Yuuzhan Vong at War Mod Spotlight

Posted by Digz at Petrolution News on December 31, 2018

The Yuuzhan Vong at War Mod got an honourable mention in this years Best Upcoming Mod of the Year Awards and did so in 2016 in a similar category, so what is all the fuss about? 

 

The mod looks to bring a new era into the game, one talked about in Star Wars lore as being the greatest threat to the galaxy, we see Grand Admiral Thrawn mention it several times in the books and it brings genuine fear that a threat so large can come from the Unknown Regions that could destroy the entire galaxy. The mod is looking to be released as some point in 2019, with various stages of releases to accompany the different elements of the mod, it's a refreshing approach from the development team to release in stages and focus on the elements of getting those right whilst working on the larger incremental updates. 

 

 

 

By focusing on just one of the game modes, "Aftermath" below is the description of the game mode which describes it better than I ever could, source can be found here:

 

The Aftermath mode is a unique and exiting experience. You are the commander of a crippled battle cruiser that was left behind after a fleet engagement. Your job is it to not only protect the beings under your command but go even further and get your ship back up and running. Resources are scarce and limited, and you’ll have to send out your transports to gather resources from debris fields and wrecked ships on the battlefield.

Once you started to scour the battlefield for scraps and debris, you will make a scary discovery: It’s not only your ship that was left behind. An hostile battle cruiser suffered a similar fate, and its commander is trying to repair the ship as well.

This is the moment you will enter into an arms race and whoever manages to repair the ship first will have the fire power to defeat the enemy once and for all.

 

The mod even has its own technology upgrade structure which it has aligned to the Yuuzhan Vong war which lasts five years, aligning it with that makes much more sense and each faction will upgrade differently according to their own characteristics by lore. More information on the technology upgrade can be found on their Mod DB page here.

 

The mod also features updates to the galaxy map and adds realism and authenticity to it, it also adds in a concept of "nav points" they allow for re-routing during the longer hyperspace routes. So with all these exciting changes to the gameplay mechanics, new factions too, and adhering to the lore that captures the imagination of most Star Wars fans it is no surprise why this mod was an honourable mention for best upcoming mod category.We expect great things here!

 

If you want to get the latest updates for the mod make sure you stay tuned here and also visit their website and their Mod DB page. 

EaW Remake Mod - Review

Posted by Digz at Petrolution News on December 28, 2018

I'm sure everyone has heard about Petroglyph re-mastering Command and Conquer and Blizzard working on remastering Warcraft 3, I'm sure a lot of people are wondering whether Petroglyph will ever remaster Empire at War - no need Petrgolyph, The Empire at War remake team have us covered!

 

The mod has overhauled the graphics of the game and has produced such quality and depth in design it really feels like a re-mastery, maybe if Jeroenimo, the creator of the mod reads this he may change the title to Empire at War Re-mastered! Before I go any further, I truly believe a picture, or in this case a video paints a thousand words so I'll just let you watch a video on Jeroenimos YouTube channel that was released a few days ago that shows off the new control ship and battleship skins:

 

 

The level of detail in the skins is completely out of this world and when playing the game it really gives you the feel of a modern day game and when you take down a ship you smile from ear to ear, just turn up the volume and play to your hearts content!

 

The mod also makes a big statement in trying to turn the world into an ever changing environment, we have seen big developers try and fail at this, we have seen others succeed. To quote the development team "The idea is to give the galaxy a more varied and alive ecosystem where you can build different units on different planets." This is a fantastic idea and to an extent EaW vanilla already has this concept but nowhere near the scale that this mod brings, you certainly do not want your enemy to be making those all powerful interdictor ships, this means expanding your empire in the campaign map and in the correct way is crucial. The level of thought required in your campaign has just increased tenfold and this, as gamers, is what we want. We want to be challenged, we want a living world that constantly changes and it brings into perspective the way we plan ahead in our campaigns. Different planets also have increased values in regards to your economy, so for example you want to go for Bespin alongside other climate planets that will give you income boosts according to its climate.

 

The gameplay itself is smooth, aggressive, and visually appealing with an expanded roster of ships. Many people will think just putting lots of ships in a game does not make it awesome, you're quite right but ensuring the factions are balanced with a large roster of ships does it make it awesome and this mod certainly does that. If you're undecided my advice would be to give the mod a go and I promise you won't turn back. A forewarning the mod is still in development stages, it has not been fully released yet so there is still some work to do and I think a top priority is to increase the stability of the game as it does crash from time to time, that is essentially the single drawback so far. It is on the Steam Workshop or you can find it on ModDB here. The Mod won an honourable mention in this years ModDB Mod of the Year Awards in the Players Choice Awards category, I'm a little sad it did not get into the top 10 but I'm sure next year upon even more work and exposure in the community it will. I've been watching Jeroenimos YouTube channel lately, particularly the tutorial videos on the mod which is essentially him doing a walkthrough playing the Empire campaign, there must be about 10 hours worth of footage in this walkthrough split into different videos so please give them a watch and by the end of the first walkthrough which is below I know you'll be hitting that download button.

 

Petrolutions official rating review of this mod is an 8/10

 

 

More Demo bugfixes

Posted by evilbobthebob at Phoenix Rising News on February 25, 2018

A new set of bugfixes and other improvements has made its way to the demo, both on Steam and ModDB.

 

Changelog for version 2.0.2

- Did a pass on ground unit AI combat power so the AI sends more reasonable amounts of units into land combat
- Added infantry highlight icons so that infantry are more visible in combat. Current icons are Red for Imperial infantry, Blue for Rebel infantry and White for Independent infantry.
- Fixed firing muzzle positions for AT-AT, T4 series, and ground-based turbolaser turrets.
- Improved AI starbase upgrade responsiveness, they should now tend to upgrade if the opponent does.
- Garrison structures are now visible through fog-of-war
- Kyle Katarn now uses a Stormtrooper One blaster rifle instead of the post-Dark Trooper campaign assault cannon.
- Golans and shipyards are now placed better on space maps. Golans should generally protect shipyards and the colony.
- Land combat camera now has full yaw rotation and adjusted zoom
- Added Skyhook fleet information in the startup dialogue box.
- Added TIE Starfighter specific skin (the TIE Starfighter is the first in the main TIE line)
- AI responds better to planetary bonuses.
- General scripting performance improvements
- Multiple attempts at reducing the prevalance of save game crashes.
- Updated space missile models for concussion, proton torpedo and proton rockets

v2.0 Changelog

Posted by evilbobthebob at Phoenix Rising News on December 18, 2017

Below is a summary of changes to v2.0, as well as notes regarding what will be included in the demo version, coming soon^TM

General

 

• Rewritten AI to be more intelligent and challenging
  • AI now has some factional differences in style
  • AI will correctly build units and structures based on its planetary bonuses
  • Improved AI in tactical mode
• Rebalanced tech trees
• Functional CSA faction (full release only)
• Sweeping optimization improvements
  • Addition of “light” campaign options for those who prefer high performance
• Many quality-of-life improvements
  • Tooltips for all units contain all the statistic information you need
  • Improved advisor hints to introduce you to the mod’s features
  • Building and shipyard tooltips tell you what they can produce
  • Improved research display
• Difficulty levels:
  • Easy: AI gets 10% fewer credits and takes 10% longer to build units
  • Normal: AI is exactly on par with the player
  • Hard: AI gets 10% more credits, takes 10% less time to build units, and units have 20% more damage, 20% more health, and 25% more shields.

Galactic Mode

 

• Rewritten galactic conquests (Demo featured: Operation Skyhook)
• All hyperspace travel now done via hyperlanes, with bonus speed and income from different sizes of route
• Starships now cost population proportional to their crew requirements
• Complete overhaul of planet locations, bonuses, and abilities
  • Planets now provide population carefully calculated from their statistics
  • Bonuses are rebalanced and clarified with improved tooltips
  • Planet info screens notify you of environmental or population conditions that affect production
• Many new planets added
• Overhaul of planet icons and base level display
• New planet textures
• Over 50 new ground maps for v2.0, many new space maps
• Restoration of classic EAW sandbox missions (full release only, not demo)
• Rebalanced freighters

Skirmish Mode

• Both land and space skirmish are available (though land skirmish is still unfinished for the CSA)
• Space skirmish has been completely rebalanced to be more of a competitive experience
  • Units build faster and are cheaper
  • Income scales better with station level
  • Unit costs and build times balanced per unit and per unit class
• AI greatly improved compared to v1.2

Space Combat

 

• New armor/shield/damage system for space combat, bringing it in line with our ground combat changes from v1.2.
  • Damage is now applied after armor subtraction e.g. laser damage 16 vs armor 12 does only 4 damage to a starship hull.
  • Torpedoes and some other weapons can pierce armor.
  • This means that light craft can barely damage capital ships. All weapons do a minimum of 0.5 damage if armor is equal to or greater than weapon damage.
  • Shields absorb a percentage of damage from incoming fire based on unit class
• New space units (* = buildable in demo): Lictor-class Dungeon Ship, Providence-class Destroyer*, Belbullab-22 starfighter, Defender Starfighter*, TIE Vanguard, Diamond-class courier ship, Manka-class war Frigate*, G-1A Starfighter, Sheathipede-class Transport Shuttle, Y-85 Titan Dropship*, YV-100 Light Freighter, YV-330 Light Freighter, YV-929 Armed Freighter
• Rebalanced starship and starfighter weapons for the new combat system, rewriting thousands of hardpoints
• Space Colonies are now armed with turbolasers at all levels, and provide minor fire support to defending fleets

Ground Combat

• New ground combat bunker system, with many civilian structures available to hide your infantry
• New ground vehicles (* = buildable in demo): AAT, HMP gunship, MTT, OG-9, S-1 Firehawke*, V-Wing Airspeeder*
• Improved weather system and atmospheric effects- don’t let infantry get stranded on planets with a Type IV atmosphere!
• Infantry carry appropriately-modeled weapons in most cases
• New ground structures: Bank, Listening Outpost

Heroes

• New hero system with consistent hero ratings and upgrade paths
  • Space heroes now require a flagship to attach to in many cases
• New heroes (* = playable in demo release): 4-LOM, Adar Tallon, Andoorni Hui, Apailana, Appo, Barrow Oicunn, Bevven*, Blitzer Harrsk, Bror Jace, Clyngunn, Cody, Comeg, Corran Horn, Crueya Vandron, Devlia, Erisi Dlarit, Evir Derricote, Gavin Darklighter, Ghorin, Haashn, Havet Storm, Hurst Romodi*, Kirtan Loor, Kosh Teradoc, Laryn Krefey, Lujayne Forge, Male Dee, Mawsh’iye, Meena Tills, Morteos, Nawara Ven, Odd Ball, Onara Kuat, Ooryl Qrygg, Osted Wermis, Peshk Vrisyk, Ragab, Rhysati Ynr, Riv Shiel, Rojahn, Sander Delvardus, Shaak Ti, Shea Hublin, Talon Karrde, Tensiger*, Terrinald Screed, Thaneespi, Theol Drost*, Treuten Teradoc, Tundra Dowmeia, Uwlla Iillor, Verrack, Zel Johans*, Zsinj, Zuckuss

Operation Skyhook- Demo Release GC

• Experience the lead-up to A New Hope from both sides of the Galactic Civil War, as told in the Legends universe
• Selection of missions provide guidance in the early stages of the campaign. The later stages are up to you!
• Command the Rebel Alliance from hidden fighter bases, striking against Imperial convoys and trying to discover the location of the Death Star construction site
• Lead the Galactic Empire to victory, protecting the Death Star and crushing the Rebellion across the galaxy
• The Galactic Empire is recommended for first time players of Phoenix Rising.

v2.0 Demo Coming Soon(tm)

Posted by evilbobthebob at Phoenix Rising News on December 8, 2017

As you may or may not be aware, I am still working reasonably regularly on the mod and have got it to a stage where I feel comfortable releasing a focused demo version of Phoenix Rising 2.0. Currently, the version is in testing, but you can get a sneak-peek from Corey, lead developer on the Thrawn's Revenge series of mods, who has graciously begun a series of videos of the demo test build on his Youtube channel. The first video is here
 
2.0 will include all the changes noted in previous news posts, but there will be a summary of changes around the release time.
 
There is no concrete release date for the demo build, so stay tuned.

We're on the workshop!

Posted by evilbobthebob at Phoenix Rising News on September 3, 2017

Hey guys

 

With the update(!) to Empire at War on Steam, turning multiplayer back on, fixing some bugs, and adding Steam workshop support, I worked all day yesterday getting Phoenix Rising onto the workshop. It's available for download here: http://steamcommunit...873&searchtext=

 

Please post in this thread if you have any troubles installing/running the workshop version, as I haven't had much chance to test it myself.

Battle Blitz has been released.

Posted by Banshee at Petrolution News on July 29, 2017

Hello everyone. Today, while browsing the web, I've found out about something Petroglyph has just released. For modding, it is useless. But if you have a Gear VR, it might be fun if you have 5 dollars to spare. It is called Battle Blitz.

 

 

There isn't much material to share about this game yet and probably there won't be. Here's how the site I've linked above describes the project:

 

 

 

Embark on a fun and challenging "lite" Real-Time Strategy campaign against an AI bent on your destruction! Construct your base, build your army, and determine your strategy of attack. Every map provides a unique challenge with new units, obstacles, and traps to contend with. You can even advance your technology to build the fearsome nuclear silo and rain molten destruction on your enemy! As you level up your character, you’ll earn rewards for technology advancements that can be placed into your own custom maps to share with other players. Other features include Touch controller support, an in-game tutorial, leaderboards, map editor, and the classic base-building, economy management, and strategic battles that strategy players love to dig into.

 

 

 

 

 

It seems that any similarity with 8-Bits Armies is not a mere coincidence. If you are interested in the game, click in any of the pictures and have fun. Thanks to Plokite_Wolf for the tip.

AI Breakthrough

Posted by Ghostrider at Phoenix Rising News on June 7, 2016

After weeks and months of testing, and trying to figure out how to get the AI to react as a human does in a galactic environment, the PR team have finally achieved a significant AI breakthrough:

 

The AI now aggressively attacks independent planets, takes worlds, builds fleets, and stomps all over unwary humans if given half a chance. 

 

The AI equasions to do this have been in place do this for years, but for months the AI has lain dormant, effectively asleep. We have tried hundreds of different ideas to get the AI to activate - all to no effect. 

 

And how did we achieve this? 

 

The frustrating answer, familiar to most modders out there is simple. We changed 1 value in the XMLs, instead of increasing the value from 1.0 to 1.25 we should have decreased the value to 0.75. It just took 6 months of testing to realise that is what we needed to do!

 

WOW. Did the AI react or what?

It annihilated one of the testers in Core Worlds in under a quarter of the time taken for a human player to "WIN" Core Worlds if unopposed. 

 

Now that we know the AI is working, I have to go back and undo many of the campaign changes put in place that were an attempt to make the AI respond, but the mod is finally alive and kicking. We need to test and polish a bit more, but this makes us a lot closer to where we want to be. 

 

Ghost

Campaign #1 - CORE WORLDS

Posted by Ghostrider at Phoenix Rising News on December 9, 2015

At the centre of the galaxy, you find the oldest, richest, most heavily populated... and the best defended planets in the galaxy. Single planets in the Core have more financial and military influence than whole sectors in the Outer Rim.

 

 

CORE WORLDS is the first of the campaigns in the Rise of the Empire Era, which is set at the end of the Clone Wars. The formation of the Galactic Empire has been announced, but many worlds are either actively opposed to the New Order or are highly independent planets that will resist the Imperialisation of trade, commerce and law. You get to rewrite history with either the early Galactic Empire, or the scattered elements of the Phoenix Rising Movement.

 

 

All of these campaigns start with a handful of planets and outdated Republic-era and Clone Wars technologies. Many of the neutral worlds will be far stronger at the start than your small fleets, and these campaigns are lengthy. It is vital to plan for long term growth, and in many cases your production capacity will far exceed your initial income, and it is important to grow both militarily and financially.

 

The political influence of leaders also cannot be underestimated, and many politicians give time reduction bonuses on construction (motivation), and best of all, price discounts for the most influential.

 

You should also be aware that the larger starbases need considerable fleet strength, with destroyer and capital-class warship support for the level 4 and 5 starbases, before an invasion can be considered. It is no longer feasible to effectively destroy a starbase with corvettes alone, but your Level 2 starbases are vital to continued financial growth, so don’t ignore them.

 

 

It is worth noting that the income created by light transports is a percentage of the planetary income, so make sure your light transports are in orbit over your wealthiest planets. You receive light transport revenues once units have made 1 trip into hyperspace. XQ5 platforms add 25% to your base planetary income, and are well worth the 3 week production time on your richer worlds. However, there is a limit of 2 per planet, and many of your Core holdings already contain at least one customs station, with a welcome boost to revenues. 

 

Before considering invasion, make sure you scout target worlds by espionage, stealth heroes, and attacks by a lone scout unit to ensure any invasion is feasible, and that you can escape if it gets too difficult. Many worlds have interdictors in their fleets, trapping invaders to certain doom. And don’t forget about small infantry raids with up to 3 infantry units. This can be a quick way to capture lightly defended units, with the advantage that you destroy the orbiting starbase if you manage to capture the planet.

In Core Worlds, you start with 6 influential planets : -

 

PRM Abregado Rae

The smuggler port of Abregado Rae is fiercely independent and highly resistant to being ruled, and is looking to Corellia for guidance in the growing opposition to the Galactic Empire. If the smugglers on Abregado-rae can join forces with the Corellians, they could form a powerful syndicate.

Strategic Considerations: Threat from Byss.
Heroes: Obi-Wan Kenobi

 

 

PRM Alderaan

Alderaan has been a staunch supporter of the republic in the fight against the Separatists, with the Royal Alderaanian Shipyards providing the engines for the Acclamator-class Assault ships. Both influential and with excellent facilities, Alderaan is politically opposed to the New Order and Bail Organa is one of the key figures in promoting the idea of active resistance to the ever-growing power of the Office of Chancellor.

Strategic Considerations: No Immediate threats.
Heroes: Bail Organa
 

PRM Chandrila

Chandrila is a world of free speech led by Senator Mon Mothma, who led the Delegation of 2000 to limit the powers of the Chancellor. Chandrila has a strong defence-fleet and is working with both Bail Organa and Garm Bel Iblis to take increasing military action to oppose the New Order.

Strategic Considerations: Major threat from Corulag.
Heroes: Mon Mothma

 

PRM Corellia

The free world of Corellia is the leading manufacturer of light freighters and corvettes with unrivalled construction facilities. Invoking an ancient law, legendary Senator Garm Bel Iblis has kept Corellia out of the Clone Wars and is strongly opposed to the changes imposed by the New Order.

Strategic Considerations: Major threat from Byss.
Heroes: Garm Bel Iblis

 

PRM Farrfin

This smuggler world has a vibrant underworld and finds the Galactic Empire and its new taxes a considerable threat – especially as this is increasingly backed up by the Imperial Fleet and a growing Imperial Customs Service.

Strategic Considerations: Major threat from Coruscant.
 

 

PRM Fresia

This tiny island population is the home to Incom – producers of one of the most popular basic fighters towards the last days of the Old Republic – the Z95 Headhunter. Incom’s fortunes have dramatically changed for the worse with the creation of the Galactic Empire and the move towards disposable TIEs – and disposable pilots, something that the Fresians object to morally.

Strategic Considerations: Isolated, but Coruscant could be a threat in the future.

 

IMPERIAL Coruscant

 

Coruscant has everything – vast research capabilities, diverse production, immense wealth and a huge pool of talented individuals to nurture and develop. 

 

 

In addition, both Sith lords – Darth Sidious and Darth Vader - are present on Coruscant, giving the Imperial faction a huge advantage. The political and financial influence of Darth Sidious is worth several star-systems, and Darth Vader frightens whole armies, both in space and in ground combat.

Strategic Considerations: Minor Threat from Farrfin.
Heroes: Darth Sidious, Darth Vader

 

 

While the temptation is to focus on military research, some effort should be spend to upgrade the trade fleet and add to Coruscant’s fleet in case the threat from Farrfin increases. Military expansion, both north to Dolomar and south to the Deep Core should be considered.

 

IMPERIAL Byss

Byss is the center of secret holdings in the Deep Core. With a massive 20bn population of immigrants tricked into travelling to a utopian world, Byss could become a major planet of influence.

Strategic Considerations: Major Threat from Abregado-rae and Corellia

Much effort should be made to consolidate holdings in the deep core and expand as if the smuggler fleet on Abregadoe Rae is able to merge with the Corellians, then the Deep Core is in danger.

 

IMPERIAL Corulag

This model Imperial world is isolated from Coruscant by the republic influences at the Naval Academy on Anaxes, and threatened by political activists on Chandrila. It must rapidly expand its fleet and defeat pro-republican sentiments.

Strategic Considerations: Major Threat from Chandrila
Heroes: Gilad Pellaeon

 

IMPERIAL Kuat

The Kuat Drive yards have unrivalled military production capacity – as long as you have the credits to spend. 

 

 

Kuat has strong neighbours, but no immediate threats, and while it may be tempting to immediately start construction of a destroyer fleet, current limited incomes may prove this be an unnecessary strain on finances. It may be wiser in the short term to divert funds to more vulnerable holdings until their security has been established.

Strategic Considerations: No immediate threats. Powerful neighbours.
Heroes: Onara Kuat

 

IMPERIAL Gandeal

Gandeal is a mineral-rich resource world with small freighter yards that supplies the shipyards of Fondor with raw materials. This should be considered as facility for financial rather than military growth.

Strategic Considerations: Weak Military. Powerful neighbours.
Heroes: Barrow Oicunn

 

IMPERIAL Prakith

Prakith is the secret headquarters of the Inquisitorius in the Deep Core. With no immediate threats, this facility should be expanded to a support facility, building fleet and trade units.

Strategic Considerations: Light Military. Powerful neighbours. Medium term strategy Corsucant should make efforts to connect to Prakith.
Heroes: Antinnis Tremayne

 

Overall, this is a campaign for long term strategy. You certainly have far higher incomes than any other campaign in this era, but early opportunities for expansion are limited – and most be considered carefully.  However, you have access to unsurpassed shipyards and with a solid financial base, your regions of influence should expand steadily. 

Grey Goo's 4th patch: the ballance patch

Posted by Banshee at Petrolution News on March 28, 2015

A couple of days ago, Greybox has released the first ballance patch for Grey Goo. Here's the official notes on it with a long list of changes:

The first balance patch is here!

Here is the finalized list of changes going into the first major balance update released on Tuesday March 24th. These include revisions inspired by the testing done on our Public Test Branch. See the previous balance details here.

Any changes labeled with [PTB] resulted from data collected during the Public Test Branch.

Due to the number of balance adjustments we are implementing with this patch, both 1v1 and 2v2 ranked leaderboards will be reset upon the update's arrival. Your Elo matchmaking rating and win-loss records will be wiped during this reset, allowing you the opportunity to test your skills in a new season.
General

The formed Goo, Repair Subroutine Upgrade, and Sentinel Repair Upgrade regeneration effects now only activate when the units and structures are not actively taking or dealing damage.
Targeting priorities have been re-factored to prioritize units over structures in most cases.



Beta Faction


Air Canister Upgrade

[PTB] Range down from 450 to 350

Stalker

[PTB] Health up from 100 to 110
[PTB] Damage down from 11 to 9
[PTB] Movement speed down from 120 to 115

Stealth Sniper Upgrade

Range down from 500 to 425
Stealth is now always active outside of combat and will reapply 8 seconds after combat ends.

Predator

Health up from 130 to 140

Hailstorm

Damage down from 25 to 20
Range up from 750 to 800
Armor penetration down from 3 to 0
AoE radius down from 150 to 125

Guardian

[PTB] Rate of fire down from 1.75 to 1.5
Range down from 650 to 550
Long-Range Ballistics Upgrade range down from 1200 to 900
Long-Range Ballistics Upgrade damage down from 35 to 25

Cloudburst

[PTB] Damage down from 40 to 24

Stratus

Health down from 100 to 75

Warbird

Rate of fire up from 0.5 to 1
Ammo up from 4 to 5
Cost up from 270 to 315

Nimbus

Ammo up from 2 to 3
Damage down from 75 to 50
Nimbus Napalm Upgrade now lasts 5 seconds down from 5.5
Nimbus Napalm Upgrade AoE radius down from 250 to 200

Avalanche

Shot timings have been shifted to have a smaller cast time and a longer cooldown. Rate of fire remains the same.
Cost down from 675 to 600

Hand of Ruk

Range down from 2000 to 1500

Wall

Armor down from 3 to 0
Build time up from 25 to 30
[PTB] Pillar cost up from 50 to 90
Pillar health down from 1250 to 1000
Straight cost up from 50 to 90

Small Power Hub

Health up from 300 to 400

Medium Power Hub

Build time down from 50 to 45

Large Power Hub

Health down from 900 to 800

Repair Pad

Heals for 15 every 2 sec up from 20 every 5 sec
Build time down from 50 to 30
Cost down from 500 to 300
Health down from 1500 to 1000

Hanger

Rearms aircraft 1 ammo every sec up from 1 ammo every 2 sec
[PTB] Build time up from 30 to 35
[PTB] Cost up from 240 to 245

Extractor

Health down from 1000 to 750
[PTB] Extractor size reduced to match the Human Extractor

Harvester

[PTB] Health up from 80 to 120
[PTB] Movement speed up from 100 to 125

Refinery

[PTB] Creates Harvesters every 20 sec up from 15

"No-Build" Influence Radius

Small Hub radius increased from 400 to 600
Medium Hub radius increased from 400 to 600
Large Hub radius increased from 500 to 600
Headquarter radius increased from 800 to 1000



Goo Faction


Drover

Range down from 250 to 200

Strider

[PTB] Health down from 125 to 115
[PTB] Rate of fire down from 1.25 to 1

Tempest

Damage down from 25 to 18

Small Protean

Health up from 150 to 160

Small and Large Protean

Slow enemies by 50% down from 90%

Crescent

Damage down from 10 to 6
Range down from 1500 to 1000
Projectile speed up from 150 to 200
Projectile Endurance Upgrade AoE radius down from 100 to 75
Projectile Endurance damage down from 5 to 2
Projectile Endurance range down from 1500 to 1000

Destructor

[PTB] Rate of fire down from 1.75 to 1.5
[PTB] Damage down from 42 to 36
[PTB] Health down from 155 to 150
Movement speed down from 120 to 105
Target damage and splash damage have been separated. Splash damage down from 42 to 15 but target damage remains the same.

Purger

Range up from 800 to 1000
Damage down from 400 to 300

Catalyst Vents

Grant 160 health per pickup to the Mother Goo and Proto-Purger up from 85

Mother Goo

Stealth detection range down from 800 to 400
Armor penetration down from 10 to 0
Max health has increased from 1300 to 1600
Health per size has increased from 200 to 320
Catalyst digestion health per second up from 5 to 8
First size max health down from 500 to 320
Initial Mother Goo starting health down from 400 to 240

Proto-Purger

[PTB] Starting health down from 2000 to 200 to maintain build time from Catalyst Vent change.



Human Faction


Trident

[PTB] Health up from 115 to 140
[PTB] Damage down from 8 to 7
Build time up from 20 to 25
Cost up from 100 to 125

Revolver

Damage down from 6 to 5
[PTB] Health down from 100 to 95

Dagger

Armor down from 3 to 0
[PTB] Range up from 350 to 375
[PTB] Damage down from 3 to 2
Health up from 75 to 90

Gladius

[PTB] Range up from 350 to 400
Movement speed down from 95 to 90

Howitzer

[PTB] Cost down from 440 to 385
Damage down from 30 to 23
Range up from 800 to 900
Armor penetration down from 3 to 0
AoE radius down from 150 to 100
Mine (default) no longer has stealth
Mine duration down from 12 to 3 sec
Proximity Mine Radar Upgrade mine duration down from 18 to 9 sec

Longbow

Movement speed down from 130 to 110
Damage down from 42 to 24

Lancer

Damage level one DPS down from 50 to 10
Damage level two DPS down from 60 to 40
Damage levels one and two now last 3 seconds up from 2

Scimitar

Damage down from 125 to 60
Ammo up from 1 to 2
Rate of fire up from 1 to 2
Cost up from 300 to 350

Mine Drop Upgrade

[PTB] Armor penetration down from 3 to 0
[PTB] Mine no longer has stealth
[PTB] Mine duration down from 10 to 6

Monitor

Health up from 75 to 100
[PTB] Movement speed down from 275 to 250
[PTB] Vision up from 1000 to 1200
[PTB] Cost up from 75 to 105
[PTB] Build time up from 25 to 35

Scythe

Movement speed down from 400 to 375
Armor penetration down from 6 to 0
AoE radius down from 75 to 50
Damage up from 13 to 20
Rate of fire up from 0.5 to 1.25

Aircraft Repair Upgrade

Repairs 8% every sec up from 5% every sec

Alpha

Movement speed up from 50 to 75
Explosion interval health threshold down from 500 health to 300 health

Repair Subroutine Upgrade

Repairs 10% every 5 sec up from 5% every 5 sec

Air Pad

[PTB] Cost up from 60 to 80
[PTB] Build time up from 15 to 20
Rearms aircraft 1 ammo every sec up from 1 ammo every 2 sec

Conduit

[PTB] Health up from 250 to 300

Teleporter

Build time up from 75 to 120
Cost up from 750 to 1200
Cooldown up from 150 to 180
Now has a visible 5 second charge up telegraph and an audio queue before activation

Wall

Armor down from 6 to 0
Build time up from 30 to 40
Pillar cost up from 30 to 80
Pillar health down from 1000 to 750
Straight cost up from 30 to 80
Regeneration up from 15/sec to 25/sec

Human Sentinels

Now have a population of 1
Take 10 seconds to teleport up from 5

Artillery Sentinel

Range down from 1750 to 1000
[PTB] Damage up from 15 to 20
[PTB] Health up from 250 to 300
Armor down from 6 to 3

Anti-Heavy Sentinel

Armor down from 6 to 3

Anti-Air Sentinel

Damage down from 8 to 4
Armor down from 6 to 3

Extractor

Health down from 1000 to 750

Harvester

[PTB] Movement speed down from 130 to 125

Refinery

[PTB] Creates Harvesters every 10 sec up from 7.5

"No-Build" Influence Radius

Core radius increased from 800 to 1000

News. Now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time...

Posted by evilbobthebob at Phoenix Rising News on June 17, 2014

Hello Phoenix Rising fans.

 

First off, I'd like to apologise for the extremely long time between news posts. If this was the only way you kept up with the mod, I can forgive you for thinking we'd ceased development. Those of you who read more of the forums see the team members making comments from time to time, and we made a call for alpha and beta testers for the latest version over the past year. Still, this doesn't make up for the silence we've sustained up to now.

 

I'd like to change that myself, primarily because I finally have some free time and partly because our team leader and the prime driver of the mod, Phoenix Rising, is without a computer capable of doing modding right now. This isn't particular cause for alarm, because the current build of the mod is very feature-complete. However, there still remain areas that need polish and improvement.

 

So what have we been doing for the past two years? Our initial plan for the next version of the mod was primarily based on integrating the information provided by the release of The Essential Atlas. As software project tend to do, we experienced some rather strong feature creep, and as one thing led to another, we realised we had a version of the mod that is no longer a mere incremental update. In fact, we have:

• General
  • Made numerous changes to improve performance
  • Remade and rebalanced the hero system
  • Rebalanced tech trees
• Galactic Mode
  • Brought our galactic maps in line with The Essential Atlas
  • Added new planets
  • Entirely rebalanced and remade our core sandbox campaigns (still a work-in-progress)
  • Created a new planetary bonus system
  • Created a new hyperspace system
  • Rebalanced freighters, including the addition of light transports
  • Improved the display of research
• Combat
  • Improved land combat
    • Begun the process of adding infantry weapon models
    • New units
    • Improved weather system
  • Added many new maps in land and space
  • Entirely revamped space combat to be in line with land combat:
    • New armour, health and shield system
    • New weapon balancing and types
    • Better display of unit statistics
    • New units
    • Increase in map size to accommodate the changes

Many of these changes, especially those based around planets and maps, have already been mentioned in prior news posts. Check those for more information on those specific topics. As for the rest, I hope I can bring you more news posts in the near future providing examples and details. In the mean time, I'm happy to answer questions you may have here on the forums.

 

evilbob

Planets by numbers

Posted by Ghostrider at Phoenix Rising News on December 21, 2012

The key theme to V1.3 development is conforming to The Essential Atlas, which involves moving all the planets to their correct locations. In addition, a new theme has been added to this which has implications throughout the mod, some obvious, some hidden: Populations.

Planets vary enormously in their planetary populations, from the trillion on Coruscant to the airless uninhabited moon of Folor, and this now becomes the key economic driver for determining planetary income and industrial output. In general, heavily populated Core Worlds outclass anything else in terms of economic and military output (with a few notable exceptions), while some of the Outer Rim planets are so poor, one wonders if they are worth the military effort to take them. More on this later.

The second major change is fleet populations. Every unit now requires galactic population to build it. The more crew in a ship, the greater the Unit Population. Why? An Imperial-class Star Destroyer has 37,000 crew and requires consumables for 2.5 years. That's over 100 million meals stuck somewhere in the hold, and all this food, together with all the other consumables and parts required to cover every possible eventuality of running a Star Destroyer from spare rank cylinders to deflector shield parts has to be supplied from somewhere. Each planet you control will contribute to Galactic Population, and each land or space unit that is built consumes Galactic Population.

From a Campaign design perspective 2 points are immediately obvious. Firstly, while frigates and below have low crew requirements, the Clone Wars-era cruisers such as the Dreadnaught and the Acclamator Assault Ship are ridiculously crew-heavy designs, and it is not surprising that these designs were relegated to crew training and planetary defense roles out during the Imperial Era, especially with the advent of the Imperial-class Star Destroyer. While this certainly has a high Unit Population, a single Imperial is less demanding on Galactic Population than 2 Dreadnaught Heavy Cruisers, and with considerably more firepower. Yet another example of the technical breakthroughs achieved with the Imperial-class. It's not just a raw demonstration of firepower – it's also more efficient in crew requirements. Population is shown in yellow for negative numbers, such as unit population costs, and green for positive values, as per most planets.

So what defines Galactic Population?
Clearly food surplus is a key requirement to building a large fleet/army, but in addition a vibrant trade network is required to allow fleet supply to move goods around the galaxy to support front line military units wherever they are.

The current system of 10 population per planet is too uniform and simply was not going to work. But what do we replace it with? Answer – a full demographic model of each planet giving a picture of its food production, economy, trade network and industrial output that can then be used to determine a realistic figure for its weekly income and Galactic Population.

Actually this isn't quite as bad as it sounds as I had already started on a planetary demographic model during V1.2 development, but the model has grown and grown and is pretty complex. I'll attempt to break it down into manageable chunks.

Food Production
The first step in creating a picture of a planet and its economic output is food production, the mainstay of most civilisations. Planets are not just lumps in space, terrain is critical to food production, so we listed a set of primary terrain types, all with different features: Grassland, Oceans, Forests, Temperate, Mountains, Volcanic, Desert, Swamp, Urban, Arctic, Barren, Ruined urban and Primordial and Asteroid. To this we add the civilisation factors: Technology Level, ranging from Neolithic/Primitive through to Super-High Tech. I also wanted a measure of Industrialisation and Pollution, which I call Harmony. Planets with high Harmony scores are pretty, grow lots of food and are good for tourism, while planets with negative scores are increasingly polluted.

Both Tech and Harmony have significant impact on food production and industrial output. Low Tech worlds take big penalties for both economy and food production, while the polluting worlds are penalised on food production but have bigger economies and greater industrial output.

Now we apply the Agricultural Level (which is a separate but related concept to the Advantage of the same name) , which acts as a multiplier to the terrain type. While the normal level of Agriculture is set at 1, some harsher worlds (where the planetary description indicates a subsistence level economy) this may drop to 0.5 or 0.25 depending on the local conditions. High levels of urbanisation will also reduce the Agri-level. Planets with good food reserves increase to Agri-level 2 or 3, while 4 or 5 is reserved for the Agriworlds, where the entire planet is turned into a giant farm. The scale of food production varies enormously, with Tatooine's moisture farmers producing 2.3 units of food, up to the giant of Ukio's world farms producing over 200 food units.

We also decided that planetary diameters will have an impact on food production, so large planets have their food output increased, while small colonised moons with lower surface area produce less food. As a bonus, we've taken the planetary diameters and re-scaled the planets visually in Galactic Mode so you can see size differences now, where known.

And finally, we deduct a measure of food that is eaten by the planetary inhabitants, so that big urban worlds are net food importers, with Coruscant's trillion beings eating over 100 food units worth of population.

Trade
The other side of the credit chip is galactic trade. This is based on several areas of industry. First, we take the trade generated by industrial output, which includes mineral resources, general industrial output (with positive modifiers for factory worlds), art & tourism, crime, and population-based civilian demand, so urban worlds score well here. Furthermore, this is intrinsically linked to the galactic trade network, and each planet gets a special "Commercial" ranking depending on its galactic position and access to major trade routes. The Comms rank ranges from 1 to 8, with position on the Big 5 Hyperrroutes (Hydian Way, Perlemian etc) rating an automatic 4. Remote Outer Rim worlds may only rate 1-2, while the super-hubs are scoring 6 or more. This makes a massive difference to the trade created by a planet, and has a major impact on both planetary economy and Galactic Population.

Most of this data remains hidden (actually in a massive spreadsheet used for mod development), but the result is a very personalised planetary economy. Having gone this far, we decided to complete the task by calculating all the important game considerations using this data.

Land and Space slots are now calculated using all the information gathered so far. To build a base you need solid terrain and a local technological culture to build and maintain the base. Key factors for Base size are terrain type and planetary population. Harsh worlds reduce the base size, high populations increase base size. The number of space slots is a combination of local shipbuilding – ranging from general technical skill of the population to specialist shipyards as noted in the planetary advantages, with additional slots for high trade requirements and large colony size. The number of Turret mounts for Planetary Turbolaser Defenses are now biased towards urbanised centres, and low population worlds tend to have fewer turbolasers than high tech worlds. The number and frequency of build pads is often also linked to urbanisation, so don't expect too many build pads to help your troops if you invade a barren planet! And finally, when you capture a planet, you get to steal/plunder all the goods awaiting shipment, so trade planets, mining worlds and planets with medical exports will have higher capture values.

Planets by numbers
If this is confusing, let's illustrate with a few examples; Firstly we collect all the data we know about a planet: Diameter, Population, Terrain types, Atmosphere type, Description. From this we can determine a range of 18 data points that describe the planetary demographics and from with we calculate the number of Land and Space Slots, the weekly income, Galactic Population, Capture Value, Destroy value and a rough guide to the number of possible towers for all those planets with unique maps.

Overall, with 300 planets in the database that's over 5000 data points to determine that describe all the planets in the mod, and 2500 critical data points used by the mod data files. This has then been tested (hence the call for Alpha testers) and re-balanced. While both the economic and population systems worked, the initial scale estimates were a bit high and a quick scalar applied to all values. Incomes now range considerable from negative income scores for barren moons to thousands of credits for the key industrial and trade centres.

Changes to the Campaigns
So what does this mean for the campaigns? Firstly, fleets end up a bit smaller, and Capital-class warships just got a bit rarer as all the campaigns are re-balanced for the population cap. This also has the added benefit of improving game performance due to the reduction in fleet size. Unless you have a large number of Core Worlds or agri-worlds under your control to boost your population limits, those early Clone Wars-era cruisers will end up being unpopular and will put pressure on your research planets to develop more modern and more efficient designs. Overall, the dynamics of play should become even more interesting with this extra challenge.

Recopia: Base of the New Republic Defense Fleet

Posted by evilbobthebob at Phoenix Rising News on December 7, 2012

Situated between the Corellian Run and the Hydian Way, the planet of Recopia is ideally located to strike the other planets of the Core Worlds. This strategic position, and the relative anonymity it provides, made it the base of operations for the New Republic Defense Fleet in the period immediately after the Battle of Endor.



The reason this planet is ignored by the rest of the Core is its geography: sulphurous seas, poisonous fog and a lack of natural resources meant that a mere 200 million sentients call it home. They live scattered across the kilometre-high plateau islands that are dotted across the oceans, connected by bridges or airspeeder.



Due to the sizes of the islands, vehicles cannot be deployed to the surface. Instead, airspeeders and infantry are required of any garrison or attacking force that wishes to take the planet. Any structure on the planet must be carefully chosen to make best use of the limited space available.



The bridges provide choke points and defensible locations, while the small islands end up filled with skirmishing and air-to-air combat amid the lashing rain.

Version 1.2 In Numbers

Posted by Phoenix Rising at Phoenix Rising News on March 24, 2012

I had a noble goal when we started work on this version: to keep a record of everything we would change. Somewhere between the advantage revamp and the AI trials, that goal became impractical - nothing was being spared from improvement. So, in lieu of a conventional changelog, here's some analysis on just how different the game is from v1.1.

• 532/577 game object XMLs modified or created for this release.
• 3/7 enumeration XMLs changed.
• 82/82 custom AI XMLs implemented.
• 320/320 LUA scripts edited and compiled for v1.2.

Several major code projects were completed in the course of development. The complement formula was overhauled and transports were allowed to be carried (total spawn tags increased from 655 to 1218). Laser color variants were finished (+1641 blue laser hardpoints alone). Heroes were given leadership qualities, greatly expanded, their ships switched to canon variants, and generally don't resemble their former selves (+112 named hero variant net gain). A mechanic was devised for planetary advantages and galactic combat bonuses were standardized (advantage abilities expanded to 372 from 151). Custom AI was realized for the first time, with cunning infrastructure logic (56 novel equations). The land rules were redone from scratch, in essence, making this the Land Mini-Mod (43 new infantry types converted from vanilla assets, 3 droids, 8 vehicles, 15 buildables).

Salvaged variants, along with most legacy units, projectiles, damage/armor types, corruption data, cinematic data, and story props were cut for the sake of optimization. It's hard to track every minor change done for performance, so here are some current benchmark comparisons courtesy of Ghostrider:

2.2 GHz dual-core laptop with 2 GB RAM running Windows 7

v1.1 Loading
Logo - 55 s, Menu - 125 s
Core Worlds - 160 s, 2 FPS

v1.2 Loading
Logo - 55 s (-0%), Menu - 110 s (-12%)
Core Worlds - 120 s (-25%), 8-9 FPS (+425%)

3.0 GHz dual-core desktop with 2 GB RAM and a GeForce 7200 running Windows XP

v1.1 Loading
Logo - 30 s, Menu - 80 s
Core Worlds - 100 s, 7 FPS

v1.2 Loading
Logo - 25 s (-17%), Menu - 75 s (-6%)
Core Worlds - 75 s (-25%), 26-30 FPS (+400%)

This will be the first release where we've completely moved away from my time as campaign designer - and so much for the better. Ghostrider brought his vision of the Thrawn Offensive and Operation Shadow Hand to life, redoing every single unit in the process. We added a brand new historical campaign in Operation Skyhook, and the heroes to match. I can't even venture a guess at how many passes were made to update the sandbox set, but assuredly everything has been optimized. Historical campaigns now get free upgrades to start; we fixed the tech slider for Rebels and the credit slider also finally works properly. We assembled a team of testers, led by Reedek, who spent an unfathomable number of hours poring over these campaigns for bugs. Finally, Ghost drafted a 115-page technical manual to explain the intricacies of the mod.

Aside from name strings, all planetary text, all hero text, and all land text was rewritten. The campaigns all have new intro text. Land stats were put on individual lines and all buildable land units were given descriptions. The master text file added 429 kB. 7 GUI dialogs were modified.

8 Conquest land maps were added and the terrain of every GC space map was spread out to better accommodate pathing. A couple map-related exceptions were caught. 2 Skirmish space maps also made it in. Not to worry; evilbobthebob was only promoted from the testing team at the tail end of our beta phase.

• 326/868 new ALO model exports. +211 model net gain.
• 291/331 new ALA animation exports. +298 animation net gain.
• 958/1402 DDS textures edited. +598 texture net gain.
• 305 TGA icon changes or additions, most hero icons thanks to Invadious.

28 space unit models added: Acclamator I, Acclamator II, Action VI, B-wing, Cargo Containers B-D, Droid Tri-Fighter, Gozanti, I-7 Howlrunner, IRD, Research Station, Shadow Droid, Space Colony 1-5, TIE Bomber, TIE Drone, TIE Fighter, TIE Interceptor, TIE Targeter, T-wing, Victory I, Victory II, World Devastator, Xiytiar. 7 space unit model spin-offs or significant changes: Im418, Independence MC120, Liberty MC80, Reef Home MC80, Tector I, Tector II, TIE Interceptor RG. 9 space units with new animations: Barloz, BFF-1, BTL Y-wing, Delta-7, DX-9, ATR-6, RZ-1 A-wing, T-65 X-wing, Z-95 Headhunter.

8 unique Nertea land unit models added: Armored Freerunner, Arrow-23, Heavy Tracker, Overracer, PAS, PX-10, QH-7 Chariot, Talon I. 6 third-party land unit models added: B1 BD, B2 SBD, Greedo, LAAT, Luxury, T-16. Custom single energy bolts sized for damage added. 10 land unit model spin-offs or significant changes: A6 Juggernaut, AT-AP, Digger, Garm Bel Iblis, Guild House, Navy Trooper, Spy Network, Storm IV, T-47, X-34. 21 map props added.

With that said, the release candidate for v1.2 is undergoing a final evaluation by testers at this moment. If nothing goes catastrophically wrong, the release date will be Sunday, March 25th at 00:00 GMT-5.

We Would Be Honored If You Would Join Us

Posted by Phoenix Rising at Phoenix Rising News on December 28, 2011

For two years, Nertea has been my Shadow Hand, operating strictly behind the scenes in our effort to transform land combat. While it was great for the suspense of the announcement, admittedly, that was a terrible way to welcome someone to the team. I'd like to use this post, which highlights his remaining vehicles realized under v1.2, to give him a proper show of community appreciation. Without his contributions, the ground revamp would not have been possible.



Mobquet designed the Overracer Speeder Bike to do one thing: zoom. In terms of raw velocity, it's one of the best bikes on the market that isn't hampered by the control issues shared by swoops. Other than the optional light blaster cannon, there are few amenities of note, which is fine to the racers and scouts that primarily employ the Overracer. It's become a favorite of groups opposed to the New Order, which have been known to strip it even further to maximize stealth potential.



The newfound Empire conscripted Uulshos Manufacturing to build an armored command landspeeder to replace the LAAT in the role of ferrying officers in battle. The result was the QH-7 Chariot Light Assault Vehicle. Despite the bulk associated with tactical computers, encrypted comm units, and active countermeasures, the Chariot boasts impressive speed thanks to five thruster engines. On backwater worlds, the belly laser cannon allows it to double as a combat vehicle.



The Arrow-23 is a utility landspeeder that Aratech markets towards nature enthusiasts on semi-developed planets. It is larger and better armored than the typical family speeder to provide a certain level of comfort in the wild. It's also blazingly fast and highly modifiable, qualities that make it attractive to paramilitary organizations. The Alliance ended up with so many Arrow-23 Landspeeders that it became the default option for tramp shuttle, heavy scout, and battlefield ambulance.



When the Confederacy collapsed, the potential size of the Empire effectively doubled and, despite omnipresent propaganda, its forces were continuously spread thin as it pushed Rimward. Nen-Carvon offered a solution in the form of the PX-10 Compact Assault Vehicle, a self-driving light tank with a singular crew requirement. The tracked chassis is near impervious to pre-industrial technology, although its sensory inputs can be electronically jammed. Still, the PX-10 has been used against unruly Core denizens.



Ubrikkia Transports debuted the Talon I in the interwar period when galactic crime was on the rise. It is a modern example of an older concept: a militarized airspeeder built to engage starfighters in atmosphere. Although lacking the shields and powerplant of a spaceworthy craft, its sleek fuselage allows the Talon I Combat Cloud Car to excel at dogfighting. They are common to metropolitan defense forces and are occasionally fielded by the Empire in favor of noisier TIEs.

New Maps Part Two

Posted by evilbobthebob at Phoenix Rising News on December 5, 2011

As promised, here is the second news post about the new maps coming to Phoenix Rising with the release of version 1.2. I hope you'll enjoy fighting on them as much as I enjoyed making them!

Denon

We begin with the grey ecumenopolis of Denon. Situated in a strategically important hyperlane intersection, this is an important world to control in many campaigns.



The landing zone at Denon offers a number of paths to the main base, and provides ample space for heavy equipment to be landed.



The long, wide streets are excellent for walkers and speeders alike. Infantry can shelter between some buildings to keep them out of the line of fire.


Champala

Altogether a nicer planet than Denon, Champala is an oceanic world, home to the Changrian species. Its rapidly changing tides meant that the native coastal cities are adapted to being partially submerged for extended periods.



One of the coastal cities of Champala nestles below an eroded cliff face.



Repulsorlift vehicles are recommended for attacks on Champala and all oceanic worlds, though walkers and wheeled tanks can ford some of the shallow sand banks.



The base on Champala is set on massive concrete foundations with heavy drainage pipes to keep the worst of the tides away from the main structures.


New Alderaan

Far in the Outer Rim, New Alderaan is, as the name suggests, the homeworld of Alderaanians who escaped their planet's destruction. Much like Alderaan, it is a temperate world, though with strong seasonal variation.



A landing zone directly outside the main base, this should be held by defenders for as long as possible. It provides an excellent flaking route for attackers.



Deep in the mountains, this pass can be used to ambush attackers or flank round heavy defences.



AT-ATs emerge from the mist to assault the New Republic defensive line. The forest can provide cover for ambushing infantry.


Ord Biniir

A relatively unimportant world in the Outer Rim, Ord Biniir was covered in canyons and as a result, favoured by podracers.



The initial landing zone on Ord Biniir gives attackers a number of different canyons to choose from, some leading to the enemy base, some going to more hidden corners of the map.



The main base on Ord Biniir, built on one of the plateaus separating the winding canyons. Part of the rear base wall has collapsed, giving attackers an alternate route and providing defenders with a way to reinforce their ramp if necessary.



The main canyons surrounding the base. If turbolaser defences are present, heavy vehicles or anti-vehicle infantry are a must!

Well, that's all from me for a while. I have plenty more maps in the pipeline. Other big map changes in 1.2 include revamped structure positions in Galactic Conquest: now your ISDs can navigate those station defences! All space skirmish maps have been scaled up too, so starbases can no longer bombard each other as soon as the battle begins and ships can pathfind much more effectively.

Campaign Optimisation

Posted by Ghostrider at Phoenix Rising News on September 8, 2011

Mod development is a double edged vibro-blade at times. Adding detail and expanding gameplay can have an effect on performance, and this has always been a challenge with campaign development, where you can’t just cram zillions of unarmed freighters around a trade planet to make it look real without making the PC sweat a bit.

The trick is to add enough units to make planetary defense fleets look and feel real, and to have enough variety that you each fleet is different, and yet balancing this with performance.

Several breakthroughs in the development process have made this a lot easier and add up to making a much better mod.

Firstly, PR looked at how the game engine works from a theoretical aspect. While we are unable to optimise the engine itself, we can optimise the data that the engine uses, and this has been done by eliminating unused XML data objects. So the Zann Consortium has been whittled down to a handful of pirate/independent units, corruption missions are gone and the interventions (the random missions that used to pop up) have been removed from the AI. Redundant GUI model code was also scrapped.

De-bugging also uncovers some unusual problems. During late V1.1 testing we discovered that someone had accidentally left a microscopic sized level 5 Starbase tucked under each planet in galactic mode, and removing this certainly made the graphics card a bit happier.

The other big change to V1.2 is the use of a config.meg file to wrap all the XML’s into a single package, which reduces hard-drive access time, and therefore improves loading times.

We also tried unplugging the AI completely (not just switching it off), but this made very little difference to performance, as some of the performance issues are inherent to EAW modding – so we work around as best we can.

For the campaigns themselves, there is a clear correlation between the number of units in play and degrading performance and simply capping the large campaigns to a maximum of 100 planets was a step in the right direction. However, the big breakthrough came in recent testing, when Evilbobthebob discovered that while large campaign files are certainly slower than small files, the really important factor is diversity. It’s better to have fleet of 50 identical frigates than a smaller fleet of 10 frigates, 10 bombers, 10 fighters and 5 freighters.

With this in mind we tested a new approach to fleet composition:
We can keep a huge stock list of available ships, but ensure individual fleets don’t have two different ships performing the same role, and keep the upgrade level consistent with the fleet.
For example, a smuggler world would have several YT1300b’s instead of a motley assortment of randomly upgraded freighters. This eliminates several unit variants in one go, but players are still attacked by a swarm of hard-hitting light freighters.
The next smuggler world might be poorer, but slightly more criminally minded and would have say HWK Medium Raiders for a slightly more piratical bias.
As a player you are met with a completely different foe, but the game engine is happy to only deal with one variant instead of six.

This approach has been applied across the entire mod, and while no two planets will have the same choices from what is now a large unit database, but the results work. In the last three months, all seven campaigns have been re-optimised (the Beta varsion) with this viewpoint and, if anything having fewer types of units in an individual fleet accentuates the differences between one planet and the next and makes the universe that much more interesting. And the performance benefits speak volumes as the CPU is better able to manage the galaxy.

The following test results were achieved on a 3.6GHz Quad Core - Alpha version early V1.2 testing, Beta version post optimisation

Loading Times (s)

Core Worlds (Alpha) 31
Core Worlds (Beta) 25
Inner Rim (Alpha) 36
Inner Rim (Beta) 21
Outer Rim (Alpha) 53
Outer Rim (Beta) 38
Operation Skyhook (Alpha) 51
Operation Skyhook (Beta) 40
Thrawn Offensive (Alpha) 50
Thrawn Offensive (Beta) 42
Galaxy Far Far Away (Alpha) 107
Galaxy Far Far Away (Beta) 60
Operation Shadow Hand (Alpha) 67
Operation Shadow Hand (Beta) 59

Max Frame Rate Per Second

Core Worlds (Alpha) 28
Core Worlds (Beta) 32
Inner Rim (Alpha) 24
Inner Rim (Beta) 36
Outer Rim (Alpha) 20
Outer Rim (Beta) 24
Operation Skyhook (Alpha) 18
Operation Skyhook (Beta) 23
Thrawn Offensive (Alpha) 17
Thrawn Offensive (Beta) 19
Galaxy Far Far Away (Alpha) 11
Galaxy Far Far Away (Beta) 18
Operation Shadow Hand (Alpha) 10
Operation Shadow Hand (Beta) 12

Average Frame Rate per Second (1 minute test)

Core Worlds (Alpha) 24
Core Worlds (Beta) 29
Inner Rim (Alpha) 18
Inner Rim (Beta) 28
Outer Rim (Alpha) 16
Outer Rim (Beta) 20
Operation Skyhook (Alpha) 15
Operation Skyhook (Beta) 21
Thrawn Offensive (Alpha) 14
Thrawn Offensive (Beta) 16
Galaxy Far Far Away (Alpha) 9
Galaxy Far Far Away (Beta) 15
Operation Shadow Hand (Alpha) 8.2
Operation Shadow Hand (Beta) 8.5

This translates to a 30% improvement on performance for all but the most complex campaigns, and as an added benefit, the new files proved to be smooth and responsive as one moved around the galaxy on all campaigns.

Overall, this means that medium performance systems should be able to play on Core Worlds, Inner Rim, Outer Rim and Operation Skyhook, while lower end PC’s should be able to play Core Worlds and Inner Rim.
And yes - it means that some laptops might be able to play Core Worlds at least, and mine is now used extensively for testing!

Guardians of Graxia: Elves & Dwarves expansion coming Feb. 1st

Posted by Digz at Petrolution News on January 29, 2011

The Elves and Dwarves update to Guardians of Graxia is to be released on the 1st February 2011, it was announced by Berek over at Petroglyph here.

The new expansion will consist of Elves and Dwarves (I reckon that you already guessed that part), Flist the deceitful Elf and Broxin the greedy Dwarf are two new Guardians that will feature in the expansion along with 14 new units to battle with on six brand new maps.

It was also announced that a demo will be released on the day of release, which again is February 1st so you can try out the new expansion before you buy!

How to install EaW Mods with Steam Gold Pack

Posted by Digz at Petrolution News on September 5, 2010

Some of you may know how to install mods in Empire and War & Forces of Corruption in the Gold Pack they purchased from STEAM, although many don't, so this is a video showing and explaining how to install mods using your STEAM version:

(I do apologise if my voice is echoed, I'm using my old mic and it does echo even when I tick off the option)
 

 

Using this way, the PR mod works 100% - AI works on Skirmish and on Galactic Conquest.

A chance to win EAW form Petroglyph

Posted by X at Petrolution News on August 16, 2010

There is a little contest going on, on the Petroglyph site regarding SMG and a chance to win a steam-key for EAW.

Here a link to it on Petroglyph's site
http://petroglyphgam...-war-steam-key-

Anyone wanting to have some fun or want to win a free copy of EAW might want to join in, especially if they did not win one in Petrolution's key contest!

X