(mod) the starkillers

[drogon223]

well I'm going to attempt to create my own faction for glest

it'll be an alien race called the star killers I'm going to base there designs around war of the worlds with tripods type units and stuff.
based off war of the worlds kinda with tripods very few buildings and units but will be a very expensive faction to counteract there very powerful weapons.

i'm currently learning blender and how to code the factions into the game but any one willing to point me in the right direction for tutorials is greatly appreciated.

buildings

drop pod: this will be the first of the only two buildings this faction will have this will basically produce the basic 3 units:

droid: will collect resources

drone : basic melee unit can be morphed into 2 units has no armor but is very fast to produce and cheap:
scout machine: fast 3 legged walker small with a low damage weapon will have low health and be very fast but weakly armed
fighting machine: a larger tripod equipped with a heat ray deals alot of damage but will be expensive.  fairly slow and heavily armoured.
requires gravity adjustment research at the drop pod.

heavy drone: the basic ranged units can morph into 2 more units no armour but a long range
heavy fighting machine: a larger variant of the normal fighting machine carries two weapons a heat ray for anti ground and lazer for anti air. very slow and heavily armoured.
requires anti-air research at the drop pod.
flying machine: this will basically bomb the enemy base with black smoke and destroy enemy air with it's heat ray. medium speed and medium armor
requires flying machines research at the drop pod.

heat ray stalk: the only other building for these aliens act as the base defence can be build from the beginning of the game cheap but does very little damage

i will design a few concepts in google sketchup for buildings but almost most the stuff will be a blender file.

ideas are very welcome as well on extra units or stuff

[Omega]

Welcome to Glest. It's nice to see you're willing to learn Blender and make your own mod. For tutorials, I would recommend you take a look at the Glest Guide and the Wiki. As well, there's hundreds, perhaps thousands, of blender tutorials made just for modeling online that could be easily accessed with a google search.

[drogon223]

thanks for the welcome omega and thanks for the advice i'll take a look

currently working on a test building for the heat ray defence building.
this is the start of the model to much mesh right now but I'm going to work on that later this is just the basic outline made in blender

[Zoythrus]

hello Drogon, welcome to Glest!

as a modder myself, i'd like to give you some advice. before you jump in and make a mod, play around with some of the mods that have been made already, they may give you ideas (new units, balancing, etc).

good luck!

-Zoy

[drogon223]

well technically this is only my first mod that will add new things that aren't already in the single player

the first mod i actually did was a small no units mod for dark crusade but that was just simply changing it so all units require 0 pop cap to be built
i only shared it with my friends due to the fact that there are already to many no unit mods out there.

this is basically the first mod that i'm making that requires me to make actual models
also i am currently doing a game ddesign course at my college so this will help me with that and vice versa. 

EDIT: question will i need to downgrade to blender 2.46-49 or can i continue using 2.56 to create my models just wondering ?

[Zoythrus]

any version of blender will do (im pretty sure).

about your mod, it doesnt matter how good your models are, if the game sucks, no one's going to play it. ive seen many times where a mod looks good, but the gameplay is as good as dirt. personally, i think that gameplay is the more crucial part of a mod. now, dont get me wrong, models are definitely a large part of the mod, and stuff like that will make the mod better; its just that you cant forget about the gameplay...

-Zoy

[Omega]

You'll have to use 2.49 for now. The exporter only works for that, and 2.56 is not yet a stable official release. Eventually, I expect someone will (hopefully) make an exporter for 2.5x, but I doubt that will occur until it becomes blender.org's official stable version.

[drogon223]

the way i'm going to try the balancing first is by making the faction a fairly expensive faction but rather quick to build there units

the only 4 cheap units will be the work, drone heavy drone and the scout walker. these will also be the weakest and easiest to destroy as-well

but i do understand that balance is everything so I'm mostly going to need some help testing it and balancing the faction out.
any help on that front will be greatly appreciated mostly tho i need to get the hang of glest coding since I've never really done XML that much.

plus i'll take all advice from all the great experienced modders on this site since you guys have made amazing mods.

thanks omega i'll have to downgrade my blender then I'm just wondering will the two files I've made in 2.56 still be compatible with 2.49?

[Omega]

thanks omega i'll have to downgrade my blender then I'm just wondering will the two files I've made in 2.56 still be compatible with 2.49?

Good question. I never actually tried that, but I'd assume that as long as it doesn't use any new features of 2.5x, it would be compatable. If not, just export it to some other format and then re-import into blender 2.4x for the G3D export. That could be handy is learning 2.4x is too hard after the massive GUI changes of 2.5x.

[drogon223]

it's more i'm used to the format of blender 2.56 it's incredibly easy to use compared to 2.49 version i had on my pc.
this is the heat ray tower stalk version 1 basic textures.

[Zoythrus]

if you need help with XML's, ask me, im an XML artist.

so, are you making the mod for MegaGlest(MG) or the Glest Advanced Engine(GAE)? i would prefer GAE....

[drogon223]

never played the Glest advanced engine

so it'll most likely be for the mega-glest engine

and your help in learning XML will be greatly appreciated i can grasp the modelling side rather easy it's more the coding part of this i tend to struggle with learning a new code type for me is kinda intimidating.

so any thought on the first version of the heat ray defence
beside lowering the poly-count that'll come later when i figure out the final literation.

[John.d.h]

I've got a few alien unit models from a mod that never came to fruition.  They're under CC-By-SA, so you're free to use them as long as you credit me and share alike.  I don't have a use for them anymore.

http://opengameart.org/content/alien-skimmer-vehicle
http://opengameart.org/content/alien-crawler-vehicle
http://opengameart.org/content/alien-shockball-device
http://opengameart.org/content/martian-tripod-vehicle

[drogon223]

i'll share alike and I'm willing to help other mods create models for there's and i'll take a look thanks John i currently can't decide whether to keep the base defence as it is for when i get down to coding things into the mod or make a second model ready to and ask which is better?

EDit i might use your tripod as a base for the 3 tripods in the army and your defiantly getting credit for it if i do that models quite close to what i was going to do for the scout except mine was going to be more like a crystal

EDIT 2 : i seem to struggle using blender 2.49 but when i use 2.56 i find blender incredibly easy to use

[ultifd]

Looks cool! Nice idea.
Perhaps after you finish making the mod for MG, you can add features to it for GAE Seems like a pretty good idea to me (I think the Japanese mod was kinda like this, because first you would get a lot of people from people who want to play it with others, and then if they want to try it with other features they would then try it...win win. But that will be a long time from now.

Also don't forget to back up your work 
 

[MuwuM]

Hey! Nice Idea! 

Hope you are able to start soon modding. 

P.S.: Hope Blender is working correctly now. ;-)

[Psychedelic_hands]

EDIT 2 : i seem to struggle using blender 2.49 but when i use 2.56 i find blender incredibly easy to use

Haha, don't worry. I was like you and I started on the 2.5 Alpha, and found going back to 2.49 hard.
But now after using 2.49 for awhile, I find it even harder to use 2.5 

[drogon223]

and mw i'm still all confuzled by blender i'm getting the hang of 2.49 finally the main problem is i dunno if the export script is working.

[John.d.h]

and mw i'm still all confuzled by blender i'm getting the hang of 2.49 finally the main problem is i dunno if the export script is working.

If you're getting a g3d file that you can see properly in the viewer, it is working.  Otherwise, probably not.

[Omega]

How to Export

Just because you haven't tried GAE yet doesn't mean it's not a suitable engine. For multiplayer, MG is king, but for everything else, GAE can do everything MG can do and more. Since few mods besides the megapack ever get played multiplayer, mods can be mostly geared towards single player. With GAE, you can have auto return, auto repair, toggling of auto-functions, stealth units, carrying units, garrisoning, water units, emanations, effects, all of MG's particles, improved scenarios, a lua console, and more.

[Gabbe]

it's more i'm used to the format of blender 2.56 it's incredibly easy to use compared to 2.49 version i had on my pc.
this is the heat ray tower stalk version 1 basic textures.

You+d have to animate in 2.49 but you can model everything in 5x

[drogon223]

i'll try that gabbe but here's the newest unit for the faction the heavy fighting machine's replacement the crawler

[ElimiNator]

Way to high polly, but looking good.

[drogon223]

yeh i know way to damn high of a poly count but i'll work on lowering it after I've got the model textured. and before i animate it also i might make it for GAE after I've finished the basic one for Mega Glest

just a question about GAE would it be possible to set up a resource for say the crawler and the fighting machine to capture or harvest near dead enemies to get resources

[Zoythrus]

just a question about GAE would it be possible to set up a resource for say the crawler and the fighting machine to capture or harvest near dead enemies to get resources

no, but it's on the todo list! (it's like, 4th in line)