And the Culture from Iain M Banks. Ok, they'd wipe the floor with everyone else, but it would be interesting.

It's still not quite the same though is it?

I mean the Culture are probably more powerful than all the other sci-fi civs put together. The Halo war just isn't the same as a Culture war.

Well, fans of the respective IPs can argu all day that some Factions would be inherently more powerful than the others. The job of game makers and modders is to make sure that each is a relatively balanced, and playable option overall.

BTW, Im already being assailed by B5 fans telling em it should be "Vorlons" and not "Shadows". Like I said, Im not up on my B5 mythology...but I know there are a lot of fans of the series...this could certainly be decided.

Yeah, let's pit the Culture against 'killed by being near 2MT nukes' B5 and the 'armed with 20mm cannons' nBSG.

Starting everyone at scratch means many of these cultures can't exist - the Republic is 25,000 years old and the Culture is almost defined by it's absurd level of technology. Aren't you basically just proposing a mod that uses iconic graphics and starship design with a few extra techs? Is it *really* the Culture when you don't have Minds running around? Why would the Republic have a monopoly on Force users when the Force is everywhere? How can the Republic and the Empire exist at the same time, when they are the same organisation with a different name? There are all kinds of problems with the premise, not least that there are well-defined power levels for these civs.

Perhaps you should start with less-ambitious scenarios, where each group can be started in a 'realistic' position? The Culture is basically worthless in a game like this - being far too powerful - but reenacting the Clone Wars, the Shadow Wars, and the Fall of Reach has merit. The game can't get too assymetrical or it's not going to be any fun... who would want to play a 'run away from the Cylons' game? Who would want to attempt to destroy a Star Destroyer with a Federation starship? Once it gets stacked to far one way - which unfortunately is pretty much guaranteed - it becomes not fun anymore.

And yes dersleeper, you can entertain yourself quite thouroughly thinking about how youd represent the capabilities of signature ships in game terms. Like what would an xwing fighter be? A tiny hulled craft with plasma weapons, and also a missle attack, and minor shield defense? In order to fit all that stuff on a tiny hull, it would actually require a decent degree of tech, so maybe the xwing wouldbr availible till later.

There are all sorts of possibilities its fun to think about. Maybe when the Borg take over a world, the texture map on the planets is replaced by a green, viral "technological" map, the way that Borg planets look like from space.


Like I said, its a concept that pretty much HAS to be realized, I think.

In the case of the Republic and Empire, it could be argued they use the same ships, the same tech, and for a time were ruled by the same man. Worth including twice?

I am still of the opinion that the various mod efforts should first concentrate on scenario play. This means we'll actually get something playable a lot sooner, and is really the best way to do it in any form deeper than 'we added some new ship models'. Not that that would be bad, just ... odd.

Bah, forum timeouts make me look bad. Better add some content.

How will you address the scale issue? The Federation, for instance, considers 600m ships 'large', whereas even Halo would consider that an extremely small vessel. If you use 'tiny' hulls for fighters, what will you use for Executors and Death Stars? Off the top of my head, B5 is probably the only franchise that uses every hull size from tiny up. What about issues like the Borgs' proverbial stupidity or the extremely slow B5 ships? Will you add needed tech to the tree or build an entirely new one? This really is an absurdly ambitious project.

Space is not a two dimensional plane with finite barriers the way it is in the game. Its very much the opposite of that concept in terms of "realism".

The point is is that wildly complex concepts are streamlined and over-simplified for fun and economic gameplay. A Borg Cube is that races "large or huge" class ship. An Imperial Crusier is that factions "large or huge" class ship. Even if the actual dimension of thoseships within the context of their respective "universes" varies wildly..>I see no problem whatsoever with putting them into the same category in the game, because they both serve the same "concept".

I think the current tech tree, with some Faction specific tech additions would serve as a decent "ballpark" to represent many of the concepts native to the identity of the said IPs.

All "cross-over" games/movie/comics have inherent logic gaps that are overlooked for the sake of entertainment.

When the Japanese and American Ip holders teamed up to make the "King Kong vs Godzilla" movie, they had any number of logistical barriers to that concept, if one is silly enough to be that nitpuicky over details in what is already an inherently absurd concept. Namely , Kong is around 50 feet tall...Godzilla is around 400 ft. But both creatures had the same identity of "city -threatening monsters". So do you not make the movie, or do you take liberites with the minutaus for the sake of concept and entertainment?


In any event, Im sure the concept will not appeal to all people (though I cant see how it possibly couldnt In my opinion , I think this would be wonderfully entertaining mod, and I am enthusiastic about contributing to its existence.

I'm having trouble understanding how you intend on making an internally-consistent mod with such startling complexity and ambition when you feel thinking about it is impossible. Will you even allow the use of the ship designer, since you intend using iconic designs from various franchises?

You are free to have as much trouble understanding it as youd like. You are also free to make any number of fan created mods that better serve your vision of what they "should" be. But why are you wasting your time here? Its clear you dont like the idea. All I can tell you is "get over it", and move on .

In regards to the ship designer, that question is answered in the original post.

You are free to have as much trouble understanding it as youd like. You are also free to make any number of fan created mods that better serve your vision of what they "should" be. But why are you wasting your time here? Its clear you dont like the idea. All I can tell you is "get over it", and move on . In regards to the ship designer, that question is answered in the original post.

Just a tip: you might want to learn to take criticism a little better. You've got an extremely ambitious (and in my honest opinion, completely overly ambitious to the point of being nigh-impossible) project, and people WILL give their feedback on it. Not everyone will play the role of mindless synchophants either my friend, you will be criticized. It lies on you to be able to take that criticism in stride--your comments so far hurt whatever credibility you might have had with the community.

Also, keep in mind, that the community will decide whether your mod is worthy or not. I could make a mod entitled "Pink Fuzzy Bunnies of OMGHAXORDOOM!" consisting of cute fuzzy bunnies piloting obscenely large pink ships of doom, and might consider it the best mod ever. I doubt many others would, and again, listening to others' feedback would have told me that instead of blindly ignoring them or blowing them off.


In short: be nice, listen to others' opinions, especially since they (the community) will ultimately determine whether your mod is noteworthy.

While we don't need to go into specifics of certain Sci fi properties. (like trying to have 'The Empire' itself)

Why not just take the concepts.

One thing I'm dying for is large capital carrier ships, which house hundreds of one seater fighters.