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Babylon 5 Mod Ideas

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Babylon 5 Mod Ideas

from Sins Forums
So since it should be inevitable for a B5 mod to get made, i figure it couldn't hurt to talk some about it, and perhaps maybe plan and get a team going for it.

Major Major Questions...

1. How many playable races to attempt, and which ones?

2. How many ships per faction, should ship roles/designs and numbers be based off the existing Sins races or not care?

3. Which general era of ships to use for the Earth Alliance?

4. Should capital ship mechanics remain the same? IE should the current game mechanics be kept in more or less the same condition?

My personal ideas is that the general game should play about the same, but that many ships should be condensed into one for some races, or expanded for others, notably I am in favor of maintaining only 3 Capital ship choices, as I think finding 5 for each major race would be quickly silly.

I would say for the beggining 3 balanced major races would be best, in general I view the technical/qualitative tiers being as such

Lowest: League Worlds, Early EA, Dilgar
Medium: EA, Centauri, Narn
High: Minbari, Drahk
Godish: Shadows, Vorlons, Additional Ancients

The mod would preferably come with several maps, one of which would represent the B5 universe just before the shadow war, it would be nice if a timer was included so that perhaps 3 hours into the game 2 special pirate worlds (the Shadows and the Vorlons) launch massive and mean pirate strikes... regular Raider Pirates would otherwise conduct themselves normally.

Other special maps/scenarios: Dilgar EA war... Earth Minbari War, and Narn Centauri War (The Shadows should/could be present here as well.)

While some races would be playable in these scenarios, for example in the Earth-Dilgar war you could play these or the League worlds, as the Early EA faction would be balanced with them; but the Earth Minbari War should be a 2V1, with the Minbari being powerful enough to take on two players.

This means that in the generic game, the balanced races would be EA, Narn and Centauri. The Minbari, Drahk and League worlds would all be special militia or pirate forces, we could easily design new planets that corresponded to these races and would spawn with special militia units, thus you wouldn't have Minbar being guarded by Raiders or Drazi.

Ship wise, the most important is obviously the Capitals- My personal choices for the 3 main powers are as such, with the TEC similar ship noted.

EA: Omega Destroyer (Kol) Posideon Super Carrier (Sova) Nova Dreadnought (Marza)

Narn: Bin`Tak Dreadnought (Kol) G`Quan Heavy Cruiser (Dunov) (Third????)

Centauri: Primus BattleCruiser (Dunov?) Octurion Battlship (Kol) Balvarin Carrier (Akkan?)



Additional Scenarios: Psi Corp Rebellion, EA Civil War, Mars Rebellion, The Centauri-League War (with Drahk as Pirates?) The list goes on and on.

Oh and for the EA, I would use Hyperions as the basic combat unit, to give fans an iconic mainstay for their fleets, as opposed to the too awesome for Frigate Omega, and the lesser known Olympus, Tethys, Saggitarius, or Oracle... (or the others   )
modding
481,779 views 311 replies
Reply #226 from Sins Forums Top
I didnt mean limit the races, I was talking about how to incorperate the different eras in B5 into the mod by using the tech tree, it wouldn't limit anyone really, it would just make it where research is a key stepping stone in advancing the ship choice selection. And this way does seem realistic if going by era, you start pre-EA minbari war to post than beyond.

Balancing would be the biggest issue for the advanced races, like I said make them the way they are in the show and table top games and just put a high price tag on them. I mean sure a sharlin war cruiser is easily ganna take out a bunch of novas and hyperions, but its ganna cost an equivilent amount. And the EA's response would be to get Omegas to even the odds.
Reply #227 from Sins Forums Top
Even Omegas can't compete against Minbari Sharlins. They only ship int he EA is that estimated to be as strong is the Warlock since it has 2 GODsat beam cannons that we build after the Earth-Minbari war specifically to 1 shot Sharlins. And a battle between a Warlock and Sharlin is decided on who lands a hit on the other first.
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Reply #228 from Sins Forums Top
The warlocks were actually built using the artificial gravity devices granted to the EA from the Minbari during the formation of the ISA (or now IA from the newish movie). But my canon is old and rusty. Trying to pick out equalities, and balancing them per the show will make for a tedious process, and imo, would hurt the mod more than help it.
Reply #229 from Sins Forums Top
Eadtaes, i know that an omega is not a match for a sharlin, i was just sayin that the EA if they got it would even the odds a bit. And I believe from the books n such, 2 omegas can take on a sharlin but suffer majorily.


and yeah kodiak i agree that making it realistic would make it very hard/unplayable, thats why i was talking about what if they used the table top game stats and convert them into the mod?
Reply #230 from Sins Forums Top
I thoroughly enjoyed A Call to Arms, as well as B5 wars (both discontinued B5 table top games for those who don't know), and their rules would be a great foundation for a playable version of the universe.

To be honest, I should take some time and look at the Mod info, the team, and what they're looking for to see if I can offer anything more to the project.
Reply #231 from Sins Forums Top
you should worry about balance as you can increse the cost of the capital ships of thos races as well as the smaller ones for shadows and vorlons.
Reply #232 from Sins Forums Top
Here is some load screen changes been playing with a while back..

Reply #236 from Sins Forums Top
Please, please, PLEASE tell me you're not serious about who the Drahk and Dilgar are, and who Sheridan and espescially Kosh is...
Reply #237 from Sins Forums Top
Can I join you in creating this mod?

I have knowledge of X3 modding as I'm a modder for that game, and have a lot of models at my disposal. I'm a good texturer also.

I can import the ships into 3ds quite easily I just need some info on how to convert it back successfully.

I eagerly await your response :) 

p.s. You work looks great so far oh and whats the maximum poly count sins will allow a ship to have, I can go quite nuts with detail providing the game can handle it. lol
Reply #239 from Sins Forums Top
No Sheridan or Kosh?
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Not yet not got around to it  :) 

Can I join you in creating this mod?
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All help greatfully recieved however we have a problem which so far has no modding answer to it... (see below)

Is this a actual mod in progress or still just throwing thoughts out?
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There has been some work done you can see the screenshots and YouTube links in earlier threads.

The Problem
Once I got the EA Omega-class Destroyer in game and looking about right I found out first hand on some of the limitations of the game. Not all of these limitations will effect all mods but it is clear that they do have a serious impact on B5 ships and also explain some of the nuances of the Vanilla-game ships being 'fairly basic'. In no particular order the problems are:

1) Limited number of flair points on a ship model... On the Omega this means details like navigation lights on the hull or pylons are seriously limited.

2) No animated turrets... A lot of EA ships use turrets, the Omega alone has 14 to see the weapon fire coming out of static turrets looks wrong.

3) Weapon Fire-Arc control... Again seeing weapons fire coming out of a turret or beam emitter at right angles looks bad, when it passes through the hull it looks plain silly.

4) 3DSmax support... Is only through an unfinished and seemingly abandoned community tool, the latest version of which is bugged.

Short of developer help or enhancements we is a bit stuck I'm afraid.  (:( 
Reply #240 from Sins Forums Top
Do you have any spaces left :p 

I'll help as best I can, I'm still learning the process of export a new ship into the game, is there any good tutorials on what the point thing is?

I can import the stock stuff fine, and I would say that i'm quite good at texturing.

PM me please to let me know

fmj_Shadow
Reply #242 from Sins Forums Top
How a bout doing the ships that don't rely so much on turrets for now. Maybe the fighter classes of the races.

I am working on the White star at present but don't know how to get it ingame at present. I beleive this ship can work as well as all the fighters.

We can do the capitals once there is a update or workaround figured out.

not sure if there is a class for it maybe cruiser class, the white star is fast and maneuverable so it would need to behave like the fighter for the proper effect i think.
Reply #243 from Sins Forums Top
Try giving the Whitestars a very high top speed and a bad deceleration rate, along with a fairly small weapons range, this should let them pass by the enemy ships and make them turn around for a second pass, but they might miss jump points and crash into planets...
Reply #244 from Sins Forums Top
It is true you could work around some of the problems by using restrictive scenarios or avoiding certain ships, its just not really what I had in mind and without any concrete info on what to expect with the expansion....its a waiting game.

Having invested a reasonable ammount of time on this I am now of the opinion that SoaSE cannot handle a Babylon5 Universe in any detail atm. Its a shame cos the general ethos of the game just screams B5.

All is not lost however, the Developers are at the begining of a new franchise and have prooved themselves as people who listen, so I am optimistic that things will come good in a way that benifits the community.
Reply #245 from Sins Forums Top
First, the whole fleet wasn't drained of power, just Sheridans White star. As for the being able to take on one race, Sheridan had believed that his combined fleet (basically all the major powers in the galaxy except for the ea), and not the ea fleet, would be enough to take on either the Shadows or the Vorlons. Theres no question that EA alone would have been slaughtered. As they stated it was the largest fleet assembled, and pretty much everyone that had space capabilities sent their ships to join his fleet.
Reply #246 from Sins Forums Top
Sheridan wanted to draw the Vorlon and Shadow battlegroups into fighting each other rather than playing piggy in the middle, he doubted that even the combined fleet was enough to win and he couldn't respond to the hit and run tactics.

Which was how things panned out, Sheridan didn't win the Shadow war he merely stopped it with an armistice between all parties had it continued game over for Sheridan things were not looking good.

Quite a clever bit of script writing really as good did not triumph over evil rather the balance was maintained.
Reply #248 from Sins Forums Top
I get what you are saying about the turrets not moving but the Kol Battlecruiser has the same problem (by which I mean port and starboard batteries tend to shoot at angles other than normal while the turrets remain stationary.) and people don't seem to make a big deal out of it, and if they are that is incentive for a mod to create rotating turrets. I don't think visuals should be what kills a mod like this if you can get as close as you can isn't that better than nothing? I mean I know you are trying for the most accurate representation to do B5 justice and I am all for that but I don't think a few visual limitations should be what prevents a mod such as this. Also you keep at it and see if you can get someone to create mods that could fix some of or all of those problems. Rotating turrets and improved weapon arc visuals seem like the kind of thing that is almost certain to be made by someone, there are tons of talented people out there in the community and I am sure a few have the expertise to address your concerns. All I am really saying is don't let a few visuals ruin the creation of what was shaping out to be a great looking mod, anyway that's my 2 cents.
Reply #249 from Sins Forums Top
First, the whole fleet wasn't drained of power, just Sheridans White star. As for the being able to take on one race, Sheridan had believed that his combined fleet (basically all the major powers in the galaxy except for the ea), and not the ea fleet, would be enough to take on either the Shadows or the Vorlons. Theres no question that EA alone would have been slaughtered. As they stated it was the largest fleet assembled, and pretty much everyone that had space capabilities sent their ships to join his fleet.
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I'm pretty sure the fleet was mainly comprised of minbari, ranger and league ships. The Narn were decimated, what ships they had left were probably in hiding or running weapons for the resistance. Even if they did have ships as part of the combined fleet at the time of the final battle, they probably didn't have many. The Centauri didn't contribute to the fleet as the shadows were allies.

Reply #250 from Sins Forums Top
Rotating turrets and improved weapon arc visuals seem like the kind of thing that is almost certain to be made by someone, there are tons of talented people out there in the community and I am sure a few have the expertise to address your concerns.
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I realise it might seem that way on the face of things, so let me give you a deeper understanding of the problem....

A lot of talented people in the community have said it can't be done, what they mean by that is that it can't be done as is. The problem is that in order to generate these effects you fundementally need the game engine to calculate the animation (parameters, tangents, rotation arcs, co-ordinates, transforms etc) and feed that information into graphical objects like a mesh. The SoaSE particle system does this to a degree which is how the weapon travel effects are rendered, but the method used is hard coded into the game engine, in short there is nothing to mod because we don't have access to it.

So until the developers add or 'switch on the code' within the game engine to allow you to do this it isn't going to get sorted anytime soon. There were discussions many moons ago about this feature having been disabled for performance reasons by the Devs who are of course making decisions about the vanilla game.

This is basically the case with all the issues mentioned above, please feel free to have a go and tackle them yourself or encourage others to do so I am sure the modding community would be hugely grateful for any advancement on these topics.

As far as I can see the only option right now is to wait and see what features get added to subsquent releases. Please help us by vocally supporting the inclusion of these in the various threads dotted around the forum.

'Seeing a Minbari Sharlin fire at right angles or an EA Omega shooting through its own hull and 70% of its navigation lights missing doesn't look cool I assure you'