Novus Universum Mod
This will be the main page of the Novus Universum mod I'm working on for SOGE. It has grown to the point that it is a full fledged mod in its own right and I think should be offered to the whole community.
It is a Planet mod. At this point it has over 140 planets, nearly 50 planet types, 7 planet sizes and the promise of a whole new universe for Sins. The planets are based off of the Star Wars Galaxy for the most part but can be adapted to any mod. I'd release it, but it is in a major overhaul right now.
And there is something that a lot of people have been waiting for... Moons. That's right this mod has moons. Just eye candy right now, but in the future I hope to mod planets around them. Stars and non-colonizable objects will also get a overhaul. Much will be added.
The inclusion of moons means something else for the game. Now it is possible to add eye-candy object around the planets. Space stations, shipyards, industry, roids, any thing you could want you can now add. i hope to include these into the planet mod. So if you have any structure models please share and they will pop up around your planets soon.
well as the mod gets closer to release i'll discribe some of the changes. resources have been reworked and expanded. this may mean that there will be too much resources but i'll mess with the gameplay file to bring it down if nessicary. these planets have tiny pops to massive population. 10 to 10000. some planets you cannot upgrade. some will loose you money. thus you have to think about which to colonize at a given time. the grav wells are huge. they can easily fit a few fleets in them though the smaller asteroid or dwarf ones can seem a bit small if you have alot of ships in them. planet upgrades can and do cost alot. this is intented. this is due to their size and shear amount in most cases. the planet health has been significantly upgraded. going from 15k to 120k it covers weak resource planets to massive fortress planets. if anyone has questions please ask.
http://i910.photobucket.com/albums/ac309/NovaCameron/ScreenShot_0.jpg
http://i910.photobucket.com/albums/ac309/NovaCameron/ScreenShot_1.jpg
MOONS! lol Well A moon, but it proves my point.
FULL: http://www.gamefront.com/files/20227224/Novus+Universum+1.2.rarComes with the speadsheet I made the planets from. Highly suggested that you read it to familiarize your self with them.
TEASER: Novus Universum Mod Teaser
This will replace the textures, meshes, and entity files. If a mod doesn't change the entity files just pop it right in. Replaces Terran, Desert, Ice, Volcanic, and Gas Giant.
Features:
214 Colonizable Planets
82 Planet Types
8 Sizes (Asteroid, Moon, Dwarf, Normal, Large, Huge, Super, Giant)
37 Stars
Stars come in 8 classes/colors: O (Blue), B (Blue-White), A (Blueish White), F (White), G (Yellowish White), K (Orange Yellow), M (Orange Red), and L (Red; Brown Dwarf)
Star also come in 8 sizes: White/Brown Dwarf, Red Dwarf, Sub Dwarf, Dwarf, Main, Sub Giant, Giant, and Supergiant.
New Asteroids
Belt List: Solar belt, Inner belt, Outer belt, Comet Cloud
Redone Clouds and Storms (probably 7 total when done)List: Gas Cloud, Ion Cloud, Dust Cloud, Positron Storm, Plasma Storm, Molecular Storm, Meteor Cloud
MOONS! They are just eye-candy but they look awesome
Planet Characteristics (yes these are the ONLY planet bonuses in the mod. The other ones are too small, odd, unrealistic, or just plain unnecessary.) If you have any ideas for them that I could add please share. ^^Done
Ship building ability (I see no reason for any others. They get a bit too odd or outlandish) Done.
I plan to have fun messing with particles so we'll see what I can do with those. They look promising.
Orbital Structures and Ships! Just eye-candy again but they can really add to the atmosphere. If you have any civilian models or orbital structure/satellite models please offer them. You will be credited and your model will appear around your planet.
Satellite planet and asteroid textures courtesy of NASA and the Celestia Database
Special Thanks to the SOGE Crew for betaing my planets. Particularly Lavo, Who has been a great help.
If you want to see the planets and more just go to www.swrebellion.com and sign up for the SOGE beta.
That was my line of thinking, it should be purely cosmetic but still very awesome. Fortunately its very easy to increase map size on non-random maps (just increase the map scale parameter). Not sure how the random maps determine that honestly. The only downside is that will make phase jumping to planets take even longer, but there may be a way to increase the speed of that too.
There is a quick and dirty way of doing this (at least, using distant stars), you can make a moon class planet of the type you want and just have the position of it so it overlaps with the other gravity well. Ships can move back and forth with each one. Each will count as a different planet and have their own stats and such. Of course, you'd have to place it using the Forge, but it's possible. I normally play randomized maps and this came up once or twice before. Anything to make it more convenient will help.
But I really do want your moons and you did a good job here. You deserve more than six karma. What's wrong with these people?
I need more sleep too I think. But I really do have a 3D Vasari on a space pony.
Lol I got 8. Oh I'm stripping out the stars and putting 37 stars in their place.
Updated main post with new news of progress.
Looking really good!
I was actually thinking about moons and the lack of them in the game so this is a nice concept. I usually play with asteroids turned off but if they had more eye candy associated besides just more asteroids it might be more interesting.
Find me Orbital junk and I'll put them in. Stations, ships, factories, anything. I can't model or texture them. But since they are usually seen far away you can make them less polys and texture size since detail won't matter at that distance. Unless it absolutely massive, which it can be. lol like a ring or something.
UPDATE: YAY the textures are done!
Just to keep you all happy. I made you a teaser with the best replacement textures so far. I got the meshes and textures to what looks the best and now I release a replacement set for the vanilla planets. Enjoy!
Novus Universum Teaser
Edit: I just realized I have a lot more head room than I thought. I plan to ax 160MB of textures from the game and Sins Plus was A LOT bigger than I thought pushing 250MB. As it is right now the textures are pushing 250MB... (this will be after the restructuring of the textures.) So I plan to just add 150MB when it's all done.
This is fairly amazing. Ill be looking forward to downloading this when its finished. For me, a science nerd, making the game more realistic just makes it more fun although I dont expect you to go totally realistic since Saturn has only 62 moons. If you need inspiration for moons, or just want to rip off some things for textures, take a look at the moons in our own solar system. The moons of Saturn and Jupiter are very interesting and have been well studied. Uranus has a ton of small weird ones and Neptune has Triton. Even small bodies like Pluto have moons!
This is what is in the teaser should you choose to replace your planets with them.
Gas Giant
Ice
Desert
Volcanic
Terran
The Textures are done. The stars meshes are done.
lol I'll will. Though I think you will want the whole thing though. my goal is to only have it add about 150MB. Which isn't that much compared to other mods. Goal tomorrow is to finish up meshes and stars. Then I can work on brushing up the planets.
Ship scale will finally look right. Right on man, right on!
Awesome! Can we use that in our mods with your consent? (And giving creadits?)
Can I sell them on the black market?
You must have some magic planned with 140 planet textures and keeping the mod to 150MB...
The key word was add. I'm axing about 160 MB worth of files from the base game. And it's only 47 planet textures and 7 star textures. Total size: 284MB (So far just textures) I think. And yes it's magic. I have lots of duplicates. And I don't need to have a night side all the time since it shows up as black anyway and most of my planets should be like that.
And once I add moons it will be even more varied.
Yes you can add it in. ^^
Updated main post with more exact info. Meshes are done for Planets and Stars along with textures. Now beings the fun part of linking all the entities up and making new ones. I just realized I needed to redo roid models and meshes... *sigh* more work.
Good work Nova!
Yay a small news update. Work is progressing slowly on the stars for the sole reason that skybox properties are a pain. I'll finish up the stars first, then planets, roids, and then moons. Clouds will be last. I'll put up screenshots as I put the planets in so you can all stare at the awesomeness. I might even put in the moons with them.
When the moons hit your eyes like big pizza pie--that's amore.
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