A Babylon 5 Mod for the Final Frontier Mod

[God-Emperor]

The ability to use enemy routes is from a promotion/upgrade (I don't remember which one - maybe the Power Systems upgrade(s)). The Hostile Raider unit starts with the relevant one for free. You, and the AI, can do the same thing if you have the same upgrade.

 

[PsiCorps]

I noticed that pirates (raiders) can use my roads to zip around my empire.
Don't know if AI civs can do the same,
But I'm really beginning to dislike pirates being able to do that. With jumplanes, they can enter your border, and then kill my workers 10 tiles away. its really hard to keep them alive that way. Unless you build anonther army just to protect your workers.

The ability to use enemy routes is from a promotion/upgrade (I don't remember which one - maybe the Power Systems upgrade(s)). The Hostile Raider unit starts with the relevant one for free. You, and the AI, can do the same thing if you have the same upgrade.

It's the Trained Officers promotion that gives this ability. I gave my reasons for this in the Changelog.

I've found that not building routes until you have either settled your 2nd Star System or are building Mining Facilities is a good tactic and always escorting with a lowly Frigate ship is enough to keep them safe until later in the game. The game I'm testing at the moment I only have about 3 construction ships which are all escorted. My fleet is large enough to leave a few ships on the jump routes throughout the empire to handle any raiders that get in and fight a war.

It's all down to tactics, FF/FF+ & B5 don't need the same armies of workers that standard Civ requires, there are fewer tiles to improve.

 

[Premier Valle]

Hello everyone!,

Just to tell you that the Jomic is almost ready, but meanwhile I have put a little bit of effort towards the LoNAW reorganization. I have catalogued the LoNAW species (again excluding the Brakiri and the Drazi) by the following criteria:

• Influence (my interpretation based on the show)
• Military Power (my interpretation based on the show and other sources)
• Available ship designs (based on a previous post)
• Empire Size (I googled for B5 galaxy maps, several were taken into account)

Spoiler :

* Empire size in controlled systems.

Partially based in the previous tables, but also in ideologies here is an initial proposal for the LoNAW reorganization.

Spoiler :

yes, I misspelled "aggressive" .

With this we would have 3 LoNAW factions, an aggresive one, a pacifist one, and a "balanced", note that aggressive ones aren't necessarily imperialistic/militaristic/expansionist, (for example, the Hyach although not aggressive to their neighbors have exterminated the Hyach-do (like the Centauri did with the Xon)), but rather on their manners or willingness to enter an armed conflict.

Let me know your toughts on this.

 

[Greeneyedzombie]

It's the Trained Officers promotion that gives this ability. I gave my reasons for this in the Changelog.

I've found that not building routes until you have either settled your 2nd Star System or are building Mining Facilities is a good tactic and always escorting with a lowly Frigate ship is enough to keep them safe until later in the game. The game I'm testing at the moment I only have about 3 construction ships which are all escorted. My fleet is large enough to leave a few ships on the jump routes throughout the empire to handle any raiders that get in and fight a war.

It's all down to tactics, FF/FF+ & B5 don't need the same armies of workers that standard Civ requires, there are fewer tiles to improve.

I should read the change log then.
When the pirates start to come in force, I usually have 6 or more systems connected.
For the filling up I use single workers on automatic (escorts don't work with it due to the habit the escorts of entering radiation clouds) but the moment one is build it gets destroyed the next turn.

The use of enemy jump routes, is a mayor weakness for the ai against the player.
And in my game the ai has far less routes then before.

Is it also possible to incorporate affores code of borderpatrol/barb hunting? this would eliminate the manual hunting of barbs in your territory.

 

[Premier Valle]

Hello everyone,

I have finished the Mitoc Jomic, the early vessel for ... one of the LoNAW factions .

Poly count: 1116
Animation: B5_CustomFF_CarrierCruiser
Damage/Glow/Gloss: Yes/yes/yes
FX extra poly: 90

Civilopedia:

Combat:

Damaged:

For the filling up I use single workers on automatic (escorts don't work with it due to the habit the escorts of entering radiation clouds) but the moment one is build it gets destroyed the next turn.

I have never used automated workers, good catch.

And in my game the ai has far less routes then before.

You should see the Brakiri/Centauri in my game, they are building routes like crazy.

Is it also possible to incorporate affores code of borderpatrol/barb hunting? this would eliminate the manual hunting of barbs in your territory.

I have no idea, but I believe we would be relying on FF+ for this one . In the mean time, station some frigates in the routes (sentry mode).



====
EDIT:
I was thinking on the GROPOS, the Minbari are having its own,... and well, pretty much everyone fits into the anthropomorphic scheme... save the Gaim, they are insects!, and from what I understand, there are different types of insects for different types of roles (talking about the Gaim of course ), also, the Gaim are not so good with ships, but talking about the army!, thats something else, so, for the Gaim or the LoNAW faction where they fit, why not use a more insect like troop?:

Deliverator's Scorpions

Although C.Roland and Refar's Devourer is also a good candidate (tho not quite insect like)

Tho, if you like, I could give it a try to a Starship trooper's arachnid (no guarantee of success is given ):

Spoiler :

======
EDIT 2:
Continuing on the Gaim,... I "kind of" withdraw my proposal on making the starship troopers arachnid,... while not entirely rejecting it, I believe it would be too much effort for a barely seen unit, I'll focus more on ships, and later... well we'll see.

In the mean time, I think Deliverator's scorpion will be nice .

Also, I had forgotten that the Drazi actually do have a transport class seen in the series (Season 5, when Garibaldi goes to the Drazi Homeworld).... perhaps I'll switch the Orinthar to the ELINT/scout role... or should we use the actual shuttle as the scout?...

 

[PsiCorps]

Hello everyone!,

Just to tell you that the Jomic is almost ready, but meanwhile I have put a little bit of effort towards the LoNAW reorganization. I have catalogued the LoNAW species (again excluding the Brakiri and the Drazi) by the following criteria:

• Influence (my interpretation based on the show)
• Military Power (my interpretation based on the show and other sources)
• Available ship designs (based on a previous post)
• Empire Size (I googled for B5 galaxy maps, several were taken into account)

Spoiler :

* Empire size in controlled systems.

Partially based in the previous tables, but also in ideologies here is an initial proposal for the LoNAW reorganization.

Spoiler :

yes, I misspelled "aggressive" .

With this we would have 3 LoNAW factions, an aggresive one, a pacifist one, and a "balanced", note that aggressive ones aren't necessarily imperialistic/militaristic/expansionist, (for example, the Hyach although not aggressive to their neighbors have exterminated the Hyach-do (like the Centauri did with the Xon)), but rather on their manners or willingness to enter an armed conflict.

Let me know your toughts on this.

Many thanks for the work you've done here Premier. I haven't had a great deal of time to do any work on the Mod and my last play test revealed a problem with the Planet Based Troops, for some reason they can no longer capture a planet. So I have to figure this out before I can move on.

I should read the change log then.

Always a good idea!

I was thinking on the GROPOS, the Minbari are having its own,... and well, pretty much everyone fits into the anthropomorphic scheme... save the Gaim, they are insects!, and from what I understand, there are different types of insects for different types of roles (talking about the Gaim of course ), also, the Gaim are not so good with ships, but talking about the army!, thats something else, so, for the Gaim or the LoNAW faction where they fit, why not use a more insect like troop?:

Deliverator's Scorpions

Although C.Roland and Refar's Devourer is also a good candidate (tho not quite insect like)

I like the Scorpions better than the Devourer.

Continuing on the Gaim,... I "kind of" withdraw my proposal on making the starship troopers arachnid,... while not entirely rejecting it, I believe it would be too much effort for a barely seen unit, I'll focus more on ships, and later... well we'll see.

In the mean time, I think Deliverator's scorpion will be nice .

Also, I had forgotten that the Drazi actually do have a transport class seen in the series (Season 5, when Garibaldi goes to the Drazi Homeworld).... perhaps I'll switch the Orinthar to the ELINT/scout role... or should we use the actual shuttle as the scout?...

Use the Drazi shuttle as the shuttle and switch the Orinthar to the scout role.

I have finished the Mitoc Jomic, the early vessel for ... one of the LoNAW factions

Excellent work Premier, I'll try and get this unit added before the end of the month.

 

[Premier Valle]

Hello everyone!,

For the last few days, I have been playtesting (still haven't finished my first game, and even tho pretty much the whole galaxy is at war with me I'm enjoying the game a lot), so not much shipbuilding has taken place.

As a side-effect of my galaxy-wide war (errr,... I mean play testing ), I have been forced to claim every system (around half the galaxy is mine ), to prevent my enemies from colonizing them (worthless or low-yield systems are claimed by placing a starbase). I'm subject to big economic pressures Inflation is 300%+, and the cost of mobilizing a fleet into neutral/enemy space is astronomical. This has prevented me from deploying more that 2 attack fleets. I have several systems doing nothing else that to produce wealth, and even with that, when a fleet enters enemy space I got into red numbers (thankfully that enemy territory doesn´t remain long in enemy hands ).

Any way, the costs of mobilizing the fleet to their targets, made me think about the jump engines of previous versions of the mod, although the capability of making a jump does exist in a few vessels, they can only jump from a system, no Jump Gate improvement is available, and certainly no jump-capable ship is available.

So (finally ) I was getting into the job of adding back the ship-jump capability into the game when I realized that pretty much every ship has the capability of carrying missiles/fighters/cargo, could they also carry a jump engine??, or are they mutually exclusive?, can't remember right now if that is possible or even if that was already possible in previous versions of the mod; but from what I can remember a XML-defined "special unit" is carried by a given unit, but a given carriable-unit can't be given a "special unit" double designation, so even if we designate (i.e.) the jump-engine as a "special unit fighter" the missile carriers couldn't carry it, and vice versa, and making two types of jump-engine (one for fighter carriers, and other for missile carriers) is just dirty and confusing.

I'll keep thinking/researching on this but I wanted to hear (read) your comments.

 

[PsiCorps]

So (finally ) I was getting into the job of adding back the ship-jump capability into the game when I realized that pretty much every ship has the capability of carrying missiles/fighters/cargo, could they also carry a jump engine??, or are they mutually exclusive?
can't remember right now if that is possible or even if that was already possible in previous versions of the mod; but from what I can remember a XML-defined "special unit" is carried by a given unit, but a given carriable-unit can't be given a "special unit" double designation, so even if we designate (i.e.) the jump-engine as a "special unit fighter" the missile carriers couldn't carry it, and vice versa, and making two types of jump-engine (one for fighter carriers, and other for missile carriers) is just dirty and confusing.

When the Jump engine was in previously we had it based on a missile so any ship that could carry missiles could carry the Jump Engine but we had to change what the ships could carry so that carrying the jump engine also enabled the ship to carry a mix of missiles and fighters up to the limit of it's cargo capacity.

I have posted a request for a ModComp to resolve the problem. In Fall From Heaven there are some promotions that become available when a technology has been researched AND you have access to the required resource. If it was possible to have a promotion that gave the ability to paradrop I feel that this would be the best way to implement it. Also the Promotion would be classed as an Equipment Upgrade rather than a Crew Promotion so in effect we would be setting up a second Promotions XML. Having two Promotions Trees enables you to have one set of Promotions that have to be purchased to be added to a ship and a second that requires Experience(Prestige) to allow the Crew Promotions.

So far no one has responded to my posts either privately or on the forums so I'm guessing what I'm asking for is not possible (even though FFH already has what we need).

 

[Premier Valle]

When the Jump engine was in previously we had it based on a missile so any ship that could carry missiles could carry the Jump Engine but we had to change what the ships could carry so that carrying the jump engine also enabled the ship to carry a mix of missiles and fighters up to the limit of it's cargo capacity.

This would solve the problem. But perhaps it would make a given unit less desirable (why build a Olympus when an Omega can carry missiles?).

I have posted a request for a ModComp to resolve the problem. In Fall From Heaven there are some promotions that become available when a technology has been researched AND you have access to the required resource. If it was possible to have a promotion that gave the ability to paradrop I feel that this would be the best way to implement it.

From what I understand this would give a ship the ability to jump (paradrop) from a system/jumpgate. However, the problem of a ship making its own jump point (with the jump engine) remains.

And just as a reminder, the reason why the ability to create a jump point isn't embedded to a ship is because making (building) a jump point consumes movement points, and the ability to paradrop requires that the paradroping unit be at its full, thus the ship that opens the jump point would be unable to jump.

Also the Promotion would be classed as an Equipment Upgrade rather than a Crew Promotion so in effect we would be setting up a second Promotions XML. Having two Promotions Trees enables you to have one set of Promotions that have to be purchased to be added to a ship and a second that requires Experience(Prestige) to allow the Crew Promotions.

So... this way you could buy upgrades (with money), and give promotions (with prestige) to a given ship?.

 

[PsiCorps]

From what I understand this would give a ship the ability to jump (paradrop) from a system/jumpgate. However, the problem of a ship making its own jump point (with the jump engine) remains.

And just as a reminder, the reason why the ability to create a jump point isn't embedded to a ship is because making (building) a jump point consumes movement points, and the ability to paradrop requires that the paradroping unit be at its full, thus the ship that opens the jump point would be unable to jump.

I had forgotten about that little bit.

So... this way you could buy upgrades (with money), and give promotions (with prestige) to a given ship?.

That would be the plan. It would also mean that more purchasable upgrade promotions could be added to the Mod and these would also have restrictions on which units can have which upgrades. You wouldn't be able to purchase a Mass Driver for a Frigate or Destroyer class ship for example.

 

[DaveB]

Hi all,

Firstly, I'm late coming to this mod, and after reading through the posts I've d/l 2.7, and spent a few days trying it out in epic/large and marathon/huge, what a curve ball it has been, since not knowing there was a mod of a mod of FF. Aside that, I like it, and appreciate all the work gone into it as it stands, and look forward to the final release version.

Now onto the niggles, possible bugs etc, I've noticed in my limited time spent playing in the first era of the game.

1. Planetary defence/assualt soldiers.

IIRC saw a post about them being able to walk about, and yes they still do in the city build limits, but if at max city build range, if there is an asteriod field they can walk/explore that tile/tiles.

Useful at the very beginning as a quick cheat to explore your surrounding starting city, for possible goodie's--but you can't exploit that as yet, but gives you something to do at first lol.

2. Tech Tree Isolation Era.

On my 2nd game I tried to research Hyperspace tech, after doing some of the basics, and discovered that trying to research said Tech results in a strange chain, if you click on it before, researching Data Storge, the research chain goes like the following.

Research Hyperspace(column 2 Tech tree)..> 1. Data Storage(column 3)..> 2. Hyperspace.

Not so. As soon as you've researched Data Storage, you begin to research Adv Data Storage, prior to Hyperspace. So from a two stage tech research becomes three staged, and it hits hard.

I know the above are minor, to the larger scale of the mod, just some feed back.

As I sit and play this mod, I wonder if the Vorlons, and the Shadows, could become included sometime in the furture devlopment.

Have fun.

 

[DaveB]

For got to add about install instructions, missing from the fisrt page, may help ppl try out the mod, as I had look through god knows how many pages before I saw a post iirc from Jeeleen, and for the BTS to run/launched in Admin mode, as the mod can not wtite to the ini files

 

[God-Emperor]

The ability of the troops to walk across space is caused by an oversight in the SpiralGalaxy map script (it should only happen when using this particular map type). It does not delete the placeholder floodplain features it puts around star systems to prevent other features from being placed there. It is supposed to delete them when it is done. Troops can't walk on empty space, but they can move onto plots with features (a star system is a feature).

The wormhole version of the spiral galaxy map script has the necessary code to remove these, so copying that code from the end of the generateFeatures function is all that is needed to fix this.

 

[PsiCorps]

For got to add about install instructions, missing from the fisrt page, may help ppl try out the mod, as I had look through god knows how many pages before I saw a post iirc from Jeeleen, and for the BTS to run/launched in Admin mode, as the mod can not wtite to the ini files

I'll look into adding this information on post #1 as soon as I have some time to myself.

The wormhole version of the spiral galaxy map script has the necessary code to remove these, so copying that code from the end of the generateFeatures function is all that is needed to fix this.

I'll take the necassary steps to add this fix.

 

[DaveB]

Thanks God-Emperor, for that info, though not going to go messing about with that at this time, even if confident in what to do. Just playing a game and having fun.

@ PsiCorp.

No problem with the install instructions, just what i found out blind installing this mod, and wondering why?!, and that was via pappy laptop running vista.

As for the fix for the ground defence troops, and planetry defence troops, roaming around exploring the city limits of a start star system, yes needs to be done. As I started a couple of new games, after reading God-Emperor's reply, to test out the two map styles.

Result wormhole spiral does stop those troops from moving around the star city limits(but also limits another section of the game, come to that later), and also stops you from jumping/walking into another star system if the are close enough to be generated next to each other. As I, found out in one game using the standard spiral map included with this mod.

If the section of code that God-Emperor has suggested, effects only the the troops then good, but, and big but, hope it does not effect the code for the O.D.S, P.D.S. As in, the wormhole spiral maps does, as in, they are limited to just the base core city foundation.

My reasoning.

1. Wormhole spiral galaxy map, limits them to just the foundation as defence only, with ranged damage to incoming ships or fleets. A static city defence unit, with range limits.

Where as.

2. Spiral galaxy map included with this mod. Allows you to place them within the city/star limits where they are built, given that they are defensive city structure, it feels good to be able to place those O.D.S, P.PS, forget the last one, around a star system, backed up by, all I'll say is a B5 quote, "you where on the line"

 

[PsiCorps]

Apologies for not having added any new updates, RL has kept me too busy to so much as even look at the Mod let alone make any changes. As soon as I get some time off work to do something I will delve into the Mod and try to get an updated version uploaded.

One thing I will be doing is removing the Wormhole maps from the Mod. I don't recall there being any mention of Wormholes at any time in any of the shows so I don't see these maps as canon.

 

[Uncle Anton]

Um, not sure what I'm doing wrong here, but I've installed the mod in the usual directory.... bts/mods....

The mod fires up ok. Selecting certain units in the Civilopedia seems to CTD the game. Is it something I'm doing or have done? At 2.7 I was kinda hoping this mod isn't in Beta

 

[Greeneyedzombie]

civopedia is currently bugged, but the game itself works fine.

 

[Premier Valle]

Hello everyone!,

Joining PsiCorps statement, I haven't worked much in the mod, mainly I'm currently in a 3D-mind-blocking stage, hopefully I'll be over it soon and I'll resume shipbuilding.

We also have the hyperspace feature in hold...

One thing I will be doing is removing the Wormhole maps from the Mod. I don't recall there being any mention of Wormholes at any time in any of the shows so I don't see these maps as canon.

Talking about wormholes, I do support their inclusion in the mod, not only because there are few maps for Final Frontier but because in the show there are several implicit mentions to wormholes:

• When everyone (except Garibaldi) goes to B4 they travel-through-time. With this technology you could travel between two given points in the galaxy instantaneously, pretty much like the map's wormholes.
• When Ivanova interfaces with the Great Machine of Epsilon III she uses what appears to be wormholes to get to Zigma 957.
• In "A Call to Arms" the Excalibur - in pursuit of Drakh raiders - enters a "null field" that relocates the ship into a distant region of space.

So, while not explicitly mentioned, wormholes do exist in B5.

 

[Uncle Anton]

civopedia is currently bugged, but the game itself works fine.

Ah ok... thanks mate... I'll give it another go.