Master of Orion 2 Modification - Legends - RELEASED

[TomFrame]

EDIT 2015-Late September

This project was obviously discontinued, if anyone wishes to pick it up where I left and make it ready for Universe, go ahead and do so with my blessingl. The mod is made for Legends, however it will work if you extract specific parts of it and install it manually (?) such as Music or Graphics...

I have started a moo2 conversion for Distant Worlds: Legends. The game will have pictures, names, gameplay similar to moo2 (race traits), sounds and music from the game.

Version 1.0

Extract Master2t in Costumization folder.
Extract Effects in Root\Sound
take backup first

Have fun!

[font="Arial"]CHANGELIST[/font]

-Characters with names similar to the ruler-name-suggestion at startup.

-Character images that corresponds with the spies, generals and scientists of each race
+other races that the race has good bias with.

-System names of what the Orion sector had (1000+) DONE

-Ship names similar to moo2 Primary Update Focus

-Troopimages, picture type (pwr armor, armor, infantry, battleoid) will depict lvl of strength

-Dialog of what the races in moo2 would say

-Agentnames

-Designs that corresponds to what each race generally liked to do with theyre ships.

-Include help file in the ingame menu that contains description of each race

-Replace the Guardians with Loknars army.

-Replace the Shakturi with the Antarans.

-Add other races with pictures from the game (if I have the time...)

-Add music from Master of Orion 2 DONE

-Add race pictures DONE

-Replace sounds\tracks thats been triggered by an event (eventmusic) DONE

-Extract sound effects (lasers, missiles...) and REPLACE DWL soundeffects DONE

-Selection of heroes that progresses with the game. Late games get Loknar and AlexD.

-Add Diplomacy Music that changes depending on xeno relations (good\neutral\bad) DONE

-Extract and edit with photoshop all ships from Master of Orion 2! Will take heavy time, but critical touch!

The game as it stands now

ver. 1.0
The races have been added, music and sound effects are in. Right now, these are the core reasons for playing the mod. More things to come...

It is pretty fun to play now. Music and sound effects definately adds a new feel. Eventmusic (such as Discover.mp3) has been altered to simulate moo2. The GNN theme now plays when your faction finds anything and you get the option to investigate or ignore (this is an example, many more things are implemented)

If you are considering downloading this for the sake of finding awesome gameplay, do so. The game is DW:L with relaxing moo2 music, races, sound effects and names. It's Master of Orion 2's contet with Distant Worlds gameplay!

[Awaras]

Awesome.
Do you plan on using MOO2 shipsets?

[Data]

Only MOO2 as it's the only one....well, MOO1 also but not MOO3. That game does not exist [:)]
Great idea, Tom [&o]

[TomFrame]

I wasnt planning on doing moo2 shipsets, but I might redo all the effects entirely including the shipsets if that works.

Youll see... soon enough i hope

EDIT: Yes, I will eventually do the shipsets, but It will be weird and hard finding the right ones for construction, exploration, refueling, carriers...

This will take some work, and I currently don't have time. It will be done sooner or later - promise

[Starkiller]

Data, can you direct me to a comprehensive MOO 3 review? I have many 4x games, including DW with both expansions, and all three MOO games.
I have played MOO and MOO2 extensively when they came out, but I received MOO 3 from a friend and never had a chance to try it yet. I've read
about how people hate it, but never why. I have to admit that I'm rather curious about it now. [:D]

Starkiller

[Jon Micheelsen]

@TomFrame:

Wuhuuu!

Concerning ships, I've been playing around with the ship editor in Galactic Civilizations to make a series of ships in the style of the green fleet in MOO2. By print screen from the right angle and a bit of image editing this carrier design is a quick example of how it can come to look:



If you like this, I got all the ships and bases made in GC2 for a green MOO2 style team - however I haven't got around to print screen them all and compose the pictures yet - but could be persuaded to get it done, as your mod project is awesome!

@Starkiler: Vanilla MOO3 is absolutely horrible. It looks ugly, with ugly ugly interface of poor poor non intuitive design - there are sub-sub-sub-sub-menus. It plays terrifyingly bad - or rather you MUST let the engine micromanage almost everything, as there is no way on earth that you can manage to micromanage the over complicated billion settings - which the engine does rather bad - even when you've spend a long time setting it's automation up. MOO3 IS a macro game, micro can't be done in reality!! So many things are buggy, defect or so unbalanced that it's a joke - no kidding, you research so fast in the original version that you cannot finish building a ship before it's outdated by your own tech progress! Diplomacy is very very random and you are spammed like crazy - and must respond or become hated. Space combat is real time using something as odd as voxel-space graphics, and looks appallingly ugly too. You have a minimum control of space combat, you move your ships in fleet formations - that have near zero tactical effect on the outcome! I know I can flame it more, but this thread here is not about MOO3, so I'll stop by saying that there where mods made that made the game sorta playable, but still from the core, that game was flawed to begin with.

[Awaras]

The main problem with MOO3 for me was that Quicksilver (the company that made MOO3) promised a lot of great things. MOO3 had a great community. Devs would come to the forum every day and post new titbits about the game. Beta testers would come to the forum and praise the game. We all thought we were getting a worthy successor to the MOO franchise, and then we got... that. [:(] A game in which the best strategy AI had was to build hundreds of troop transports and send them at your ships to get destroyed.

After MOO3 I have never allowed myself to get excited about any game until i have seen it.

The lesson everyone should learn from MOO3 should be this: If you want to reduce the micromanagement of your game by removing control from the hands of the player and giving it to AI, you had better make damn sure that this AI actually works. And it is very difficult to code a 'smart' AI.

[Awaras]

Tried to find MOO2 shipsets on google, this guy posted all of them on his blog:
http://www.3ln.org/master-of-orion-2-sh ... s-by-color

[Data]

Hi Starkiller,

I also had the same reaction as you and tried it. Man, was I ever right do it.....for the principle's sake as the game itself was nothing like a MOO2 diehard would expect.
It has many good things but DW is far more in the spirit of MOO2 than MOO3.

As for reviews I have none atm, I'm sure there are tons of them as many were dissapointed by this.

Hope this helps but you're still right to try it and see for yourself.

[Jon Micheelsen]

The failed promises where indeed tragic, I had forgotten that completely[8|]

There are indeed good things in MOO3, I really liked some of the new race designs as well as the re-designs of some of the MOO2 ones. The huge friendly peace loving gas-giant dwelling beings where among the most unique and original beings I've ever seen in a space game. Also the way planets had a race defined scale of terraform-ability instead of a set planet class with a quality parameter was a very interesting idea. Planets where truly diverse and one planet ideal for one race could be highly toxic for another. A lot of the massive amounts of details where indeed very interesting and well done - though very hard to manage in any other way than on empire automation. Do try the game, but be ready for a very polarized experienced of micro managing reaching both too much and too little.

@TomFrame

Reading your first post once more, I have to express again, how thrilling this mod sounds!!! I've been considering sculpting Bulrati's and other moo races a few times, to make something similar. My approach would be to sculpt by hand in oil clay, and have a college 3D scan them at work, as I know very little about digital sculpting of organic shapes. I wouldn't know what to do with the scans from there on however[:'(]

[TomFrame]

Wow guys, didn't know this would get this much praise...

Well I can give you guys an update on how I am doing and what to do next and HOW I do

Finished: Adding all races with race.txt

Currently I am working on basic setup to make the races appear ingame without any errors and show all the respective information and graphics I have laid out for them. The races currently uses basic  default ship Design and default information.

When the absolute basics are DONE, you will have access to the first release (including soundtracks and sound effects)

Then I move onto all the other basics: TroopImages, Systemnames, Agentnames, adding more Characters, designs... all the easy stuff

When the basics are done I will extract the Generals, Spies and Scientists from Moo2 from each race and edit them in photoshop so that they will appear ingame. This will take quite some time, but I do believe it will be worth it. I will also consider adding all the other leaders in, but that might come later.

[font="verdana"]And in the end I might redo many of the other graphics including the beams, explosions and so on...

Now for the HOW:

I use a tool to extract lbx files. Since master of Orion 2 files are compromised of MANY lbx archives, I simply open them up and extract the files into modern file types. This includes shipImages and raceImages. Then I use Adobe Photoshop to make them "better" for dwl and place them in a folder. The sounds were done in this way also, but with mp3\wav converters and so on...

Last thing: I am adding a costum race in moo2 - this race will be intended to have the race.txt shortcut placed at Desktop so you can design your own race (ala moo2). The biasing will be 0 on all races, the troopimages will be somewhat default, but I can make a quick guide on how to change all that quickly before creating a new game and playing with the selected race.

Really last thing: Thank you for the likes and praises - moo2 is still awesome and is being played online as we speak (I am playing Online with other players RIGHT now)

Join [/font][font="verdana"]IRC [/font][font="verdana"]Quakenet #moo2 and see for yourself - have a nice day!
[/font]

@Jon Micheelsen

That would be great! I could really use the designs for the costum race I had in mind - or other additional races I would plan to add - perhaps the Guardians (or soon-to-become-Loknars army) or perhaps the Sha... the Antarans ^^

@Awaras

Wow, come to think of it, you just saved me A LOT of time. Thank you very much (now ill just need the Antaran, but it is perhaps covered too)

[Awaras]

Well, the quality of the ship images is not that great. If you can use them that's excellent, I meant to show them to you so that you can look at them all at the same time, see which ships you can use for what role and such... For example, the smallest ships would make great fighters/bombers if you don't want to use the actual MOO2 fighters/bombers cause they are too small.

[TomFrame]

I will not use the frigates in moo2 as fighters - I will use them all as they should just another size class relative to DWL.

I think I can extract the fighters and use them as well - even bombers and heavy fighters ^^

This means that frigates in moo2 becomes escorts, destroyers becomes frigates...

Titans are Capital Ships ^^

Doom Star... if possible planet destroyer if not a Defensive Base.

Civillian ships will be tricky...

[Awaras]

Long time since I booted up MOO2, but if memory serves every shipset also had a colony ship, a troop transport and a freighter, right? You could see them in the build meny but they never showed up in combat. Also there were 3 (or 4?) starbases each, right?

[Jon Micheelsen]

The troop, colony and freight ship was the same for all races, but had a different color. Indeed they never appeared in combat, in fact they didn't have turn animations, like the rest. There was a small a medium and a large starbase - no more.

I advice against using the original MOO2 ship graphics. The smallest ones are around 17x17 and the largest reach only 50x50. In comparison the fighters in DW:L are 100x100, the biggest ships and bases reaching up around 350x350. The original MOO2 ships would look extremely blurred. Further they are so small that shopping them up in size would be extremely hard - I've tried[:(]

As in game ship render size is directly related to how much space your design is, alternatively, you could scale down ships on a universal scale, making all ships maybe 25% through modding the race ship size data in the race files. I've considered this as an alternative game style experiment, but I think the in game initial designs would act up odd - and the thought of pirates with super 400% size bonus would be scary indeed!! Also even making a combat capable ship on the first tech levels would be hard!!

[Awaras]

ORIGINAL: Jon Micheelsen

The troop, colony and freight ship was the same for all races, but had a different color. Indeed they never appeared in combat, in fact they didn't have turn animations, like the rest.

Well you made me reinstall the game. I lost 4 hours playing. I blame YOU for that! [;)][;)][;)]
But seriously, ah the nostalgia... [:)]

Anyway, here is a shot of colony ships from two random shipsets.

As you can see, there is not MUCH difference, but there is a difference. It's the same for troop, freight and outpost ships...

[TomFrame]

Ship Design is one of the latest things on my list, but if what you say is true, then I might not bother with them at all!


I shall test this right away to give me some thinking time until I begin working on it.

And now for something slightly different:

All races work ingame perfectly with all the graphics showing up nice. The Meklar are a bit weird when they show up on their flag, but otherwise all looks reasonable.
Music also works quite nice now, here is a thing I would like feedback on:

Should I, or should I not include a few of Distant Worlds best soundtracks within the game along with the master of orion 2 soundtrack? (Soundtrack includes 50-60% of all music that is possible to hear in moo2 - a few of the soundtracks emerge by events)

EDIT: I will post the moo2 music and you can costumize yourself what you'd like to have in the game.

[TomFrame]

There is no problem at all - I will continue my work as planned.
Thanks for the potential heads up though

EDIT: I have used special tools to stop the picture from going blurry - all is good.

[Awaras]

ORIGINAL: TomFrame





There is no problem at all - I will continue my work as planned.
Thanks for the potential heads up though

EDIT: I have used special tools to stop the picture from going blurry - all is good.

[X(]

Awesome!
Keep up the great work![:)]

[TomFrame]

small update:

Done with races and everything works.
Currently working on stuff like Policy, growth rate and so on - not to mention balance, victory conditions and resource bonuses (and race periodic events)
Also fixing some sounds (some sounds were too long or loud)

Last here is my impression:
The sounds that are implemented and the graphics are AWESOME! I seriously suggest you download it when I am finished with it. Especially when I'm done with shipDesign and effects

Some things I wish I could alter, but can't:
Things like: omniscient, stealthy ships, telepathic, trans dimensional, tolerant, lithovore\cybernetic, government types, hyper disruption, boarding, reputation...
Not to mention mind controlling planets, making hyper disruption early technology, making different components to shields and so on...

This means that the attributes of a single race in DWL will have "TRANSLATED" effects of MOO2. Tolerant\Lithovore means lowcolonizecost\researchcost and high production on some planets. High pop growth was easy, cybernetic means better armor for starbase and bonus to certain things while aquired certain resources...

I will have to go random at some point, but then you can give me feedback!