UPDATES

One of the Yggdrasil's key "ultimate abilities" was to be a variation of Volt-Cruelzer's Grey Goo.  It's a really awesome concept but to my great regret in actual play it is tremendously lag-inducing.  An infinite, spawn-death-respawn of potentially unlimited numbers every 2.5 seconds is just a wee bit crimping in a large, multi-player game.  I've got it running and have culled down effects and the increased times between actions but it is just too much--and I am going for minimal impact on CPU cycles and RAM in all of my mod efforts here.

In fact, the Lectoids--the Yggdrasil "eggling-spore"--that I created as secondary ship type was originally designed to use fighter movement and swarm in large numbers--but the same issue arises as with the grey goo--It's just too much (but an awesome sight!). So I may include a less infinite grey goo variant (as I truly love the ability) but am instead going towards a new system of play for the Yggdrasil. 

The ygg's (Yggdrasil egg-spores) will be primarily immobile (not truly so as they will have a glacially slow ability to move).  In addition, there will be only one key ygg per gravity well (other than the Yggdrasil HW).  These primary yggs can only be created by the Yggdrasil main vessel--of which only one exists per game.  Each primary ygg can spawn lesser yggs (also known as lectoids).

Lectoids are the resource accumulators for the Yggdrasil itself--which does not colonize or capture resource asteroids. All Yggderasil ships and ship stages are produced by the consumption of antimatter and mineral resources.  In the beginning, the Yggdrasil itself is the only entity present which can harvest these things.   When enough are accumulated, it can travel to a gravity well and deposit a lectoid there.  This primary lectoid will also be able to gather needed materials from enemy vessels and planets within the gravity well it populates.  To aid in it's defense it may spawn lesser lectoids that provide shielding, mines, strike craft, repair, flak or any other variety of services.  All lectoids will be indistinguishable from one another other than by noting their effects and actions.  Destroying a lectoid will take a fleet--and larger fleets as time passes and they grow in strength.

The HW of the Yggdrasil (Hel planet) will be a custom world with no resource production at all (and the Yggdrasil don't use credits).  It is heavily shielded and almost invulnerable to conventional assault but is vulnerable to a single vessel type--the Sleipneir singularity siege ship.  The Sleipneir can not be produced but is a capturable neutral ship provided at a custom dead asteroid type planet.  If escorted, a Sleipneir may be able to penetrate Hel world defenses and survive long enough to destroy it.

The Yggdrasil, Hel world and primary lectoids all function as phase gates.  At any time, the main Yggdrasil can return to them--or lectoids can be summoned to it.

So presently, I am painstakingly working on balance and role types for the lectoids.  If you think about what I have described, it's a very different style of play for the Yggdrasil.

Otherwise, when I am bored, I swarm and eat enemy worlds.

Thanks Goa and awesome on your mod plus being willing to share.  When I start releasing you can steal any of my stuff you like (so can anyone else for that matter).  I love the game and whatever works is great.  Mention me in your wills or something.

Here's a bigger version of the banner I made.  It's a ten minute slap together with simple models but hey--it works.

I wish I could steal everyone else's ideas for this but darn if I don't  have to make most of it.  Thanks much for the offer sir.  I will tear through it to see if anything is lootworthy.  I do love your suns.

That's it!  I will steal the sun...and thus is born, the Alan Parsons Project!

Actually, that thing Zombie just figured is really close to some things I had dreamed of...that evil monster.

Advanced Pirate (Viking) Bases

As TEC commander, you confidently assemble a small fleet of scouts to dash through a nearby pirate base and discover what the enemy may be up to on the other side.  Skilled piloting of several scouts will allow other ships to pass through the easily confused pirates relatively unharmed from right behind. The order is given and the scout fleet phase jumps.

Emerging in the pirate's gravity well, the scouts accelerate towards phase lane exit points and scatter to confuse defenses...or at least that was the plan.  What happens instead is that energy fields projected from the pirate asteroid itself have slowed scout speed to the equivalent of old ketchup trying to escape from the bottom of a nearly empty bottle. Trying to turn around and escape back the way you came isn't an option either--the entire gravity well is phase jammed.

As the scout captains desperately look for options, the bright flares of incoming missiles are seen arcing in from far across the gravity well.  High radiation, nuclear charges burst through shields and the hulls of the flimsy scouts--which were simultaneously struck by beam fire from turrets far outside normal defense ranges.  A few fireballs later--nothing remains..except the incoming ships that the scouts were to have served as decoys for.

They arrive into the same mess.  Slow moving forward, no way back.  Arcing missile fire and lancing beams begin eating into shields and hulls and to make matters worse--closing pirate capital ships all just jumped a level of skill and...before you can blink...another...and then still another.

It's looking pretty grim now. 

Your strike craft were launched as soon as you arrived in system and as they desperately approach the pirate defenses a sudden plasma storm erupts--destroying them all. The few that had closed on nearby defenses reported they were under heavy flak fire from every defensive gun near them.  There were no survivors.

Pirate vessels swarm about your fleet now and as you close on the pirate base, gauss guns open up with withering fire that sprays like automatic shotgun blasts into dozens of ships.  Your gunners report the planet is shielded heavily from your bombardment and your engineers report that antimatter is draining at dangerously fast levels the closer you get to the pirate asteroid.

There is a sinking feeling in your gut as you realize no one is going home from this one.  It's the last conscious thought you have.

Just a little atmospheric teaser for the Pirate mod.

If anyone is interested in helping flesh out/tweak some abilities, give me a PM.

Ok--here's a sneak peek at the "dimensional siege ship".  It's the only ship that can take out a Yggdrasil homeworld and represents a joint Vasari-Advent-TEC venture.   It's only weapon is its planetary siege cannon.

Update--regarding the Pirate mini mod--it is most likely the Yggdrasil will replace pirates for it as this looks like it might work better.  So there will be a Fourthspace mod for the Yggdrasil and a separate minimod for Yggdrasil Pirates.

Haha--thanks.  I will be putting placeholder textures on it and use groups so I can "mix-n-match" from as many stock textures as I can...since I have no ability to create a usable texture myself.

It's over-detailed but only one of three models I will add so I went a little fancier. Tomorrow I'll put up some better textures so you can get a better idea of it.

As I understand it, you need XSI to convert the model to a usable mesh.  Part of the mesh file is the the textures that were in the XSI model that get exported to the mesh. 

So I can create a model say as an OBJ, create groups and give them simple differing scaled color values as textures in the OBJ.  XSI imports that model and it's textures and works its xsionic magic on it and then shoots it off as a mesh file.

You can then open the mesh in a text editor and see the text entries for what textures are used.  Then you can look around in all the texture files and try using them by typing them in place of what is already there.

When you take into account how many textures--and especially if you include the mod ones that are available--you can make it work.  By using groups, I don't have to stretch someone else's texture over an entire model that isn't proportionate to it and so I don't run as much chance of smearing or weirding it out.   Generally, shrinking a texture to fit is better than expanding it.

Of course this is my best guess--since the model and texture tools won't work properly on my current pc.  Essentially, I needed people to create meshes from my models and then I can take it from there.

I imagine multiple groups are tougher on memory but I'm using mostly already existing textures so I hope it balances.

Or--you can do my mod for me

I actually have a person (finger's crossed) who is rigging and meshing the main models for me.  I'll wait until he's done before  I name him.

Ironically, this was originally going to be the last part I did but I had the the opportunity for help from a modeler and particle effects person sooo...

Yeah-- I had made separate group for each part of the model textured differently.  So for instance when Lavo made my "cargo box" mesh, it included the annotations for the textures I exported with the unconverted model for him--and then I can go back in and hand edity the mesh text to redirect them to existing in-game ones.

The  model I just sent to the person who is working on it has groups and textures like this.

Thanks for the info.

Thanks man!  You and your loved ones will be spared in the coming great galactic purge. The Strategic Planets mod is going to have a lot of planets in it.  The Yggdrasil HW will be in there too. 

I am going to probably do the pirates last as they are the most problematic and instead do "Fourthspace" first now that I have some momentum on the models (thanks all).

I have one planet ability that I have to figure out how to do and I can begin the planet part right away--it's pretty simple actually and I am using as many already existing assets as possible.  The FighterBomber Mod is easy to make along with it.

So mines and pirates and Yggdrasil stuff will be WIPS for a bit.  Next I have to find some combination of GIMP-Photoshop that will be usable to put my textures in the game--at least for the menus and icons.

I am very excited about the "Yggies".  There ships are all the size of strike craft, move the same and look identical--but some are mines, some are starbases, some are turrets or capitals or frigates--you get the idea.

Thanks again.

If you ever want any basic model work done, let me know.

As it so happens, I believe I have a "team" working on that now (fingers crossed).  I'll pm you later today when I have an eta.

Thanks man.

Here's a little better render with some texture...

I await the meshman's response.