[Mod/WiP] Battlestar Galactica - Cylon War [Update 2011-12-30]

[DeiNaGoN]

Corresponding German Thread: Click here

Our Homepage: Click here
Feel free to visit, join and post!

During the first Cylon War, one Battlestar led the Colonial Fleet to victory and became a legend.

40 years later, the same ship led them again, and the name of this legendary vessel was...


BATTLESTAR GALACTICA

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA TOTAL CONVERSION

by Viper047

Boomer

Atlan

Duglim

Nemesis

Numb3rv1

DeiNaGon

Ban

Avenger52

sepiroth887

Buster

Feloidea
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Credits:

Ships/Stations

Speedy
Hawkbs
Coxxon
Admiral Dominik
J.L.
Killertide
Bartolomeus

Scripts

Duglim
DaOpa
Trickmov
MJALowe
Lucike (for arranging help )

Map
Unitrader
Digsin
-> for the help with small and big problems
Realspace

Betatesters

CAG Phu
Iceman2504
kleener78
Jasper Carrot

Music
Old Zenturio
Boomer

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JOBS

We're searching for new crew members with abilities in

- Scripting
- Testing
- Translating to English
- BSG general Support (BBS-news/etc. )

Introduction

This modification is a fan project inspired by the re-imagined BSG series. You will see ships you already know from the series and some own creations.

Along with the new ships we are also going to create a new BSG related map including the Twelve Colonies of Kobol (especially for "Cylon War") and other sectors like New Caprica, Kobol and the algae planet (for Rise of the Cylons). According to some myths and legends there is also EARTH somewhere out there...

Furthermore, armament and effects will be adapted to suit BSG RDM: There will neither be shields nor energy weapons, Cylons will use missile batteries and Colonials ammunition-devouring rail guns. Players and NPCs will be forced to use them.

If possible, the modification is going to include:

-> Military and civilian fleet
-> Ship production on Battlestars and TLs
-> Ware production on TLs
-> Munition and supply goods production on Battlestars and TLs
-> New sectors
-> New stations
-> New weapons
-> New effects
-> New sounds
-> New economics
-> Cylon invasions
-> etc.

In fact, we are going to create three mods, namely "Cylon War", "Rise of the Cylons - Part 1" and "Rise of the Cylons - Part 2":

- Cylon War (CW), which is in production at the moment and will feature the Twelve Colonies of Men more than forty years before the New Series during their war against the rebelling Cylons.

- Part 1 of Rise of the Cylons (RotC) will be set in the Twelve Colonies, too, and show a scenario where the initial attack on the Colonies fails, resulting in a full scale war.

- Part 2 of RotC will mostly include what is known of the new series but with a few new point of views. Who can guarantee that only the two Battlestars "Galactica" and "Pegasus" escaped...

[DeiNaGoN]

PICTURES:

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VIDEOS:

Defense Weapons Show

Battle For Tauron - Cylon War Trailer 1

[DeiNaGoN]

*reserved2*

[DeiNaGoN]

(Grabbing a discussion from this thread: http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php? ... t=#3536345 )


Once again, silence surrounded our project for some time - since we were busy making progress.

MAP

Based on the apparently official (it was, at least, designed by people associated to the series) map of mankind's Twelve Colonies of Kobol, published some time ago, Atlan, Ban and I redesigned the map for the modification. According to said official concept, the map consists of four main clusters - the respective star systems - and three routes connecting those clusters. These routes also represent a drastically simplified version of the gravitational forces working between the two binary star systems.
Furthermore, the economy is not illogically scattered all over the map but concentrated in specific areas:
- mining is almost strictly limited to the asteroid belts each cluster possesses;

- since Tylium is (in the mod) refined by using solar energy, the refineries are located close to the stars of the Colonies;

- production of weapons and high-tech is a privilege of the wealthy and powerful colonies like Virgon, Leonis, Caprica, Tauron and Picon.

- shipyard positions were chosen according to historical and economical aspects.


And now for something completely different... images of the colonies:


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In sequence: Aerilon, Aquaria, Canceron, Caprica, Gemenon, Leonis, Libran, Picon, Sagittaron, Scorpia, Tauron.

CREW

Change occurred here as well.
Sepiroth887 was reactivated and uses his free time to aid us by translating our text files into English - while studying in Scotland.
The admiral, Viper047, is also going to return, allowing me to resign from my duties as acting leader of the team. Thus, I would return to my favourite duty, namely being the XO and shooing the crew around.
Lately, Buster joined the team, who is going to texturize our models, thus filling in a gap of competences we have had for a long time. This also means that our small but fine crew is now complete - regarding the competences.


SHIPS AND STATIONS

Progress was reached in this area as well, resulting in the model of the transport vessel Scylla

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..., which will be released in this or a similar form in "Cylon War" or "Rise of the Cylons"; and the raw version of a new yard...

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...which will be one of several yards with similar design, positioned in the orbits of the most powerful colonies. (Both models were created by Atlan.)

Additionally, a taste of Buster's work: (not final, though)

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What else happened? All stations were equipped with docking points for large transporters and capital ships. Also, capital ships possess docking ports in the form of internal hangars.
And our deck chief, Nemesis, is working on the long list of remaining work. Among this: providing large transport vessels with docking points and/or hangars for other vessels.


SCRIPTS

The production scripts are being overhauled. That means a reconfiguration of goods consumption and additions to the Tfile. The latter is to deliver the player with reliable and concrete statements regarding costs and duration of the specific productions.


INTERNA

With this update, we opened an english thread in the forum as well as an english sub-forum at our Mod-HQ. Feel free to visit.

And, as usual, the best concludes everything, being a new

TRAILER

Battle For Tauron - Cylon War Trailer 1 ... this time.

Greetz, DeiNaGoN

[EmperorJon]

Wow those... those weapon effects and the missiles...

[DeiNaGoN]

Those effects are my bad. Happy to see that you like it.

Greetz, Dei

[cnecktor]

I agree the effects are very spiffy looking nice different look. I have been hoping for a Battle star Galacrica mod this sounds like it has cool features that will make the game hard and fun.

[DeiNaGoN]

Yeah, that is one of our aims; we want to make the game harder and more challenging along with giving the player new stuff to withstand those challenges.
For example: Our ships have no self-loading shields but armor, which can be repaired on capital ships by the hangar crew in exchange for ressources. But that would be unfair, if fights run like Vanilla-TC, so we changed that, too. Cylons use mainly missile systems, the Colonials projectile systems, some specified to eliminate those missiles before hitting the ship.
Beyond that the length of the fights expanded a lot in comparison to Vanilla, so that you won't loose ships so fast (ramming into stations excluded ).

Regarding the economic system we decided to cut with complexes, so that player or anyone else isn't able to build some, but to compensate that a little bit, we gave the player the ability to dock and trade with all bigships and capitalships on stations. And all these big- and capitalships already got or will get docking bays for smaller ships, so you can trade large amounts of wares - and the AI does it, too.

I could continue with such explanations for a while, but I want to rely with that. We changed a lot of things in the game according to make it more feel- and lookalike to BSG wich is our main goal.

Greetz, Dei

Sorry if the grammar is a little bit weird; my English has become a little bit rusty.

[mr.WHO]

I'm eager to play First Cylon war and "Part 1 of Rise of the Cylons", coz full scale war is much more fun that day-after apocalypse run.

[DeiNaGoN]

Yeah, full scale war is what you will get. It has practical reasons to do one mod after the other: We can use some of the stuff of Cylon War for RotC-1 and we need RotC-1 for the mission-filled RotC-2.

Greetz, Dei

[SenReality92]

I have to ask, since I am a big fan of the BSG series, not so much the first series in 1978 - but the newer series 2003. When will this mod be released? and is there anyway to download a CB or OB for this. Plus will there be the 2003 Basestars in this mod, the 2003 version of the galactica as well? as I do adore the 2003 Basestar design and look. ( I do use various BSG mods, but unfortunately I dislike some of the textures in these mods, the MGC mod with the galactica has glitchy textures, the killerog mod has alright textures.) Regardless I ripped models and textures from BSGO - the wartorn battlescared galactica, and of course the model and texture of the basestar.

But primarily, I just want a mod like this - full blown war, will we be able to play as Cylon? as at the moment in a custom game, I have several fleets of basestars, all with their own cylon raiders. I own 13 sectors, the only reason to this is the fact I'm constantly fighting with the Xenon for territories which in my X3TC the Xenon use Basestars, raiders, heavy raiders and ect - even the old 1978 basestars and raiders, the cylon war raiders.

Anyway, I just like using Cylon ships; and if I can have full blown war while using Cylon ships, in this mod, my god I would love you.

[DeiNaGoN]

@SenReality92

That is common mistake around our mod, so I have to state that our mod is only based on new 2003 series of R.D.Moore. The ships in our mods are either the new ships seen in the series or some own creations. (Although some old ships are flying around, e.g. the 1978-Galactica as an outdated carrier called "Brenik").

Even Cylon War has nothing to do with the 1978-series. The mod is set forty years before the happenings seen in the new series, in time of the first Cylon War, when Galactica and the other original Battlestars had their first battles to fight.

And playing as a Cylon? Maybe, we'll see if and how good we can implement that, maybe as a player start or something. The problem is only, that Cylons are little bit like the Xenons. They have little or no infrastructure (stations or shipyards), because the original Basestars were built in Colonial shipyards and the rebelling Cylons haven't had time to build own stations while permantly being attacked by Colonial forces and struggling for "life", so it will be hard to make this scenario worth trying for the player without killing the BSG-setting which we are fixed on.

(But at least you can cheat the all the Basestars, Custodians and Raiders. The turret rocket script works also in players hands... )

Greetz, Dei

[LV]

Pretty Tempting, i've always fancied having a bash at a little friendly coding within a BSG/SW mod



Send me a download link and i'll take a look at it, maybe it will motivate me out of semi-retirement maybe not......

[Feloidea]

As long as I don't run out of time and endavour ...

[DeiNaGoN]

@LV

Maybe it's about my insufficient English, but I didn't understand what you wanted to tell us...

Greetz, Dei

[Feloidea]

@LV

Maybe it's about my insufficient English, but I didn't understand what you wanted to tell us...

Greetz, Dei

Oh, ... I think I get it. He wants to toy around a little with the code of a BSG or SW conversion.

Man, first I believed you wanted a BSG/Sw crossover ...

[SenReality92]

Ah, I see - well with this new information! I shall await eagerly for the release of the open beta if there is one. I can help with the battlestar galactica, since I have a war scarred 2003 version battlestar galactica texture, I just need to run it through CS5 and some rendering programs a few times, make it more detailed for X3TC way more detailed and of course get the glow maps and normals, V-maps all nice and smooth.

So when I finish that ( Since I was originally intending to use this texture to replace the texture on killerogs BSG mod ) if you want I will give you the texture ^^ it comes from BSGO - and since the actual model for the galactica is from a published render model from the 2003 series, its otherwise perfect - it is in all senses the 2003 galactica ^^

But mainly I just want to see the basestars, 2003 versions I mean - so if its possible could you send me a PM with a few screenshots of it, since I also have a highly detailed and high res textures for the 2003 basestars, so if I see anything missing or if this texture I have will help you finish up those ships, I will be glad to help.

One more question if its okay, will there be variants of the basestars, since the basestars had two modes, first is the more common 'star' shape - the second was a 3 pointed star, which is for orbital bombardments and entering the atmosphere of a planet. ( If you dont understand what I mean, watch the BSG Movie The Plan as it demonstrates the two modes of the basestars )

[DeiNaGoN]

Fine that I could help you.

And I think PM is not necessary, I post here some (one year old) pictures of the open German forum area of our HQ:

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Don't complain about the missiles, the pictures are old as I said and that was one of the first tests if we can do real missile big ships instead of using projectile weapons which look like rockets (you can't imagine how glad I still am about that - I love our rocket script, gives really another game feeling).

I want to thank you by the way for your offer about the texture of the Galactica, but I think we won't need them as long as we have a brilliant texture artist as Buster is. (And furthermore: In Cylon War Galactica and her sister ships are brand new, so there are "shiny and polished" - for BSG-conditions, which means that they are grey steel giants )

It's all work in progress but Cylon War has to be finished first before we can work on other ships again.
Last but not least: I think there won't be variants of the newer basestars, because - as you said - we've only seen them in The Plan flying in the upper layers of Caprican atmosphere what makes sense for avoiding air friction, but in space where we have to fight the star-scheme seems to be much better, maybe because of the rocket batteries, better fire areals and so on...
As I said before (and I will say it again and again... ): We are fixed on the series and its logic.

Greetz, Dei

Edit: There will be an open beta if all the needed milestones are done, wich means finished map (atm at 75%), finished ships (atm 75%, but that may be going fast when Buster gots time for it; only texture is missing at some) and finished production scripts (90%), and tested by our beta team. Some economy-balancing issues and other things we will deliver peu a peu within newer versions.

[SenReality92]

Yea ... I missed the pictures of the galactica and columbia ... my Firefox doesn't like this site all that much, but when I decided to stick the site on chrome, well ... must say your texture artist made me fairly jealous. For I have to admit, those ships are just ... beautiful - the amount of detail and they look high res, its making me want to just beg you for this MOD. I'm an artist, I draw, anything from short-cut anime scenes, mere spoofs really and am currently working on a small 2 min animation involving X3TC as a form of 'send off' for when X-Rebirth is released, albeit I may just stick with X3TC an figure out how to port this mod over if ever possible >.> muhaha its just that beautiful, as such ... I am really impressed, I do my own textures for various games, never really got into it for X3 since ... just seemed arduous, very much so.

Anyway, you've managed to destroy my composure with these battlestars and these basestars; no need for the textures I have then, and I seriously think that this Buster of yours can do a hella alot better job than me, I'm drooling over those basestars.

EDIT - Also just a suggestion, its probably best to reupload your screenshots to say imageshack or photobucket, as the hosting site your using holds ads that have maleware, just a tip really.

[Ban]

EDIT - Also just a suggestion, its probably best to reupload your screenshots to say imageshack or photobucket, as the hosting site your using holds ads that have maleware, just a tip really.

Actually, those sites are not that much better concerning said problems. It is, however, not to deny that they exist, so we have to think of an alternative. Since time is as rare as reasonable alternatives this is not going to happen in an instant - but we will keep it on the "To Do"-list.
Thus, thanks for reminding us of that problem.
Oh, and our designers will certainly appreciate the compliment. ^^