rave by um not me again?
 

pardon my boredom, but i feel i have to rave about some thing. Who else thinks armada 2 is the best game in the world? I mean why dont game companies make more games like armada 2? Why don't they make games as accessible to modders as armada 2. It so easy to simply take a race from one mod and add it to another. This is like the prime time of armada 2. I combined tactical assualt dominion (minus the tactical and horrible voice overs) with starbase 34 federation ultimate expansion and dan cardassion expansion (needs new ai though). Best dominion war experience ever. Why cant more games be this easy? Take Command n conquer general etc.

now for the romulans. Their is alot of good mods out their, but they never have the same spark as somthing you make with your own hands. (or my case fail at a lot) Take art of war, brilliant mod, but it lags for me some time, dont like some of this ships and i miss planets. Still a dandy good time. Still having the dominion as a race is asome.

Re: rave by um not me again?
 

Several other games are moddable just like, or even better than Armada II. There are F1 Challenge or rFactor from the racing games, or Empire at War, or Sins of a Solar Empire from the strategy games.
The problem is that as the games become more complex, the harder modding the games become. Creating a TC for Armada II needs several years from a modders life, and it's an old game. Can you imagine, how hard it would be to make a TC for SoSE for example?

About the mods: Well, lag is really a problem for some of the mods. I'll try to make my mod as lagfree as possible. And I can't say else: If you don't like a ship, do not build it :P Really, I don't think you could find a starship which everybody satisfied it. Take Century for example. Most of the players love it, but there are few of them, who don't because it's too similar to the Sovereign.

Re: rave by um not me again?
 

I don't see the Century that way, KMerse. It looks like the Sovvy and the Galaxy with some nive touches thrown in. It looks sharp and powerful like the sovereign, but with the Galaxy's volume and graceful lines, so it looks like a ship for scientists and their families. Like Starfleet learned its lesson after the underpowered Galaxy and the overpowered, but harder to adapt sovereign. I've been in love with the design since DJ first posted it for BC.

As for moddability, not only is NASCAR Racing 2003 Season easier to mod than RFactor, it is also a more accurate and realistic racing game. For stock cars. The only reason its modding community is fading is because iRacing bought the engine and refuses to let ANYONE mess with the physics of a 7 year old engine. All to make their crappy pay for play iRacing simulator. However, there were some guys that made an F1/IndyCar mod for it, and they were prosecuted for distributing altered physics. But it was a gazillion times better than F1 Challenge. Even the graphics level is controlled by the hard code, which prevents photo-realism for people with faster PCs. But enough of that rant.

I agree that the Romulans really need a good full-race conversion. My ultimate plan is to make a completely new SP campaign in which the Rommies will be one of the races with a string of missions. (screw the Borg, they're more fun to play against, than for)
the good news is, it looks like Dan is starting to work on the Romulans, which hopefully means a full race mod at some point, like his excellent Cardassians. That, and Pepperman's amazing Warbirds means that the Romulans, while not having as many ships available on A2 files, more than carry their weight in quality. I am still worrying over my Fed ships and am halfway through refitting the Klingons in my personal install, but I'm really looking forward to the romulans.

After my personal install has all the quirks and fun stuff I want, I might look at getting permissions and releasing the whole thing as a TC.

Re: rave by um not me again?
 

This would make me the happiest of Trek fans. I really love Romulans --as a concept, as a playable race, as a moddable race-- way more than any other race in the game. I would really love to see all my favourite Rom designs in game, not just wave after wave of Venators with a Shadow in escort.

It's a fantastic game, highly moddable, completely customizable, and always enjoyable. I'm sure there are others out there, and if I could just get myself to stop enjoying A2 quite so much and turn my attention elsewhere, I'm sure I could name a few. :rofl:

:cool:

Re: rave by um not me again?
 

Rommies are also my most preferred race, but there are not enough good designs around, neither for A2, nor for BC or Legacy. It's very hard to create an authentic Romulan starship design, especially for the TNG era.
I also tried to make new and authentic designs, but I always failed, so 99% of the Evolution ships also will be conversions of other models. The only problem with them that there are not enough Rommie ships compared to the Federation.
I think we should talk to Pepperman to make few more great starships. The Star Empire would really need them.

Re: rave by um not me again?
 

Atolm has plenty of Romulan designs we just need a few model modellers to make some of them.

G.K Designs have some superb designs as well. Feast your eyes on this one and see if you don't agree.

Romulan Deshara Warbird
G.K. Designs: Romulan D'eshara Warbird Completed.

And check out Suricata Fvillha Class Romulan Warbird
Fvillha Class Romulan Warbird Suricata's Artwork Blog

Re: rave by um not me again?
 

there was a website called feyman shipyards, It won't load for me but it had romulans and klingons labelled as "adversaries" and had some awesome designs.

Re: rave by um not me again?
 

Their are also alot of Romulan ships in the SFC community if you are willing to do the leg work to hunt them down. Yes I love that site. It remindes me of the old old days before PC games became main exprestion for new starship designs. Back then the web was packed with sites like this of people showing of their real model builds and kit bashes.

Re: rave by um not me again?
 

Romulan ships? There are some interesting designs in the older mods (BI:VR for example). Great ships, all they need is a nice retexture (because the light green colors don't look right compared with the newer ships) and lightmaps. Then we'd have a few more ships. Anyone interested in doing it?

Re: rave by um not me again?
 

Actuall adjusting the color is pretty simple with the right program and light maping is also preaty easy with a bit of practice.

Re: rave by um not me again?
 

Believe me, I'd LOVE to do it. But none of the lightmapping tutorials I've tried ever worked. Do i have to make changes to the model before being able to add lightmaps? Nothing I've tried worked.
If someone can provide a working tutorial, I'd be more than happy to do it.

Re: rave by um not me again?
 

what program are you using?

Re: rave by um not me again?
 

At the moment it's gimp. I tried INH's tutorial, but it didn't work...
.. but I'm willing to use everything - if it works.

Re: rave by um not me again?
 

K guys I need some help here I don't have gimp so I have no idea how to walk him through this. Terra I have photoshop CS3 so I don't know exactly how you will have to translate this to gimp but when I need a lightmap on the fly this is what I do.

1 open the texture in question.
2 find the list of channles. As there is no light map it should list 3; red, green, and blue. In photoshop this is on the bottom right of the workarea under the tab "channels"
3 add another channel which should automatically be the "alpha" channel.
4 select the combined channels button at the top of the channels list
5 next go to the select dropdown menu and select all.
6 go to the edit dropdown menu and copy.
7 go back to the channel list and select the alpha channel
8 paste the copy into the alpha channel A grayscale of the normal texture should appear.
9 adjust brightness and contrast in the alpha channel till only the parts you want lit are visible. You may have to paint black over some places.
10 when done save as a 32 bit TGA file.

Re: rave by um not me again?
 

OK, I understand. And this works without any changes to the model? Those old models probably weren't meant to have lightmaps at all...

Re: rave by um not me again?
 

That's a matter of luck I'm afraid. Some old or A1 models likely have some kind of tag on the end that makes lightmaps either non-fuctional or render as opacity maps...

Either that or they'll just stay light or only go dark a tad. I'm no expert, but maybe a hex editor could help (I've never used one myself so can't really explain how)

Sorry that I couldn't be of any real help...:(

Re: rave by um not me again?
 

Well A1 SODs in general don't like light maps as that game was not intended to use them. But they should work on A2 SODs unless that model's material settings specificaly exclude the use of lightmaps. If thats the case you will have to pull them in to milkshap and change them.