General impressions

[EvilleJedi]

Orbital bombardment is used to take out surface facilities in any place there isn't significant theatre shielding or planetary defenses. I am working on some planet abilities that can be researched for this. unfortunately it really needs to be implemented as an ability since the planet has population and health, but you can only capture by taking the health to zero or the allegiance to zero.

 

there will be more options as the abilities settle out.

[kyogre12]

One thing I would like to suggest is that you decrease the ranges on most of the weapons. Part of the fun is just watching SW ships duke it out with each other, but right now it seems like you can watch your own ship, or you can watch the enemy ship, but not both. There are a couple exceptions, like when you are fighting an SSD, Malevolence, etc, but for things like Venator vs. SD, it's hard to see the fight, and if you have a lot of ships, it becomes even harder to get a sense of the scope of the battle.

 

I think that shortening the ranges would help fix a lot of that, so that you can just sit back and watch the battle

 

My 2 cents

[EvilleJedi]

you know you can actually move your ships around in combat?

 

Fighting at short range is brutal and many more abilities and weapons come into play. It is not for those that want to 'sit around and watch the battle'

[kyogre12]

you know you can actually move your ships around in combat?

 

Fighting at short range is brutal and many more abilities and weapons come into play. It is not for those that want to 'sit around and watch the battle'

 

How about this then, it's hard to know what ship to use an ability on when you can only see 4 on screen at any time?

 

Look, the point is that a lot of people will want to play the mod just to see their favorite ships, or to re-enact their favorite battles, which, right now, is hard. And seriously, sometimes is it fun to tell your ships to fight and then just watch them.

[Eddyster]

Had a play today for an hour, and so far is all going smoothly other than some minor tweak bugs (theyre on mantis).

[Valkire]

Nice job thus far.

 

NOTE: I previously posted this in the check-in thread for 0.95 beta and figured this would be a better place for this post.

 

Few things I've noticed (not necessary haven't/have been noticed) and just want to point out.

1. SUPER confused when I first loaded a PC vs CPU game, many if not all of the Empires ships have the same basic description of what they are good at. Which leads to me needing to build all the cruisers and frigates to find which one is the "colonizer." Adding or better yet saying what special (if applicable) niche the ships fills would be good. Also for any ships that can attack fighters/fill the anti-fighter/fighter screen roll. If my cannon knowledge is correct this would be the Lancer (?) frigate (with the Carrack (?) filling the opposite battle field role.)

 

2. I know that Star Wars has a VAST multitude of ships that fill the same exact roles and that's what make a large fleet so cool is all the different ships. And I really don't want this to be Z counters X which counters Y type thing. But maybe it might be an idea to have the frigates more clearly defined as "not the best" to "the best" kind of deal. Not sure how to make this thought process any clearer so sorry in advance for confusion.

 

3. When zooming in on ships and rotating the ship body through the theoretical camera location I get the whole "you can see outer space" because that particular section on craft has gone invisible. I don't know what Sin's normally does (it doesn't do anything bad to the game) and this may be the norm, I just wanted to put it out there.

 

4. Not sure about this but when attacking an Acclamatior with a Nebulan B-2 it looked like the N B-2 was shooting off into "empty" space (no bad guys) with its lasers. There was a fighter squadron attacking my N B-2 at the time from that "general" direction (the "empty" space part). Can N B-2's attack fighters? Is this normal?

 

5. Again if my cannon knowledge, well book knowledge, serves me right (at least the Rebel/Alliance) squadron usually denoted 12 star fighters with six pairs of wing men. Again if I recall correctly an ISD II or ISD I can/does hold/support/have 72 fighters (TIE's) or stated as 6 squadrons. Recalling from Wraith Squadron: Iron Fist one of the Alliances ISD's carried TIE's instead of X-wings, Y-Wings etc. and could house a full six squadrons of TIE's versus the lower squadron count of ISD's that carried the X-Wings, Y-Wings etc. If anyone can actually cite that information to correct an errors or support the claims please do so. I believe the section of the book I am referring to is the asteroid belt fight with the Iron Fist. Any way you can represent that in squadron member counts? I know the game would be a little unbalanced if all the larger capitol ships could carry their "normal" squadron count but has there been any looking into on this?

Again the mod looks great, I've only been able to spend about a hour playing the mod due to school and the like. Keep in mind that I have not had much time to split hairs or check my facts or check every thread to see if any of this has already been covered.

[psychoak]

All, or nearly all ships can attack fighters. I think it's all, but there might be one or two hiding in the morass that can't. If you go digging around through the ship files, there's a hell of a lot of useful information you can glean from them. Those multiple laser weapon entries on all the ships aren't for looks, they're different kinds.

 

Squadron counts are so low because the game will break with thousands of fighters in theater.

[EvilleJedi]

yeah squadron counts keep getting lowered because of the lag issues, so I keep upping their combat power per ship, all having more fighters would od is make each one weaker, not the best solution I know, but with higher squad caps it gets insane really quick

[Caphriel]

I think you possibly mean the battle at Selaggis? Wookiepedia delivers. Solo Fleet - 9 confirmed squadrons of TIEs.

 

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Solo_Fleet

[Blade]

Um this is a question what is the current checksum and when updated to current does it crash at start?

[anachron]

Yes, r270 and above crash at start, try reverting too r269 until there is a new version.

[Heero_Miiyamoto]

I'm presently surprised with the nearly-complete feel of the mod at this stage. The first race I tried was the republic and was, at first, worried about the ARC-170 being called a bomber. However, when I saw my squadrons divide priority between enemy ships as well as enemy squadrons...I'll admit there was a squeal of joy. There weren't many things wrong with it, in my opinion, other than wishing I could have used interceptors and V-wings. For a split second I was a little upset at the ol' bait-and-switch of giving the impression the y-wings were done...only to have the models be those of the B-wing. Oh well, I can live with that.

 

One problem I had was the music, though. I'm sorry if I'm repeating something previously mentioned, but I'm short on time. The synthesized renditions of the songs aren't too great; they just can't replace the classic originals.

 

The other problem was ship speed. How are the cruiser versions of some of the battle ships faster than their capitol versions (i.e. the Venator Class)?

 

Also, the Imperial class II Star destroyers start of with Oppression, but it seems to be affecting them negatively. Why is that?

 

Finally, I noticed that, while the Imperator maneuvers into a broadside firing position, the Imperial II's do not. Nor the Imperial I's, for that matter. Is it a difference in weapon systems or something?

[Evaders99]

I can't comment on the others, except the Y-wing mesh is a reported issue. If you feel strongly that any of these are bugs, you should file it.

[psychoak]

Oppression is a work in progress that isn't real likely to progress. The hope was to be able to negate that specific debuff with the command effects of a capital star destroyer, this may not come about. The main effect of it is a short range taunt though, it's a bit of a drawback for the cruiser itself, but a bonus for any ships around it. You can partially control your enemy by how you position them.

[Heero_Miiyamoto]

I had figured out how to negate the negative effects by grouping them with Tectar (randomly forgot the name) classes that do have Oppression.

As to feeling whether or not those are bugs, I really don't think they could be considered as such. And if the Y-wing issue is common knowledge then I'd hate to beat a dead horse any further than it may have already been beaten.

 

Like I said, the mod feels as though it is 95% complete. It's kind of funny, considering that I have not had any minidumps while running on the highest settings with this mod, but many of the others I have minidump in less than an hour. I believe that makes this the most stable mod that I've played yet...and it isn't even finished.

 

If that doesn't warrant a round of high-fives to those involved, I don't know what could. Well, other than a successful release, of course.

[Galactic_Stormtrooper]

i agree for the most part this is nearly complete but the only things i've noticed have already been reported (y-wing=b-wing and Empire Tree) only real issue that needs tweaking is ship stats/balance

[Evaders99]

Eville's worked a lot to make sure it's minidump free. Nearly everything was redone from 0.90 (no, not the models but all the game files). psychoak has been rocking on the abilities.

We're relying on testers to give more of the feedback with abilities and stats.

[eledain]

I am writing this with a view to focusing on the ongoing direction of the mod (comparing the release version with the current beta build). Obviously a lot of this is opinion, and I have tried to be as constructive as possible with criticism rather than just saying, 'I don't like X'.

 

Aesthetics:

 

The new texture 'style' is absolutely beautiful, and fits the engine far better than the old one, I feel. In particular, the quality of the skin used for the MC-90 really is a vast improvement on the 1.0E Alliance ones (I haven't had chance to check out any changes that may have occurred to the old factions). Similarly, the NR SD's feel much more 'part' of the world than the Imperial SD's - I think it's something to do with the way you have done the surface texturing, it's bolder and has contrast more fitting with the Sins engine. I'm not sure to what extent the Alliance/Imperial textures are left over from the HW mod, but that may be it (I wouldn't like to speculate!).

 

The Vong texturing seems closer to the old style, insomuch as the aesthetics don't seem quite so in-sync as the NR vessels. I'm not sure how finished they actually are, but they seem like they are in a fairly final state; it seems to me that it's partially down to a much less 'busy' look - how you could make a coral vessel look quite so sharp as the NR ones, I'm not quite sure. The striking dark components on them serve to emphasise the bareness of their bodies, in a way.

 

Feel

 

The game pacing has been vastly improved, as has the effectiveness of scouts (which seem to be lasting longer and doing more before they die). The ship speed is, in my opinion, spot on now - it was a little fast in 1.0e. I'm not sure whether it is representative of the WIP of the current build, but I seem to start with nothing but my home planet now (that said, I may just have forgotten to tick the 'quick start' option when starting games, if so, ignore that).

 

I wonder if you could reveal the philosophy behind the new races? I believe you mentioned at some stage that the Empire were powerful but lacked early colonisation, the Alliance was all about survivability, the CIS stack lots of strike craft and the Republic have large homogeneous fleets.

 

--

 

As I say, a mod that I already loved is improving at a staggering rate and far beyond my expectation. Thanks so much for all the time you pour into the project. I will start hunting for bugs, I hope some of the above was useful to some extent!

[Evaders99]

Some of philosophy behind the races are on the Stardock thread (sorry, I can't find the specific post, otherwise would link you there)

http://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/331584

 

Thanks for all the comments so far

[EvilleJedi]

the NR ships are just simply newer models, I'd love to go back on the ISDs and older mon cals, but it is a lot of work most of the NR models aren't finished yet either (except the MC90)

 

most of the vong textures are not finished though, the only one that I'd say is pretty much done is the miid roik, though I have some plans to maybe update that a bit

 

 

As for philosophies on the races

 

NR: high tech, expensive, most of their ships outclass other races, but you will have less of them

 

Vong: much more positioning with tractor holds and push / pull effects, their shielding is being setup to make them recover from battle quicker (they probably won't have repair yards) essentially making their shields tougher but much less hit points and their hulls have a higher regen, they should be hard to take down in a one to one fight, so the strategy against them is to hit them very hard. They will also be focused on colonization

[eledain]

I would offer help, but I wouldn't even know where to begin with texturing, and no attempt would be anywhere near the standard you achieve - I will stick to misc. GUI bits.

 

I adore the MC90 model/skin. Can't wait to see some MC60's alongside!

 

The Miid Roik is certainly the best looking Vong vessel right now, the dark stripes across its 'back' look great. The coral skippers look good too.

[Chimaera717]

One little annoying thing I noticed is that Bothan Assault Cruiser's have the Backup Shields ability, but not enough antimatter to ever use it (BS costs 200, BAC has 150 max). That needs to be fixed, for sure.

 

In addition, I don't think NR and Vong have enough carrier-capable ships to be competitive at the lower levels with the 4 other races. I took my first planet (typical asteroid with an Acclamator) with a BAC, a Battle Dragon, and a Majestic, and the V-19's were harassing that base 15 minutes later because I didn't have any fighters to kill them with. Other races get fighters MUCH earlier than a 3k credit costing Nebula-class SD.

[Evaders99]

Good feedback. Might want to make a bug of the first one

 

Discussions on balance issues are good... keep it up

[Chimaera717]

Bug placed. Also, I went in and edited the BAC's .entity to have 250 max antimatter, as I think that's a more reasonable amount.

 

Also, will the NR frigates remain the same Alliance frigates as before?

 

In addition, it doesn't make any sense for 3 NR frigates to require research but the Mediator-class and Viscount-class starships to not require any research.

 

I know it's just a little issue, but it's prevalent - and if the NR could build Liberator Carriers earlier, it could field a competitive starfighter complement earlier on in the game.

[Evaders99]

I'm sure the research tree still needs a lot of work. I'd expect the NR will get some fighter upgrades... E-wings maybe? I dunno what all of Eville's plans are