Dawn of Victory (DoV) is a modification currently under development by Slipstream Productions for the RTS Sins of a Solar Empire. Dawn of Victory is a total conversion, replacing the game's original assets with completely new and diverse ships, structures, and gameplay elements. Dawn of Victory pits players as one of 3 intergalactic superpowers: the Democratic Federation, Greater German Reich, and the Soviet Union. These three factions wage war amongst themselves even as a greater threat, the Scinfaxi, threaten them all.
While Dawn of Victory started out loosely based on Harry Turtledove’s “Worldwar” and “Colonization” book series, since then, the backstory has expanded to the point where it has taken on a life of its own.
For centuries an alien race known as the Scinfaxi had been the dominant power in the Orion region of space, their slow but steady expansion brought them into contact with dozens of other races, each one conquered and exterminated to provide the resources and material necessary to support the continually expanding empire.
In the 14th century, the first Scinfaxi probes reached Earth: it was surveyed, catalogued, and the plans were meticulously laid for its capture and assimilation. However, the Scinfaxi concept of time was very different from humanity's, and so when the first ships of the conquest fleet arrived in 1943, they were stunned to see Terran society had progressed to an industrial state in an unimaginable sliver of time. The initial landings took humanity by surprise, as the Scinfaxi advanced upon every continent.
It was in this darkest hour that what once divided humanity now brought it together, as the old prejudices were put aside and every free nation on Earth united against the alien aggressors. The tide turned in 1945 when the Soviet Union detonated an atomic bomb on its own soil, destroying a Scinfaxi landing site.
With the total conquest of Earth impossible without destroying everything of value, the Scinfaxi retreated to the Southern hemisphere, content with half the planet. Decades went by with no contact from the Scinfaxi, but as humanity grew bolder, the aliens' plans accelerated. As spacecraft from the last free nations made landfall, and eventually colonized new worlds, the Scinfaxi slowly began to advance. City after city was lost until, in a final act of desperation, the various Terran factions agreed to pursue a literal "scorched earth" policy, sacrificing their remaining positions to nuclear bombardment and quarantining the planet.
Humanity has expanded to the stars, and dozens of planets and moons now belong to the remaining Terran nations. There has been almost no contact with the Scinfaxi, and the former nations of Earth have become so complacent with their apparent safety that the old prejudices have returned and they once again war amongst themselves. The Scinfaxi are still expanding however, and it is only a matter of time before they decide to stamp out the potential usurpers; if humanity is allowed to advance another hundred years, it may be human soldiers landing on Scinfaxi worlds. The dawn of victory is approaching: the only question is which side will claim it.
Past Updates
Now THIS gave me a good old WTF
Indeed! Well this is something new,another halo mod,hmm what can i say,good luck i quess.
1st April you fools!
I admit i spent about 20 minuetes looking for the dawn of victory page before i realized this was it
The amount of ripping that you guys do to me and the mod astounds me.
Funny though, I'll admit.
Do you have another link? the one on the external listed in the main post is not following through.
With that April Fools day prank out of the way (we were originally going to make it a Gameplay Week feature, saying that we were making Japan playable or something silly, but it sort of spun into its own feature, so we might be technically one journal short), it's time to talk about the two factions in Dawn of Victory's first release and how they play off of each other in combat, economy, and overall strategy. We'll be talking about the Soviets today and the Germans tomorrow to round out the week.
An early game advantageThe Soviet playstyle is all about expansionism. Soviet players must make it their top priority to capture and reinforce as many systems as possible during the early game. To achieve that goal, the Soviet player is armed with essentially free corvettes and diverse frigates, as well as comparatively much more powerful strike craft planet defenses. The Soviet player starts with a Planetary Defense Base, so their first corvettes are produced essentially instantly. Between the autocannons, missiles, torpedoes, light cannons, and flak guns available to an early game Soviet player, there is a lot of diversity to be had for destroying lighter ships like German corvettes early in the game. By obtaining a good income stream with several planets, the Soviet player can afford to finance the several fronts he'll undoubtedly be opening. While not particularly cost-efficient in the short term, Soviet economic upgrades are quite lucrative when multiplied over several planets over a long period.Unfortunately, the early game superiority comes with a price. The Soviet player is stuck with their frigates up until they start researching cruisers, and unless they have built up their economy well, they will be hard pressed to afford them. A Soviet player can get trapped in a downspiral as they build more and more defenses and poor frigates toward later in the game, losing resources that could be best put toward cruisers, and eventually be driven from a system or defeated. This is why the Yeremenko Destroyer and Slavny Light Cruiser are very essential upgrades: the Destroyer has heavy armor and can tackle larger ships with a medium cannon, and the Light Cruiser (as you probably know by now) has a massive amount of flexibility with flak, a medium cannon, and light cannon and optional torpedo launcher.Later onAs the Soviet player is mostly about early game superiority, mid-game there's not much to talk about. In fact, there's so little to talk about that we decided to throw in another cruiser when doing the unit lists: originally, there was only a torpedo cruiser and the medium cruiser. The Genrikovich Special Operations Cruiser (informally known as “the KGB cruiser”) is a special cruiser devoted to taking over and sabotaging enemy ships (not in that order). It rounds out the mid-game nicely, but it's still a gap between the early game and the Soviet capital ship advantage later. Later in the game, the Soviet player begins getting all his capital ships. Unfortunately for him (with the exception of the relatively quickly researched Kiev Battlecruiser) by now everyone else has them too. Not to fear: the Soviets have a natural capital ship advantage both in unit roles and individual superiority. If the game isn't over by now it soon will be: capital ship faceoffs are extremely rare. Summary of playstyleIn summary, the Soviet Union player will focus on expansionism, planet defense, and elite capital ships. A player that can master these abilities will master the faction. Weapons rundownThe Soviet Union player has a variety of different weapons: more so than most other factions. Flak Cannon: Seemingly somewhat paradoxically, the Soviet player has made the most advances in flak technology. However, the role ends up fitting the USSR quite well, considering the faction is more about brute force than anything: instead of missiles, the Soviets just fire giant exploding shrapnel shells into space and hope enemy fighters fly into them. Light Cannon/Deck Gun: The light cannon or deck gun is fitted on most Soviet ships and is effective against corvette screens and frigates. It is not very effective against anything larger, but it tends to have a fast refire rate to do its specialized job effectively.Medium Deck Gun: The Medium Deck Gun is mounted on smaller ships than the other factions, at the cost of reactor power. Its power is crucial to a early-mid game Soviet player, as stated above.Heavy Deck Gun: Rare except on the largest capital ships, the Heavy Deck Gun is designed to tear capital ships and cruisers apart at short range. Torpedoes: Torpedoes also do a pretty good job at destroying cruisers and capital ships, but their reload rate isn't nearly as fast. Soviet light torpedo designs (like on the Torpedo Frigate and Bomber) tend to focus on “clusters” of individually less powerful torpedoes: the effect is somewhat like a guided shotgun. Heavy torpedo launchers have different staggered-fire designs more reminiscent of today's missile cruisers, but either way their trail effects and sheer numbers make for some very nice looking video (as you can see in our Aurora Torpedo Cruiser teaser).Autocannon: Available to all factions, the Soviet autocannon is moderately powerful against enemy fighters. The Soviet fighter is also armed with short-range missiles to provide an advantage at range: these missiles can also be used in a pinch against light targets like corvettes.See you tomorrow when we discuss the Germans: I know we've probably kept much more of their mechanics and ships secret, so I think it'll be a good round-out to the Gameplay Week series.
It should work fine? If you want the site try http://dov.slipstreamproductions.net, the link to the forums works fine here but the direct URL is http://forums.slipstreamproductions.net/index.php?showforum=85.
i wonder what the sinfaxi stradagies will be
Welcome to what's probably our last Gameplay Week feature, barring anything exciting we come up with. The German side is a lot less transparent as far as gameplay: I think everyone knows that the Soviets just run in with a lot of guns, but so far we've given very little information to how the Germans look and play.
Unlike the Soviet Union, German corvettes are few and expensive. This is for a reason, though: their variety and power rivals, if not exceeds, most of the other factions' frigates. Their corvettes receive stacking buffs when grouped, aiding their survivability and guiding the player toward using them in small packs. The German player has access to a railgun corvette from the beginning, as well as a heavy corvette with medium armor and both a cannon battery and anti-strike craft defenses and a standard missile corvette with anti-strikecraft capability.
In fact, the Germans have a playstyle that is almost completely the antithesis of the Soviet player. The Reich uses missiles for strike craft destruction and light duties, but switches to railguns, projectile weapons, for anti-cruiser and anti-capital roles. As expected, this gives them a rather nice boost to range at every point in the game. We didn't want to make them simply the opposite of the Soviet playstyle or vice versa in laziness, though: the German side has rather decent armor, and they have a couple different unique frigates to compensate for corvettes being the backbone of assault fleets. These frigates are more defense oriented: for example, the Interdiction Frigate specializes in detecting and delaying enemy jumps, and the Minelayer Frigate drops mines around planets.
Planet defense is a big deal for the GGR player: while losing a planet is usually disastrous for any other player, the German player has it even worse. Each planet gives much more resource income: this means the Reich player doesn't have to be very aggressive (we understand the irony here) at the start of the game to compete effectively. A Reich player should use their time and resources to raid enemy colonization with corvette groups and upgrade their own planets. German players will also be able to upgrade their planets with extremely powerful but expensive railgun turrets: these turrets have extremely long range and therefore provide each other overlapping fields of fire in most cases, creating a defense grid that's unmatched by any other faction. Naturally, the German side gets quite a boost to propaganda, having a tree about as long as the Advent's and natural bonuses. This is not to say they can sit in their planet gravity well and flip everything through turtling, but it is a good way to sap the enemy's resource income.
German cruisers aren't particularly powerful in sheer weapon damage, but are agile, ranged, and have excellent special abilities allowing them to make powerful barrages and quickly move out of range. Their Medium Cruiser has excellent versatility, with a light cannon, light railgun, and regular railgun array, allowing it to tackle a variety of threats. German capital ships are also relatively varied, with a pure damage battleship that has a similar weapon layout to the Medium Cruiser but with more armor (it's equivalent more to a battlecruiser with lots of plating), a carrier, but also an assault ship, the only faction to do so. Its options and special abilities will allow a GGR player to better engage ships in close combat, if they are forced to do so, and also wall off long range ships like railgun frigates with mines so the enemy can't close to destroy them.
The German Greater Reich player will be focused on corvette raids, planet defense, and firing from range. Their ships are agile and can quickly retreat, set up a position, then retreat again. Players will need to balance their time between management of units and management of planets more than any other player to succeed. If you've ever played Team Fortress 2, the German player is the Scout and the Soviet player is the Heavy: the GGR makes quick strikes darting in and out while the USSR has massive damage potential if it can survive a while.
Light Cannon/Deck Gun and Autocannon: the same role and damage type as the Soviet versions, although German autocannons are lower caliber.
Anti-Air Missiles: Missiles that take the place of flak: good damage and excellent accuracy, fire in clusters. Also present on the German Fighter (not the interceptor).
Anti-Ship Missiles: Anti-medium missiles that launch from a variety of ships even down into the cruisers, as well as bombers.
Light Railgun: Small railguns, excellent against heavy targets from range.
Railgun: The main weapon of the GGR, they fire from most larger ships, as well as surprisingly early on the Railgun Frigate, allowing these frigates to take on other factions' cruisers from range.
18:9:2272 04.55 - Squadron moving at high speed on course to convoy. I have doubts because the time groups seem to be wrong so I sent message 0023/18 at 0400 requesting the time of the last convoy sighting by the Westfalen.
18:9:2272 07.29 - Convoy in sight, Gas Giant (Tanarsus IV) should mask our approach. Squadron going silent.
18:9:2272 08.09 - Clear explosions spotted and recorded on 4 seperate Soviet ships, further observations not made as squadron had retreated. Observation probes destroyed by strikecraft sent to intercept us. Squadron returning to Tannhauser Gate to join Battle Fleet Königsberg.
"We will bury you."
Glad to see the rapid development of this mod it looks amazing! Am I correct in assuming the GGR is the only faction with corvettes?
No, both factions have corvettes, they just vary wildly in role and power. It's like four posts up
Right! Anyway, I really like the ship designs for this mod and the gameplay changes sound intriguing.
Nice ship, whoever made it did an awesome job .
Just as a note, the first post has been updated with all our past screenshots, a story overview, and some art.
So, no more Scinfaxi?
It's kind of up in the air how they'll go. They won't be in the first release for sure: perhaps in the expansion as raiders or something and then playable after that. I wouldn't get your hopes up for an appearance anytime soon: the releases are roughly chronological.
we know how the krauts and the ruskies play generaly now but what will the DF play style be like?
Im thinking steamroller tactics, leathal in a head on out for blood battlefeild, but can be easily crippled when facing guerilla tactics such as destorying mines, taking out repair/refuel ships and shots from the ass end. Bascicly what took out the americans in vietnam. Thats just one fans oppinion, im excited to see the DoV view on things.
Aye, the Democratic Federation won't be in till the 2nd release, but we got a pretty good idea of how they will play/balance. I wont give too many details as this is all subject to change but the DF are one of the most diverse sides and can use a bunch of different tactics with various effectivness.
still no release date set or estimate yet, eh?
Anyone who can give you a release date or a reasonable estimate before a mod is in feature lock, balanced and essentially complete (requires installer, manual, or so forth) is either lying, idealistic, or twelve. Things always pop up. Until we are 99% done you probably won't hear a peep from us regarding a release other than "when it's done".
I see German design in there... Like real german cars (and hehe Nazi sexy uniform).
I am looking forward to seeing this mod when it is done!
I assume the design of DF is about functional strictly cuz easy to mass produce and semi-efficient. Germans were always to fussed about beautiful welds and precious. Allies (USSR and USA) simply went to a simple factory, drew up simplest designs, and lets put some big guns and plenty of amour on this thing and set their people to work non stop.
For example:
Sherman Tank - simple but not efficient as German tank.
Germans focused on quality than quantity. That's why they only get the state-of-the-art design and advanced technologies but Germans only face their worst problems, cost and limited production. So, Soviet and DF will crush them with many ships easily.
Just my 0.02 cents
Hey dev team, I know you hear this alot, but I absolutely look forward to this mod, and think that, from what I see thus far, you've done an outstanding job. Keep up the work, release when you feel its done, and rest easy knowing many people are going to literally play the sh** out of your mod when that happens.
Note that Sherman was designed as infantry support, not as tank-killer, when state of Art German tanks appear at battle zone they simply call in an air support.
Allies (at least west Allies) had no need for good tank so they didn't bother to build any for long time because of their air superiority.
Germans were, to be honest, stupid morons. They put an enourmous resources to build a super weapons, super tanks, when they had a very good and reliable, already mass produced Panzer IV and STUG class.
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