First Dev Question Response news

Will the mod have some sort of Combat AI like Star Trek Armada 3? (basically the units fly around fighting instead of standing still unloading on each other.)

Skyline5gtr - I think this will become clearer the more we play it. I do think it would add to the realism to have some movement. I have already been talking with the Armada 3 guys about implimenting this and they will help. I think it will only be applicable to smaller ships, larger ones will stay stationary

What are both, Alliance and Cerberus built, Normandy SR-2's abilities? Also will both factions be able to build their Normandy after they get destroyed?Oh will there be Hero units in the mod, like the Armada 3? ie, Alliance/council could have the Normandy, Hackett or Anderson for it heros?

Skyline5gtr - No plans that I know of for hero units as they would be very difficult to balance. But always open to the possibility

What's your favorite faction and in addition what's your favorite ship (to each of the members) and why (in terms of design, tactics...)?

Skyline5gtr- For me its the reapers, I Love the mechanical nature of them and its my favorite to model. I also love the feel and epic design nature, they are huge hulking massive beasts that are very imposing to see. Ship wise im going to have to go with sovereign from ME2- I love the remodel bio-ware did, with the addition of the conduits and the new color pallet

What's your inward urge to do a Mass Effect themed modification for Sins of a Solar Empire?

Skyline5gtr - Personally, I'm a huge sci fi nut. There are already tons of stargate, star trek and star wars games/mods but there is no RTS mass effect. I am also a huge RTS fan and play everything, when I watched alot of the in game cinematic especially

What are your personal hopes for future Mass Effect games? Will future (official) Mass Effect projects may play a role for your ongoing projects?

Skyline5gtr - I would hope the modification allows people to relive massive fantasy battles that most people dream about. I know i always enjoy watching space battles, after the project i think me and Lord_Set would like to give an indie game a try

Will the Reapers be realistically OP? (E.g. Sovereign classes needing 4 dreadnought to take down.)

Skyline5gtr - Yes, ideally the would cost cost/power balanced. So a reaper may cost much more, but can take down a much larger fleet. Plus i think this adds to realism, if a single reaper can be taken out by a destroyer it looses belief and the immersion factor is gone

What was the hardest obstacle that you had to overcome so far during the development of the mod and what part (or parts) of this mod are you most proud of up to this point?.

Skyline5gtr - The hardest part is finding time, with real life happening its always so difficault to find time for us all to get together and make it happen especially with such a small team. The last year has been crazy for me so now that it is settling down we can actually get things done. The thing im most proud of is that we have been able to get anything acomplished lol, with a mod its so easy to simply stop because besides the work there is no bennefit to finishing you do it for the love of the project. I was personally the most excited to see the soverign class reaper get finished. Took me a long time. Its also difficault finding motivation sometimes i work as a 3d artist for a job as well so i can tend to get burned out

An interesting one: How did you choose the name 'Dawn of the Reapers'? What significance does it have? What other titles were considered before the decision was made? Etc. Etc.

Skyline5gtr - Good question, you would have to ask Lord_Set, i think he came up with it

I understand the idea of wanting to have the mod as polished as possible before releasing anything to the general public but have you thought about how public interest for the mass effect franchise has waned since the release of mass effect 3? Would you maybe consider trying to release what you have out currently before or around the release of mass effect "4"? To have the highest possible exposure for the mod? From my experience in tracking mods, it usually tends to take 5+ years to get a full fledged mod out into the public and by that time interest in a franchise like mass effect could be on the low side..

Skyline5gtr- At this point i think we need to communicate more with our progress, we are almost finished with cerberus, but we made mistakes originally and every model has to be re-imported since the tangants are wrong , that's why the models lighting looks funky in alot of pictures. I think once we get cerberus and council races done we will release something and then work on the reapers to keep interest genereated and then get feedback and develop as we go. There is no realistic way at least that i see or expect, to develop another few years without releasing something, especially polished we simply dont have the manpower and will need the community help on that for sure. We just want to make sure its "complete", its not really a question about polish we just need to get things reimported so they work and finish the council races. So i would say its a very realistic possibility to release something this year with cerberus and council races. Get feedback make changes while we work on reapers as well