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.
Give me a mesh and a texture and I'll put it it.
Edit: Eh, I'm going to re-balance the resources again. I made a new scale which operates better I think. Though It means I might have to reprice everything.... oh well. I'll see how it goes.
Colonization levels 1-3 are done.
181 planets are done... Gah I hope you guys love this cause this is driving me nuts. lol (I'm tired of looking at plant entities. )
Edit: Planet are done! Yay! (besides tweaking atmosphere, cloud, and ring colors... and brushes...) Asteroid textures and meshes are done! Grouping will start tomorrow. Asteroid planets will be done then as well. Linking will also be done I hope as well. THEN Pics will be possible as soon as I put all the planets into the Galaxy def. Which shouldn't be too hard as most are listed in the SOGE file I made.
Yippee. Bring it on moon boi.
just do not milk us, but definatly continue with the project
harpo
Ah, didn't mean it that way. Project should be done soon I hope... I think I'll drop particles this time around. Since they are something else. Work on getting the planets and clouds right. Which are almost done.
Well done Nova, I know what you mean by Planet Entity files, I spent a great deal of time on my map also, just when you think your finished, you find something which would be better this way and then have to change it for all of them ... again!
Dear God I hope not! lol I don't think I could do it better. Though I'm not sure how people will feel about the tons of resources they will start getting...
That's no moon!...it had to be said.
But what if it IS a moon?
edit: additional info put up.
Almost to the point where I can show you all nice new pics. Just need to compile the GalaxyScenarioDef.
And now I give you some pics! Yay! Enjoy.
Image 1
Ringed HighTerran
Forest and Three Moons
Some very nice pics.
Here is a GIANT list of every type that is in the game right now. Just ask which type you want to see and I'll post it as soon as I can.
Asteroid, AsteroidDirty, AsteroidOrbital, Comet, CometCloud, DeadAsteroid, AsteroidBeltInner, AsteroidBeltOuter, AsteroidBeltSolar, AsteroidSpaceJunk, AsteroidShipyard, BarrenMoon, BastionMoon, CarbonMoon, CrystalMoon, DeadMoon, IceMoon, MagmaMoon, VolcanicMoon, AcidDwarf, AgriworldDwarf, AridDwarf, BarrenDwarf, CarbonDwarf, DesertDwarf, EcumenDwarf, ForestDwarf, IceDwarf, IndustrialDwarf, JungleDwarf, LowAridDwarf, LowCleanIndustrialDwarf, LowCrystalDwarf, LowIndustrialDwarf, LowMountainsDwarf, LowOceanDwarf, LowSavannahDwarf, LowShipyardDwarf, LowSwampDwarf, LowTerranDwarf, LowTundraDwarf, MagmaDwarf, MountainsDwarf, OceanDwarf, ORDDwarf, PangeaDwarf, RockyDwarf, RustyDwarf, SavannahDwarf, ShipyardDwarf, TerranDwarf, ToxicDwarf, TropicalDwarf, TundraDwarf, UrbanDwarf, VolcanicDwarf, Academy, Acid, Agriworld, Arid, Barren, BarrenShipyard, Carbon, CleanIndustrial, Crystal, Desert, DesertIndustrial, Ecumen, Forest, HighAcademy, HighAgriworld, HighCleanIndustrial, HighCrystal, HighDesert, HighForest, HighIce, HighJungle, HighMountains, HighOcean, HighRocky, HighShipyard, HighSwamp, HighTerran, HighTerranCultural, HighTerranEconomic, HighToxic, HighTropical, HighTundra, HighVolcanic, Ice, Industrial, IndustrialShipyard, Jungle, LowArid, LowCleanIndustrial, LowCrystal, LowIndustrial, LowMountains, LowOcean, LowSavannah, LowShipyard, LowSwamp, LowTerran, LowTundra, Magma, Mountains, Ocean, OceanIndustrial, OceanShipyard, ORD, Pangea, Rocky, Rusty, Savannah, Shipyard, Swamp, Terran, Toxic, Tropical, Tundra, Urban, Volcanic, VolcanicIndustrial, VolcanicShipyard, AcademyLarge, AcidLarge, AgriworldLarge, AridLarge, BarrenLarge, BarrenShipyardLarge, CarbonLarge, CleanIndustrialLarge, CrystalLarge, DesertLarge, DesertIndustrialLarge, EcumenLarge, ForestLarge, HighAcademyLarge, HighAgriworldLarge, HighCleanIndustrialLarge, HighCrystalLarge, HighDesertLarge, HighForestLarge, HighIceLarge, HighJungleLarge, HighMountainsLarge, HighOceanLarge, HighRockyLarge, HighShipyardLarge, HighSwampLarge, HighTerranLarge, HighTerranCulturalLarge, HighTerranEconomicLarge, HighToxicLarge, HighTropicalLarge, HighTundraLarge, HighVolcanicLarge, IceLarge, IndustrialLarge, IndustrialShipyardLarge, JungleLarge, LowAridLarge, LowCleanIndustrialLarge, LowCrystalLarge, LowIndustrialLarge, LowMountainsLarge, LowOceanLarge, LowSavannahLarge, LowShipyardLarge, LowSwampLarge, LowTerranLarge, LowTundraLarge, MagmaLarge, MountainsLarge, OceanLarge, OceanIndustrialLarge, OceanShipyardLarge, ORDLarge, PangeaLarge, RockyLarge, RustyLarge, SavannahLarge, SwampLarge, TerranLarge, ToxicLarge, TropicalLarge, TundraLarge, UrbanLarge, VolcanicLarge, VolcanicIndustrialLarge, VolcanicShipyardLarge, AcidHuge, AridHuge, BarrenHuge, CarbonHuge, DesertHuge, ForestHuge, IceHuge, LowAridHuge, LowCrystalHuge, LowMountainsHuge, LowSavannahHuge, LowTerranHuge, LowTundraHuge, MagmaHuge, RockyHuge, ToxicHuge, VolcanicHuge, BarrenSuper, CarbonSuper, DesertSuper, GasGiantSuper, IceGiantSuper, LowAridSuper, LowTerranSuper, MagmaSuper, RockySuper, VolcanicSuper, GasGiant, IceGiant, PlasmaStorm, MagneticCloud, Wormhole, PirateBase
And here is a Ocean planet and a moon.
Wow--quite a list. How does it run in the game?
Only critique so far--the big starfield is too sharp contrast. Really looks 2D behind all the other textures of ships and worlds. I ran the sample and it really jolts your eyes .
Soften the star edges it and put some color and gradation in the stars and black--just a suggestion. Basically, every star is the same brightness--just slight differences in size. In real life, your eye sees less luminosity with distance so the stars should not all be the same brightness--plus if you look up at a starry sky, you do see colors--especially with binoculars or a telescope. Some stars would be sharper (closer/larger ones) and others would be "fuzzier" (distant, smaller ones).
The night sky also has "smudges" from nebulae, galaxies, star clusters and even interstellar gas and dust--it isn't purely "black"--it's a collage of all the distant objects faintly reflecting light so it has shades.
If you look at the background of the forum here, you'll see a varied starfield--but they went too far the other way--they smudged the whole image and it's uniform in the other direction--flat textured and uniformly blurred with no stand out detail.
FYI--love the ringed Terran planet.
Very nice. Though moons are being finicky about when they render. I'll try to iron that out...
Edit: ah nvm I think the game has a higher chance of hitting mesh1 which is just a bunch of roids. So moons pop up. just not as often as you would expect with 4 out of 5 meshes with moons... I'm playing it with the SOGE mod at max settings, max players and around 400+ planets and it's idleing at about 1.45GB memory.
High Terran Planetand the Masterpiece: Ecmenopolis with built up bastion moon.
Man...this looks intense....if nothing else, I'm posting just so I'll keep getting status updates on this thread...planets AWESOME...
PirateBase, just got to see the PirateBase.
So sayeth the Pirate Lord, Avast you scurvy dogs....
Eh that's one I'm not changing. I'm not a modeler or a texturer really. It's too complex for me. Spheres are trouble enough.
And I can't change the starfield. It's a 512x512 tiled sphere. (tile are small) Unless you want a 16MB(21MB mipped) compressed texture. Probably 4Kx8K to look good since it would have to be stretched out.
Edit: Actually... Found replacement. Edited. Inputed. EPIC
I think what would probably be better for the screen shots is to turn the skybox feature on prior to taking a screen shot. It will soften the background a bit better.
I LOVE the possibilities of this so far. Very awesome.
What skyboxs? They are on. I removed the textures. I refuse to use the vanilla skybox textures. They are horrible.
(Edit: Eh well untill i can figure out how to use Thoumsin's mesh I'll keep it out. The meshes don't look too bad.)
Starry background looks better now...good call!
I for one am not a huge fan of changing the gameplay, but I LOVE graphic mods, so I am really really looking forward to seeing this come out....
Well it's not so much as gameplay per se. But different planets will have different attributes. Various ship building bonuses, module cost and build speeds for the industrial planets. Trade and culture spread bonuses for certain planets. Well balanced upgrade structure. (Though I know people will complain about 'Not being able to upgrade every planet in a game' or 'Why do I have to play some thousands of credits/metal/crystals for planet upgrades?') Resources have been overhauled and there will be ALOT of money floating around and planet upgrades are designed as a money sink. Thus they have to last the whole game. (and they do. planets are powerful money sinks. You don't have to upgrade EVERYTHING to win.) They are worth it. But you have to decide which one is at each moment. Yes I know. I'm ripping out half the game and inputting a whole new system. It works. It's balanced. But you will feel the pain as you adjust.
(oh and some planets WILL LOSE YOU CREDITS NO MATTER WHAT. These are resources planets are supposed to be weak and money sinks. They have a insane amount of metal or crystal and I had to think of some way to balance that. But don't worry. If you get a higher pop planet you will have no problem maintaining a nice credit flow.)
Gameplay just changes with the new pricing scheme that accurately depicts the planets and balances them between themselves.
Thing is, people can easily change entity files if they don't like the upgrade prices, # of resources, or only want a couple of your planets...what they can't easily do is make new meshes, brushes, and the like...
Even for people who won't like your gameplay changes, the graphics you've given to the community will be invaluable...
I for one am very interested in trying out the new mechanics...super pricey planets, interesting bonuses, etc. sound pretty interesting...
My big question is, will you allow others to use your graphics in other mods? (Obviously, with the proper credit given of course...)
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