This is the story of the last of the Babylon 5 mod-efforts. It's goal, to prevent another failure, by creating a place to solve our problems collaboratively. Its a port of call, home away from home, for modelers, texturers, programmers and sound engineers.
Babylon 5 - Sins of the Younger Races
Disclaimer:The authors are not responsible for any damage that may arise from using this mod. This mod may not be sold under any circumstances. It may be downloaded, as long as it does not violate the laws of the state/country you live in. This disclaimer must always be distributed with the mod. For other used please contact me personally.
Thanks to the TEAM:2D Artist: Tobias Liebhart (TobiWahn_Kenobi), SteinerXBughunters: Rob Cummings, cybertx, Darvroth, Peter1x9, ZombiesRus5Coders: Ronie Albesa (zRazor), Rob Cummings (NewHorizons), Davroth, EvilTesla-RG, Rodney Jenkings (HotRod), Tobias Liebhart, ZvezdochetsModel Templates: Amras-Arfeiniel, James Newman (Firehawk)Modelers: Ronie Albesa, Amras-Arfeiniel, Fileosoft, Johan Klaver, Koobalt, Tobias Liebhart, Stefan May, Timmaigh, Pauli Valkeejärvi (Hawkwall), ZvezdochetsMusician: Pauli ValkeejärviResearch: Rob Cummings, Darvroth, Rodney JenkinsPR: Darvroth, SteinerXSounds: Rob Cummings, Pauli Valkeejärvi, ZvezdochetsTexturers: Tobias Liebhart, SteinerX, TFL_BigBangTheory, Timmaigh, Pauli Valkeejärvi, ZombiesRus5Moderation: Blake00
Additional support: boshimi336, Lavo_2, myfist0, Gürol Salk (Geopard)And toMysticAngel for the Automated Fighter docking abilityThe Babylon 5 X3TC team
And thanks to all those modelers whose work is a inspiration and a template for creating ingame assetsIf I forgot anyone, please contact me so I can give proper credit. (There seem to be so many decent people involved at the moment)
Release 0.54.1 Full Download for Rebellion 1.95+& Patch 0.54.2
NEW - Balvarin Carrier and Minor Factions fix!
Installation Guide:
Sometimes the in-game mod loader can be a bit funky so if you can't see the mods you've installed or something isn't working then enabling the mods via the 'EnabledMods.txt' file in your 'Mods-Rebellion v1.85' folder where you installed the mods to is the other alternative. It should look like this to work:
TXT2SinsArchiveVersion 194Version 0enabledModNameCount 2enabledModName "SotyrRemastered"enabledModName "SinsRemastered-v0.95b"
DISCORD:
https://discord.gg/9AwgByEEKn
Old Blog with screenshots and infos maintained by SteinerX can be found here (*OUT OF DATE*)http://babylon5ins.blogspot.com/
Yours TobiWahn_Kenobi
Posted preliminary files for the sins remastered mod (PBR Textures)
woah! thank you so much for releasing the mod again!!! Look forward to trying it out with my mates at a LAN party and maybe doing a youtube video if its playable enough.
First feedback which you can feel free to ignore is I got confused as hell with your downloads layout haha, but eventually figured out that the main download was in the middle of all those new and old updates lol, maybe it shouldn't be towards the middle of all the updates. I'd also recommend reversing the order. Main mod download first and then all the updates in order after it. Leave the old quickfix update at the bottom separate from the new updates with a extra message for people who might need that one though.
Suggested layout:
1 main 0.46a
2 0.46a-0.47a update
3 0.47a PBR update (and PBR required sins files next to it)
4 ---------- (separator)
5 old 0.45a to 0.46a quickfix
.
done
Thanks haha.
BTW I'm guessing the 1.93+ reference means steam users with the current version 1.95 will be fine too? Guess I'll find out soon enough lol.
Hint, hint ?
I've completed the remastered textures of the Vorlon models, so I'll join our efforts in one download.
Have you guys considered a ModDB page? I notice all the other big Sins Reb mod projects (Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate, Mass Effect, Halo Prophets etc) use ModDB so Bablyon 5 and all your years of work deserve a presence there!
They host your downloads so you don't have to worry about dodgy temporary file hosts that disappear after a couple of years (eg mega). They host pictures and videos. Using 'articles' they have a dev diary blogger system as well which I use a lot for my mod projects as your articles end up on the front page in front of thousands of eyes. Your forums posts here with ship pictures could easily be combined and posted into these getting lots of attention (the work is already done it's just copy paste copy paste). You can also setup up control of the page to a team of admins so it's not just one guy (meaning if one of you drops out the others can keep running the page). As well as ModDB projects I also run on their sister site some IndieDB game project pages (FreeCol & Starflight Remake) too where I setup teams for the devs to all have control while I took care of the presentation/media posting that they didn't wanna deal with. So I've got plenty of experience with setting up ModDB/IndieDB pages and can offer advice and help if needed.
Thanks for the offer. Somebody once tried to establish a modDB presence using our mod which I shot down with the help of modDB. I then said I would put it on modDB when I feel like it is no longer alpha state. Long time has passed and while I still consider it alpha I will leave it up to Hael-sose to decide if he wants to have the moddb presence or not.
The moderators then told me that they would give me access to the moddb page should I want it. That is the page:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/sins-of-the-younger-races
So if there is an inherent desire to post it on modDB I will try to get that page to my account and give you and hael-sose access.
I will keep my presence to this forum though as it is sort of my Sins home and has so much personal history for me and many others
Sorry for delay. Ill subscribe to this thread to ensure I don't miss any more replies!
Cool! Yeah go for it mate. If you have any troubles let me know as I was able to recently regain control of the FreeCol project IndieDB page for the new team (old team was long gone so page was abandoned) so I could message the same admin who helped me out last time. Hopefully we have control as I notice whoever had control in the past disabled non-admin image/video/file uploads so we can't add anything to it without full control access sadly.
Oh absolutely. I certainly wasn't suggesting project activity move over there. Having a page there merely supplements what you're doing here and helps get more exposure and more exposure doesn't just bring fans but more helpers too! Plus forums on ModDB/IndieDB aren't that great anyway, this place is much better for chatting.
Anyway once we've got control I can help you guys make it look nice like I did for those other fan projects I helped out on. If you guys have a number of favourite/sexy screenshots to put on there we should use them. If not my friends and I got the mod working the other day and had a game (which I saved) so I can try and take some of my own HD screenshots if needed as I had a big EA fleet including the Excalibur titan while my mates had cool Minbari fleets with their gorgeous looking titan (nice work whoever designed that).
Speaking of my test game my mates and I had a lot of fun, although yeah we realised pretty quick that the mod is still in a very alpha stage as most of the AIs did nothing and we discovered that building certain things (eg Babylon 5 itself lol) seems to crash the game.
Hello there. Sorry for the delay; crazy times we live in.
Working on the Narn Regime at the moment. Here's two new ships. Using the Remastered mod saves a lot of work btw.
edit - it's the Sho'Kos on top of the G'Karith
Thanks, will try to make time to find the email from moddb and get access again.
Thanks for the roses, minbari titan is my work, made after the mongoose model, slightly adapted. As for screenshots - we had quite a lot over the years but feel free to make new ones as ours are very old indeed.
Yes, the mod is alpha still (because there are still basic features and models missing) and yes - the AI is the crutch of the game. Problem is that the AI is really dumb. It cannot comprehend a modded research tree or some ship roles not present and is therefore inherently limited in what we can do with it. And is as a result of this very easy to break. When I started this mod I had grand plans for the research progression and wanted it to really feel like Babylon 5. But my first idea which 2 of our team struggled for years to bring alive was a failure on so many levels. Due to my ideas and due to sins. Thats the reason some mods completely abandoned the AI to be multiplayer only.
My only idea to overcome this would be to have player versions of factions and AI versions of factions. Player versions could have a really interesting research tree and AI factions have a very simple tree that is only limited by the time research takes.
Perhaps someone else has an idea and the will to implement it?
Hello there. Sorry for the delay; crazy times we live in.Working on the Narn Regime at the moment. Here's two new ships. Using the Remastered mod saves a lot of work btw.edit - it's the Sho'Kos on top of the G'Karith
Love em!! Keep going.
Yes indeed. Not seeing to do the tangent map really saves lot of time.
I found the old email and asked for handing over the project profile
Wow that ship is gorgeous!
Cool! Good luck. If you get nothing over the next week or 2 let me know and I can go talk to that admin who helped me take control of FreeCol last year and either give him your username or get control myself, and then hand it over to you guys. Either way we'll get there in the end.
Yeah that ship was gorgeous work mate. Well I can sit there upload all your old shots so people can see all the work done over the years (plus other well known Sins mods have endless pages of model shots in between the big game shots) but then end it with some brand new HD shots of ships from my saves ensuring they're the first shots people see (newest pics automatically go on the mod front page) to really show things off. ModDB pages support videos too so a nice big HD video tour would help as well, which once again I can make something up. I've made videos about some of the most popular Sins mods out there and they seem to get quite a few hits (the trek ones got into the thousands within a few months), plus I have other Babylon 5 fan project videos that got into the thousands so in theory combining the 2 together should be a hit and bring in more fans & helpers.
Yeah sadly while I do have some mod projects that made a bit of fame due to being covered in mainstream gaming news media they're all Doom and Civ2 mods haha as I'm just a pixel artist as best. Not a programmer or 3D artist so I'm no help you guys there sadly. However I've become quite good at promoting/marketing peoples fan projects so that's definitely an area I can contribute in and hopefully find you guys some more helpers who actually know how to do AI tech stuff.
AI's understanding custom tech trees are definitely possible but within limits as I've seen the talented guys in the ST Armada 3 and Halo Prophets teams moaning on discord about the struggles of getting the AI to do what they wanted lol. But they definitely had success which I can show you examples of if you haven't played their stuff. Eg in my Halo Prophets video tour you can see at the 12:44 mark (humans) and 19:13 mark (Covenant) that they created a very different custom tech tree with giant icons and a special leaders section where you choose a leader for your empire who grants different special abilities and unlocks & locks out various techs in the regular tech trees. Different leaders can unlock different ships and I've seen the AI use those different ones so they're not hard locked to one leader either and make the choice themselves.
The popular Star Trek Armada 3 sins project has good examples of AIs using custom tech trees too, in my video tour at the 16:45 mark you see how the Cardassian empire can choose between 2 different technology trees (one locks out the other) that allows them to either become a Dominion alliance player or stay pure Cardassian instead and have a minor alliance with the Kessok (from ST Bridge Commander lore). Both ways lead to lots of different techs being locked and unlocked, different capital ships, different titans, even different hero units. Have seen the AIs choose a different route many times and progress through their respective tech trees so once again no hard locking.
Both projects also have excellent use of the Minor races addon to Sins Rebellion, Armada 3 in particular has ever 'forehead of the week' from all eras of star trek each giving cool special abilities true to their 'lore'. Maybe some of the talented modders in those projects are B5 fans and can be lured away or at least give some advice to your people. Once we've got a moddb page with pictures and videos and WIP build downloads etc I can use it to promote the project around the various sins modding communities as well as promoting it in general gaming and B5 groups and forums. Most people don't wanna sit there reading a giant forum thread so thats why we need a nice media heavy page like that to get peoples attention and get that hook in. We'll put lots of links to this forum thread around the moddb page to ensure that any one who bites on the hook can come here to learn more and maybe offer their help.
That tech tree looks nice. Since you are a pixel artist you couuuuld help us with the icons and 2D artwork for sins
If you like.
Thanks for the offer to care for our moddb presence. I was given access to a profile but it was a deleted mod. I have requested access to the still active profile for sind from GameWatchers which hasn't been updated in 10 years.
as soon as I get Access I will give you rights to do as you please
An EA Explorer class or Destroyer zoomed in with the rotating section in view with a squadron of Star Furies zooming by is a lovely cinematic shot.
Narn Sho'Kar scout vessel added.
OK guys, I've now got access to both of the Babylon 5 Mods on Moddb using our assets. Please send me your handles/usernames or emails for moddb so i can add you.
I would like you to keep
and use
https://www.moddb.com/mods/babylon-5
to just link to the other mod and otherwise cleanse that profile
Thanks
Great! And you've already got my email
I was pondering what model to use for the Narn colony frigate. I was thinking about a version of the Tal'Quith, which is normally a freighter, but I've altered it a bit for the colony version.
Invite sent!
I like it!
@Darvroth
Shall I send you an invite too? Do you already have a moddb account?
I think I do though its been several years. "If I were a password, where would I be...?"
Oh wow.. there's 2 of them.. how confusing.. yeah we'll need to put up a redirect link in big writing on the summary of the one we don't want so it's the first thing people see when you visit that page. I see people are already finding the pages and commenting on them before we've even done anything on them haha. Better get the latest downloads over to there asap before people start trying to play whatever that old build there is from 10 years back lol.
Have messaged you my account name there and email. After I hit send I then norticed you'd already messged me asking for it haha sorry I dunno how I missed that. I must have email notifications off for private messaging.
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