making an apocalyptic mod. "Project Aftermath"

[ghost toast]

Ill eventual get into redoing the ground tiles. and come up with a waste land look for all the land types.

has any one play civilization beyond earth? i have an idea for something cool that could work.
the xenomass looks cool. i picture it with some radio-active barrels and making it a nuclear dumping ground tile.
its needs a better name. something a little shorter.

Spoiler xenomass :

game play ideas

Could negatively effect the humans and aliens factions.
mutants could benefit from it.
the hive faction (tyrranid/civ beyond earth alien faction) maybe they should benefit from it too

im getting ahead of myself im only on art creation. but that could be an idea

 

[ghost toast]

Eden Project makes it into the game.
Took some time to line everything up the domes kept showing small gaps in game that i couldn't see it blender. i fixed that and here it is. its a little to big and needs to be shrunk down.

This is the mossy version i came up with. I have a cleaner set of textures i could use for a regular modern day version. but this one looks more abandoned looking but still somewhat nice looking.
I think i need to add some tree and flowers and some sort of stuff to make it look more like an apocalyptic oasis of plant life that has somehow remained

Spoiler First Look at The Eden Project :

 

[Iconian]

I'll check out that thread you linked. But your graphics really look like they're coming along.

Ok, for the Thunderdome I think I prefer your v1, and probably the third picture you have.

For Eden Project, I think if I were you I would make some of the tiles on the surface of the domes closer to the grounder greener, with some moss, ivy and stuff. Then leave most of the tiles near the middle the same as they are now. Then, make several of the tiles on the very top more reflective, even bluish--most of the tiles on top I would say. And maybe, out of the 100 or so tiles that are visible, have 3-4 of them cracked and partly missing, and 3-4 completely missing.

 

[ghost toast]

having a graphical issue with the improvement.

in the pictures you can see new improvement for the fallen titan resource removes the ruins but other improvements do not.
Ive noticed some if civs improvements remove my ruins features and some do not.
but what i need to figure out is how and why.
i don't have a picture but the improvement is not set to remove anything if placed in a forest the forest is completely intact and nothing removed.
it doesn't have a landmark_shader stencil assigned in nexus buddy to clear the trees or anything.

the ruins are still there from the game point of view its still considered a ruins tile, but the improvement is making the ruins invisible.

I'm wondering why some improvements render the ruins invisible and some don't.

I'm not seeing any real coding differences or any setting that that causes this. its not due to any remove feature setting as that is only for the purpose of being able to build it making the feature removal a requirement. even that would remove the feature from the tile completely not just make it invisible.

if i cant figure this out that's a major problem that will require a huge and confusing work around method I don't want to use.
requiring an improvement for every possible ruins tile that re-adds the ruins graphic on every ruins tile it could be built on.

that right there breaks the game feature of being able to tear down ruins similarly to chopping down the forest. which is a feature i really, really want in this mod.
that feature would no longer be possible if the ruins are re-added to the improvement
unless i come up with yet another work around using an lua to swap out the improvement with the ruins for the improvement with out the ruins if the ruins are torn down like chopping down the a forest.
i really want people to be able to remove the ruins just like tree. i want some improvements that sit in the ruins if they are there i want some improvements that require the remove of the ruins before its built just like some of civs improvements with the forests.

if i cant figure this out its just gonna add to the coding nightmare this mod will be and make it very complicated and confusing graphic wise

 

[Iconian]

I do agree the Fallen Titan needs to be bigger. Even if you have 2 or 4 or 6 of them on the tile, it's too small.

if i cant figure this out that's a major problem that will require a huge and confusing work around method I don't want to use.
requiring an improvement for every possible ruins tile that re-adds the ruins graphic on every ruins tile it could be built on.

That would certainly suck. Building mods is tough enough when everything goes right. I feel like we need more skilled mod builders with some of these things.

But, I do have one idea. Sometime ago I came across this mod. I have yet to actually use it in-game, but I want to at some point. Could this help you out?

Steam Workshop::Reforestation

steamcommunity.com

 

[ghost toast]

I do agree the Fallen Titan needs to be bigger. Even if you have 2 or 4 or 6 of them on the tile, it's too small.




That would certainly suck. Building mods is tough enough when everything goes right. I feel like we need more skilled mod builders with some of these things.

But, I do have one idea. Sometime ago I came across this mod. I have yet to actually use it in-game, but I want to at some point. Could this help you out?

Steam Workshop::Reforestation

steamcommunity.com

You are very right that mod will help.
I would like to implement their reforestation fuction in my mod for the late game.

I didnt post anything about that reforestation mod but I have already thought about taking their reforestation idea completely it would require if any a very minimal bit editing to fix it up for my mod.

I also have never played that mod, but I've had it for a while. I've like the idea but for regular civilization I never felt it to be that important or needed.
Civilizations has never given me to much of a reason to like the forests enough to want to restore them.


A game feature that is slightly like beyong earths terriforming. And also to create something similar to the conflicting ideologies they had.

1st ideology to restore Earth to its former splender.

2nd ideology would be to rebuild the world better through genetic manipulation

"The plants and animals of the old world have died out, we can make new world more resistant to the destructive nature of man and more resistant to the effect humans had and will have on it. Not only can we make a stronger planet we can make a stronger race to inhabit the planet, the world has change and so must we, to deny change is to deny our future"

I have an ok quote for that one they all need to be worked out besides the bonuses and buildings. But I need to see how many ideologies I can make and make some text files for them. That's the creative thinking I suck at.

3rd ideology would be more for raider and mutants. But the idea would be the opacolypse was a blessing, that chaos is the true state of the world.
They would be more likely to believe that the civilized world with their rules and laws and fake morality are the truely corrupt ones that lie cheat and steal from their own people fueled by greed and make weak by comforts.

I also want to make more ideologies but if I can't the above will have to work.

Below are links to the some jfd rise to power mods.
1 add a new ideology to the game and the other adds a second ideology choice to the game allowing people to have 2 ideologies. I would love to use them ideas and make more ideologies chioces allowing people to choose between many different ones. All with specific buildings that require those ideologies which is gonna be where the mid-late game diversity will take place.
And even some ideologies that only certain faction can take.

Steam Workshop::(RTP) (Content) Neutrality Ideology

steamcommunity.com

Steam Workshop::(RTP) (Gameplay) Spirit Ideology

steamcommunity.com

 

[ghost toast]

On another thought regarding reforestation.
I wanted to implement many different features. Just around forests.

Like for the Eden project I want that natural wonder to appear very rarely like the El Dorado natural wonder. I want it to fuction almost like future worlds fungal growth but causing trees to occasionally come from it and spread through the map. Being the only natural source of tree. And being the only early game source of trees.

Beside the ideology allowing people to plant new forests, I want 1 civilization that gets to do that shortly before the ideology chioce and not requiring the ideology to plant them. That's will be something unique to that civilization pretty much making reforsting thier specialty no matter what.

I want another civilization maybe starting with something like the seed vault as it's capital. Allowing them to occasional get special workers that can plant resources after a certain tech is researched or a certain era is entered.
I want to play it off like it can't be done right away due to radiation levels and you must wait for the levels to die down. It also can't be an endless supply of resources it will have to be limited but semi powerful. it should be very helpful being able to add a resource to a city that needs one, but it needs to be limited to make up for the fact other civs cant do it.

 

[ghost toast]

i have some thoughts on the goody hut. not the graphic but the function.
on the lower difficulty levels like chieftain a settler goody huts give you units like workers and settlers too i believe. it at least gives workers i think.
this can be a useful function to give free units.
I can do unit upgrades like normal and add certain units through goody huts. i think that would be pretty cool. i think ill add the worker to all difficulties along with some units.
i think you should be able to get some units through goody huts early before you have researched the tech needed to produce them in a city. getting them through both upgrade goody huts and free unit goody huts
Due to its early game being set in the more modern era getting some free units early wont be game breaking. most of the early units will all be the similar strength for a while, but you'll have a lot of versatility. unlike civ's early game you'll have pre-gunpowder and gun-powder units very early. infantry, machine guns, bazookas.
i might go a little crazy on the resources needed to make the units. first having to find and things like bullets then producing them in a city.
i want melee(spears and swords) guns aircraft and navy all in the same era. you should at first struggle to produce a sufficient number of strategic resources to leave melee units all together. to gun units cant be to strong but they will be stronger then the melee but it needs to be be fair. the limit should be running out of resources forcing you to still build the slightly weaker melee units. i may even end up giving the first gun units a special promotion then keep them the same strength as melee.
i also want a large variety of early game gun and melee units. raging from a pipe rifle (musket reskins i have to pick a good model that will fit) units which will be easy to make gun units all the way up tp bazookas and machine guns into basic laser and plasma rifles units with my green and red laser effects.
i think ill make units require more then 1 type of resource and more then 1 quantity at times.

i might do this pipe rifles require 1 bullet infantry requires 2 machine guns require 3
at first this will be hard you may even only get 1 machine gun and nothing else gun wise
but as time goes on you will be able to make things like the ammunition factory to end those issues.
its gonna require a lot of thought and planning and balance testing.

every ruins feature may end up getting its own scavaging hut improvement so i can assign some savaging huts to produce bullets some to produce more food and ect... these will be separate from the standard resources you will see in the map and be less useful.
the savaging huts should be like the farms from civ almost everywhere will be getting a scavenger hut, except scavenging huts will be useful and versatile giving food. production, strategic resource, based on the feature. if i have to end up doing a model per feature so be it. coding wise it will be separate improvement that are in game named savaging hut. i can make each separate one feature dependent like the lumber camp but changing the required feature to the specific ruins feature.
So for example a gasoline resource will give a normal amount of gas like strategic resources in civ varying amounts. having a scavenging hut specifically for the ruins tiles i have gas stations in could produce 1 gas strategic resource. not great but better then 0 and resembles it being "found" amongst the ruins or at least i hope it fells that way.
but at the same time i dont think every tile that has a gas station should have a scavenging hut that professes a gasoline just a few.
it will encourage you even more to build the scavenger civilian unit early game to build these huts and see what you get what you can find on the tiles you own besides just what you see.
i thinking i could even do an lua too that could swap stuff out once built maybe giving it a percent to yield certain things then giving the tile a counter so it knows not to roll again.

I think think the early game should be the quest for resources to continue growing your empire and if you are going that route your war machine efforts. after that it should start to be easier and easier to get resources as more are revealed on the map and produced by building in your cities and tile improvements.

i want war to be encouraged and at times necessary i want to try and make early expansion more a little more viable and necessary as resources early on will be harder to get making them more competitive and coveted. ill have to in the future make the base ai more aggressive during this era besides the individual ai's i need to tweak up and down. but i also don't want to make expansion to easy it will have to have an early game pay off and more of a late game disadvantage.
In normal civ expansion is panelized quite a bit i have always thought liberty needed a slight buff or tradition needed a slight nerf.
i don't want to take the penalties away. but i think i will lessen the effects of unhappiness. but increasing them more with the levels of unhappiness. the enormous negative growth you get at -1 happiness is too much. i think it should scale to that and maybe even slightly above that to make cities start starving at its most unhappy level same with the unit combat penalty i think that could be reworked to be slightly more severe as unhappiness builds.

i want to make unhappiness more yet less penalizing

maybe ill make happiness harder to get due to the initial penalty not being as bad, but work in some policies that give bonuses while happy. and make ways to further go out of your way to make your empire happy and keep it that way allowing the tall playstyle more about having a happy population and keeping them happy. wide empires should still struggle to maintain happiness but i want them to be able to dip into unhappiness every now and then with out it grinding growth to a halt right away. i think its -75 growth i think it should start at -25 then scale to maybe -85. i might make rebels spawn at early unhappiness levels and spawn more idk how the rebels work ill check one day.

I'm just spit balling some ideas if any one wants to comment help me out give me something to look back on during the main coding aspect of the mod. im still is asset creation I'm about to get back to that in a day or 2 making/finding models to use.

 

[ghost toast]

So I have come across some thing that may be controversial.

How would people feel about a late game tile improvement that is a forced lobour camp for one of the ideology choices. I wasnt thinking about it until I saw it but now I feel like I should add it to the game some how.

When I redo the ideology that tile improvement would end up going to one that is similar to autocracy.
Would be one of the evil ideologies if you want to look at it that way.

The way it looks it could also go into regular civ 5 as well if you wanted a nazi Germany look or a more modern labour camp from China/Korea (which is what the model was supposed to be of)

Another sore subject might be I want slavery factions like for example the paridise falls slavers from fallout 3 not them but some one like em. A labour camp would suit those factions well as well as other factions.
If I do, do slavery I'll make a sorta abolitionist aspect to offset it maybe a way to free slaves and be rewarded for doing so.

So should labour camps make it into the game?
Should slavers make it into the game?

 

[Iconian]

It's been a while since I was on here, but I'll say a few things.

There are already some mods out there that have slavery in some form, so I wouldn't sweat it too much. The bigger question I'd want to ask is how you'd plan on implementing them. Higher productivity at a cost of happiness? Or culture? Or . . . ?


And I'm not exactly sure what you're going for with all those rock stacks. You're going to replace Polynesians with Tyrannids?

 

[ghost toast]

It's been a while since I was on here, but I'll say a few things.

There are already some mods out there that have slavery in some form, so I wouldn't sweat it too much. The bigger question I'd want to ask is how you'd plan on implementing them. Higher productivity at a cost of happiness? Or culture? Or . . . ?


And I'm not exactly sure what you're going for with all those rock stacks. You're going to replace Polynesians with Tyrannids?

im not doing a regular mod im more like suing civ to make a new game. ill be using all new graphics.
i have tons i have yet to post cause i only want to release and do things in specific order. i have tons of units and new sci-fi effects i havent posted cause i want to create the core look before i even commit to that stuff fully. and i want to discuss things in a specific order and not be all over the place. right now im on city sets and features and resources.
then ill do units and building and stuff along with the tech tree.

ill kind of be turning them into tyrranids. i don't want then to be tyrranids by name but i have some tyrranid units and other units to be used for my "hive faction"

instead of cultural art styles like American", European, African, Asian.

ill be making those more like races in a way.

ill be doing 1 city set for the a hive like faction. ill be using tyrranids and civ beyond earth aliens for units. and some other stuff
ill be doing 1 one for the Super mutant like factions

maybe an alien faction ill have to see how much alien stuff i do and get my hands on.

and humans will get more city sets. they will get at least these 2 sets.

a normalish city set first made of junk scrap houses then changing with the eras like regular city sets

and a fallout raider/ mad max city set.

i will create more variety in the look of the city sets by also giving every civilization i create for the mod a unique capital building model.



and ya the rocks turned out bad they looked better in my head. the big things are supposed to resemble and hills they need some work the opening isn't large enough to tell its an opening. the "ant hill" is actually mount doom from a civ 4 mod. but it will be a good base for an ant hill ill make changes to it in blender.
i thought it would come in better then that and be an ok looking "ant hill" i knew i was gonna have to change it any but i just thought it would look better then that.

its hard to tell cause some things are not colored there is a rock den type thing then there are clutches of eggs or nests with eggs and the large ovalish thing is a hive spore.

for right now I'm only looking at the 3d structure for changes to make and other things for these models
many adjustment need to be done.
if i color them then i decide i want to change the 3d structure i have to do another uv layout and recolor it every time i change it so thats why im waiting untill i for sure pick the models.

 

[ghost toast]

It's been a while since I was on here, but I'll say a few things.

There are already some mods out there that have slavery in some form, so I wouldn't sweat it too much. The bigger question I'd want to ask is how you'd plan on implementing them. Higher productivity at a cost of happiness? Or culture? Or . . . ?


And I'm not exactly sure what you're going for with all those rock stacks. You're going to replace Polynesians with Tyrannids?

that is my first "hive" city set attempted
here is the progressing progress of my first human city set and im still changing it
it will get better

will be the first era city set for most humans. i dubbed it the scrap city set

Spoiler first attempt :

Spoiler attempt 2 :

Spoiler attempt 3 :

Spoiler attempt 4 :

Spoiler attempt 5 :

stuff like this is another season i made this thread. if you take the time to watch the graphics you will see them change as i repost the pictures.

you will be able t see the crappy stuff i started with that i thought might look good then see me change it to get it better and better. the pregressive change of most things will be here if you look hard enough. and every once in a whilw ill do post like this and display the progress of the mod assets

 

[ghost toast]

attempt number 6 on the above city set. this is so far the latest version i have. still uncolored but i believe we are closer to getting done and then ill put some color on it.
they are meant to look as if they are human scrappers for this art style.

remember no civ from civ 5 will be in this mod.
all new everything!

Spoiler :

 

[ghost toast]

major break through i have replaced the tree models themselves

 

[ghost toast]

i had to make new models and down grade graphics alot to make it work but it will save me a ton of time. i no longer need a ton of custom features to make the ruins effect.

the forests are hard to make new models for they are fickle
this is an example of what keeps happening and why i had to downgrade so much

its slowly coming along just got to work out all the graphical kinks. the graphics are going to be the real selling point for this mod.


these models where just textured really quick i will update the texture one day when the models are more complete and fully tested cause well stuff like the example above continues to happen.
i cant really get any more low grade these are pretty bad at least compared to the ones i modeled them after.

 

[ghost toast]

due to the game controlling the texture and not me i need to find and change the sref if one exists for the trees to make the colors appear better. they are not good. everything is very light. worse case ill darken and test everything myself. i really hope to get my hands on the sref in due time.

 

[ghost toast]

should i continue making ruins features or should i touch up and perfect the tree replacement models?
the ruins as features will take much much longer but will also look a hell of a lot better.

maybe i should continue with the cheesy looking tree replacement, touch em up and then maybe do it as a "lite" version.
then when my mod is done ill go back and do ruins as features for a "hardcore version".

the ruins features i have showed are uncolored, but they have way more detail.
and i already know some of my units are not direct x9 compatible and only work on x10.
so maybe i should do a "lite" first for those with out powerful pc's. and even remove the units that have issues in direct x9.

but direct is 9 is so old i shouldn't even worry about it idk, i think even cheap pc with dedicated graphics can do more then x10 now.

when all the stuff i have so far is compiled together, it eats a lot of resources up. if i use only the tree replacement in the lite version if i go that route then is would lessen resource consumption on pc's.

im thinking ill just keep going with the tree replacement method for now cause its a time saver then when im completely done ill go back and do a version with out the tree replacement that has a ton of ruins features instead like the ones i was working on.
it will look a whole lot better but it will take a good pc to run it.

 

[ghost toast]

I'm back to doing city sets here is an update for the tyrranid/hive set.

AND!
I!
COLORED!!!
THEM!

Spoiler tyrranids/hive attempted 2 :

 

[ghost toast]

Spoiler tyrranid/hive city set more pics :

 

[ghost toast]

i decided to color the set.

the set was really difficult to see uncolored.
it is slim picking for models for this set. i will have to create many more in addition to the ones i already used/edited. this is probably it for the era 1 tyrranid/hive set.
i may end up adding more models. but the next models i make will be for era 2!! for they tyrranid/hive set.
the way i did these there are 5 types of big hill/cave entrances. and they will not spawn in every city.
every city should end up with slightly different big hill/cave entrances. making a cool variety. in the hills.

the hills/cave entrances will probably change color once i do the terrain ground decals.
ill pick a color that matches most/all of the apocalyptic ground textures i end up using.