The Clones of War mod for Men of War: Assault Squad 2

Today I wish to bring great news and to discuss some exciting things. So there hasn't been a new version released yet, while I claimed there probably would be by now. There are two primary reasons for this, one of which is really amazing.

The first reason is that I don't have alot of active playtesters. I promise you that the next version, and trust me, it won't be thaaat long, will be alot more interesting!

Ironically, the first reason is partly a symptom of the second reason, if that makes any sense... I haven't been spending a whole lot of time organising the people that are helping me with making this glorious mod for the simple reason that I've been totally sucked up into learning more about Assault Squad 2.

In these last two weeks I have learned how to export vehicles almost perfectly, have gained a much better understanding of the details and workings of Men of War's armor system and programming language and I am very very proud to admit that I have made more progress in these last two weeks than I have with the original Men of War in the last five years. I've been glued to my computer these last couple of weeks programming a completely new and in-depth armor penetration system that is closer to the films and more accurate to how the weapon systems of Star Wars would actually work.

This new armor penetration system is based on armor temperature and heat dissipation and while still a prototype, currently features over 17 weapon classes, ranging from various classes of infantry small arms blasters to working vehicle-mounted ion cannons to ray-shield-ignoring mass drivers, all the way up to super-heavy turbolasers, each with their own characteristics and nuances.

Next to the new armor penetration system, things like practical ion shielding and an actual difference between rayshields and particle shields and 5 new classes of explosive weapons are but a small taste of all the amazing features that will be in the mod in future versions but I’ll talk about those in greater detail later. My dream is to implement features that not only immerse you in the star wars universe, but make sense lore-wise and add real depth and interesting gameplay. My dream is to create the ultimate star wars game!

One interesting experiment spawned out of my research into how buildings work in Men of War. I have made great progress and while I have not yet truly tried to make destructible buildings, I am confident that we can do it and do it well. The way buildings worked inspired me to develop a new way of creating interior missions that will look perfect and very detailed ingame. It will basically allow us to create detailed interior missions directly inside our favorite 3D software packages (like 3D studio max and Maya) and export them directly into the game.

Also, now that the combat in the mod is deepening and becoming more complex and nuanced, I have thought of a fun way to showcase the new features that will give the artists that are helping now a chance to put all of their skills to use and simultaneously providing you with educative narrative entertainment that will teach you how to play the game and go in detail about all the new features, so look forward to that J Its my excitement that causes me to spill all my beans, but I have so many great ideas that I want to share with you. But for now, let us focus on the immediate future...

Right now!! So I promised a while ago that the next, complete version would be out right now. Sadly, this has not happened but for the very great reasons I mentioned above. I was distracted by shiny things. While reviewing the content of the alpha, I realised that I felt more was missing than my perfectionistic nature will tolerate. So work has started on finishing current assets and creating new ones that will make the alpha feel alot more complete and polished. Helping me in this endeavour are a couple of new artists, namely:

DictatorOfRome as an animator and 3D modeller,

Professorfate as the new official voice actor for the standard Clone troopers,

Spike-Bozzled as a coder and exporter,

and Zooka_LFM as a 3D modeller and texturer

The list of voice actors will grow as I have more roles open and am in talks with some promising auditioners! ^^

Now while this is all great, we won’t leave you hanging. While we will be busy working on new content, you can enjoy this relatively fixed version of the current alpha, which has been tested in a closed environment and should be mostly playable for a while :) This version includes scout speeders for both sides and one of the new experimental features of the mod: Randomized blaster sounds! Whichis something I've wanted ever since I started this project, but could never do propely.

The next version will include the AAT and TX-130S medium tanks and extra props to replace miscellaneous items ingame, like new and more varied explosives, variations of macrobinoculars and distinct medical equipment.

I really hope this all wasn’t all too confusing. I could easily go on for like ten pages about all the new things we’re working on haha and I look forward to improve the mod even further with your help and feedback. Together we will make the Star Wars tactics game of our dreams!

Thank you for your time and on behalf of the whole team,