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.
'off'? Most are not supposed to have anything there. Why waste a texture on black?
That is THE skybox. One and only texture. (There are like 50 'effects' skyboxes with no texture but have unique light settings for the stars.) It's a massive texture to. 20MB 4Kx8K.
There are 50 Skyboxs that don't have a texture. (well they do just a small transparent one that's shared to save space. I refuse to make sky textures like IC did.) But each of them have lighting effects that match the class/color of the system's star. The background stars have had their mesh replaced and retextured as a galaxy.Thus O-Class stars will have VERY blue lighting, B-Class will have blueish lighting, A-Class will have White lighting, G-classes will have yellow-white light like our sun, (which is a G-class.) K-Classes will have Orangish lighting, M-Class will have Orange-Red lighting, and L-Class (aka: Brown Dwarf.) will have Red lighting.
There are different degrees of color which give me 50 lighting properties.
LOL I'm just an insane coder.
I'm not sure exactly what you are saying here, but I agree that some of the Day/Night lines on your planets look weird. The transition is to sharp compared to the Vanilla ones.
That's really the only criticism I have as well.
I made them that way.... An entire new set of night textures would have to be created just for the lower planets that are barely inhabited. Which would be black with a few specks of yellow. So I leave them black. Saves space and looks good.
As for the day/night dividers. This makes it more realistic. The way vallina had it planets could bend light around them to light the other side where light had no way of reaching it on a straight line. Look at any actual planet photo and you will see a very sharp contrast between day and night.As for skyboxes, again, I'm not going to waste space on unrealistic clouds and stars for in system views. Any star that is in a nebula or has massive stars nearby (0-15LYRs) will be fried and uninhabitable. Stars as a natural progression of their evolution blast away any left over clouds. As time goes on stars migrate out of the clusters where they were created. Thus that is why we are not part of a star cluster.
But there is still a recognizable "twilight zone", some of which your planets have, while others just seem to go from being completely lite up to completely dark.
I'll wait to judge on the other details, though just keep in mind the rest of Sins doesn't stick to such astronomical realism. It might be odd to see a completely black night side planet with still lit up planetary structures and ships right behind it.
Well I'm trying to push the engine to it's limits regarding stars and planets. Of course the light doesn't even come from the star so there is no reason to expect it to be perfect. It may be odd but it's what we got to work with.And it's also due to the fact I am still messing with the rendering files somewhat and the differences in the pics are different rendering tries.
Post up a new demo soon so we can look under the hood. Great work sir.
Nearly done. Oh and Goa should be happy I fixed the rendering files so there is a nice smooth transition from day to night though it does happen quickly.
Perfect Nova!
Eh. I think I made the Icons a tad too big. But they are nice and shiny. You decide
It all depends on your level of zoom. Looks fine to me bud.
Have you thought about making a Toxic Garden world/ Toxic Paradise World? I.E. a beautiful planet but you can't eat anything there because it will kill you.
It's the way to Eden man.
That's what the Low class planets are for. They are planets, that for whatever reason (location, newly discovered, deadly, poisonous, war, whatever you can think of.) despite the fact that they are habitable class planets lack a substantial population. These planets are usually characterized by the lack of a night side. Ice and Volcanic are the only misleading ones as most of their population centers are underground and thus don't emit any light.And Low Class planets suck for the most part. (I've been getting complaints on them from the SOGE forum. Which means they are doing their job.) They have little population, log slots, tac slots, and health. They even suck up money a bit. Most you can't get rid of it, but colonization lvls 1 and 2 you can get rid of it for the most part through upgrading the pop. (like ONE time and that's it) but 3 and 5... Well... they will be leaches on your income (somewhat) BUT all low planets have 2 more roids than their more civilized counterparts. Colonization lvl 4s don't get income hits because they are SUBSTANTIALLY more populous. Though I may hit the one or two little ones in there with a corresponding cash hit.So I do have it in there just a bit differently.(Oh and col class 5s are your MAJOR income planets. They suck, but they can't be beat in terms of crystal and metal roids. They have a -5 credit per sec hit that is always there. You can easily minimize it by grabbing any type of Industrial, High Terran, Urban, Rusty, or Ecumenopolis planet. Which are you major credit producing centers.)
Heyyy, I'm not complaining about those Low planets. :v
They do their job well however.
Sounds like interesting concepts there Nova. Can't wait to command it all from my MOON base.
Sins of a Sailor empire anyone?
Defense platforms have received a 50% increase in range. Ship speed has also been increased by 50%. Market now has more volatility and is more pricey. Jump degrees have been dropped from 45 to 30 due to larger grav wells. Planets now are MUCH farther apart. This is to reduce if not eliminate the grav well overlap problem. Also will reduce loads on systems as it will minimize the number of planets rendered at one time.
Grayson FTW
Just curious Nova, will you be releasing just a planet component to this? I know this is for SOGE, but anything you can do to keep gameplay changes to a minimum will be greatly appreciated by those of us who will have to go file by file to deal with compatibility issues. Not that it won't be a madness worth going through.
Edit: Thanks for satisfying this picky modder with the planet transitions as well.
God please no!!!
I'm not changing much. I just needed to up the range and speed. Otherwise it takes waaaay too long. And defense platforms don't become useless. No, it would be madness going through. There is nothing left of the planets, stars, and skyboxes from vanilla sins. Even the planet bonuses have been eliminated. I'm not going to change ships or buildings except from the 4 defense platform files. What you will go mad from is changing the planets. I got them balanced very nicely. There won't be any compatibility issues for the most part. Unless you have planets of your own. Just don't over react. So basically this can be plopped in any mod as is with little issue.(Oh, the only issue which I will purposely put in is one planet tech)
I never thought that in the rest of my entire life, I would ever see anyone bring up this gal and her girl friends again. Sins of a Sailor Empire would be like creating a My Little Pony game or some other completely pointless thing like that, they just don't go over very well for virtually everyone.
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