A Babylon 5 Mod for the Final Frontier Mod

[Premier Valle]

Hello everyone!,

Here is the Minbari Troligan Class Cruiser, I say we use it as a Nova equivalent.

Civilopedia:

Spoiler :

Combat:

Spoiler :

It uses de FF Cruiser animation and has a poly count of 1296.

This is the last Minbari ship for this pack, next in line, the Centauri Kutai.

@God-Emperor
Awesome! , you have just earned a higher place in the credits!

 

[God-Emperor]

@God-Emperor
Awesome! , you have just earned a higher place in the credits!

Woo-hoo!

As for why I'm actually posting...

I just noticed something in the "combat" image in your post:
The planet orbit dashed line goes over the grid lines.
The grid lines go over the yellow weapon fire lines.
The weapon fire lines go under the grid lines after having gone over the dashed orbit ring line (which is over the grid lines).
What's up with that?

 

[The_J]

I just noticed something in the "combat" image in your post:
The planet orbit dashed line goes over the grid lines.
The grid lines go over the yellow weapon fire lines.
The weapon fire lines go under the grid lines after having gone over the dashed orbit ring line (which is over the grid lines).
What's up with that?

Whatever it is: Nobody will notice it ingame .



And again, a great unit .

 

[Premier Valle]

@God-Emperor

Well, I have two possible explanations for that to happen, a conceptual one, and a technical one.

Conceptual:
Civ4 is by nature a 2-Dimensional game (tho with 3D graphics), however, space is by nature 3-Dimensional, so you could say that the Troligan is firing at the bottom of the Hyperion.

Technical:
It could be possible that the height of the 3D mesh within the NIF affects the way the effects behave. As far as I remember, every unit I've made has a height of zero, that is, they are neutral in the Z axis... as far as I can remember FF Units also have a zero height in the Z axis... can anyone confirm or deny that this very same issue happens in FF?

In any case, I share The_J's opinion.

 

[PsiCorps]

Hi all, sorry for the lack of updates, just started a new job and haven't had as much time to devote to this as i would like. Will try and do some work over the weekend.

 

[Agent327]

May we congratulate you on the new job?

 

[PsiCorps]

May we congratulate you on the new job?

You can indeed, it's only a temporary job at the moment but i can hope they take me on permanent.

 

[Premier Valle]

Hello everyone!,

Here is the Centauri Kutai Class Gunship (Olympus equivalent).

Civilopedia:

Spoiler :

Combat:

Spoiler :

It has 439 polys and uses the FF destroyer animation. Its size should be smaller than those on the pictures.

Next: The Narn Carrier

@PsiCorps
I'm glad you got a new job.

 

[The_J]

I think, Firaxis should have hired the Babylon 5 designers. These ship designs are a lot more interesting than the FF ones.
-> again nice and interesting work .

May we congratulate you on the new job?

You can indeed, it's only a temporary job at the moment but i can hope they take me on permanent.

Then also congratulations from me .

 

[Premier Valle]

Hello everyone!,

Here is the Narn <How should we name it?> Class Carrier!, thanks to Amras Arfeiniel for its design!

Civilopedia:

Spoiler :

Combat (Narn-Centauri War):

Spoiler :

The model has a poly count of 868 and uses the FF Destroyer animation.

I had a problem with this model, at least to my sight, there are no obvious weapon ports, true, it is a carrier and is by no means meant to be a main combatant, but it should have some sort of weapon, so, I chose a location for that weapon, the pic speaks for itself. What do you think?

This ship pack is due to be publicly released soon, I only plan to make the Technomage ship before the release, and since it is an easy model it shouldn't take long before such release.

I was also thinking, that tho powerfull for their size, technomages ships shouldn't be considered main combatants, I say their role should be the same as the FF stealth ships.

 

[The_Coyote]

how about A´Mras as name?

btw, hope you already saw this project:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=351012

 

[Premier Valle]

how about A´Mras as name?

btw, hope you already saw this project:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=351012

I was unaware of that project, and as far as I know it isn't used in B5, it could be worth, I haven't documented myself on it or tried it, but those new xml tags look usefull.

I haven't started work on the technomage's ship, but rather have dedicated the time to playtesting the mod, I have some observations, I'm beyond turn 200, and already have Omegas, jump engines and Warlocks are soon to be built.

Will let you know my comments.

 

[Thorgrimm]

Psi-Corps and Premier Valle, how are you gents doing?

You folks have made some outstanding additions to the mod.

One thing I wanted to ask, did you folks mind if I host the B-5 Mod on my site still? It will be on my server, so in case Filefront goes tits up again, it will still be available.



Cheers, Thor

 

[PsiCorps]

Hi Thorgrimm, long time no see! welcome back.

I don't have a problem with you hosting the mod on your website at all, every extra back up we have is good.

I look forward to hearing any suggestions you may have for changes/improvements to what we've done so far.

 

[Premier Valle]

Hi Thorgrimm!,

Nice to read you again!, welcome! Have you playtested the mod? What do you think so far?

I have yet to finish the B5 game I'm playing (RL strickes again ), hopefully today I'll have some time to finish it, I would expect to post my comments on the weekend along with the Technomage ship.

 

[Thorgrimm]

Hi Thorgrimm!,

Nice to read you again!, welcome! Have you playtested the mod? What do you think so far?

I have yet to finish the B5 game I'm playing (RL strickes again ), hopefully today I'll have some time to finish it, I would expect to post my comments on the weekend along with the Technomage ship.

Not been able to play the latest version due to civ 4 being uninstalled. But I will say your kick ass ships are going to make me reinstall civ 4 just to play the mod! So I will prolly reinstall civ 4 over the weekend and give the mod a spin and let you good folks know what I think.

@ Psi-Corps, thanks. I will get the newest version up ASAP. That way you will know there will always be a copy available in case something nasty happens.



Cheers, Thor

 

[Premier Valle]

Hello everyone!,

The Technomage ship is ready, but before the screenshots, lets remind that this ships are black and are meant to be stealth, I did what I could to make it more visible without compromising the soul of the ship.

Civilopedia:

Spoiler :

Combat:

Spoiler :

It has has a poly count of only 184 and uses the FF Cruiser animation.

With the completion of this ship, the fourth ship pack has been released: Thread

I have somewhat completed a B5 game and will later in the day post my comments.

 

[Agent327]

Congrats on the new shippack!

 

[Premier Valle]

Hello everyone!,

I have finally done some playtesting (I played EA), I have a few observations/comments, there are things that I liked, things that I believe should change, and things that I believe should be implemented.

Since I played with the Earth Alliance my comments are EA based, but should also apply with the other species equivalents.

Overall impression:

Spoiler :

First things first, my overall impression of the mod was good, however, the beginning of the game wasn´t appealing, mostly perhaps due to the fact that I found Olympuses to be useless, I mass produced (and mass loss them) until I had access to the Hermes wich proved to be usefull, as of that moment, production on the Olympus stopped for the rest of the game, the few Olympuses that survived (and became highly promoted) were relegated to protecting the route that linked Earth with a Q40 mine, and even then they had a support role assisting the Hermeses and Artemises.

Little Artemises were ever built, since access to Hyperions came quickly after them.

I played as the EA in a small Final Frontier Flat map with only 3 civs (EA, Drazi, Markab) and both AIs survived the whole game. Certainly the "Alien" or raider activity is an interesting point in the early game, and little more than experience points in the late game. I had a small war with the Markab to claim some systems rightfully mine and to stablish a buffer zone with the rest of the Markab and Drazi colonies.

I was happily surprised with the audio played when I declared war on the Markab!

Also, as soon as I had access to the Hyperions the game took a whole new perspective. It became more and more appealing, it really had a B5 feel, and I felt I was playing a true B5 game.

I liked a lot the fact that PDSs can't move , Jump Engines should also be inmobile. This makes the military transport ship quite usefull, as a few of this with a load of PDSs can travel alongside an attack fleet leaving the PDSs in a recently captured system, allowing the fleet to keep advancing knowing that a defense grid for the recently captured system is in place.

Aliens / Raiders:

Spoiler :

In FF we have three tiers of pirates, and I think we should mimic that, with the raiders being first (both the Raider Fighter and the Raider Carrier), then some other hostiles (like the Streib), and then the Drakh.

As implicitly stated in the above lines, I believe the Drakh appear too soon in the game. The Drakh Raider should also have a smaller size, and since its appearance should be around the time Omegas are available they should also be stronger, tho not as much as an Omega (perhaps similar to a Hyperion).

I never saw the Raider Carrier.

Early game:

Spoiler :

As I said, the Olympus is pretty useless, I believe that either it should be made stronger than it currently is, OR, that aliens/raiders should be nerfed a little in the early game.

I believe that aliens/raiders move too fast in the early game.

Space Stations should be available at the early game (I was able to colonize other systems before being able to build a space station in my home system ), I propose something like FF, that way we will have early game space stations, mid-game space stations, and late-game space stations.

On the Olympus, well, Olympuses were not the first ship available to mankind, they are already Hyperspace-era, so I propose moving them further into the tech tree, and replace the current Olympus with some other unit (more like the Zephir fighter, after all, the Zephir was an early fighter of the EA, I could make an EA texture for the raider fighter).

Units:

Spoiler :

The Raider fighter animation is broken, its animation is the FF Invasion Ship, but it currently has the FF Scout animation.

The PDS requires firing animation (I'll take care of that).

Hyperion animation is broken, it currently has the B5_Custom_FF_Destroyer, but it should be the FF Destroyer animation.

Hyperions, Novas, Omegas, Warlocks should have a bigger size.

The Nova is an older vessel (older than Hyperions), yet they become available after the Omegas.

I did some research, and I found that most sources classify the Hermes as a tranport, so I propose we reclassify it as the Military Transport, and replace the current Hermes with other vessel (I suggest the Saggitarius, after all, early vessels are expected to have phisical weapons rather than energy ones).

Jump points show the Fort model instead of the jump point model.

I believe we need to implement some sort of tier ship levels, for example, fighters and carriers become available until the game is quite advanced, however fighters are small easy to build crafts, so you would expect them to become available in the early game. We could have a tree of fighters/capital ships like the following:
- Zephir fighter > Tiger Starfury > Aurora Starfury > Thunderbolt Starfury
- Avenger Class Carrier > Poseidon Class Carrier > A Warlock-era Class Carrier
- Artemis > Olympus > Moonsoon
This system (combined with one of my comments on the Tech tree section) helps in dealing with ship obsolescense, because, after all, as the technology levels increase, it is to be expected that ships become replaced/upgraded to equip the latest technology available.

Early ships shouldn't be jump capable.

Tech tree:

Spoiler :

Some techs have POST-requisites, that is, they require techs that post-date them, an example is the SHIP_CONSTRUCTION tech, it has as post-requisites the following techs: BASIC_ARTIFICIAL_GRAVITY, FUSION_POWER (this is more like a relocation of techs in the tree).

I believe there are too many movement bonus techs, with the current movement bonuses, travel trough standard space can become faster that Hyperspace travel.

Currently Q40 is revealed after the tech VORTEX_GENERATORS is researched, but, how can you research a Q40 based vortex generator when you dont even know what Q40 is?, I say Q40 should be revealed with HYPERSPACE_THEORY.

The tech tree needs to be reorganized, perhaps some techs removed, or to better distribute ships, bonuses and buildings through it, this way we can deal with ship obsolescence, as it is right now, Omegas become available soon after Hyperions were available, as a result of this, in my game, I only build a single Hyperion, because by the time I finished building it I already had access to Omegas.

What do you think of this?, also, feel free to refute the points I just stated.

 

[Premier Valle]

Hello everyone!,

Continuing with the shipbuilding here is the Earth Alliance Oracle Class:

Civilopedia:

Spoiler :

Combat:

Spoiler :

It has a poly count of 880 and uses the FF Carrier animation.

It also has the same issue of the Olympus and the engine glow / thrusters , I haven't been able to solve that.

Next in line the EA Hermes.