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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
481,841 views 311 replies
Reply #126 from Sins Forums Top
True true, it was awsome during 90s :p

I just watched one video of solar empires on youtube and noticed vesari vessels operative(i think it was vesari) had pretty cool speach. Would defenetly fit for Drakh Horde. They did acually sound like that in their first appearance during the show.

One more thing, do you guys think it will be possible to "clone" existing factions in the game. So would be modders could later on create several factions based on some of B5 factions. My motto, the more the merrier.
Reply #127 from Sins Forums Top
It is my motto as well. :CONGRAT:

And yes a clone should be easy methinks based on what I remember from hacking the beta files.
Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #128 from Sins Forums Top
Would defenetly fit for Drakh Horde. They did acually sound like that in their first appearance during the show.
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I remeber in their 1st appearance they had a shadow/distortion aura about them suggesting they had evolved along the lines of their Shadow masters. However later in the Series and in Crusade they completely dropped this effect and went for the more traditional alien look. Shame really...
Reply #129 from Sins Forums Top
It is my motto as well. And yes a clone should be easy methinks based on what I remember from hacking the beta files.
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Oh sweet... :LOL: Thats pretty good news indeed, its awsome whn devs are flexible and positive to possible modding community.
I remeber in their 1st appearance they had a shadow/distortion aura about them suggesting they had evolved along the lines of their Shadow masters. However later in the Series and in Crusade they completely dropped this effect and went for the more traditional alien look. Shame really...
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Yup, thats whn Delen (Mira Furlan) gets ambushed by them. I somewhat agree, it was awsome idea, but special effects were somewhat bad me thinks for that Drakh ambassador at that time. It might also have been some distortion field to hide their true appereance. That Ambassador used some kind of orb for translation, not much different from what Gaim ambassadors use to communicate. That might have been also just deciving on their part.
Reply #130 from Sins Forums Top
To be honest the Drakh in crusade were not that well done in comparison to the original series.
Reply #131 from Sins Forums Top
Acually their appearance changed during the original series and stayed that way. Second time Drakh were shown (new appearance), was on Centauri Prime, in Royal Palace hall. Londo Mollari was supposed to be assasinated. Assasin threw dagger at him...dagger stopped in mid air and returned back at attacker, killing him. Drakh than revealed himself (new appearance). Interesting enough, Drahk showed there to posses some kind of telekinetic abilities, but only during that single show. As I remeber, they didnt show any display of those powers later in the show.
Reply #132 from Sins Forums Top
There were I think two distinct types of Drakh (unless some were wearing exo-suits or armour), the last episode of Crusade showed them side by side.

Going back to the SoaSE mod theme, the vasari do appear to have a reasonable likeness.

I think we need to see what IC have done with the single player campaign to get a better idea on how stories and plots might play out in game.
Reply #133 from Sins Forums Top
Actually the first appearance is the true form the one Mollari meets is like a sub species(called the Srakh).
Reply #134 from Sins Forums Top
It seems as though there won't be a single player campaign for SoaSE from the latest DEV update. They descibe some format of player vs. AI skirmishes using random map generation and player design instead. We'll know soon enough what this means...
Reply #135 from Sins Forums Top

Actually the first appearance is the true form the one Mollari meets is like a sub species(called the Srakh).
End of quote


ahh,sorry than. kk...cool, good to know. I thought they were one and same, just that J.M.S changed their appereance in the show.
Reply #136 from Sins Forums Top
Nope member Drakh weren't the only species that aided the shadows.
Reply #137 from Sins Forums Top
That i know, I just wish there were more referance to them. I remeber once during a show aliens who modify telepaths so they can be used into shadow vessels, just there is no referance to them.
Reply #138 from Sins Forums Top
Spot for you to insert your own new cannon.
Reply #139 from Sins Forums Top
If any one has played Star trek Armada 2 you would recognize that there is a b5 mod there. It's pretty well balanced and the number of races is very much thought through; not only that but the different sides one could choose when picking a race, i.e. Dark vs. Light side to every race, and the pros and cons that come with that, made the game very dynamic, and this could fit the different play styles of people.

Think this would be a good start at least.
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Hey, its nice to see our work is remembered.

I was one of the members of this mod team, responsible for the sounds, beta testing, and public relations (getting word out and about). I am currently in the process of tracking down as many of the assets from the mod as possible. Its pretty hard to track down original 3ds files for a lot of this stuff, given how most of the team has disappeared from my contact lists :(

I have however, tracked down all of our Earth Alliance files in original format, and all the modellers at the time gave permission for us to use them as we see fit. None-the-less, I'm endevouring the contact them to further confirm that.

The files are out of date, but if anyone is organizing a team, I would be more than happy to contribute whatever we can track down, in this regard.
Reply #140 from Sins Forums Top
Great!! Welcome to the community! We hope you will become active with us as we can use all the experienced B5 modders we can get our hands on for Sins.
Reply #141 from Sins Forums Top
I never played Star Trek Armada 2, but I know the B5 mod is spoken highly of amoung B5 video game fans.

What the SoaSE B5 mod is lacking most is an experienced modder(s) to lead a less experienced team/community, we still need a champion.

Talking to people and gethering info is the answer and your offer to contribute Trentbowell is most welcome, and for others too use the SoaSE & my B5 demo vid as PR.

Here is the link to the B5 demo vid again as its got a bit burried in under posts:
WWW Link
Reply #142 from Sins Forums Top
I don't think it'll mesh very well..

The vorlons/shadows are clearly superior to the minbari, who are clearly superior to the EA, who are clearly superior to the centauri, who are clearly superior to the narn, who are clearly superior to minor races
Reply #143 from Sins Forums Top
Um, nay. Narn and Centauri are about equal. EA's place in that discussion is uncertain, at best.
Reply #144 from Sins Forums Top

Um, nay. Narn and Centauri are about equal. EA's place in that discussion is uncertain, at best.
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Given EA did not develop the tech it uses I would think they would be slightly behind the Centauri. I see the Narn as having the edge on land combat and the Centauri in space. So all in all I would say EA is in the last rank. The strength with EA is with the PsiCorps.
Reply #145 from Sins Forums Top
I think that Vorlon = Shadows > minbari = Drakh > Rangers > centauri = narn > EA > Ligue ( maybe EA = league) and when the ea have shadow's technologie ea = rangers
I hope that all this races will be in your mod
Reply #146 from Sins Forums Top
When we faced this problem, early on in the creation of our mod, we had to take a realistic viewpoint of the matter. We had a few choices available to us: Yes, the Shadows and Vorlon's have immensely powerful ships, that basically wtfpwn any one else. But, we've also seen that those ships are not invinceable. The options, as we saw it, were: 1) Don't include the ancient races, they're just too powerful to do properly 2) Include them, but balance them to be nearly equal to the other races, for the sake of fairness 3) Include them, but make their build costs extremely high, and their ship maxes lower. Make them powerful, but harder to obtain basically.

My group went with a mix of 2 and 3. For a game like sins, I lean heavily towards 3.

For the rest of the races, option three is often a very good route to take. It allows you to maintain canon (to the extent that that's possible in a game like this), but balance through cost control.
Reply #147 from Sins Forums Top


Um, nay. Narn and Centauri are about equal. EA's place in that discussion is uncertain, at best.


Given EA did not develop the tech it uses I would think they would be slightly behind the Centauri. I see the Narn as having the edge on land combat and the Centauri in space. So all in all I would say EA is in the last rank. The strength with EA is with the PsiCorps.
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I would have to disagree with both here. If you've ever sen the show it is obvious that the EA is behind the Centauri but ahead of the Narn. This is do to two things. Firstly the Earth Minbari war which while devastating to earth caused a surge in the development and integration of new technologies (yes the Narn supplied the EA with weapons, but not weapons for every ship. The EA had to learn to manufacture and maintain them themselves, originally with the help of the Narns, but latter on their own.) The second reason, and the reason why the EA was able to not only catch up to the Narns but later surpass them, is that the Narns were decimated by the Centauri. The EA on the other hand quickly recovered after the Minbari war and because of their powerful economy were able to develope newer better weaponry and ships. It is the economic power of the EA that makes it a viable power, that combined with its assistance in the Dilgar war were the original reasons for its position of power among the alien races.

Reply #148 from Sins Forums Top


Um, nay. Narn and Centauri are about equal. EA's place in that discussion is uncertain, at best.


Given EA did not develop the tech it uses I would think they would be slightly behind the Centauri. I see the Narn as having the edge on land combat and the Centauri in space. So all in all I would say EA is in the last rank. The strength with EA is with the PsiCorps.
End of quote


I would have to disagree with both here. If you've ever sen the show it is obvious that the EA is behind the Centauri but ahead of the Narn. This is do to two things. Firstly the Earth Minbari war which while devastating to earth caused a surge in the development and integration of new technologies (yes the Narn supplied the EA with weapons, but not weapons for every ship. The EA had to learn to manufacture and maintain them themselves, originally with the help of the Narns, but latter on their own.) The second reason, and the reason why the EA was able to not only catch up to the Narns but later surpass them, is that the Narns were decimated by the Centauri. The EA on the other hand quickly recovered after the Minbari war and because of their powerful economy were able to develop newer better weaponry and ships. It is the economic power of the EA that makes it a viable power, that combined with its assistance in the Dilgar war were the original reasons for its position of power among the alien races.

The Narn, while their ships LOOK very powerful, actually place far more emphasis on appearance than on functionality. The EA ships are nothing but utilitarian in nature. This has always been the human design strategy in Babylon 5, as clearly stated in Legend of the Rangers.

As for the PsiCorps, they do not figure into a discussion of relative military power as they are not a military organization. They are a police organization meant to enforce the telepath regulations of earth. It was stated in several episodes (particularly in the 5th season) that Human telepaths were not used in a military capacity, unlike say, the minbari, or Centauri.

I can't believe I'm actually making this type of post since I swore I never would, but here we are. No hard feelings, i just like things to be as canon as possible.
Reply #149 from Sins Forums Top
I remember an episode where this general on babylon5 boasted to the commander (whoever it was that season) that with current earth technology, the minbari war could have ended differently.
They were showcasing some new fighter ships in that episode and they could definitely get a lock on minbari ships.

I guess I assumed that this means they're above centauri tech already.
Granted, it was just a boast by a human general, but it IS at least a bit indicative of human technology levels.
And I gotta say I haven't seen any indication that humans are behind the centauri in technology, but then, I haven't seen any indication the other way either.
Reply #150 from Sins Forums Top
The Shadows should be like Pirates! Attacking everyone! Would B 5 be liek a planet? At a center of a gravity well :O