Star Wars - Alderaan (2 years before the Battle of Yavin)- Shadows Mod

[rjord]

Timeline for mod has now changed from 5 years prior to the Yavin battle to 2 years . The mod now starts at a time where:

2 B.B.Y
Mon Mothma issues a Declaration of Rebellion which is distributed by holo to thousands of galactic worlds who then openly declare their allegiance to the Rebellion. These worlds are quickly suppressed by the Empire.

[rjord]

And this is another one added today...... still more work to do on this image

Roy

[rjord]

The final species to be added to the mod has being completed.... these are the Nautolans who are best known as the race Jedi Master Kit Fisto belonged to before he was taken out by Palpatine. During the time of this mod, the Nautolans are independant and have no affiliation with either the Rebel Alliance or the Empire.

Status of the mod:

- species have all been created with pictures
- major characters have been created for each of the species with the correct leaders at the time... minor characters to be added
- each race has been assigned starships to begin with however now I have to create new starships that will represent the strength and characters of each species.

Need to

- look at whether resources need modifying
- tweak the bias file and the settings in the races file for each species.
- look at whether to add 5 additional species who are less well known in the Star Wars universe but that people may want to play

Roy

[rjord]

List of species playable in this mod are listed below. Some of the ones I had earlier in there have been removed. Please make suggestions if any others should be included

The final list is:

- Mon Calamari
- Wookies
- Rodians
- Hutts
- Bothan
- Chagrian
- Togruta
- Corellians
- Twi'lek
- Rebel Alliance
- The Empire
- Nautolans
- Binayre Pirates
- Togorians
- Durosians
- The Naboo
- Mandalorians
- Ithorians
- Geonosians
- Ewoks
- Kaminoans
- Dathomirian
- Ubese
- Gamorrean
- Trandoshans
- Falleen
- Devaronians
- Quarren
- Zeltrons (added on request)


Roy

[rjord]

One challenge has been what to do with the Ewoks........

In Episode 6 we see the furry inhabitants of Endor take out the stormtroopers using primitive weapons such as spears, slings, axes and bows. Considering the lack of technology used by the furry bipeds on Endor, it is a little difficult to go back 6 years to the time of this mod, ( 2 years before the battle of Yavin) and then see these same creatures colonising space in Frigates and Destroyers.

The way I am going to handle this is as such:

The inhabitants of Endor were never referred to by the name "Ewoks" in Episode 6 nor in any of the prior movies. George Lucas had wanted the Empire to be overthrown by a race with primitive weapons and originally that race were going to be the Wookies. However this was changed as the Wookies were clearly more advanced as seen in prior movies. The name Ewok as seen in the end titles of the movie actually came from rearranging some of the letters in the name "Wookie".... but again these Ewok bipeds were never officially called Ewoks by name in the movies.

In my version of Star Wars, the Ewoks are actually a distant relative species to the inhabitants of Endor. This is along the same line that the Neimoidians are distant relatives of the Durosians.

The Ewoks in my mod are more advanced and technologically skilled and resemble the inhabitants of Endor only by general appearance. Therefore in the Star Wars : Alderaan mod you will not be playing or attacking furry teddy bears from Endor. These Ewoks are more like Wookies... just shorter.

In fact I am in a huge fight with the Ewoks at the moment and they are definitely not playing nice.

So the challenge was to have a picture of the Ewoks in the mod which looked fiercer than a teddy bear. I actually don't want to fight these guys because they are very agressive.

Roy

[rjord]

A preview shot of how the Ewoks appear in the Star Wars : Alderaan mod.......

As explained in the comment above, these are not your average Endor based Ewoks and in this mod these Ewoks are very aggressive and extremely unfriendly.

The leader of these Ewoks is known as Shetai which is Ewok for Warrior.

Roy

[threedeesix]

Please make suggestions if any others should be included.

Zeltrons, my favorite of the original Marvel comics contribution.

Rod

[rjord]

ORIGINAL: threedeesix

Please make suggestions if any others should be included.

Zeltrons, my favorite of the original Marvel comics contribution.

Rod

Very good suggestion..... will add them a little later tonight

Roy

[rjord]

Generally the Chagrains are a peaceful race...... however if you declare war on them........ be prepared.

More work to be done on the picture.

Roy

[rjord]

ORIGINAL: threedeesix

Please make suggestions if any others should be included.

Zeltrons, my favorite of the original Marvel comics contribution.

Rod

Hi Rod

The Zeltrons are in the mod now........ at species number 29. Have to do some more work on tidying up the pictures and adding some minor characters.

As you can see from the picture, there is still some work to do. Zeltrons are far from being reptilian and I also need to tweak their characteristics. I would say most if not all the characteristics shown for them in the picture are completely wrong...but I will fix that tomorrow.

Though the Zeltrons are the last species you would expect to have a war with they are certainly formidable warriers if you cross them.

Need to get my comic books out and get a sense of who they are as a race.

Roy

[rjord]

I thought I had reached a limit with the number of races I could add.....however I have run some tests and I have not reached the limit as I thought.

So any suggestions for additional races will be considered. Keep in mind they need to exist around the time of Episode 4.

So far 29 races in total in the mod.

Roy

[threedeesix]

ORIGINAL: rjord


Very good suggestion..... will add them a little later tonight

Roy

Awesome. As far as Zeltrons as a race, think carousing, seduction, and subterfuge.

Do you have any intentions of updating your work to Shadows when it releases? The new pirate playstyle would be great for criminal organizations like the Hutts and Blacksun.

Finally, is it possible to change the gameplay to have a galaxy wide empire at start with a fledgling rebellion to feel more canon? Maybe give the empire wide spread territory but a loose grip. The worlds under their control could begin very unhappy the further from the core you get, so rebellions would kind of spring up naturally. I don't know a lot about how this would work, or if it could, but it would be awesome.

Rod

[rjord]

ORIGINAL: threedeesix

ORIGINAL: rjord


Very good suggestion..... will add them a little later tonight

Roy

Awesome. As far as Zeltrons as a race, think carousing, seduction, and subterfuge.

Do you have any intentions of updating your work to Shadows when it releases? The new pirate playstyle would be great for criminal organizations like the Hutts and Blacksun.

Finally, is it possible to change the gameplay to have a galaxy wide empire at start with a fledgling rebellion to feel more canon? Maybe give the empire wide spread territory but a loose grip. The worlds under their control could begin very unhappy the further from the core you get, so rebellions would kind of spring up naturally. I don't know a lot about how this would work, or if it could, but it would be awesome.

Rod

My understanding is that Age of Shadows is released tomorrow so I will most certainly be buying it with the view of taking this mod to Age of Shadows. With a little luck I can start the conversion to Shadows pretty much straight away once I see what Shadows has to offer.

EDIT: Making the Empire very dominant in the galaxy

With your question about a galaxy wide Empire in the mod, this game is very customizable so this is what I would do.


1. You choose the Rebel Alliance for example as the race you will be playing
2. Set the Size of the Rebel Alliance as Starting and Tech Level as Starting
3. Go to the screen where you select other Empires or races that will be seen in the game
4. Untick where it says autogenerate starting Empire... you want to add them manually
5. Click on Add new empire and select the first Empire to be the Empire (ie Palpatine's)
6. Where it states Size.....select Old for the Empire as it has been around for a long time
7. Change Tech Level to a higher level Example Level 7 for the Empire
8. As a test, put the proximity of the Empire as same system so you can see if this works
9. Now add in 8 new races (Empires) and leave them as race Random for each one
10. For each of the 8 random races make the Size as Starting or Young
11. For each of the 8 random races make the Tech Level as Starting or Size as Starting or Young
12. when in the mod, go to the edit screen and edit Empires..... Edit the Empire itself
13. Make sure Tech Level is 7
14. Change the Empire to a setting like such as "Evil" you don't want them being nice guys. Move the slider to a less evil setting if the Empire is too strong at this level.
15. Look at the victory conditions and you will see the Empire may have already reached victory conditions. This means you have something like 20 years to try and reduce the Empires ratings by reducing its economy, population or territory by using rebel attacks and other strategies.

When I started playing the mod I paused it immediately and looked at the comparison screen.
- The Empire has 35 colonies already while the Rebel Alliance had 1
- The Empire had too many ships and bases to count while the Rebel Alliance had a much smaller amount

- Give it a go. I believe this is what you want. If the Empire is too diffacult to beat at this setting change the Empire Size and Tech levels to a lower level till you get what you want.

Playing at this setting the Empire immediately imposed a trade blockade against Alderaan. The Rebels then imposed a trade blockade on Bespin which was controlled by the empire and within a few minutes I had an Imperial frigate attacking the rebel base on Alderaan as my main force was heading off to Bespin.

To make things worse my troop general Crix Madine was killed in the first confrontation with the Empire..... a huge disaster for the rebel alliance.

Then 30 seconds later the Empire sent a huge wave of Tie Bombers and Tie fighters in an assault on Alderaan. What a wipeout for the Rebel Alliance.

Give the settings above a try but you may have to eventually set the Empire size and Tech levels to a medium setting in order for the Rebels to have some hope. Maybe start the Rebels on a tech setting higher than starting...... it is up to you.
Roy

[rjord]

threedeesix


If you read my prior comment earlier, I have changed my reply so read my last comment again. I believe this is the solution you want and it will make this a very challenging game for you.

Roy

[threedeesix]

ORIGINAL: rjord

threedeesix


If you read my prior comment earlier, I have changed my reply so read my last comment again. I believe this is the solution you want and it will make this a very challenging game for you.

Roy

This is awesome advice actually. I don't really need a galaxy wide empire, just larger than the rebels. Now if you can edit the empire controlled worlds to make most of them unhappy with their government, there could be enough natural minor rebellions springing up to keep them to busy to completely go after the rebels.

Also, I was watching the YouTube preview videos for Shadows and see that the pirates can build secret bases. If you do change to Shadows when it comes out (hopefully today... yah!) maybe there is someway to have the rebels have secret bases. Essentially make the rebels a "pirate" faction. That would cover raids, stealing ships, etc.

Anyway, just some ideas. Look forward to your mod either way.

Rod

[rjord]

ORIGINAL: threedeesix

ORIGINAL: rjord

threedeesix


If you read my prior comment earlier, I have changed my reply so read my last comment again. I believe this is the solution you want and it will make this a very challenging game for you.

Roy

This is awesome advice actually. I don't really need a galaxy wide empire, just larger than the rebels. Now if you can edit the empire controlled worlds to make most of them unhappy with their government, there could be enough natural minor rebellions springing up to keep them to busy to completely go after the rebels.

Also, I was watching the YouTube preview videos for Shadows and see that the pirates can build secret bases. If you do change to Shadows when it comes out (hopefully today... yah!) maybe there is someway to have the rebels have secret bases. Essentially make the rebels a "pirate" faction. That would cover raids, stealing ships, etc.

Anyway, just some ideas. Look forward to your mod either way.

Rod

If you go to the races folder and open up the text file for the Empire race....eg Empire.txt

Look in the file for a line PreferredStartingGovernment and change that value to 12 which is saying make the Empire a military dictatorship.

This should make for some very unhappy worlds controlled by the Empire and give Palpatine something to think about.

There is also a setting in the same file for Friendliness which is normal if set to 100. However if you reduce this setting to 80 then the Empire is less likely to form treaties with other Empires and will be less friendly when dealing with other races.I could never imagine the Empire would want to form a treaty with the Wookies.... they would just want to take the planet.

I recommend you download the modding guide which explains the tonne of changes you can make to this game. Example... how fast you want colonies to be built on marshy worlds

The modding guide is here
tm.asp?m=2972691

Roy

[rjord]

Came across this while doing some testing on the mod.....

A lone pirate decided it would be bold enough to try attacking a mining colony near Coruscant. Well of course the next thing that happened was that 3 squadrons of Tie Fighters appeared .

The pirate took a couple of hits from the first Tie fighters to turn up and fired back. After only a few hits the Tie fighters shields are almost gone while the pirate still has some good shields. This of course is due to Tie Fighters being easy to blow up as seen in episode 4.

In the picture you can see the pirate has taken a hit to the rear deflectors while there is a slight red glow on the tie fighters after they too were hit.

Anyhow , after the screenshot was taken , the Tie fighter squadron was destroyed by another pirate that jumped into the system . The 2 other squadrons closed in at which stage the pirates jumped into hyperspace.

Roy

[rjord]

The Title of Episode IV and the Battle of Yavin was called A New Hope.......

Looking at the situation this squadron of X-Wings is facing there is very little hope

Roy

[rjord]

One more picture for the day.......

A group of pirates have been running sneak attacks against the Empire and the Emperor wants an example to be set showing the Empire's response to such attacks.

A fleet has been sent to wipe out the pirate base once and for all and demonstrate the firepower of the Empire.

Roy

[rjord]

The squadron of tie fighters was a little too easy to destroy so the shields and armour have been strengthened as we are talking about 4 fighters here and not one.

Roy