Phoenix Rising

[Chandler]

Ahh, I would love to add diplomacy, but it was asked of the devs if the political control system could be revived and they said it could not. What that guy is doing for that other mod in the video is something entirely in LUA and not part of the original game; frankly, it's beyond me how he does it .

[CLONECOMMANDER501]

Well, I'm giving it a shot.

[Chandler]

Good luck .

[Relenzo2]

So, is this the last update to the mod?

[Chandler]

Huh? No...

[Chandler]

...there's another game-changing one on the site!

[Chandler]

One more ship closer to a release...

[YertyL]

I know this is asking much, but is there any chance you could release a German version and/or a list of all the changes made to the "MasterTextFile_ENGLISH.DAT"?
It's slightly annoying when most descriptions red "MISSING"

Also, ATM it really takes a LOT of time to tech up and/or build units/buildings... what exactly is the point of slowing down the gameplay if you slow everything (movement, income, building and researching) down?

[Chandler]

Well, I can't translate the strings, but I can simply put the new ones into the MasterTextFile_GERMAN.dat if someone could send me an unadulterated copy of it from FoC. Your best bet now is to rename MasterTextFile_ENGLISH to MasterTextFile_GERMAN; that will get rid of the missing strings.

The point was so that players had to utilize more than a single shipyard for the whole galaxy, but you'll be able to choose a tech level in the next version.

[Chandler]

Three updates wrapped into one to flesh out the new space structures (on the site)!

[YertyL]

Originally Posted by Chandler

Well, I can't translate the strings, but I can simply put the new ones into the MasterTextFile_GERMAN.dat if someone could send me an unadulterated copy of it from FoC. Your best bet now is to rename MasterTextFile_ENGLISH to MasterTextFile_GERMAN; that will get rid of the missing strings.

The renaming actually works! I'm feeling slightly dumb now... :-p

I've played the scenario "The conflict begins" once on the Rebel and once on the Imperial side now, and there are a lot of concepts I really, really like (e.g. transports generating cash and non-linear tech tree), however there are also some things that I think could be changed:
- IMO there are (gameplay-wise) too many heroes. I think most of the "commander heroes" (e.g. Leia, Tarkin, Piett, Bast, Dodonna etc.) should either be given a significant combat bonus (e.g. Thrawn) or removed. ATM you can have at least 5 commander heroes per fleet, which is a bit much; also, this way no one will ever build a commander unit, since he has far too many anyways. Also, I think Bail Organa/Mon Mothma and Sate Pestage/Palpatine could be merged into one without losing too much gameplay-wise; Blackhole is nothing more than a free probe-droid and Soontir Fel and Marek Steele are both just better starfighters with a commander bonus.

- I think research is ATM far too costly. Consider that usually in strategy games you pay perhaps 1-3 times the price of a unit for upgrading it. In PR you can have either say 20 squadrons of upgraded TIE fighters or about 60 squadrons of slightly worse ones. Without a pop cap in galactic mode, I think most players would strategically chose the latter.

-This is a minor/personal taste thing, but I think the ships not appearing in the movies should be somewhat restricted to the later stages of the game, i.e. you should not normally build the Eclipse before the DS1 or a Republic Star Destroyer before the first Mon Calamari cruiser. However, I guess the tech tree will be more sophisticated anyways in the final version, since this is a "starfighter mod".
Oh, and I am totally against removing the DS2 in favor of the Eclipse. I would rather have it if the "planetary destruction" ability of the Eclipse was removed to give it a weakness compared to the Death Stars.


EDIT: I just got an idea about the hero issue, though I don't know if this cann possibly be coded. How about making some heroes spawn (and respawn automatically) from the beginning (e.g. Palpatine, Mothma, Vader and Luke) while others have to be bought, but you are restricted to buying one at a time from a certain group, e.g. you can either have Tarkin who helps your research or Bast who finds weaknesses against starfighters or Piett who gives a bonus to capital ships; however if one of those dies you can chose again. This would limit the number of heroes and provide strategical diversity. Other groups could be Boba Fett/ Marek Steele/ Soontir Fel or Leia Organa/Jan Dodonna/Crix Madine

[Chandler]

Originally Posted by YertyL

- IMO there are (gameplay-wise) too many heroes.

Heroes have since been made buildable and you won't be able to access all of them from each campaign. You can read more about it on the site.

Originally Posted by YertyL

-This is a minor/personal taste thing, but I think the ships not appearing in the movies should be somewhat restricted to the later stages of the game

Yeah, a side effect of the mini-mod and not everything being done yet.

[YertyL]

Just on a side note, why are you going so heavily into the direction of making the Rebels and Imperials similar?
For example, Imperials get buildable fighters, better fighters (Gunboat and TIE advanced) and raid fleets. The Rebels get a (relatively small) dreadnought and Star Destroyers (!), however to balance this the Imperials get a Dreadnought of the exact same size and cost (the "Praetor").
I liked it that in the original EAW, the Empire had cheap but worse-than-their-Rebel-counterpart fighters on the one hand and some extremely elite but expensive fighters (TIE defender) on the other hand. It seemed to fit them that they primarily had to care about their cap ships while being able to waste their fighter/bomber squad.
IMO both the raid fleet and Hyperdrive-equipped fighters should remain (mostly) exclusive to the Rebels, just to represent that they were not a second Empire, but had a totally different style of warfare.


Btw. I do hope I'm not sounding too negative - I really really like this mod; tech diversity and alternative ways of money-making, buildable & upgradable heroes and different space structures and of course making a Star Destroyer worthy of its name are all things I greatly enjoy - there are just small issues with the diversity of the factions as well as the general balancing I am ATM a little worried about

[Chandler]

Well, I'm not a huge fan of artificial faction differentiation, I would rather leave those choices up to the player as to how he or she chooses to command his or her faction. If you want to play strictly canonical, the Empire pours its research into new starfighter classes (but not necessarily upgrades), while the Alliance heavily upgrades their starfighters. But you don't have to. If you don't want to use some units, then you simply don't build them.

While it does make their ships comparable on paper, the updated campaigns don't put the two factions on equal footing at all, so it's really a matter of being able to afford these ships for the Rebels. The problem is that a lot of people think the research takes too long or costs too much, and that's the only thing keeping the star destroyers and whatnot out of Alliance fleets. However, you will be able to pick a tech level in the next version, so you can choose how deep in the tree you start with ships unlocked.

[Glabro]

So are you endeavouring to make the space combat shooting have lots of misses but deadly hits (movie-like) or just lots of misses but canon damage / shields?

I think we can agree that the original form (with magic pinpoint accuracy vs. starfighters, who could take zillions of hits) didn´t look very good.

[Chandler]

Well, doing movie-style "insta-gib" is harder if you're also doing realistic armaments. But the canon is so contradictory with technical things that you have to use some kind of standard, and I chose X-wing series units, so it probably plays more like tactical XW than anything. So that means a single concussion missile will take out most fighters and hulls can generally take a couple of laser hits before totally breaking apart. But turbolasers will almost always miss fighters and lasers can't target capitals very well.

I don't find the movies to be necessarily representative of things like shield and hull ratings... I think you can write a lot of that stuff off as critical hits or, at the very least, storytelling. And who's to say shields were ever at 100% when you see these ships being destroyed? It's just too much over-analytical fanboy speculation as far as I'm concerned, so I opted for balance in that respect.

[Glabro]

I´m fine with that. I went the same route myself.
Also, I´d definitely draw a line between the movies and EU material like games. Of course, EU stuff like the comics probably conform more to the movies than anything else, but I believe the X-Wing game series is a fine benchmark. Playing X-Wing Alliance right now myself!

[Chandler]

Fighter complements make their return to Phoenix Rising in the next version! Full story on the site.

[Chandler]

We're celebrating our first birthday with game-breaking news! I mean, that's way better than cake anyways .

[Chandler]

Rebel update: three new models and one completely new unit. Check the site!

[Chandler]

Now announcing no less than six new units on the site!

[Chandler]

Who likes star destroyers ? Two new ones on the site!

[YertyL]

Hmmm - Are you not getting a little concerned that there are too many similar ships to the point that there will be only a few truly used while 80% are never built? E.g. I find that I never build patrol ships or skyprays in the minimod, since there are already enough bombers and anti-capital ships out there. I'm afraid that e.g. of the Imperial and Tector-class Star Destroyer only one wil be researched and built, since they both have very similar roles (heavy anti-capital) and their slight differences don't make it worth it researching and using both...

I hope again that this doesn't sound too critical... I'm still looking forward to this mod very much and believe it will be a major enhancement compared to the unmodded version.





But if you want to do me a favor, take out the Empire raid fleets and Rebel cap ship hangars

[Chandler]

Certainly some ships are intended to replace others - that's one of the benefits to researching - but I'm using the upgrades to make them more unique. A lot of them start out quite similar because canon dictates such, but think of it as the last common ancestor of an evolutionary divergence. The Dreadnaught/Dodonna upgrades are one of the better examples of this. They're basically the same ship to start with, give or take a few cannons and some cosmetic changes, but the Dreadnaught accepts its speed limitations and opts for better armor and more weapons, while the Dodonna essentially becomes a 700-meter frigate in terms of speed and maneuverability.

But, uh, yeah... Imperial raids and Rebel hangars are staying. It's just way too much of an artificial way to differentiate the factions and comes across as forced.

[Oldschool]

chandler, do you have any experience in modding in lua? cause it would be really cool if you could play around with it and attach an lua file to like a hanger on land and make it prevent you from creating star destroyers in space when it's destroyed... So cool! but alot of the stuff like special abilities is hardcoded which sucks, other than that all you would need to do is create a new m3d file. Did some research on it myself. all i came up with is dead links and articles ABOUT it but none to what program makes em'. I read a little but most they say is still being researched..etc. If you could just access that part of the engine and combine that will lua, oh man we would most assuredly dominate the galaxy!!! Anyway, hope i didn't creep you out or anything just to say glad your visiting the forums and all...

[Chandler]

Yeah, I have some experience with LUA, being a programmer by trade, but it's definitely something I could get into more as I figure out EaW scripting (getting there). I'm not too familiar with M3D though, but anything that could potentially give you greater engine access sounds intriguing. There are certainly plenty of things I would like to do with PR, but can't because of modding limitations. I'll keep my eyes open; thanks for the tip.

[Chandler]

New team member! Check the site to read more (click on my sig).

[Chandler]

Halloween update on the site .

[YertyL]

The Mon Cal ships look great :-D And here I was thinking the Rebel side was becoming too SD-heavy :-p

Anyways, are you ATM planning on modding the ground battles?

[Chandler]

That's the plan for version 2, but have to finish 1 first.

[Nancy Allen``]

I can't remember if I played this or not, but I've played mods like this before and some of the heroes and units were missing from them.

[Chandler]

LOL, well, thanks for unjustly grouping us, but no, nothing was missing that I claimed would be in the mini-mod.

[Chandler]

Head to the website to see the most guns - hands down - ever put on a single ship for EaW in action .

[Nancy Allen``]

I might have to have a look at this then.

[Chandler]

Skirmish. Is. Back.

And so are the Mod of the Year Awards, so be sure to vote for us while you're thinking about it ! Just click the golden wrench to head to our Mod DB profile.

[Chandler]

Five new land maps to kick off our holiday update !

[Chandler]

We've made the Top 100! And we have a date...

[Chandler]

Space has launched! Check the site for download mirrors!

[YertyL]

I came back from christmas holidays just yesterday and noticed that PR has finally been released!! Needless to say I was pretty excited
I started playing the "Core worlds" campaign yesterday evening for a while and noticed a few things...
- A longer readme/hero descriptions would be very helpful. I find it kinda hard to figure out what certain units/buildings are good for, which heroes can be built where, what each hero unit is good for etc. etc. It would be helpful if the description of each hero unit would list its bonuses. And I still don't know what space tugs are good for...
- I've just had 2 exception errors in a row when trying to defend myself against invading Empire forces on Farrrfin (the map is Abregado Rae). Emperor Palpatine was the only hero unit present in the battle
-Main menu just takes a long time to load. I believe you wrote in another thread that reducing the number of ships does not reduce loading time, but could you perhaps experiment a little with this? It was somewhat frustrating, especially when the 2 crashs to desktop in a row occured...

I haven't seen much of the mod yet, but besides the points mentioned above it looks very solid (buildable heroes are just cool ) I'm excited to try out the new hero upgrades :-)))

[Chandler]

Yeah, I cut a lot of the user-friendliness to get it out in time for MOTY. Expect the descriptions and whatnot to be filled in in v1.1. Also, I'm planning on updating the website with more information than it currently has, so that will turn into the manual in effect. Space tugs, and all utility craft, specialize in repair, by the way.

We think the exceptions are somehow related to bombing runs, but other than that, the exact one hasn't been pinpointed yet. You can bypass them by auto-resolving land battles though, which is the reason they weren't found in testing.

As for the load times, someone on the forums caught that I was using bad LUA syntax by making string literals span multiple lines and now that I've fixed that, it appears that the mod loading times have improved. But it's perhaps too early to say for certain.

I'm glad you like the new hero system! I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, with the exception of the perma-death bug and also apparently you can build Pellaeon and a couple others multiple times. But it gives me the foundation to add infinite amounts of minor characters to the mod now .