TIE Phantom image - Empire At War Remake: Galactic Civil War mod for Star Wars: Empire at War: Forces of Corruption
This mod catapults Empire at War into 2077. It maintains the game's design philosophy, while adding new units, better graphics, and deeper gameplay.
The TIE Phantom is getting a complete overhaul. It wont get some special weapon, just three lasers and three blasters, but since there's no incentive other than its cloak to build this costly fighter over say, the TIE Hunter, I wanted to find some way to actually make this useful tech.
So I'm toying with the idea of giving the Empire a special space station, buildable only on the Maw, where you'll be able to build these TIEs, along with upgrades. These upgrades will allow this specific station to build starships with the cloaking device. Terribly OP? Possibly. If anyone has any suggestions on how to make the Phantom a good purchase for the cost (cloaking is expensive yo) I'm open to ideas on this one.
The Phantom consists of 1350 triangles or 531 polies.
Go check out the new crash fix in the news article if you haven't yet. It's simpely moving a few files, but apparently people get a lot further into GC before the savegame crashes occur.
I like the idea and if anything it should be expanded upon. All factions should be able to get something at the Maw if it was important enough to have a GC for it in vanilla.
The problem with that is that I'd need to add very special units to all factions, and as it turns out, that very quickly steers towards adding units for the sake of adding units.
Makes each faction and maybe even locations more unique, and worth fighting and defending for though.
On one hand, yes, on the other, what units would be buildable? The Rebellion has the Nebula which would actually fit perfectly for this role, but then I'd need another utility ship as the rebels tier 5. The Empire already has a brute-force battleship and the consortium has a carrier, I can't think of another role besides utility, and not a ship to fill said role either. I also the consortium would need some fancy unit, and it's already got loads. Feel free to make suggestions though, I'm open to the idea if it can be worked out roster-wise.
Would be cool if it would be like in the original game of Rebel Assault II: They cloak if they don't attack and as soon as they get near the enemy and shooting it's laser, they get visible.
Maybe each faction could get a special stealth fighter squadron?
The TIE Phantom menace...
^ This guy...
They're good fighters though. Think TIE Fighter, with more firepower than a TIE Interceptor, with double armor and a shield generator. And a cloak on top incase you run into a corvette. It's actually not a bad fighter, at all, it just costs a lot.
TIE Hunter seems to be more of a multi-role fighter-bomber, where as the Phantom seems to be more of a space superiority fighter. I don't know exactly how you have the armaments on the Hunter, but on the wiki its apparently armed the same as the Y-wing (2 lasers, 2 ions, and proton torpedos) where as the Phantom here has 5 laser cannons. So they are different enough in their intended roles it seems. You could also give the Phantom stronger shields, so it can really be an absolute terror to other fighters, while the Hunter can go after larger targets that can't hit the thing with their turbos.
I know you're generally trying to keep all squads at 6 models, but different squad sizes are an option too.
Not sure how this works in the game's coding, but you could also have the Phantoms be permanently invisible on the mini map.
Hope these ideas aren't too stupid.
I'm going to tweak the weapons of all TIEs a bit, since the fighter overhaul (the one that isn't released yet) I'm very happy with how fighters behave, but there's always room for improvement imo.
I'm going to set it up so that the chin mounted lasers that all TIEs have are just regular lasers, 1000 range, same as all other fighter lasers in the mod. Those wing-tip blasters that interceptors, phantoms, and defenders have will also shoot the same lasers, same damage, but only have a range of...ehh, 400? I'm still thinking about them, but they have to be weaker in some respect to the regular chin-lasers. I think low range is an elegant solution.
That minimap thing is a really good idea btw, I'll see if I can set that up in the code.
Seeing as cloaking technology and crystals were rare in the lore, are these units going to be buildable in limited numbers (in GC), say at max 10 of these Shadow TIE's?
Limited only buy the amount of credits you spend on them. There's a whole galaxy full of resources, i that vast emptiness, there should be plenty of crystals to find for cloacking devices.
Looking good, plus a nice idea, but I'm surprised you haven't model the cockpit on this, where the rest of the TIEs have it. I would argue that this one especially needs the cockpit to be modelled, whereas the rest could be done with a texture...
Thanks, I do try :)
Why would the phantom need the cockpit detail more so than the regular TIE cockpit? I actually feel the opposite, a bump map could save way more polies here than on a regular cockpit, since this also has the cilinder sides that'd need the indents.
it's about silhouette. I feel like the standard TIEs could get away with a normal map, that could be used across all the TIEs with the flattered sphere cockpit. Then again, it's a personal preference.
Good point. I might change it later on.
Well the Phantoms were stronger than normal TIEs in terms of shielding and firepower, as well as having a hyperdrive. Maybe it could on par for durability with the Defender or it could have the GC stealth ability like certain heroes do?
Having the galactic map stealth would be awesome.
If its possible, have the cloak automatically activate, with zero call down, it that worked the phantom would only be destroyable from DB missiles collateral damage, and in the small space of time that they're shooting.
This would be my thought as well. Have it be always cloaked, and only decloak while firing on something.
This sounds awesome until you play as another faction and have to hunt that one remaining squadron of Phantoms on the map. And I build big maps.
Detector unit?
I don't think this game has detection units like starcraft does. If so, I completely managed to miss them. No clue how I'd code that in either, not from scratch anyway.
Honestly? bump their view range up a bit to be on par with the TIE scout, i use them as lateish game spotters for my cap ships when cloaked.
I also use them as emergency interceptors for heavily escorted bomber strikes, so speed maybe?
Speaking of the TIE Scout why not replace it for something more versatile anyway? I rarely ever build them unless I need to spot for broadside cruisers and even then I usually have other fighters spotting that same area already.
First thing I do when I start a GC is pause the game and go sell all the stupid worthless tie scout squadrons.
Give it a significant damage bonus exiting cloak for several seconds. Surprise motherfucka, Some FRIES **********!! PermaCloak unless firing. Up its turn rate so you can do a hit and run. Would probably be top superiority fighter is an issue though....
permaclock would make it nigh unkillable.
I don't know how I'd code a permacloak, or a damage boost when exiting it. Call me a scrub, but that's 3advanced5me code-wise.
A permaclock is as easy as making the cloak ability have 999999999999 as it's duration, since if you order an attack with a cloaked unit they exit cloak to attack.
As an additional suggestion, perhaps give them a really strong attack that's useless in dogfights, but very good at killing vessels that are pre-occupied? Other than that, just some viewrange would be dank so i can use em as spotters.
No I understand that just fine, I just don't understand how to code permacloak. As in, it starts with the ability activated. Autocast doens't work I think.
**** Its been too long since i've messed with modding eaw or any game for that matter. off the top of my head. Dont recall if you can trigger unit abilities through lua script... Im pretty sure there's a get range function and if enemy in range function you can fool with. or find out how the ai knows when to trigger abilities and base it off that. but thats engine code though i think..
another complicated way is making a neutral faction which had an invisable unit on the map with targeted abilities to bestow effects or run scripts or be a prerequisite for firing off a script. Also dont recall if you can link ****. Too long ago lol.
ALSO I just remembered how PAWS made the original real time battle script for factory built units. THROWBACK MATERIAL. all units were upgrade objects in skirmish (instead of using hte actual skirmish build stuff for that unit.) that had a lua script which added one unit to the base/factory immediate spawn pool (the non recurring one.) I think it was based off the + fighters to station garrison kind of.
My **** was way off. theres an easier way to do this.
basically. Check if ability if active. If active do nothing. If not active wait 3 seconds. Activate. The wait is so it doesnt just say invisable 100% of the time even when firing.
some lua
Courtacy of this site. Really good stuff on here.
Stargate-eaw.de
.Is_Under_Effects_Of_Ability("XXX") - XXX AbilityName
- returns true or false
.Activate_Ability()
.Activate_Ability("XXX", Y) - XXX AbilityName, Y false or true
-
.Activate_Ability("XXX", Y) - XXX AbilityName, Y object
-
.Reset_Ability_Counter()
-
.Set_Single_Ability_Autofire("XXX", Y) - XXX AbilityName, Y false or true
.Is_Ability_Active("XXX") - XXX AbilityName
.Is_Ability_Ready("XXX") - XXX AbilityName
.Has_Ability("XXX") - XXX AbilityName
Thanks for the write-up, I'll be checking this out for sure.
Give them the ability to lay proximity mines or Boba Fetts sonic charge ability.
Sounds balanced.
With a build cap on TIE Phantoms it might be. If I had a small craft that could turn invisible and infiltrate enemy ranks undetected I would totally use it to set traps and sabotage.
Maybe Ion Mines with a low blast radius that damages enemy shields with a long recharge on the ability. It'd be like a more useful version of the consortium grenadier's trip mines in space.