A Babylon 5 Mod for the Final Frontier Mod

Hello everyone!,

Who's up for a massive carrier? :cool:, the Earth Alliance Poseidon Class Carrier is complete:

Civilopedia:
Spoiler :

EA_Poseidon_InGame1.jpg



Combat:
Spoiler :

EA_Poseidon_InGame0.jpg



A little bit more detailed:
Spoiler :

EA_Poseidon_InGame2.jpg



The Poseidon is as massive as it is in its textures and poly count (1662) a little bit high, but we can live with it. It uses the FF Destroyer animation.

:salute:
 
*low whistle*

:goodjob:
 
your a machine :thumbsup:

:borg:


I forgot to tell you that, I got my hands on B5 The Lost Tales a few weeks ago, there I was able to see a Warlock in combat (I also saw a Balvarian and a Kutai), so, I'll soon modify the Warlock and its animation to more canon.

The battle I talk about can be found in youtube here, I didn't wanted to saw it until I purchased the DVD, but If you haven't seen it and are willing to see it, there you go.

I'll remove the green effect from the animation and will replace it with some railgun stuff.

:salute:
 
Hello every one!

I have completed work on the Minbari Morshin Class Carrier:

Civilopedia:
Spoiler :
Minbari_Morshin_InGame1.jpg


Combat:
Spoiler :
Minbari_Morshin_InGame0.jpg


It has poly count of 1324 and uses the FF Cruiser animation, as with other Minbari ships, no engine glow/thrust.

With this ship complete, the sixth ship pack has been released: Download

Next the Minbari Neshatan.

:salute:
 
Excellent ships Premier! well done.

Just seen this mod proposal Mine Warfare This may be compatable with our mod and if it is it could be a nice addition. Have the mines invisible to all but a 'minesweeping type' ship or a ship with a minesweeping promotion and the game becomes a lot more interesting. There could also be a minelaying promotion that enables ships to lay mines. What do you think?
 
Hello everyone!

I have completed work on another two ships, one for the Minbari and one for the Centauri.

Minbari Neshatan Gunship Class (Poly 758 / Anim: FF Battleship)

Civilopedia:
Spoiler :
Minbari_Neshatan_InGame1.jpg


Combat:
Spoiler :
Minbari_Neshatan_InGame0.jpg


Centauri Shuttle (Poly: 654 / Anim: FF Invasion Ship)

Civilopedia:
Spoiler :
Centauri_Shuttle_InGame1.jpg


Combat:
Spoiler :
Centauri_Shuttle_InGame0.jpg


The Centauri Shuttle is meant to be the Centauri Transport, but this ship isn't as big as a Hermes, so perhaps the"transport unit" should have two shuttles.

While searching for reference images on the Neshatan I found that this one is actually the Nova equivalent, so retract my proposal on using the Troligan as the Nova equivalent.

Just seen this mod proposal Mine Warfare This may be compatable with our mod and if it is it could be a nice addition. Have the mines invisible to all but a 'minesweeping type' ship or a ship with a minesweeping promotion and the game becomes a lot more interesting. There could also be a minelaying promotion that enables ships to lay mines. What do you think?

That is a great idea indeed! :cool:, ... however I'm not sure of two things:

  1. That we should wait until it is released, we could make our own, as far as I remember XML allows us to make a unit with "hidden nationality", also to make it invisible to other players, and to make a unit inmobile.
  2. That we should implement mines in that way. In B5 we saw two types of mines, the kind the Centauri used to blockade a Drazi world, or the kind Sheridan used to finish the Drala Fi (Black Star) or the ones used in the Coriana system (I'm talking nukes here! :nuke:).
We could use a minefield, like the Centauri one, this kind would have its nationality hidden, but could be spoted by any ship.

And we could have the nuke kind of mine, with hidden nationality and invisibility (to ships other than ELINT ones). This nuke should only explode by the player's command, I think that we can do that on XML as well, being inmovile, it could only be set off in its own tile (I suppose :confused:).

Both mines would be inmovile and should be transportable ... by transports :mischief:.

On other news, I just noticed something (correct me if I'm wrong), this is about the ship tree and the ship classes we have defined (and not necessarily modeled) :
Narn Regime..................13 ships
Centauri Republic...........12 ships
Earth Alliance.................12 ships
Minbari Federation.........10 ships
This list doesn't take into account PDSs, Transports, Constructions ships, etc... I also noticed that we are close to have all the models for the 4 major powers, or at least, all the currently defined ships.

Having said this, I think that it is NOW that we should define the ship tree I talked about some posts ago. That will let us know if there is a requirement for more ship models for each species. :deal:

I was also thinking on modeling the Jump Gate, however I wanted to consult you on wheter to model a 3-pier or a 4-pier Jump Gate.
3jumpgate.jpeg
4jumpgate.jpeg


What do you think?

:salute:
 
More sweet ships. I like them.:D The centauri transports will have to have 2 or 3 models to represent them in game

In B5 we saw two types of mines, the kind the Centauri used to blockade a Drazi world
The Centauri Blockade mines would be very much like the P.D.S. we already have with the major difference being it does not benefit a star system in the same way a P.D.S. does. They would only be deployable in space (any clear terrain plot) and would have a higher defence strength than a P.D.S.

the kind Sheridan used to finish the Drala Fi (Black Star)
This might be a little harder to do as it is, in effect, a command detonation rather than a proximity detonation. A command detonation would only be able to be done in the owning players turn, thus it could not be used against a unit moving through its plot. If an enemy unit has ended its turn in the same plot then fair enough the mine could be detonated. The problem with the command type mine is that there is no guarantee where the enemy will stop so you would end up with at least one in every plot to keep the home systems safe. The obvious counter to this is to make them expensive to maintain or limit the numbers of them, like a national unit.
A proximity mine is something that is just left there and will affect any unit that moves into the plot regardless of who laid it.

On other news, I just noticed something (correct me if I'm wrong), this is about the ship tree and the ship classes we have defined (and not necessarily modeled) :
Narn Regime..................13 ships
Centauri Republic...........12 ships
Earth Alliance.................12 ships
Minbari Federation.........10 ships
This list doesn't take into account PDSs, Transports, Constructions ships, etc... I also noticed that we are close to have all the models for the 4 major powers, or at least, all the currently defined ships.

Having said this, I think that it is NOW that we should define the ship tree I talked about some posts ago. That will let us know if there is a requirement for more ship models for each species.
This brings up the problem of classes of ship.

Using Earth customs you could have Olympus Mk I, MK II and MK III to allow for 3 different versions of the same unit much the same as FF currently has the Alpha to Omega versions. This may work for the EA but not the other races.

We would need to have 3 different classes of ship to represent the 3 different variations possible. Alternatively as new ships become available they make older ships obsolete. So, for example, the EA starts building Olympus class ships all over the place then manages to get the research completed to allow them to build the Artemis class ship. Does the Artemis make the Olympus obsolete so the EA can no longer build them or does the Olympus become upgradeable to the Artemis or do we leave it as is so that all ships can coexist with one another?

What i would like to do is refine the ships combat bonuses so that each ships is good at something, average at a few things and poor at something. Presently all i have done to reflect the differences between the races is to make the less combat effective units cheaper to build than the more combat effective ones. the EA has the cheapest costs, then the Narn and Centauri, with the Minbari having the most expensive ships to build.

Let me know your thoughts on this.

I prefer the 4 pier jump gate but the 3 post one looks just as good! :confused:
 
I briefly tried out the mod, and it is pretty cool. My one issue is your main menu music, the speaking really distracts from reading the pedia. I simply switched the FF and mainmenu music and it works much better.

Considering how much art I will be borrowing from here for my mod(at least all of the EA and Minbari art), I made an icon for you guys to use in an exe launcher.
 
In my opinion, the four pier gate is probably the best one to use. Why? Because it's the variant that the modern races build. The three piered one is, I think, the one that was built by older races. They're leftover gates that still work, possibly requiring maintenance but still functional after thousands of years. The four piered one reflects a more Earth-like design aesthetic. Good for races who share some physical or aesthetic similarities with the Humans (which include the Centauri, the Minbari, the Drazi, and even the Narn). Some races might have an old gate at their homeworld but they'd definitely build the new ones on any world they sought to claim that didn't already have one. In fact, I don't think anyone can build the old ones anymore (except maybe the Vorlons or the Shadows).

Anyway, just my opinion as a B5 fan.
 
Hello everyone,

I have completed work on the Narn Dag'Kar Missile Frigate, it has 544 poligons and uses the FF Carrier Animation.

Civilopedia:
Spoiler :
Narn_DagKar_InGame1.jpg


Combat:
Spoiler :
Narn_DagKar_InGame0.jpg


@Ajidica
Thanks for the icon :cool:!, it looks great. About the main menu music, I somewhat agree, what I would actually like is the "speech" to be played only once, and then when the track ends, it should be repeated but without the "speech", however, to my knowledge, none of us have sound skills.

@Tssha
What you say makes sense, and since the balance tips to the 4 pier jump gate, I'll model that one.

@at Psi Corps et al
This might be a little harder to do as it is, in effect, a command detonation rather than a proximity detonation. A command detonation would only be able to be done in the owning players turn, thus it could not be used against a unit moving through its plot. If an enemy unit has ended its turn in the same plot then fair enough the mine could be detonated. The problem with the command type mine is that there is no guarantee where the enemy will stop so you would end up with at least one in every plot to keep the home systems safe. The obvious counter to this is to make them expensive to maintain or limit the numbers of them, like a national unit.
A proximity mine is something that is just left there and will affect any unit that moves into the plot regardless of who laid it.
As far as I can remember (tho I'm not sure) a nuclear explosion in civ also affects the adjacent tiles, so its area of effect is actually bigger. Now, if the mine explodes when ANY ship enters the tile, it would explode right after being deployed taking the mine layer with it, plus, this mines should be costly, and become only an option to be deployed on well known attack routes or backdoors, plus, you might want to let friendly ships come trough.
Tactically speaking, an enemy fleet would send a vanguard before the main fleet, the nuke will explode when the vanguard ships come close, but what you want is to take out the main fleet. I say we use a command detonation mine.

Using Earth customs you could have Olympus Mk I, MK II and MK III to allow for 3 different versions of the same unit much the same as FF currently has the Alpha to Omega versions. This may work for the EA but not the other races.
I don't see why other races could not use a MK system. Please, ellaborate more on this.

What i would like to do is refine the ships combat bonuses so that each ships is good at something, average at a few things and poor at something. Presently all i have done to reflect the differences between the races is to make the less combat effective units cheaper to build than the more combat effective ones. the EA has the cheapest costs, then the Narn and Centauri, with the Minbari having the most expensive ships to build.
I say we leave fine tuning the ship's costs and capabilities for later, or as a secondary priority task. I think we should have the ship tree as our priority (I need to know what ships to model :p). But you have some good observations, tho I don't think the Narn should be costlier than the EA, I don't think Earth vessels are less combat effective than the Narn ones, I'm not talking about military capabilities (I think they are almost a match), but about power / energy production, it is well known that Narn engine's power output is not very effective but rather deficient. That could balance things.

We would need to have 3 different classes of ship to represent the 3 different variations possible. Alternatively as new ships become available they make older ships obsolete. So, for example, the EA starts building Olympus class ships all over the place then manages to get the research completed to allow them to build the Artemis class ship. Does the Artemis make the Olympus obsolete so the EA can no longer build them or does the Olympus become upgradeable to the Artemis or do we leave it as is so that all ships can coexist with one another?
First of all, as far as I know the Olympus is a newer design than the Artemis.
As you stated we can follow one of two schools here:
1) Ship obsolescence and upgradeability
2) Ship continuity
The first would allow an older (possibly promoted) obsolete ship to become upgraded to a newer model.
The second, would allow a post-war scenario in wich the more affected player could actually look backwards in technology to rebuild its fleet rapidly (older ship models will be faster to build).
Both points have advantages, but I say we should go with the first one "ship obsolescence and upgradeability", because you could mass produce Artemises, but if you are facing Sharlins, your ships would inflict almost no damage to the enemy before being destroyed, but if you have just a few Omegas you could actually hurt the enemy, and perhaps, make him/her think twice. Plus I believe the AI wouldn't exploit the 2nd option to its fullest.

But on any case we need to define the ship tree before taking that decision.However, before defining the ship tree we need to define the ship's roles, here is an initial proposal (obviously EA based, ship classes between "< >" are suggestions of mine):
ShipRolesTable_0.jpg

I think this image speaks for itself, here we can see that some Roles have multiple ships, some of them coexisting ships (like the Omega and Cmd. Omega), but also some that could replace the other (Nova > Warlock). I think this table will help us define the ship tree.

And we also need to define ship equivalences, again, here is an initial proposal (I'm not happy with the ships marked in red):
ShipEquivalenceTable_0.jpg

Ships with a (*) mark, I'm not sure on their class names.
This again is an initial proposal, and I'm looking forward for your comments on this. The ships listed in the lower part of the table are ships we have defined (with the Torotha already modeled) that I found no match for them (I just placed those there without trying to make an equivalence). If we add some more ships (like the ones I propose, and some others) we could adjust this table to be adecuate.

In the mean time, I'll halt ship building until we define a little bit more the ships. In the mean time, I'll model the jump gate.

:salute:
 
>Main menu music: I'm glad you like the icon. As for the music, I don't believe you can have the speaking part play only once. Python might be able to get it to work tough. I can't really add anything to the ship tables discussions.
 
Hi!

Just a quickie to show you the Jump Gate:
JumpGate_InGame.jpg


It has 944 polys,... scaling at XML level doesn't seem to work apropiately, I also had to use "artistic freedom" to keep the poly count from growing too much,... it could have reached 3000+ polys, so I undetailed it.

Any comments on the ships issue?

:salute:
 
Looks cool. Although I assume the skin isn't finished, you do want to lighten it up alot so it is easily visable. If you know how to do gloss skins that could make it look cool.
 
Although I assume the skin isn't finished, you do want to lighten it up alot so it is easily visable.
The models aren't dark because the texture/skin is dark, but because the material in the nif is dark (that's a quirk of Blender, setting the materials very dark).

If you open the models with NifSkope and look for nodes named "NiMaterialProperty", you'll see that the ambient light is set to 0.4 and diffuse colour to 0.8 - these are the standard settings blender uses.

If you up them to 0.9 - 1.0 (both of them), they are much brighter, more like all other CivIV models and look much, much more like your actual texture (otherwise, they'll always look dark and washed out, due to the lighting settings CivIV uses).

Cheers, LT.
 
Since I'm using the Hyperion ship in my mod, I though I'd redo to skin as currently it is a bit bland. Here is the picture and the .dds file. For some reason the dds file is at 1000 kb, I'm not sure what I did to get it that big.
I realize the skin is not entirely cannon, but I didn't have my internet while I was making it so I couldn't check for a refrence pic.

EDIT: I don't know if you know this, Premier, but the Hyperion doesn't seem to have any combat animations. When I tested it out in B5 against a minbari ship, it just sat there and exploded.
 

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Since I'm using the Hyperion ship in my mod, I though I'd redo to skin as currently it is a bit bland. Here is the picture and the .dds file. For some reason the dds file is at 1000 kb, I'm not sure what I did to get it that big.
I realize the skin is not entirely cannon, but I didn't have my internet while I was making it so I couldn't check for a refrence pic.

That skin is way better than mine, we could use it until the time comes for me to remake the Hyperion. :)

EDIT: I don't know if you know this, Premier, but the Hyperion doesn't seem to have any combat animations. When I tested it out in B5 against a minbari ship, it just sat there and exploded.
Yep, I've noticed it, actually several posts back I have already mentioned it, it happens because the XML has an error, it points to the Nova animation instead of the destroyer one.

About the JumpGate, yes I think that lightening it could be good, but I actually don't feel right about the model's mesh, I was thinking on making the piers shorter and wider... I don't know, so I look for your advise, does the mesh feel right to you?, should I remake it or just lighten it up?

@Lord Tirian
Yes, I have noted some of that, thanks for bringing some more knowledge into the issue.

I also noted an error of omission in the ship tables, tho is an omission on a suggestion. I think we should also have a more primitive fighter, in the case of the EA, I propose the Starfury Aries, or the Starfury Tiger (sorry, no pics)
 
Hi all, i've not gone but i have been busy with RL (sorry). I've been reading all the posts and am still trying to decide how best to proceed with the ships issue raised by Premier. Our biggest problem with this is the lack of canon information on all of the races earlier and later ships. There is more for the EA than any of the others but it is still very little.
I'm beginning to think that the only way to proceed is by using the MK system.
As for the ship equivalence table, once again we are affected by the lack of canon information, Whilst the Narn seem to have more ships they also have a few more gaps we can fill these by thinking intelligently about the extra ships they have over the others.
Have to leave it there for now as i have to get ready for work.
 
Our biggest problem with this is the lack of canon information on all of the races earlier and later ships. There is more for the EA than any of the others but it is still very little.
That is most true... and we haven't even started with the minor races ;)

I'm beginning to think that the only way to proceed is by using the MK system.
We don't have much of a choice in some cases.

[...] thinking intelligently about the extra ships [...]
Yes, we will have to decide on some.

I read here that the Rongoth is a heavy combat vessel... perhaps we could change the G'Quan with the Rongoth so this would be the Nova's equivalent, and then Move the G'Quan to fill the Command Omega equivalency?

:salute:
 
Do you regularly use this website for the images/ideas you use to build your ship models?
that the Rongoth is a heavy combat vessel... perhaps we could change the G'Quan with the Rongoth so this would be the Nova's equivalent, and then Move the G'Quan to fill the Command Omega equivalency?
That sounds reasonable to me Premier, anyone else have an opinion?
 
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