A quick update - what's a big fleet without a suitably large planet to conquer? One of the features of this mod is also a rescale of all astronomical bodies, so that they feel larger and more of a centerpiece of any sector, as they should be, and also to make a suitably impressive backdrop for those epic fleet battles we so love.

Here are a couple of screens showing a TEC weapons research lab in low orbit around a terran type planet:

 The planets will be resized up to three times - naturally, not all planets will be of the same size, so you will have several types of terran worlds, desert, ice, volcanic, and a selection of Uzii's planets as well. Some of the textures I will simply adapt for the new models (unfortunately when the planets are resized the animated cloud layer ceases to function and has to be disabled due to graphical glitches, so a permanent cloud layer has to be painted onto the texture), and some I will paint from scratch - the planet above is the result of today's experimenting with various painting methods.

The gravity wells well be also increased up to three times. This has a side effect of making, well, everything take longer to get from point A to point B... which is sort of ideal for setting up blockades or maneuvering your fleets to get a first hit before the enemy reaches you... or your planet (or vice versa).

Oh and if all goes well with the testing and the big planets hit the production, bombardment will look much better as well.

wow that's amazing  

thats the size a planet should be.

i was wondering, with these bigger plantets and such, will you be attempting to re-activate the z axis control?  and also, will there be colonizable stars?, also, i wiouldnt mind to be a beta tester as well when the time comes.

Where cna I get this mod when it comes out?

Well, I have decided that *if* the mod is not entirely complete by the announced deadline (but still relatively done) I will go ahead and push out a, say, 0.8 Beta version of Episode I, so that people get to play with what is esentially a slightly unpolished version, instead of having to wait. Besides, no mod is perfect when it comes out, so I fully expect bugs to be ironed out in either case.

 As for big planets and other visual enhancements, you will get all that sooner than expected. Won't say more at this time.

Oh yes, the mod will be available for download from multiple locations, I already had a few nice offers from people willing to host it, and of course it will be available via Filefront and through the mod section of this website, if they can handle big downloads. I'll try to package it well, but still, expect a fairly large download in excess of a couple of hundred megabytes.

I will soon activate a special forum just for this mod, courtesy of Slipstream Productions, the guys behind the Dawn of Victory mod, where people will be able to discuss the mod, and later, help iron it out to become hopefully one of the best mods out there for SoaSE!

will you show us a Titan?

Well, I know them to the extent of being offered to have forum hosted on their message board. As far as I can tell, their message board is pretty active. The mod itself will probably get its own website which I'll put up when Episode I nears release.

A Titan will make its debut probably in the final teaser video which should be released a few weeks prior to release of the Episode I... you know, like, to make people go, er, slightly berserkish.

Which means I should probably go and put something cool on paper. Been cooking design ideas for weeks now.

Only slightly?

Sorry. As far as I know, you can use the z-axis in vanilla as well, just hold the "D" key and adjust the height. However, in order to have the AI employ true 3D tactics would require me having access to whatever program modules control AI. So in short, no. Not because I don't want to but because AI behaviour is not modable.

Instead of this, a more significant degree of strategy should be achieved by employing larger gravity wells, more meaningful static defenses, mine fields etc. It actually takes some time now for a ship to cross a gravity well, and wrong positioning of defending or attacking fleets can have an initial impact, for example sending your fast attack ships to take out enemy fortifications quickly before their defending ships add their firepower into the mix is one possible scenario which was not encounterable in the vanilla games due to the small size of the gravity well.

The new races will be designed with this in mind specifically. It can already be noticed with the Xin, whose ships are quite slow when it comes to sublight speeds, even in their territory. So a wise Xin defender will pay attention to the correct placement of their ships, or risk being badly outmaneuvered. Doubly so when the Episode II comes around and people get to play with Remnant ships.

Well, having an unbeatable race would get old pretty quick, don't you think?

So no, the Xin will be very well off when it comes to fighting on their own turf, thanks in no small part to their static defenses, but they will certainly be beatable, either through sheer overwhelming firepower, or through cunning exploitation of their weaknesses. In the case of the Xin, that's speed and lack of numbers. Oh, and did I mention their units cost more and take longer to build?

Awesome battle performance comes with a price tag...

Starcraft, yes? Never finished it.

Where do you think they got the whole super-starbase idea from? (do not say Star Wars!)

Anyway, the only thing I expect is to make the best mod I can and to have fun doing it... so far I haven't been dissapointed.

1) please try to be legible

2) 7 Deadly Sins has something like that already

3) ManSh00ter might put it in for the Xin