A Babylon 5 Mod for the Final Frontier Mod

[PsiCorps]

Originally posted by Reynanuy

I just wanted to pop in and say great work everybody, especially to Premier Valle and PsiCorps; whom have maintained this mod going for such a long time. This is probably the best FF based mod by far, probably one of the best all around mods even, and it shows. Awesome job guys! Can't wait to try the new version.

Thank you for your support and kind words. As a reward here is the link for the latest version.

Babylon 5 Mod V3.0

If you want to know what changes have been made have a look below. This may or may not include all the changes/tweaks I've done.

Spoiler :

Changes from 2.9

Removed ability of all frigates to open Jump Points they can however still use them.

Changes made to Narn OOB following feedback from Premier Valle.

Strategy text entries added to all Planetary Defence/Assault Units.

Pedia text for Drazi added.

Reduction made to number of squadrons Non-carrier ships can carry following feedback from Kiff.

Changes made to Tech Tree following feedback from various players.

Raider Carrier chance of appearing sooner increased and combat strength reduced to 12.

Babylon Station Wonder now available with Language Translation Tech.

I.S.A. Headquarters Wonder added, available with ISA Tech. Replaces the Babylon Station for Diplomatic Victory.

Drazi Solar Hawk combat animations and Button added.

Reduced commerce modifiers on Spaceports and Research Labs to 5% from 20 & 25%.

Planetary Assault Troops removed and standard Invasion Ship style units put back in.

Changes made to Enlistment Centre.

New buildings added - Gunnery School, Electronic Warfare School, Sensor Systems School, Engineering School, Officer Training School, Medical Facility, Planetary and Orbital Shipyards.

Adjustments made to the benefits given by Ranger Training Facility, Shadow Derelict Excavation, Portal of the Hand, Vorlon Listening Post and First Ones Ruins.

Raging Barbarians now defaults to Off.

There are many things that still need to be done to the Mod to make it the game I want it to be. Unfortunately this requires someone with good or excellent knowledge of C++ and Python. Mainly because there are some ModComps I want to merge in but have been unable to do this myself. I've tried to follow the tutorials but the one for C++ isn't step by step, plain English clear enough for an old duffer like me to understand.

If there is anyone out there who can help us out with the things I'd like to get added please send me a PM and we can go from there.

 

[reynanuy]

Excellent news! I am already downloading it. Thanks a lot for the update PsiCorps, summer vacations are coming up and I can't think of a better way to spend them; than indoors playing civilization in babylon 5 space

 

[JoelQuinn]

Hi, so far the mod looks great and compared to other mods facing the space theme its already the best i know. Its even kinda fun to just click "end turn" the first 200 rounds if you play on epic speed.

But i'm not sure if there is more to it, so i wanna ask if others maybe experienced great wars in this mod. My point is, that i play on difficulty "deity" to booster the AI players in someway. So far i've gote the feeling that nothing changed. Yeah it took me some more turns to finish some tech but in the end nothing is rly different. At the start i fall back in points but until the time you can leave your star system i outplay every enemy. Around that time i never had an AI Enemy who attacked me, send a fleet or anything. Once i declared war but there was no resistance that deserved the name - no fleets heading to my weakpoints or even heading anywhere. All i got from ai were some ships heading to their planet in danger.
So i wanna ask if there are other experiences out there and maybe tips what i did wrong - maybe i had to play even longer to experience real wars. If not i would suggest to give the ai the ability to leave their star system at round 200 maybe. (on epic speed) so thex can become stronger. "Deity"+"aggressive AI" seems not enough to counter you. Not very suprisingly cuz you cant do anything else than building up your homesystem around the first 200 rounds. Judged by that you develop in the best possible way - no need for strong defences or anything else that would waste ressources. (I cant play with raging barbarians cuz the known problem).

Hope for answers cuz this mod is awsome anyway.

Ah one more thing. With version 3.0 you splitted the League. I guess you plan more ship models for them in the future and you tried to match the ship roles from the Babylon 5 Series. Well despite that i would say its better (at least for now) to combine all the ships you have for the 3 League Nations, and just say for example "the battleglobe is a cruiser, some others goes as battleship usw". This i would like more, but is just my opinion. I dont like the standard BtS models in an Babylon 5 mod.

Again, good work!

bye

Joel

 

[PsiCorps]

Hi Joel, welcome to the boards.
Thanks for the feedback. I've no real answers for you as regards the AI and their lack of desire to commit to a war. In my own playtests I've had war declared on me and all they've sent is a cruiser to attack whcih I've been able to hit with fighters before it can get close enough to attack.

I do know the AI puts fighters on board the ships capable of carrying them but again haven't seen them being used aggressively. I think that's because the attack version of the fighter should really be the bomber. in which case I need to add the bomber back in but have it use the same artwork as those fighters already included. Obviously a slightly different name would be required but it may encourage the AI to use fighters/bombers more aggressively. There may be other factors involved in why the AI is not creating offensive fleet units to aggressively attack the player and other AI lead Races but I don't know what they may be.

Premier is still building ships to fill the fleet rosters of the Non-Aligned worlds civ's and has 2 or 3 ships currently in developement. As soon as they are released i'll get them into the Mod.

Keep the feedback coming it's the only way we'll know what needs to be looked at. Extra sets of eyes and all that

 

[reynanuy]

Hey guys. I just wanted to give some feedback on the mod and how it plays. Everything pretty much works great, no assets are missing or anything like that. What I did notice was the AI doing nothing, in all 3 of my playthroughs; they never went beyond 3 colonies. In my latest game, I am in the 400 in turns and currently have 9 colonies; in comparison my closest competitor has 2.

This issue, which I think has been brought on before, must be the AI trying to avoid ICS drawbacks in a regular CIV game. But here a ICS strategy is totally viable given how low maintenance colonies are. So I think we either have to get the AI to be more aggressive at colonizing or bring about penalties to colonizing too much too soon, and thus stop ICS.

Beyond that, after something like 800 turns, but in different playthroughs and never actually finishing one game; I've found out the following (totally trivial really)"issues":

- Ion Particle Engine Text Strategy is missing
- Stealth ship strategy text is missing
- Planetary Shipyards should increase ship production speed instead of decreasing it(says so on description)
- Some improvements don't make sense: land/water worked, city ruins and inhabited
- Description for worker improvements missing
- Sid's tips for anti ship missile refer to Guided Missile

 

[PsiCorps]

Hey guys. I just wanted to give some feedback on the mod and how it plays. Everything pretty much works great, no assets are missing or anything like that. What I did notice was the AI doing nothing, in all 3 of my playthroughs; they never went beyond 3 colonies. In my latest game, I am in the 400 in turns and currently have 9 colonies; in comparison my closest competitor has 2.

This issue, which I think has been brought on before, must be the AI trying to avoid ICS drawbacks in a regular CIV game. But here a ICS strategy is totally viable given how low maintenance colonies are. So I think we either have to get the AI to be more aggressive at colonizing or bring about penalties to colonizing too much too soon, and thus stop ICS.

Beyond that, after something like 800 turns, but in different playthroughs and never actually finishing one game; I've found out the following (totally trivial really)"issues":

- Ion Particle Engine Text Strategy is missing
- Stealth ship strategy text is missing
- Planetary Shipyards should increase ship production speed instead of decreasing it(says so on description)
- Some improvements don't make sense: land/water worked, city ruins and inhabited
- Description for worker improvements missing
- Sid's tips for anti ship missile refer to Guided Missile

Thanks for the feedback Reynanuy. One of the many problems I have is finding time to do everything that needs to be done. Sorting out the texts be they strategy or pedia is low down on the list of things to sort. I'm trying to focus on getting some of the games built in messages changed so that the don't refer to the standard civ game.

Things like messages saying a Wonder gives you a Free Building in every city on this continent. Would be changed to a free building on every planet in every system of your empire.

Anyone that wants to write up a strategy/pedia text can do so. Just upload the relevant text on a word/notepad and i'll get them into the mod and you'll get a credit.

 

[kazuma6666]

This looks great!

I'm a FFH2 player usually, but I really like civilization in space too, and I'm a big fan of babylon 5.
I'll try this mod when I finish my last FFH2 game.

Thanks for all your hard work!

 

[PsiCorps]

This looks great!

I'm a FFH2 player usually, but I really like civilization in space too, and I'm a big fan of babylon 5.
I'll try this mod when I finish my last FFH2 game.

Thanks for all your hard work!

Thanks for your support and I hope you enjoy what we've done so far.

 

[reynanuy]

Thanks for the feedback Reynanuy. One of the many problems I have is finding time to do everything that needs to be done. Sorting out the texts be they strategy or pedia is low down on the list of things to sort. I'm trying to focus on getting some of the games built in messages changed so that the don't refer to the standard civ game.

Things like messages saying a Wonder gives you a Free Building in every city on this continent. Would be changed to a free building on every planet in every system of your empire.

Anyone that wants to write up a strategy/pedia text can do so. Just upload the relevant text on a word/notepad and i'll get them into the mod and you'll get a credit.

Great. I will try to do something, even if it's just a couple of lines for a strategy text, this weekend; but as you say these things are really low on the priority list. What I would like to know for sure, is why the AI is behaving this way. In any case I will try to make some time and play up to the end, even if there really is no challenge, to cover as much ground as I can in a playthrough.

 

[PsiCorps]

Great. I will try to do something, even if it's just a couple of lines for a strategy text, this weekend; but as you say these things are really low on the priority list. What I would like to know for sure, is why the AI is behaving this way. In any case I will try to make some time and play up to the end, even if there really is no challenge, to cover as much ground as I can in a playthrough.

Thanks Reynanuy. I played only as far as being able to build the ISA ships. Once I knew that they were available I stopped playing and uploaded.

I look forward to seeing whatever you can put together for strategy and pedia text.

I'll be looking at the AI via FF+, the base for this Mod. I'll play a game of that and see what the AI does when it goes to war.

 

[Premier Valle]

Hello everyone!

Babylon 5 Mod V3.0

Great!, I saw this before but couldn't download until now. I might have some coments on the updates, but I'll try the mod before talking .

So, back to business. I've been working on the latest ships and they are now game ready, here are the details:

Descari Rulnata Class Destroyer
Poly count: 607
FX extra poly: 28
Gloss/Glow/Damage: Yes/Yes/Yes
Animation: FF Destroyer

Civilopedia:

Combat:

Damaged:

Drazi Orinthar Class ELINT Ship
Poly count: 823
FX extra poly: 198
Gloss/Glow/Damage: Yes/Yes/Yes
Animation: FF Invasion Ship

Civilopedia:

Combat:

Damaged:

Mitoc Assault Shuttle (tier 1 fighter)
Poly count: 554
Gloss/Glow/Damage: Yes/Yes/No
Animation: FF Fighter

Civilopedia:

In-Flight:

Vree Tzymm Class Fighter
Poly count: 452
Gloss/Glow/Damage: Yes/Yes/No
Animation: FF Fighter

Civilopedia:

In-Flight:

I'm currently working on the Markab Kar'Ti class carrier (a modified version of the Markab transport seen on the show).

 

[AbsintheRed]

Wow, 4 new ships
All of them look great

PS: Can you post the current unit roster table and your further plans?

 

[Premier Valle]

Wow, 4 new ships
All of them look great

PS: Can you post the current unit roster table and your further plans?

Glad you like them, sure, here is the new ship table, since the concept of the invasion ship is back in B5, I had to make some adjustems, so I added a new "invasion" row, that means... more work for me

Spoiler :

As you can see the new ship rearrangement requires some already existing ships to be moved i.e. the Brakiri Ikorta, Narn Thentus. What do you think of this?

@PsiCorps
I haven't played a game in the new v3.0 mod, but I see in the change list that there is a new B5 wonder, and an ISA HQ one. For the ISA HQ it is fine not to have art work (its planet-side) but B5 needs the station, as you might remember I already have a B5 station:

Spoiler :

What do you think?, shall I prepare the NIF for in-game usage?



EDIT:
====
BTW when I launched the mod the "GFC: Failed to initalize the primary control theme" error appeared to me. For those new to the mod there is a solution for this. Modify the "Babylon 5 V3.0/Assets/XML/Art/Civ4ArtDefines_Misc.xml" file; in the line that says:

<Path>Mods/Babylon 5 V3.0/Resource/Civ4.thm</Path>

change it for:

<Path>Mods/Final Frontier/Resource/Civ4.thm</Path>

 

[The_J]

Indeed some very fine models, like the last one best .

 

[Monaldinio]

Indeed some very fine models, like the last one best .

Thats right! Me to...

 

[AbsintheRed]

As you can see the new ship rearrangement requires some already existing ships to be moved i.e. the Brakiri Ikorta, Narn Thentus. What do you think of this?

Looks good IMO
I would still separate a couple of the biggest/most important civs from the LonAW factions, but you will see after the current roster is more complete how much energy/time you have for that

 

[PsiCorps]

Glad you like them, sure, here is the new ship table, since the concept of the invasion ship is back in B5, I had to make some adjustems, so I added a new "invasion" row, that means... more work for me

Spoiler :

As you can see the new ship rearrangement requires some already existing ships to be moved i.e. the Brakiri Ikorta, Narn Thentus. What do you think of this?

It doesn't necessarily mean more work at least not in the short term. All I was going to do was use the transport model for each of the civs and suggest you make some changes to the existing transport models to account for it. Your choice though, you're the one doing all the model work.

@PsiCorps
I haven't played a game in the new v3.0 mod, but I see in the change list that there is a new B5 wonder, and an ISA HQ one. For the ISA HQ it is fine not to have art work (its planet-side) but B5 needs the station, as you might remember I already have a B5 station:

Spoiler :

What do you think?, shall I prepare the NIF for in-game usage?

Like it, love it, want it! Gimme Gimme Gimme.

What I'd like to do to reflect the way the Babylon station was built in the game is for the building race to send a colony ship to a 3 planet system but when it selects to build the Babylon Station it eliminates the ability of the system to build anything else in the settled system. Also it would be a Project and construction ships can be sent there to assist(read sacrificed) in the building of the station. Once it's built it becomes a neutral territory, independent of all the civs. It would have a right of passage agreement, that can never be broken, automatically made with all Civs to enable movement through its territory.

I'm probably wanting to rewrite the way Civ works just to do that but I can dream can't I?

EDIT:
====
BTW when I launched the mod the "GFC: Failed to initalize the primary control theme" error appeared to me. For those new to the mod there is a solution for this. Modify the "Babylon 5 V3.0/Assets/XML/Art/Civ4ArtDefines_Misc.xml" file; in the line that says:

<Path>Mods/Babylon 5 V3.0/Resource/Civ4.thm</Path>

change it for:

<Path>Mods/Final Frontier/Resource/Civ4.thm</Path>

I was hoping that wouldn't be required as the change I made was intended to make it self reliant rather than need to have the FF or FF+ Mods installed.

Oh! and by the way, I love all of the new ship units. I've added them to the mod all I need to do now is get the buttons made, oh and make sure I've added them properly.

 

[Premier Valle]

Hi!,

It doesn't necessarily mean more work at least not in the short term. All I was going to do was use the transport model for each of the civs and suggest you make some changes to the existing transport models to account for it. Your choice though, you're the one doing all the model work.

That might work for some, but not for everyone. Since these are invasion ships they are meant to invade planets hence they must be atmosphere capable but some like the EA or Narn transports are not. Besides I'm looking forward into making these new models, it would be nice to go back to the major factions, I've spent too much time in the league lately

Like it, love it, want it! Gimme Gimme Gimme.

What I'd like to do to reflect the way the Babylon station was built in the game is for the building race to send a colony ship to a 3 planet system but when it selects to build the Babylon Station it eliminates the ability of the system to build anything else in the settled system. Also it would be a Project and construction ships can be sent there to assist(read sacrificed) in the building of the station. Once it's built it becomes a neutral territory, independent of all the civs. It would have a right of passage agreement, that can never be broken, automatically made with all Civs to enable movement through its territory.

I'm probably wanting to rewrite the way Civ works just to do that but I can dream can't I?

I think that there is an option where completion of a project gives you a free unit, that unit could be a special B5 builder unit that is only available to the player that completed the B5 project.
A work around could be a special resource (like movies in vanilla civ) that could enable the player to build a B5 builder unit.

This way we could handle the B5 station as a special kind of starbase. What do you think?

It is important to define how are we going to handle B5 so that the NIF file can be properly formatted.

 

[PsiCorps]

That might work for some, but not for everyone. Since these are invasion ships they are meant to invade planets hence they must be atmosphere capable but some like the EA or Narn transports are not. Besides I'm looking forward into making these new models, it would be nice to go back to the major factions, I've spent too much time in the league lately

I'm not going to argue with you....build away my friend!

I think that there is an option where completion of a project gives you a free unit, that unit could be a special B5 builder unit that is only available to the player that completed the B5 project.
A work around could be a special resource (like movies in vanilla civ) that could enable the player to build a B5 builder unit.

This way we could handle the B5 station as a special kind of starbase. What do you think?

It is important to define how are we going to handle B5 so that the NIF file can be properly formatted.

I agree...mostly. If we go down the route of the project giving a Babylon 5 builder unit (which i'm assuming sacrifices itself to build the Babylon station) then we need the project to be repeatable. This would allow for the free unit being destroyed by a hostile force/sabotage and enable the eventual succssfull completetion of a Babylon Station.

An alternative would be for the project to enable the player to build Babylon Station Construction Ships which get sent to the system constructing the Babylon Station and they are sacrificed to the system to move the building of the station along.

The system building the Babylon station would need to have special rules applied to it. Things like commerce would be the only thing to make the population grow, the stations own hydroponics facility would only be able to support the base population of 1. So commerce with the Babylon Station would generate Food, Hammers, Espionage, Culture and Wealth for the Station and plain Commerce for any other Civ trading with it. In effect the Babylon Station would only be able to grow through being connected to trade routes/jump routes.

I've no idea if any of this is possible to do without a lot of C++ or Python work as well. I keep hoping we'[ll get someone that knows a lot about that sort of thing who is willing to jump in and help us out.

 

[reynanuy]

Thanks Reynanuy. I played only as far as being able to build the ISA ships. Once I knew that they were available I stopped playing and uploaded.

I look forward to seeing whatever you can put together for strategy and pedia text.

I'll be looking at the AI via FF+, the base for this Mod. I'll play a game of that and see what the AI does when it goes to war.

I know it's next to nothing, but I managed to find some time and fix some of the trivial "bugs"; I mentioned earlier. Basically I fixed the missing reference to the Ion Particle Engine strategy text and also added the same kind of text, for the Stealth Technology tech.

Thanks to this I realized the the engine should increase movement for space vessels, but this is not happening in my games. Not sure if that is WASD or something is missing. Another thing is that some references are broken because the prefix TECH is used in FF_B5_Techs.xml but not in CIV4TechInfos.xml, so this might affect other stuff too.

In any case I will try to keep playing and fixing these little things I come across, whenever I have the chance.