Request partners; MARS mod

[vbraun]

Here are the files:

Storyboard and Civopedia
Hopefully .tar.gz is ok?
Your obviously going to have to resize the civopedia. I'm not sure what size it is.

 

[Camber]

SM, If it isn't too much to ask, could you make the Mars terrain so that it can interface with an Earth terrain? The purpose being to allow other scenarios where the two planets are side-by-side with a vast amount of space between them.

I'm currently working on a scenario of this variety. I have Sea representing Space. The map is 100x360, with Earth 100x100 (using V.Soma's map for Rhye's of Civilization: Clashing Empires), Mars 54x54 (I used diameters rather than surface area for the ratio of the two planets) with space on the margins (so unfortunately Mars isn't wraparound). My map has a long stretch of Space between the two, with a high movement cost to get the distances correct. The Space terrain is by Lukree, I've taken his wOOO file and used it to replace the regular wSSS and lwSSS Terrain files (the landmark Space terrain has a higher movement cost, and I use it for the vast distances between Earth and Mars, while the regular Space terrain is immediately around the planets, and connects Earth to its Moon and Mars to its two moons).

I'm currently using the Mars terrain pack by Sprnv8, using it as LM Desert, LM Grassland, LM Mountain, and LM Forest (for some harvestable resources). LM Plains and LM Hills I'm reserving for moons, with the hopes that I can find an all-grey-palette terrain for these two. The LM terrain feature of C3C allows me to use Mars, Earth, and moon terrains in the same map, though with some limitations.

The problem is that the Firaxis, Sprnv8, and Lukree terrains do not interface well together.

So that is a long-winded way of suggesting that you make .pcx's with your coast merging with a "space" water terrain, and also an Earth terrain coast merging with the same "space" water terrain. It would increase the utility of your terrain graphics.

EDIT: Also bear in mind that if you want to use "global warming" to terraform Mars, the following tiles are interchangeable, meaning that the game will support transformation between them in whatever order you choose: Hills, Mountains, Volcano, Grassland, Plains, Forest (no matter whether its on Tudra, Grassland, or Plains), Jungle, and Marsh. The following tiles will NOT transform, no matter what you have them transforming into: Desert, Coast, Sea, Ocean. Tundra is a special case, you can get it to transform to Forest, and from there it can access the interchangeable tiles that I listed first. All this comes from extensive testing.

 

[Smoking mirror]

Camber; That sounds like a scenario I'd like to try, I did something similar with CIVII a few years ago, but could never get it to work.
One of the reasons is that if you have mars at the top and earth at the bottom you have to have all the space launch locations on the noth pole. You could do a special map, I forget the name, but it is like earth but split in to the faces of a geodesic sphere and then unwraped. The other option is to make spaceships helicopter type units, that can transport ground units, but then you get instant transportation, unless you bridge the gap of space with some islands, representing asteroids where you can set up space bases (Cities or airstrips), so that the Space ship can island hop between them.

Or perhaps you can have a paradrop boat? I don't know if it works in CIV III but it did in civ II, you could then put impassable terrain just north of the north pole, and all civs would hve to parradrop their Boats/spcaeships in to "space"

On the question of whether I can help you out wiht the graphics... If I can find a way to do it in an hour or so I'll consider it, there may be an easy way. If it's going to take lionger though It'll have to wait for a while. One thing I was thinking of doing is making, or having someone else make, a sort of prequal scenario, based on an earth map, with a mission to mars type spaceship or diplomatic victory. It'd only have a few new units and use standard leaderheads, but would have an effect on which file you downloaded for the first mars scenario. It'd be quite fun to play out a space race first, with your actions effecting later play (if you build the first man on mars mission wonder for instance it'd give your civ some advantage in the first mars scenario.

I think this idea would be a little more manageable than the split map, though it's still quite a fun idea you are trying. Also thanks for the tips on terraforming, I think terraforming by global warming is the best idea, and would be good for the third or fourth scenario, when much of the initial work (like aerobraking ice asteroids in to the martian atmosphere) has already been undertaken, or at least regularised and automated. High polution would have to be linked to high population and realy good buildings and wonders though otherwise the AI wouldn't get in to the spirit of it. The only big problem is that I may have to try and swap the tiles for desert and tundra, as desert is currently represnting black dunes of sand, which are not the same as deserts on earth... We will have to wait and see.

The sounds I'm looking for are just any sounds to fit the units for the scenario, basicly they could be almost anything that fits. I'd actualy say that some of the play the world WWII human units have some good victory and talking sounds, so maybe you could get some of them together, or just put together some INI files that link to other CIV III units, I'd like to keep the size of the final download as small as possible so It'd be great if we could just use sounds that are already available within the game. Some sounds of course are going to be more difficult, or could just do with being a bit more interseting.

Another job that needs doing is to track down any units or leaderheads that are already made and on the forums that would be good for the scenario. So if anyone gets time could you have a look around and post some hyperlinks to the right thread...

 

[Anarki]

If you want to find new sound files, then this place is pretty good. www.findsounds.com

 

[Smoking mirror]

Here are the files:

Storyboard and Civopedia
Hopefully .tar.gz is ok?
Your obviously going to have to resize the civopedia. I'm not sure what size it is.

O.K. Going to post it in the finished forums in a bit. I've adjusted the death a bit so that there is more use of alpha blending, so it does'nt come out looking like a big pink/orange blob in game. There are some slight halo effects when viewed in flickster that shouldn't show up in game. It's just part of the way that flickster deals with the alphablending palette, though someone will have to check to make sure..
You realy need to look at the possibility of using a smaller frame size. It should be O.K. if you pick one that matches the current ratio, say 120X120 for example? It'll speed up render times a lot, and also reduce the amount of memory the unit takes up, both when downloading and in game.

It could do with some in game testing, but then again, so could all the units. I've adjusted the civlopedia pic so that it uses green as the civ colour so that it fits with the other units.
Thanks for your assistance Vbraun, hopefully we should get a working scenario before my birthday.

 

[Camber]

In regards to the split map, your point on all the launch locations ending up on the north pole is well-taken, though I think it will be solved. All space ships are naval vessels that are unwheeled, and the space terrain is water, impassable to wheeled (to keep out regular ships). Coastal tiles cost 4 movement each, while Ocean tiles cost 1 each. The Space terrain (Sea) cost is 1000 movement per turn, with the Outer Space terrain (LM Sea) is 10000. (I haven't yet tested this in-game, but the Editor hasn't rejected these values). Early spacecraft will have a movement of 100, and will ignore movement costs for Coast and Ocean. So no matter where you launch from on Earth, your first turn away from port is likely going to end 1 tile out from the top surface of Earth.

V. Soma's map has the top of earth cut off, so there is fairly little Tundra up there, and both Tundra and Forest tiles are unsettleable. This makes the most likely launching points to be coastal cities in the "green zone," rather than somewhere in the cold north.

 

[vbraun]

You realy need to look at the possibility of using a smaller frame size. It should be O.K. if you pick one that matches the current ratio, say 120X120 for example? It'll speed up render times a lot, and also reduce the amount of memory the unit takes up, both when downloading and in game.

It could do with some in game testing, but then again, so could all the units. I've adjusted the civlopedia pic so that it uses green as the civ colour so that it fits with the other units.
Thanks for your assistance Vbraun, hopefully we should get a working scenario before my birthday.

I'll look into smaller frames. Its mainly just a matter of scaling the unit up a little. The rendering goes by pretty fast. (At least faster then renaming the files)

I could rerender it but with Green as Civcolor.

Glad I could help

Edit: Heres a better Civopedia:

 

[Smoking mirror]

Ah, I see what you mean. All units will move at least 1 tile per turn, regardless of any values. A move ment value restriction of 6 just means that all units with a movemnet rate lower than 6 will use all thier move ment to move one square. A unit with a move rate of 12 will move two squares.

I found something that shows something of what I'm thinking about for the martian armour (at turbo squid), Ignore the tits for a second and focus on the suit itself. Ive got some good shots of the suit (the model is available in two parts), but am showing the suit with pilot to show scale and proportion, I'd not use the original (too many poly's and you have to buy it, also it's in MAX format) but would make something inspired by it;

 

[Smoking mirror]

The cities in the first scenario will be made up of four elements, Rocket landers, rover truck, green house and prefab habmodules.

I'm making two of them in to units, here is one of them, the rocket lander. For those who have functioning Rocket landers available, they can use them as helicopter style transports for their foot units;

EDIT; Image removed to save space.

 

[vbraun]

I really can't wait to give this a try!

 

[Smoking mirror]

Hmmm.. not much interest latley?
Well, I'm aproaching the point where I could get the first scenario done. Just need to get ahold of conquests again (and free up enough space to install and run it.

I found some great buildings at turbo-squid, and edited the previews to make some improvement civlopedia icons, I've also incuded some of my own buildings;

Ice refinery/ military headquarters/ Community hall (cathedral)
Radio station/ mine/ chemical factory
Radiaion storm shelter/ Headquarters (palace)/ comercial office tower
Reactor/ heat exhange/ Ecodomes
Science station/ drilling station/ Factory

The colours are a bit reduced in the preview, Does anyone know if the city screen needs anything other than large (128x128) and small (64x64) versions of the above? I can produce smaller versions with magenta ground if needed.

If anyone feels like adding to the building collection feel free. We need things like tent farms, for happyness and city growth, comercial centers and adminstrative buildings, and even small and large wonders.
One thing we do desperately need is mines, work camps and industrial buildings.

EDIT;
Most of these are for the second, third & fourth scenarios. They may apear in the first scenario but will be wonders, none of the original settlements will have over 100 people. So each of the big improvements would take the whole settlement to build and opperate.

 

[Kal-el]

Not a lack of interest, just a lack of time. haven't been able to do any drawing lately. School has me pretty busy.

 

[Neomega]

Oh man those are neat.

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

Agreed Neo.....

This is one scenerio which I cannot wait to play....

 

[Smoking mirror]

Hi All, been doing some more work on the units, I'm still not sure what time scale the first mod should cover, I was keen to make a scenario very quickly to drum up interest, but I doubt I'm going to be able to get hold of a replacement conquests disk for a few weeks, so it may well be better to make a longer scenario with more units and a wider scale.

Some examples of upcoming foot units;

The ACTIVE-ECM-COMBAT-ARMOUR suit as used by earth security forces. The fins and spines send out massive electromagnetic waves to blind enemy sensors before an attack. It is in contrast to the passive ECM (electronic counter measure) armour, or stealth armour used by mars military forces because of the different environments they were originaly designed for. On earth national governments and transnational corporate organisations are in a continual cold war for the wealth of the population of earth. Spys, both electronic and human are everywhere, with continual CCTV coverage on every street and public building. Electromagnetic pulses are routinely used to proceed an attack in order to blind the enemy, but individual units must keep up a constant shield against any devices that may have survived, or have been bought in since the initial blast. However on mars surveilance is mostly from satelites and reconisance planes, which are mostly immune to such brute force attacks, The earth guard will quickly realise this and change tactics, but for the first martian war most imported earth tech uses this tactic.

Martian combat veteransIf you suffer injury or suit failure on mars it can often result in superficial but crippling injuries to the extremities. At -60 degrees centigrade severe Frost bite can make even minor damage require amputaion, so it is no wonder that many veterans of the early fighting on mars recieve cybernetic augmentaion. They can be a usefull addition to the armed forces of any faction.

I'm also going to do a short range of light tanks and vector thrust vehicles.
The nationalist forces will be based on a series of rugged all round designs that upgrade in straight progression. The transnat-comercial forces will be based on a single comercial design for each faction, which starts off quite powerfull but overly specialised and upgrades to a more well rounded but more compromising solution. The first military vehicle available to each faction will be a cheap conversion of the regular earthmover unit, with a rocket launcher instead of a digger arm.

 

[Ozymandias]

Hi SM,

I like the rationale for the two infantry units quite a bit. My only concern is how you'll animate the Active ECM unit without making it look like a jellyfish -- but that's why you're the brilliant animator and I'm not

Abraxas,

Oz

 

[GRM7584]

I think you'd do better making a broader scenario, or even a couple scenarios covering some spectrum of time. Better to take your time with it then pump out a scenario or mod too quickly...
I'm still around on cities and static stuff, I've just had other things to do, or my own space mod's pedia (which I'm doing first, for a change). I'll get it into gear in time, and make something worthwhile, at least. Spring Break for me is next week, and being without any life, I will probably just be messing with the computer.

 

[WildWeazel]

Excellent buildings! Don't you need small icons for the build list too?

 

[Neomega]

The colours are a bit reduced in the preview, Does anyone know if the city screen needs anything other than large (128x128) and small (64x64) versions of the above? I can produce smaller versions with magenta ground if needed.

Civilopedia needs a 128x128 and a 32x32
if its a wonder it needs a 320x320
city view needs a 50x40 and a 32x32


nice infantry too... original.. I like that.

 

[Kal-el]

that Earth suit is awesome! in fact it is right along the lines of the M.A.N.T.I.S. armor I am working on. I just haven't had the time to finish it.

I also like the cybernetic idea for the martians. Of course the Earth forces will also have to have cybernetic troops as well.