Narn Sho'kos frigate

Yaey! Thanks again (and again ( and again ( ... ) ) ) for your commitment!

well for all Narn soldier, some update of my work: what i do and what I will do:

G'Quan - CAP (model/seg/UV done)
Bin'Tak - CAP (model/seg/UV done)
T'Loth - CAP (model/seg/UV done)
G'Vrahn - CAP
Kar'Bin'Tak - CAP
T'Roth - cruiser (model/seg/UV done)
Ka'Toc - cruiser (model/seg/UV done)
G'Karith - crusier
Rongoth - crusier
Var'Nic - cruiser
Sho'Kar - fighter or frigate (not decided yet)
Sho'Kos - frigate (model done)
Thentus - frigate
Dag'Kar - frigate
Gorith - fighter (model/seg/uv done)
Ja'Stat - military star base  (model/seg/uv done)

Ja'Dul - starbase / outpost / hangar (not decided yet) (model done - but need to be redone)

please remember that model will be include when the texture will be done, until that there will be a placeholder with vanila ships if tobiwahn decide to include Narn to 0.4

Why didn't you add the trusty old Frazi in there?

Being a heavy fighter, it could even be used as a bomber model.

And for the role or freighter or rafinary ship you could add this little ship here http://www.b5tech.com/oldb5tech/narn/narnships/narnfighters/narntransport.html . I don't know if the name T'Ralie is really canon, since in the TV show they only refered to it as Narn transport or Narn freighter.

@-Norbert-
Frazi was already modeled, but not textured (and I think not uv optimised)

as for freighter, thanks for the info, we will at some point use it (hopefully koobalt does it, he's our narn icon)

If I remember correctly Zvezdochets make the frazi model, about freighter i read some post that you and file'o'soft want to make one for all races or I something wrong translate in my mind??

I'd rather have different ones, if the memory limit allows.

TobiWahn,

I'd love to assist with the tech tree development but I'm cramming grad school into one year. I'll chime back when I'm past the hump and my thesis is well along.

So far the focus for the mod seems ship oriented and Steiner-X has done some good work toward various other art/icon bits. I've looked at all the various web sites but don't yet see "the plan" outlining all the areas that require modification from basic Sins. Does it exist in written form?

Darvroth

@Davroth

The "Plan", Hmmmm...

We need:

Lots of textureing work done
2D Art for icons
2D Art for Images
2D Art for UI redesign
UI babylon 5 Concept
Effect Sounds
Music
Models
Particle Effects
Abilities
Research Trees
Intro Video

And lots of other stuff I suppose

TobiWahn,

 A starting list to be sure but it does not capture the effort that is required or sequence the effort. For example each ship requires: modeling, UV, texture, weapon effects, stat modification (balancing) and other associated 2D graphics and probably other things I'm unaware of.

The research trees in addition to mapping need to have each tech file written or modded and tested and eventually balanced, and if new effects are needed designed and installed.

Each step along the way has a projected level of effort and many tasks must nest with several other connected tasks to complete the desired effect. What is needed is a rough map that at least idendifies all these efforts and where they connect so as progress is made choke points of effort and integration points can be identified and a process for assigning or evaluating the work required can be made. Understanding it is a volunteer effort and there are currently only a half dozen dedicated volunteers what is not known is the scope of the total effort so decisions can be made about where (and the priority) of assigning the work. This will allow for statements of completion along the way (small progress to keep folks motivated) and will help identify work items that may be a bridge too far. This sequenced approach may also allow you to identify skill sets you don't know you yet need maximizing parrallel effort and minimizing identified development choke points.

It may seem like a lot of work that doesn't directly advance the B5 Mod but it will prove helpful to all. It also doesn't need to be anything fancy. Once the complete process for a ship model including all functions is known it will apply to all ship models, same with individual techs, music scores, etc. Knowing what yet needs to be done in some detail should prove useful and for more than just tracking progress. I just wish I had the time to assist in so many ways but I need to upline a paper in the next 24 hours and I'm still many pages shy of where I need to be.  Best of luck.

Darvroth

do you think you'll have B5 music in 0.40??

We have musical masterpieces myde by hawkwall, so yes, we have B5 music in. We will not have enough though that we can replace all of the vanilla sins ones.

@SteinerX and koobalt
Apollo added to repository. Exhausts are messed up and the hangar lightning needs to be fixed, as well as light flairs added to the hangar poles. Will do today or tomorrow. 

nice 

@Darvroth
Nowhere near finished, but here a small progress meter for EA
http://b5-sotyr.origo.ethz.ch/wiki/sins_of_the_younger_races_progress

Excellent work!

@TobiWahn,

Thankyou, really brings to focus the scope of the work, the current level of progress, and where future efforts lay.

Nice looking Apollo.

Q: In Sins does each ship have its own collection of sound files? I imagine many (like a weapon effect) could be common to many platforms.

Q: As I've read on many threads current Sins sets the hit percentage at or near 100%. Where do you envision the baseline being for SOTYR or is it more race dependent with modifications for tech? With the very high damage projected for many weapons hitting first may be the decisive consideration, which also means range will be a critical component of later balancing efforts.

Darvroth

"Earthforce One" 3.4 tri

http://img685.imageshack.us/img685/3930/windowsbitmapimage2.jpg

@Zvezdochets
Updated, thanks.

@Darvroth
A: Sound files are specified in the entity files or in the buff files. Therefore we can reuse the sounds where they fit.

A: I'm not sure what you mean by hit percentage. There are modifiers for damage, which depend on what weapon is used against what type of Armor. They will be balanced as will be everything else. I don't intend to be too realistic here though (a hit once and dead approach is too frustrating when applied to all models) but ships wil still be lost much more easily compared to sins, because of the missing hull regeneration of most races.

@SteinerX and koobalt
New Apollo in repository. Just forgot one thing this time, the hangar point. other than that, it's finished. 

About "third" type frigates - when i try add "third" type frigate in PlayerEA.entity [after frigates and cruisers] i have minidump. Interests, may i add one more type ships, because 9x2 ships too little for me I want add few non-canonical ships for my mod [like "Nike" and others].

@TobiWahn,

Each weapon when fired has a % chance of hitting the target fired at (cap ship special skills seem to be different but do not need to be so). Assume a 1 is always a hit and a 0 is always a miss along a continium. Sins currently to my understanding has with a few cap ship skills effects modifiers set the baseline % chance to hit at 1.

One of the strengths of the Minbari is their ECM. % hit of attacks on the Minbari ships are less than 1. This can be achieved by setting the base % hit less than 1, say .8 with the following modifications ECM (a Minbari tech) which lowers all attackers % to hit, and ECCM which increases the % chance to hit.

The % to hit is one of four balancing measures for weapon effects. The others are weapon range, effectiveness against armor/shields, and base damage. Area of Effect could be another measure but does not apply to every weapon.

So Say a typical EA ship has a .5 % to hit meaning every other shot fired hits the target. A Sharlin has an ECM ability that reduces opponents chance to hit by .3 so the hapliss EA has only a .2 % chance to hit against the Sharlin. Luckily the EA has developed ECCM which restores the baseline % chance to hit by .1 not much but better than nothing raising the EA baseline % chance to hit to .3 or 30%. All other things being equal the Sharlin has a huge advantage as it is hit by weapons fire, which also partially explains the EA desire to bring large numbers of ships to bear to increase the weight of fire which will have the end result of generating more hits.

Darvroth

@Darvroth
Correct me if I'm wrong, but to my knowledge, even the ChanceToHitTargetType modifier in the gameplay constants is just a damage modifier.
Besides, as the name already reveals, the values in here seem to be constants, ie. not changeable. 

@Zvezdochets
There is the possibility of making a "Spawn ship", which by the way of abilities could allow you to spawn 4 different ships (for specified cost) and then either selfdestruct or be kept in place. A mobile shipyard, so to say. 

Work more in the way of shield mitigation... it don't change the hitpoint ( damage )... if you shoot 20 bullet to a ship, it is related to how much bullet hit the target...

Problem is that the constant apply to any shooting thing and any races !!! So, it is not really a interesting use... put there a value of 80% will simply mean that for shooting 100 time, there will be 20% miss... for all weapons and all races... on the other side, mitigation is only possible with shield... since it is a entity variable, who can change with level, we can give it a other name ( shield is not really a B5 feature ) like skin resistance level ( like shadow/Vorlon ship who resist more to shoot with experience )...

Darvroth have a good point but several of these issue are discuss on the dev forum, from the modeling stage... we speak about weapons, abilities and other thing before finishing our model... in several case, we need to adapt to what the game allow and not to what happen in the serie... In some case, issue pop-up who cannot be resolved within the game engine limit... by example, recently, we have discuss the Vorlon secondary weapons... in the serie, in case of attack, secondary weapons move under the skin and concentrate in the direction from where target are coming... in sins, weapons hardpoint cannot move, weapons are point are directional ( front, back, left, right )... in the case of Vorlon, since secondary weapons are not visible, the trick is too add numerous hardpoint who cover any angle but it is not a real solution ( ship being to much powerful in case of multiple target )...

These mod have already found a lot of trick for make thing who was say to be "impossible"... we try to make the "impossible" but "miracle" is out of our reach... By example, a ECM thing will be great... and i think that it is possible to create a ECM ability somehow based on the mitigation thing... a passive ability who don't use antimatter... but come a other problem... the limit for abilities ( max 5 where 1 is passive )...

Sometime, hard choice need to be make... and it is the task of the mod leader ( Tobi )... people need to understand that these topic is our "show room" for the mod... a lot of thing are discuss at our "working" place... some of our work is almost invisible for the usual player... long time ago, Tobi have begin optimize the UV of his jumpgate, result was a win of several hundred % in the surface for paint... recently, several model was revisited for include new texture with backed AO in them... all thing who ask a lot of time and work for having better quality and details... Something not see in huge battle but see when you use the devs exe for zoom more that allow the usual game...

Remember, these mod is a early Beta ( can call it alpha since we add feature to it almost each week )...

Thanks for help! I immediately use this variant.

UPD. "Liandra" cutter for Minbari. 2.4k tri Sorry, but i sacrifice quality for reduce poly.

http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/5647/liandra.jpg