B5 Mod 0.4 Gameplay Example

screenshots

from GalCiv2 Forums
This is half a gameplay example of the Babylon 5 mod. There are a few things that need tidying up (and I need to finish this game!), but 0.4 should be up within 10 hours. The default custom race starts with all the hull techs. If you don't want your shipyard to be cluttered just remove any undesired hull techs.


Lyta has had enough of the bs and taken over Edgars Industries... the galaxy is next. There are lots of new custom portraits to choose from and a few logos. Obviously the Rangers need a better logo


Starting positions look like this:


The Vorlons go for the hull plating trade good early (really annoys me when I don't get that!) and take out their buddies. They seem to be mostly talk though as the best fleet I can see belongs to the Humans:


A bit more scouting and I notice the Centauri have a nasty fleet of fighters:


Without modding the speech files I think the races fit pretty well:


The Rangers are touching up my minor trading partners so I end up in a long war with them:


The Narn Regime uses the opportunity to settle old scores:


And all the nice races decide to be nasty to me at once:


Making the diplomacy screen look very familiar.


So as I am about to be wiped out I am going to concentrate... take over this galaxy... make some final tweaks... take over another galaxy... and release version 0.4 of the B5 mod.
modding
43,473 views 37 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Wow the mod looks fantastic!!! Nice job, can't wait to try it out!!!  
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
In Valens Name,good job rav !
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Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
I can't wait to see this mod progress. Long live B5!
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
  rav8  

Love B5 and yr mod is the best. Already played previous versions of yr mod. It's like playing a different game and I found myself identifying with the races loads more.

Excellent work.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
OMG I can hardley wait, I'm literally bouncing up and down in my chair lol.

Kushan
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Thanks guys, I have high hopes for this version.

But I don't think I am going to finish it tonight either. It will be another night before I get 0.4 up - only a couple of tweaks left then a couple of things to test. Can't be more than a few hours if I get stuck in to it as soon as I get home...

The changelog looks like this at the moment:
* rangers are now a major race with their own hull style
* defences now have a larger sizemod
* components now have hardpoints (=impossible to run out of hardpoints)
* starting racial abilities now more closely match the B5 races
* vorlons and shadows are stronger and get great home planets but...
* vorlons and shadows cannot access the colony module
* special thanks to Voltron for importing over 100 models used in this release!
* starting home systems are now more valuable
* abilities of the minors boosted to offset the stronger home systems of majors
* more portraits & logos
* more hulls
* the default custom race has access to all hulls
* engine and weapon techs are now working
* xeno ethics is disabled
* overhaul of shipyard, including new ship stats
* fixes to custom planet and star names

I will finish it as fast as I can, I promise!
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Take all the time you need. Rather have a finished version then something thats half done.

Kushan
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Very good job! I have been putting off trying the mod but now it looks too polished to be ignored, i`ll try as soon as its ready. By the way in one of the screenshots the green ship looks like it has no textures, bug or is it supposed to be that way?
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Sounds awsome...cant wait to try!

Good work rav...
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
That's amazing....must...have...it   
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Well done rav8, Frogboy's plugged yr B5 mod as 'a shining light'  , to all other modders. It's in the news items.

Much deserved.  
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have to say that it's looking fantastic. I can't wait for the finished version so I can give the bonehead Minbari a slapping.   
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I've played the previous 0.3 version and think that its great. For the first time I've began paying attention to the races feeling that they have their own unique character and playing accordingly.

Thanks very much for this mod!

There's something else that I'd like to see.

I'd like to see scenarios set up where you can start the B5 mod at certain points during the five year B5 story arc.

E.g. if you select to play B5 Season 4 then the computer would generate a map as normal but would also have: most of the main races already in an alliance (some races have more than one planet) and with some ships (and having quite a few technologies), while the shadows/vorlons have more advanced technologies (but no sign of the Drak in the game as they only appeared in year 5), powerful but fewer ships, and are at war with everyone else. I'd guess your home planet would be Epsilon 3 (as President Clark controlled Earth).

Or start in Season 2 where the Narn are still powerful - the Narn / Centarui start the game with many ships and are at war with one another.

So you could have different game scenarios (but the map is still autogenerated). Is it possible to do such a thing?
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I am uploading it now...

I will post a thread with a topic like 'Babylon 5 v0.4' in the forum soon that will get stickied once a nice mod sees it. It will be up in the library soon also, probably in a few days. The library download will only be a file with a link to the full download as the library has a max filesize of 20mb.
Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Will also fire off an email to the Galactic Core. It has a section similar to the library here.
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
hey everyone! Great that B5 made it into the news.

I have been on vacation in Japan the last 5 weeks. So, what did I miss?  

and nice name for the planet there rav8.
Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The only core designs remaining in the mod are survey and colony ships. You will have to design any other ships in the shipyard.

The release thread for 0.4 is over here.
Reply #22 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
@rav,
why is xeno ethics disabled ?Is there a reason for it?
Reply #23 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
^^ Proberbally because the writer wanted random events to be left in.

Anyhow, I notice that there are a lot of high powered weapons in the screenshots, Would it only be fair to add (almost) high powered defence systems in turn?
Reply #24 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Xeno ethics is disabled because it is the only way to keep the tech tree clean. Adding IMPOSSIBLETECH or anything else does NOT remove the tech from the tree. If I put the special techs at the end of an exisiting branch then the tree starts looking pretty ugly. The best way I could find to organise the techs how I want them is to make any tech I want to be invisible tied to an alignment and disable xeno ethics.

For example, the prerequisite for all the hull design techs requires that the player be of neutral alignment. If possible, I will give the Vorlons and Shadows their own branches stemming from good and evil techs and give them xeno ethics as a starting tech.

Also, I think the random alignment events are much cooler than xeno ethics.

@Ironduke: Maybe after the expansion pack. If nothing drastic happens to invasion tactics in the expansion pack then I will start adding simple invasion tactics like the Centauri planetary bombardment mass drivers and the Shadow death cloud.

@Ryan: I will get in to the defence techs and components soon. Because there is very little mentioned about specific defence techs in the series I am thinking the defence branch will be fairly simplistic.


Please post comments and questions about 0.4 over here.
Reply #25 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
More screenies plz