New; Mars Mod Units (04/02/05)

[the100thballoon]

Good ideas Gold... good idea to have only early to mid era UUs, since most people don't play to the last age..(and I rarely get there either.. darn Firaxis..)

Thats where a little bit of simple editor-based modding comes in.....

 

[flamescreen]

This mod is progressing in an excellent way, if I may say so, judging by your units.

 

[Smoking mirror]

HAHAHA, So far with lots of work and effort I have a total of 14 finished units so a sugestion of 16 UUs is a little optimistic.

There are three reasons why I have chosen just a few civs for the first scenario, firstly, there are only a few likley candidates for a martian colonisation mission (I'm still wondering about including a "nation of Islam civ" as they are not all that united, and it is mostly ecconomically small countries, apart from perhaps south east asia and pakistan). Secondly, I don't want to have to make that many UUs or leaderheads.

Thirdly I don't think you need that many civs for a good game. Most often the civs furthest away from you will have little effect other than slowing down your game and making it easier for the player. Its actualy quite fun playing against three or four evenly matched powerfull AI civs than dozens of weak non-runners. Lately I've been experimenting with small numbers of civs with quite alot of flavor and it can be a much better game, it makes it more challenging but without the blatant cheating and basic unfairness found in the harder difficulty levels.
The second scenario will just have three or four civs but with each of them having individual flavoured units.

Some good ideas for UUs though, will have to look at the list and make some models. No ideas for planes yet, Vbraun was going to make a mars plane, but hasn't yet...

 

[vbraun]

No ideas for planes yet, Vbraun was going to make a mars plane, but hasn't yet...

I should start that.

 

[Smoking mirror]

Well if you want me to do the storyboards for that other plane/spaceship you were working on I'd be happy to. I'm going to do a few early mars planes today just to see how they turn out.

The way I see it the progression would be;
Solid rocket booster plane (long and thin, good at break through attacks not a good interceptor, very high speed but fairly short range due to the fact that the engines cannot be throttled down or up).
Turbofan Gas-turbine marsplane (fairly cheap compared to other mars planes, this is a stock plane with very large engines to deal with the thin atmosphere and broad wings to provide maximum lift, not a lot of room left for weaponary so it is mostly a recon plane)
Liquid fuel rocket plane (a fairly good all round plane, converted to military duties from a civilian template. fairly expensive).
Liquid fuel bomber (converted from a ground to space cargo transporter and launched from a Maglev mass driver ramp. large plane, very expensive).

 

[vbraun]

So, it looks like I'm making the Turbofan Gas-turbine marsplane? (after looking at the picture)

 

[Goldflash]

I don't think thats optimistic at all. It will just take time and effort, commodites people don't seem willing to spend these days.

 

[Smoking mirror]

Currently I'm using my mothers computer, on the 13th of next month I'm moving to Leeds. Perhaps in a few months I will have saved enough money to buy a new computer but untill then I have a deadline that cannot be changed.

I spend about 5-7 hours a night on Civ III related stuff, model making, animating, texturing etc... on top of the eight hours a day I spend at work. It's amazing how you can spend that much time and at the end of it only have made one model with textures or half a dozen animations, every thing takes about ten times as long as you would hope...

Vbraun; I've had a bash at the turbofan jet already today, but two versions would be nice. One could be a UU.
Alternativly you may want to work on the Liquid rocket jet or bomber, as these will be fairly high tech and a bit more fun to model and animate.

Heres the preview of the turbofan jet, I've chosen a broad delta winged design with a boxy fuselage and canards for easy manuvering, flaps wouldn't really be up to the job in such thin atmosphere;

 

[vbraun]

I was just going to make something like the picture you posted in the Gradius preview thread.

 

[vbraun]

A preview of the Mars plane is in my avatar. Just the basics. Any comments on it?

 

[the100thballoon]

Nice! But IMHO it looks like a U2 plane, not a wide-winged, large-engined stock plane.

Its sure as hell better than I could do but it doesnt look like it fits the mold.....

 

[vbraun]

So I should make the wings bigger or the body smaller?

 

[the100thballoon]

IMHO:

I guess the body looks good. I would make the wings wider like this:

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bad diagram but all I can do right now. IMO the triangles are too acute. Try making them almost right triangles. The tail also looks "boxy". Other than that its good.

Please take this as constructive criticism. I dont mean to pick apart your work. I cant do anything close to that. Good luck!

 

[vbraun]

Please take this as constructive criticism. I dont mean to pick apart your work. I cant do anything close to that. Good luck!

I take all critisism as constructive unless it plainly says "that sucks". This was really just 20 minutes of work and want to see if I'm going in the right direction (that includes starting over once because of a crash).

I can see what you mean by saying "boxy". I'll work on it more tommarow.

 

[Bjornlo]

I would suggest moving the wings slightly forward. And the tail section to be more matched to the "swoopy" forward wings. As is they seem a tiny bit at odds.
Perhaps posting a larger preview would help?

 

[Smoking mirror]

I dunno, I think the preview looks good. Will need some big jets in the same sort of position as the A10 or a single jet in the same sort of set up as the V1...

Actualy the U2 spyplane would be a good starting point for design, as it is engineered to fligh at high altitude in the thin atmosphere. All round good work, I think it'd be good to have a light starting plane made of superlight materials for scouting and very light bombing.

 

[LMR]

do you need any help with tech, building or wonder icons? coz i could help if you want me to

 

[Goldflash]

Yo. Smoking Mirror.. Are you working off of a list or just making units as the idea hits you? If working off a list, could you post it?

 

[Smoking mirror]

well, generaly I will make a model with some options (different guns, equipment etc...) and see how many usefull variants I can make from it. So I have a kind of a list based on those variations that I have not finished animating.
Sometimes a new variant will become aparent after the main model is finished that wasn't imediatly obvious before, while sometimes an idea that I had before turns out not to look as good as I thought.

 

[Goldflash]

Intresting Approch... but you may want to set down what you need and what you don't need or you'll never get the mod finished.

What types of ground vehicles do you plan to have?