Registered: Jul 2001
Location: ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha
Posts: 185

hehe already I'm modding the mods =)

Well, I finally got the core module downloaded, and I'll just say this: this has to be the most kick-ass tc I've ever played! So, seeing a bit of a one-sided deal with the Minbari and EA, I decided to add my own flair to the mod. I mean, wouldn't it be interesting to see the Vasudans make a bid for power against the EA and Minbari?

I began this project last night, and have successfully integrated most of the Vasudan ships and weapons into the TBP tables. And it didn't take me long to discover that the stock vasudan ships are lunchmeat to Tinashis and Sharlins.

So I upped the hitpoints and shield points of the Vasudan vessels by 50%, and now a Sobek has an even chance against a Tinashi. And the Vasudans still have their shields, which were very easily penetrated by a 40mm Pulse cannon. Now, since shields are nonexistant in B5, I decided that I wanted a similar effect the ML-16 lasers from FS1 had on shields (read: they just make 'em sparkle). Beams do cut through shields, so Minbari weapons keep their shield-piercing ability.

Right now, I'm rearming the Mentu to make it more capable against cruisers, I gave the vasudan ships a higher cruising speed, and I have a rudimentary mission that I'm using both as a testing ground and as a possible first mission in a minicampaign. The only problem I have with this mission is that the end result always varies (sometimes a freighter that shouldn't have escaped actually makes it to the jump gate, a transport or two that are supposed to survive get vaporized by a directed beam shot, the Tinashi that jumps in to save the day most of the time but not always gets blasted to bits, two combat-equipped Satis freighters don't always bite the dust). A few things are given: one EA freighter and one EA transport, and an Olympus corvette, are always destroyed, and the Hyperion that warps in right after you is destroyed.

Since I'm not the best mission builder, maybe someone that's interested in drawing up a viable storyline and a handful of people that are good mission-makers would be interested in helping to make a slightly non-canon campaign?

Am I making any sense?

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Registered: Jun 2001
Location:
Posts: 122

interesting. How about 2 universes colliding?! Think of it, Earth and Minbar are locked in war when suddenly a portal from their universe opens to Freespace 2's. Out come the Shivans, looking for others to conquer. Now it's the Galactic Terran/Vasudan Alliance fighting along side the Earth Alliance and Minbari Federation against the ultimate threat, the Shivans. And when we get some Shadow ships, they could ally themselves with the Shivans for a titantic struggle of good versus evil, spread across 2 different universes. Missions could be flown as a GTVA pilot, a EA pilot, or a MF pilot, and swapped between the universes. Flying as a EA pilot in the Freespace 2 universe. Ok, I'm outta control, lol. Just a thought......

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Registered: Jul 2001
Location: ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha
Posts: 185

Well, I'd want a decent variety of ships from both universes, and there isn't a whole lot you can cram into a 384k tbl file...I'm doing this to help people be "diverted" while the second release is being finished. I'm thinking about adding a few Terran ships as well, but after the trouble I had in balancing the Vasudans, I'm thinking differently. And even now I'm concerned that the Vasudans are just a bit overpowered. (test mission has a Sobek with three SVas, four VasAAA (a yellow-colored AAAf beam, thinking about changing its colors to orange), and two VSlashes. It cuts a Hyperion in half in roughly one minute...quite amusing, actually)

Anyways, I'm trying to figure out a logical reason for the FS2 ships to cross realities and bounce into the B5 universe...perhaps a screwy Knossos device?..an errant Shivan Commnode?...

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Registered: Jun 2001
Location:
Posts: 122

I dunno, Star Trek has dealt in the past with people bouncing between universes but not whole battle fleets. Maybe just some wierd wormhole that not only connects points within a galaxy together but also points within different universes. I suppose that the weaker ships could start out weak until being upgunned and uparmoured by their contemporaries. In this case, the Hyperion being modified into something similar to a Midwinter, only using, perhaps, Vasudan or Terran beam weapon technology. How to balance Shivan ships is another question though if they are made as the great enemy of everyone. Either make them very difficult to kill or have them with virtually endless numbers that overwhelm the good guys. Who knows, whatever you come up with I'm sure it'll be fantastic and I can't wait to play it.

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Registered: Jul 2001
Location: ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha
Posts: 185

I'm hoping that a few more people will add their feedback so I'll know where to go and what I have to work with. But since I've got a crapload of Real Life stuff to deal with, I'm not sure if I'll make any progress on this project.

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Registered: Mar 2001
Location:
Posts: 220

What if we added Trek and Starwars ships? then universes could REALLY collide!

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Registered: Jul 2001
Location: ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha
Posts: 185

heh, now that'd be something, watching a Sharlin blow the skin off a Star Destroyer...

I'd love to throw everything we have into this, but unfortunately, there's not a lot to be added to a file that maxes at 380k, and I want to have a reasonably sized download file, so let's try to keep this as close to a FS2 meets B5 meets Hell In Space kinda deal.

Here's what I need:

• Storyline: I might actually do two campaigns, one from the GTVA's point of view, and one from the Earth Alliance/Minbari Federation
  
  
• Mission Editors: Can't overstate this, and I _suck_ at FREDing
  
  
• Voice Actors: The voice-overs in the TBP demo were just excellent, so you know what I'm wanting.
  
  
• Balancing: I've got the bulk of the Vasudans already integrated, and I think they're a bit overpowered. Perhaps someone with more experience in mod balancing could remedy this?
  
  
• Expandability: When the next TBP packages are released, I want the mod I'm suggesting to be compatible with future versions.
  

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Registered: Apr 2001
Location: Tel-Aviv, Israel
Posts: 28

Me voice :P

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Registered: Oct 2001
Location: Mikkeli, Finland
Posts: 2

Yeah, and add Battlestar Galactica / Blake's 7 ships also!!!
( heavy irony )
Kewl , yeah.
( heavy sarcasm )

We had this same discussion in another topic.

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Registered: Oct 2001
Location: England
Posts: 80

Tip of advice - Don't even think of thinking up a realistic storyline to collide two universes, you just won't get one that doesn't sound corny and cheesy

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Registered: Oct 2001
Location: barrow in furness
Posts: 138

I wanna be a voice actor please please please please

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Registered: Sep 2001
Location: Estonia
Posts: 1362

ill be the beta tester

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Registered: Jul 2001
Location: ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha
Posts: 185

Did I say "realistic storyline"? No, I didn't. I said a storyline that is logical (i.e. GTVA builds their vaunted subspace portal to Sol, the thing malfunctions and bends the jumpnode so it ends up in a parallel universe, in this case, the universe of Babylon 5, and it so happens that objects in one universe can safely move to the other without vanishing due to physics incompatibilites, therefore yadda yadda).

If I meant a realistic storyline, I meant one that might actually be somewhat sensible, since the GTVA said that it might be able to build a portal to Earth, and we all know from Star Trek that there are an infinite infinite number of ways to break the interdimensional parser and skip realities...

But anyways, voice acting, I'm not going to start meddling with this until I have a clear storyline worked out and at least one mission completed. I still have to finish with the actual mod itself, and I need FREDers to actually get some good missions made. Priorities you know.

And Assassin, since you have an opinion on how to do the storyline, how's you whip one up, based on the information already given.

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Registered: Oct 2001
Location: England
Posts: 80

Sorry Denton I think I wrote my previous post a bit too hostile, wasn't at all ment in that way

What I was trying to say is that all these things sound a bit cheesy, like Sliders

'GTVA builds their vaunted subspace portal to Sol, the thing malfunctions and bends the jumpnode so it ends up in a parallel universe, in this case, the universe of Babylon 5' It just seems... sorry to use this word again but corny. but Colliding 2 universes realistically is almost impossible, so I'll give you a well done for what you have thought up

Anyway, I still look forward to playing the mod, I just think something like this is more of a quick play for fun thing that a full campaign thing, but thats just my opinion

Best of luck

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Registered: Jun 2001
Location:
Posts: 122

man that's not corny at all. Have you read any of quantom physics theorists David Deutsch's theories of parallel universes? There are infinite number of ourselves and universes existing at the same time. For example, I'm sitting here writing this message. In an infinite number of other universes I'm doing the same thing, but perhaps a little differently. Maybe not drinking a soda, maybe not wearing the same clothes. The fact is that somehow opening a portal to another universe is not a corny idea, with the vast possibilities of quantom physics anything is possible. Hell, these madmen scientists are trying to develop a quantom computer that would have unlimited power, based of Deutsch's theories. In theory that computer could do more calculations then there are atoms in our entire universe, and when it needs more power, it simply taps into another parallel universe and steals whatever it needs from there. Anyways, space and science are sooooooooo wierd than anything is possible. It's even likely that a universe very similar to Babylon 5's or Freespace 2's exists somewhere in the vast ocean of infinite alternate realities. To somehow stumble into one of these isn't a corny idea at all, but an intriguing possibility, so I say that not only could this "mod of the mod" be an exciting thing to play, but also a valid and interesting idea.

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Registered: Jul 2001
Location: ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha
Posts: 185

I will say this, though. These Vasudans aren't the cuddly fishie-wuvers we've grown to love They eat Shadows for breakfast and use Sharlins as toothpicks (btw, anyone even know if Vasudans have teeth?)

In the interest of keeping as much room available in the ships.tbl file, there will only be one freighter (the Satis) for the Vasudans, but it now packs enough wallop to smack an EA Olympus and come out in one piece...well, barely in one piece

I'm debating on whether to add a few Terran ships, since the Colossus, Hecate, and Iceni look very Vasudanish, but not enough to be GV* classed.

I've got a three-day weekend coming up, so maybe I'll make some progress. And if anyone wants to reach me by some way other than the forum, my ICQ # is 133526222

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Registered: Feb 2001
Location: South Australia,Australia,Sol
Posts: 1185

Sounds great, while I wait for more releases I've added the shivans and added a NovaX to help out the EA

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Registered: Jul 2001
Location: ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha
Posts: 185

And this Nova-X has stronger armor and better weapons, I assume? In this storyline, the Novas might be equipped with a set of low-grade beams on the forward turrets (kinda an interim Omega prototype). The beams wouldn't be very powerful, but they fire quickly enough to make up for this shortcoming.

And as for Shivans...well, even if you take all the remarks and nonessential text out of the tbl there's still not enough room for everything, and I want to add the GTE Vidar from Warzone (after all, it is an Explorer ship), and a few FS1 ships come back from the dead. And I'm thinking that the first few missions will be a first contact that doesn't go the way anyone planned, a Vasudan raid on a civilian convoy, and evacuating a station. Then you'll have access to a new EA-Minbari hybrid gun that can punch through shields more easily (in which case a Star Fury will NOT need 3 Nials to help smack down a lowly Anubis!)

I'll get started on the new weapons, but right now I need to install Publisher to downgrade a handbook from 2000 Edition to 98 Edition for the school webpage...tomorrow I might get more done.

Once I'm satisfied with the mod files themselves (that'll take a while), I need volunteers for mission making, but we'll deal with that problem in due time.

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Registered: Jul 2001
Location: ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha
Posts: 185

Oh, and any added FS2 ships should have the "Special Warp" flag checked, since they don't use normal B5 jump tech. I'll rename the original Warp01 anis to Warp02 so they'll have a proper animation. I don't know why, but I never did like that teal-colored warp point

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