left of season one. I know you said season one was cheesy, but I am enjoying it immensely. I can't wait to meet Captain Sheridan, though!

Glad you're enjoying it.

[PsiCorps]

Thank you all for your patience. The latest version of the Mod is now available to download here. Babylon 5 V2.6 Download and enjoy the game.

Known issues.
Whilst there are still CtD's with an as yet unknown cause the game does now reload from the last autosave so you can continue playing.

Also, normally saved games will load up enabling you to continue playing a previously saved game.

There are still a few other things I need to sort out but none of them are game breaking.

[Greeneyedzombie]

I keep having consisting crashes, after reaching size four capitol. reloading a previous save won't fix it.

[PsiCorps]

Originally Posted by Greeneyedzombie

I keep having consisting crashes, after reaching size four capitol. reloading a previous save won't fix it.

Which Civ are you playing, game speed, difficulty level and map size?

[PsiCorps]

Babylon 5 V2.61
I've uploaded a new version that I have made a couple of corrections on. Essentially it's exactly the same as the previous version but I've amended some of the traits that were giving a negative culture growth, increased some tech costs and have changed a Python file for BUG.

Let me know how you get on with this version.

Either post a saved gamed for me to examine or give me details on what was happening when an error occured.

[Greeneyedzombie]

Tried a few mimbari leaders, standard size spiral galaxy map. marathon speed, with the improved barbarian star systems on and only ground troops can capture star systems.
The turn after my capitol becomes size 4, the game ctd.
The ground troops are able to walk around in star systems.

[Retrospect]

I'm also having a repeatable CTD very early in the game. 3rd game and happens pretty much at the same time. This is with 2.60

[PsiCorps]

The ground troops are able to walk around in star systems.

Ooh, I'll have to fix that for the next version.

I'm also having a repeatable CTD very early in the game. 3rd game and happens pretty much at the same time. This is with 2.60

I've dl'd your save game, I'll have a look into it.

EDIT
Okay, I've played 335 turns so far and I've only experienced 1 crash around turn 52/53, I reloaded and continued playing. How many turns into the game did you get before you experienced the CtD?