Mama toad me not to make fun of slow foak.

You win this time Batman.

Hey Zombie, I wonder if you read a post a couple pages back from me about researches? never got a response.

It just asked if it was possible to have two researches be dependent on the other NOT being researched, IE Research 1 is bought, so research 2 is now unavailable. Something i had thought of to find a way to distinguish between play styles (defensive vs offensive, or cultural/economical vs militaristic).

And working off of that, i wonder if i might help you out with research tree designs. I'm drawing up a schematic of the research tree interface so i can tinker with tiers and the number of researches and how they link together. I am planing on starting with the cylons, as their offense research three currently has a bunch of weapon researches that are useless, same with shield research.

I look forward to your input. 

Not possible in Diplomacy iirc.

well there goes that, hopefully it may be possible in rebellion.

Agreed, Let's not rule this out for rebellion. There may be a way to lock down a research path still. But Lavo is correct this is not possible with Diplomacy.

Well... you won last night crushing Advent's unity   

Z... do we need music from the series? I can get that too. 

Ooops... sorry, just remembered that this is not a total conversion mod, so you wouldn't need music... 

Hehe... right.

We can add more music, but will probably wait for rebellion to see if sound limits increase.

Sorry for a slow responce i was just posting to get my idea out i should have been more specific

What is the dedicated carrier ship? i find after playing it i use the pegasus for everything its my battleship my carrier and my flagship the only other ship that seems to fill a role is the firestar looking capital ship as the siege the rest dont seem to do anything but sit there they dont really fill a role

Im kinda thinking something like this

Bring the hull points up a little bit for colonials and the armor they are easily beaten by the tec especially who also focus on ship survivability

Make the flack burst ability actually kill fighters

set the ships as having more of a role or diversify abilities a little

add more squadrons to most of the other capital ships as that is what most of the battlestars were made for is to bring loads of fighters to the battle

I like the Nova battlestar as like a command ship

Range and accuracy ability Flak Burst maybe a weapon enhancing ability and dor an ultimate ability like a group last stand sort of thing? kinda like the kol has but or every ship in range

Mercury as the carrier

Scramble squadrons extra squadrons rapid manufacturing and veteran pilots

Valkyrie as a stealth type ship

Maybe a cloaking ability? drains anti matter weapons disables invunerable? stealth bomber squadrons? lower other ships ability to hit it and a spawn stealth fighters ability?

Thor can be a battleship

Nuke flak burst enhanced armor (Passive ability) and maybe give it the alility for its auto cannons to target strike craft like the gardas guns? or a missle spam ability?

Galactica as colony

Colonise flak old computers (make it immune to enemy alibities and planetary bonuses as well as giving it like 10% increesed weapons range and accuracy) and maybe something like veteran crew that enhances all weapons and squadrons?

The planet bomber is a good mix i like it alot keep it the way it is

Sorry im not meaning to sound pushy just sugesting things

sorry for my ideas coming off wierd or unclear

Time to break it down...

Pegasus fills the Carrier role. Though technically every Battlestar is a very solid ship. But role differentiation can help drive out differences more. This is actually something I want to do with all the factions. This is a general view I have of different ships, but I'll take some liberties as I flesh out their roles.

Battleships - Good at taking on large #'s of frigates and tanking damage.

Carriers - Good at fielding large numbers of strikecraft, but less durable than a battleship.

Colonizer - General purpose capitalship with strong support role.

Support - Strongest support role with some tanking ability to be useful.

Siege - Good at taking on single targets like other capital ships and starbases in addition to sieging.

Destroyer - Typically unable to siege but higher dps potential. More of a cross between siege and battleship in terms of single target tanking ability.

Research and leveling will fill this void. Right now the research trees are not taylored yet for this approach. I don't want to high of values because this diminishes the early game struggle.

The next way is to level your capital ships. Their hull and armor almost double what vanilla ships do.

The real issue is their lack of shields which is where the flak shield comes in. Flak shields increase the mitigation values of  the capital ship and nearby frigates.

No, too powerful on every capital ship. I may give one of the battlestars an actual flak burst ability, but not all of them.

No, they already have more than vanilla ships and almost all of the frigates have strikecraft. It would unbalance the game if I add even more strikecraft to the capitals. Also, strikecraft are a real cause of lag so need to be careful how much is added here.

Nova is slated to have

Abilities: Nuke (Planet/Starbase/Capitalship), Flak Shield, Virtual Intelligence and Rapid Manufacturing.

This would most likely fit somewhat of a command ship role if you want to call it that. It's weapons will be fitted more for the siege role though. Virtual Intelligence and Rapid Manufacturing will both have fleet support roles.

The Nova is also authorized to launch higher yield Nukes at planets, starbases or other capital ships.

Pegasus is slated to have

Abilities: Nuke, Flak Shield, Expanded Hangar Facilities, and Rapid Calculations

Mercury class ships will be authorized to fire medium yield nukes at any ship or structure.

Basically already agree here. Valkyrie class Battlestar will have
Abilities: Electro-Magnetic Pulse, Point Defense, Stealth Recon, Scramble Vipers

So Stealth Recon will allow the Valkrie to act more like a scout ship with the ability to scramble extra vipers if it gets into trouble. Will also function as the dis-abler during battles.

Thor is the battleship and is currently way more powerful than any capitalship in the game. (Un)fortunately this will be changing. I do think the Enhanced armor is a good idea and fits the tanking role.

Abilities: Nuke Volley, Flak Shield/Burst?, Enhanced Armor, Scramble Bombers

Thor class Battlestars will be authorized to launch multiple lower yield nuclear missiles against multiple ship or structure targets in range. 

Galactica is the colony.

Abilities: Colonize, Flak Shield, Deploy Stealth Bombers, Nuclear Defense, Non-Integrated Computer Systems

The Galactica's main support will be it's non-integrated systems which will make the Galactica and nearby ships immune to disables as ships will be able to shutdown networked systems relying on the Galactica on Galactica for fleet orders. 

The Galactica is also authorized to launch medium yield nuclear weapons but requires a fairly experienced crew to perform.

The Cygnus Gunstar will become a very fast attack ship and will most likely get some new abilities. I haven't quite decided what to give it yet.

This is good and much clearer what your points were. 

The hardest part is seeing what I have done and understanding it's not yet where I want it to be. Bridging those two things with other peoples expectations is difficult especially as the end goal is a moving target that is not quite nailed down. This of course means there is room to change as you can see my original ability draft listed in the OP is not quite the same as what I am looking at now.

Edit - I should point out this is a rough plan listed here and hasn't been implemented yet. I'm currently focused on completing the Cylon assets before I revisit colonial. But I like talking through these things as it's easier to adjust an idea than it is to adjust something that's already been coded.

Rebellion Beta 1 has been released! Yeah!!! 

Quick modding question:  How would one go about changing the model for "Ion Blast" to be a small squadron of Heavy Raiders?

if i understand your question correctly "Ion Blast" is a particle effect not a model as far as i know, so to have heavy raiders instead of ion bolt you would need to make a particle effect that look that way. But that is not my field so don't take it as 100% true   

Hey Koobalt.... did you remove the Hybrid from the HUD? The consensus seemed to be that it was distracting? 

Koobalt:  Good to know.  

Second question, is there a modding "How To" guide available that DOES have a live link somewhere?  If I'm gonna undertake a project, I'd like to at least have somewhere to start that isnt just editing someone else's game info docs.

Before someone says, "Try 'soase.weebly.com'", I tried that.  All I got was front page of "Good Bye", and several 404s to eveything else linked.  I'd really like to get my hands on a guide, but alas, everything seems well and 404'd.

Hey Z, have uploaded the new sounds that I have recorded. 

There are 22 new Cylon sounds, so you may not be able to use all of them! I'm not entirely sure how you're integrating the sounds at present? Are you simply replacing the stock Sins sounds with mine? The new Cylon sounds include new Hybrid sounds, Number 6 and Cavil sounds. Cavil's should be used for the Diplomacy ship as they fit perfectly (and have labelled them this way)! There is also a raider sound in there, although its not the best (could try to record a better one?)

http://www.gamefront.com/files/21394589/New+Cylon+sounds.zip

There are 26 Colonial sounds. Includes Adama, Tye, Admiral Cain, Lee and Hoshi. I have labelled the sounds that should be used for individual ships - Galactica, Pegasus and Valkyrie. There are also general sounds that can be used across any of the other ships. Have also included the colonial jump sound. 

http://www.gamefront.com/files/21394584/Colonial+Sounds.zip

Have fun! 

May also be good if you can tell me if you need any specific sounds. I was trying to track down one for "Artifact found"... which I can't get from the show unfortunately (what would you use for this, for Cylon especially?)

Advent sounds could be used to fill the Cylon sound gaps (as TEC could for Colonial), as the Advent sounds are like the Hybrid... but it would be great if we could fill almost all of them with sounds from the show! 

I will do that but first i need to do the red dots and lately i don't have time

Well there are references file, and some .pdf from "stardock how to do that" but both are outdated

I learn how to create models from File'o'soft from DanManGames moding forum

The texturing process from TobiWahn from B5 mod and ZombiesRus5 and File'o'soft 

And the other is just my changing something in files and see what change in game...

On this forum there is several very good tutorials that i use too.

So after 'soase.weebly.com' was closed we have only this.

TBH, not a lot of modding going on right now with the Rebellion beta going in addition to real life concerns. I probably won't have another release of my own until around April or so.

"Button icons for colonials or cylons" - buttons as in race icons, menu/research/diplomacy/etc, or individual buttons - ship creation, research items, etc?

what version of diplomacy are you guys making this for?

Hey ZombiesRus5, do you have any ideas for what the Titan will be for Colonial? 

By the way, is the 5.4 BnC available anywhere other than filefactory (who never has slots available for download?)