Wing Commander

[Haree78]

Ok I have a bunch of source material to add the Kilrathi and the Confederation to the game but obviously with just 2 races they should be added with some other races.

What do you guys think?
Vanilla Distant Worlds?
Distant Worlds Extended?
Some other mod?
Begin a mod that has lots of other game/movie races?

[HectorOfTroy]

Hmm interesting. Maybe DW extended and add some new movie/game races. Would you add new ships as well?

[Haree78]

I have tons of ship images for both Kilrathi and Confederation.

[ehsumrell1]

My vote is for DW Extended! [:)]

[Speedy2511]

I vote for DW Extended!

By the way, i like the ships from WC3 time[:)]

Greetings from Germany
Nico

[Igard]

I'd rather see them in their own mod. I know it's only 2 races, but I prefer to keep things separate.

And who knows, someone might come up with music and sound effects.

[Shadow Tiger]

Start out with DW Extended to get them in the game. Then if someone wants to add them to a larger race expansion it's totally doable.

[Martian]

ORIGINAL: Shadow Tiger

Start out with DW Extended to get them in the game. Then if someone wants to add them to a larger race expansion it's totally doable.

Totally agree!

[richbroughan]

Any progress on this dude?

[2guncohen]

I tried to make a mod about wing commander back in days.
But stopped because of lack of material and time.

Search the forum the word kilrathi youl find it.

Gr 2gun

[RavenX]

ORIGINAL: Haree78
Begin a mod that has lots of other game/movie races?

I'm working on that one my-self right now . Mostly just compiling assets from other modders here to use in my own personal mod. I wouldn't want to re-package it and put it out though because I'd have to track down like 10 other modders here and ask their permission to merge parts of their stuff into a mega mod (giving credit where do of course). Still, it would probably take me a week to try to track them all down and who knows how many of them are even still active.

I'm a HUGE WC fan and I would LOVE to put the Kilrathi and Confederation into my game. Actually they're the only "video game" races I'd even have in my mod as the rest I have planned are all from TV series/movies.

I can do art assets and consider my-self to be "decent" at least. You can see some of my mod work in Elemental:War of Magic (for a lot of I had a team of coders helping me plug in my artwork) but all the skinning and texturing was me, so if you need a hand doing custom ships (and if Kalthaniell is too busy to help you) I'd be glad to try my hand at WC ships.

Question: The Confederation tends to use a LOT of Fighter Craft and Carriers. Could this be sufficiently emulated in DW? Perhaps by adding more Fighter type ship designs and giving the Confederation and Kilrathi "Races" better (bigger and cheaper) Standard Fighter Bays to support their play styles of spamming massive fighter waves along with their Cap Ships. Not too sure how feasible that is as I haven't taken a crack at Policies for Races yet, I'm sure you would know better than I.

Also, speaking of WC Races, we could add the Alien Race from WC:Prophecy (one of my personal favs actually) to have a 3rd Race/Empire from WC.

How would you feel about collaborating with a newb to DW such as I? If you'd rather not I completely understand so no worries. I only ever planned my theme for my own personal enjoyment anyway. If you could pass what shipImages you have to me I would be most grateful and of course give you full credit if you ever authorize a separate release of them if I decided to post my finished "Ultimate Sci-Fi Wars" mod. If you don't want them passed around I'll just keep my mod as my own personal theme. My theme isn't too terribly hard to do as the other awesome modders here (you included) have done all the work for me. All I have to do is take out the races and ships I need from all the existing mods out and cobble them together into my personal theme mod.

Anyway, if you'd like a hand, just say the word. I can get pretty sick though (crohn's disease) and may have to take time away from modding sometimes for weeks or months at a time. Still, on days I'm feeling well enough my time is spent sitting here in front of the PC so when I feel decent I can get a lot done in one day.

[Kalthaniell]

RavenX - if you think any of the stuff I made could fit in the mod you are describing, please feel free to use them. No credits required really I'd help you guys with artwork but I have my hands full atm :[ Anyways, I'm looking forward to see a Wing Commander or a megamod here.

[Igard]

ORIGINAL: RavenX

Question: The Confederation tends to use a LOT of Fighter Craft and Carriers. Could this be sufficiently emulated in DW? Perhaps by adding more Fighter type ship designs and giving the Confederation and Kilrathi "Races" better (bigger and cheaper) Standard Fighter Bays to support their play styles of spamming massive fighter waves along with their Cap Ships. Not too sure how feasible that is as I haven't taken a crack at Policies for Races yet, I'm sure you would know better than I.

Hi RavenX,

You can change the preferences of a race's ship building in their corresponding policies file. If you look at a policy file you'll see these lines (around the 25th line) :-

ConstructionMilitaryCapitalShip ;7
ConstructionMilitaryCarrier ;8
ConstructionMilitaryCruiser ;15
ConstructionMilitaryDestroyer ;20
ConstructionMilitaryEscort ;18
ConstructionMilitaryFrigate ;24
ConstructionMilitaryTroopTransport ;8

The numbers are percentages (so they should always total 100). So here for example the empire with this policy will build 20% destroyers.

You can't however change the costs of components like fighter bays. Would love to be able to do that though!

Also, the fighter and bomber designs are really only determined by the tech tree and the fighters are fitted accordingly automatically.

Hope that helps. [:)]

[RavenX]

ORIGINAL: Kalthaniell

RavenX - if you think any of the stuff I made could fit in the mod you are describing, please feel free to use them. No credits required really I'd help you guys with artwork but I have my hands full atm :[ Anyways, I'm looking forward to see a Wing Commander or a megamod here.

Thanks Kal , I'm already using a bunch of your killer shipImages in my theme as you've done half the races I want in my game. Between you, the awesome Star Trek and Star Wars mods, and the awesome Battlestar Galactica mods, there's really very few ship designs left I would need for my Ultimate Sci-Fi wars. The Kilrathi and the Confederation from WC are two I still need though if I'm going to include them.

It's also disappointing to learn (in another thread) that it looks like I won't be having giant Borg Cubes or Death Stars in my theme which I was hoping to make appear to be the size of a large starport in game but obviously move at the speed of a starship .

Even with your permission I'd need at least 3 other modders permission to release my theme when it's done and one of those is LordXorn who seems to be MIA, which would mean I couldn't get his permission to re-package his shipImages. Being a modder my-self I'd never re-package someone else's work without first asking them and then of course giving them credit in asset creation in my theme.

ORIGINAL: Igard

Hi RavenX,

You can change the preferences of a race's ship building in their corresponding policies file. If you look at a policy file you'll see these lines (around the 25th line) :-

ConstructionMilitaryCapitalShip ;7
ConstructionMilitaryCarrier ;8
ConstructionMilitaryCruiser ;15
ConstructionMilitaryDestroyer ;20
ConstructionMilitaryEscort ;18
ConstructionMilitaryFrigate ;24
ConstructionMilitaryTroopTransport ;8

The numbers are percentages (so they should always total 100). So here for example the empire with this policy will build 20% destroyers.

You can't however change the costs of components like fighter bays. Would love to be able to do that though!

Also, the fighter and bomber designs are really only determined by the tech tree and the fighters are fitted accordingly automatically.

Hope that helps. [:)]

Thank you, Igard . Some of your excellent work is going into my theme as well .

Sadly when I stated the above about my ideas for the Confederation and Kilrathi I didn't know we couldn't mod tech components. I was thinking we could just give those races another version of Fighter Bays which would be cheaper than normal and have a slightly larger capacity each for fighters.

Is there at least a way to tell a race what components and at what percentages to use those in designs? Or perhaps make a new base design for a specific race as the AI already designs ship with certain components on them. We could give the Kilrathi and Confed higher priorities in building carries and design ships for them with less armor or other weapons to make room for having more standard fighter bays.

[Igard]

You're very welcome RavenX. Of course you can use my stuff for your mod, I know there are people who've spoken about how they'd like a multi-universe mod with lots of sci-fi genres. Should be good. [:)]

I suggest you start a game with a race you want to modify. Go to the policy screen and scroll down to the design fine-tweaking area. There should be a drop down menu to change the amount of fighter bays for cruiser and capital ships. There are other tweaks you can make, it's not hard to edit, but is rather limited. There isn't an option for increasing carrier capacity for example.

The only way I know of to change the number of bays in a carrier class ship is to create your own custom design. You'll have to create the design for each level of the tech tree though. It's probably not too much work if you're only going to create carriers for the 2 races.

[RavenX]

ORIGINAL: Igard

You're very welcome RavenX. Of course you can use my stuff for your mod, I know there are people who've spoken about how they'd like a multi-universe mod with lots of sci-fi genres. Should be good. [:)]

I suggest you start a game with a race you want to modify. Go to the policy screen and scroll down to the design fine-tweaking area. There should be a drop down menu to change the amount of fighter bays for cruiser and capital ships. There are other tweaks you can make, it's not hard to edit, but is rather limited. There isn't an option for increasing carrier capacity for example.

The only way I know of to change the number of bays in a carrier class ship is to create your own custom design. You'll have to create the design for each level of the tech tree though. It's probably not too much work if you're only going to create carriers for the 2 races.

Thanks Igard, for only doing it for 2 races it doesn't sound too bad at all. Can it be defined in the Policy files for those 2 AI races to use these specific designs by default though and not just the shipImage set? I would imagine so but I thought I'd ask anyway.

much appreciated my friend, thank you again.

[Haree78]

pm sent RavenX

[Igard]

ORIGINAL: RavenX

Can it be defined in the Policy files for those 2 AI races to use these specific designs by default though and not just the shipImage set? I would imagine so but I thought I'd ask anyway.

The custom designs aren't anything to do with the race policy. You can create custom designs by first designing your ship, then saving it from the ship designs screen. Place the file in your customization/*theme name*/designs/*race name*/ folder. The game should then load the designs you've created.

I've had problems with the custom design system though. I've found that the AI doesn't always stick to what I want it to do. It defaults to the original design after discovering new tech, which kind of defeats the purpose. However it does help the player race as long as you're using manual ship design.