Articles - Star Wars: New Order mod for Star Wars: Empire at War: Forces of Corruption

Infantry Updates

As you should know, we are doing well with adding new infantry to the game. The first ones were stormtroopers in their classic form and some environmental variants. The upcoming types to be added will be army troopers and storm commandos (and maybe scouts too), all of them will be inserted in the nearest future.

After we finish the imperials, we will start to work on rebel soldiers, and we have some progress already. Basic rebel infantry were taken from Battlefront II, and other ones will be (or are being, at the moment) kitbashed to give them the proper look, with adherence to Legends canon. Below you can see highlights of recent works made for rebs.

Further plans

With the end of infantry overhaul the only things to be done will be some balancing tweaks, finishing maps for all major planets (which are necessary to update the galaxy map), bug fixing and beta-testings.

We have also posted a new poll with the most appreciated events to be added in galactic scenarios in future, don't be shy to click on the most demanded variant by your opinion. Maybe we will make a separate post later to describe our ideas concerning implementation of all of mentioned scenarios in the poll.

Moddb.com

And yeah, if you can't find there Thrawn's Campaign, this is because we've decided to make it one of the first Galaxy-wide scenarios ;) You can read more about our plans for campaigns and scenarios here: Moddb.com

Land unit rosters finally settled down

We have spent several years discussing the ideal formula for our land roster. Our goal was to make every unit useful in any combat scenarios. We also wanted to avoid such cases when players build only one type of high tiered units, such as AT-AT for example, and start to spam them. So in the end we managed to find a golden mean by setting specific roles for units, their strengths and weaknesses while also removing some redundant units that are having the same and/or questionable position in the balance.

The most difficult for us was to create non-mirrored balancing, especially in conditions of our mod, when unit rosters must proceed through the eras. Talking about the era progressing we have to designate 3 general stages (while we have 5 actual in-game eras at the moment). Those stages are: Rebellion movements, Alliance and young New Republic, established New Republic.

So, in early eras Alliance performs hit-and-run tactics using fast and maneuverable vehicles supported by light infantry, while in later eras they start to deploy heavier vehicles and better infantry. Empire, in turn, has relatively stable assortment with few changes to compete with Alliance counterparts in certain periods of conflict.

You can see below images describing structures, it's roles and prerequisites for training. Please note that it's a general list, some additional units are not mentioned there, such as Darktroopers or Kota's militia - those ones and some others will be unique for certain scenarios or may have some special conditions to be built.

Mapping work 100% switched to non-OSF maps

In 2020 we have started to prepare new maps for planets which will be included in new scenarios and general GCs. Below you can see the current progress on the maps.

Retextures of old models

We strive to refresh as much more content in the game as we can. So, we decided to start from units which we already have, creating for them new textures and/or meshes.

New infantry

As you probably know, we're preparing to completely overhaul infantry with new models, mostly using DICE Battlefront II material. We're very proud to announce that we'll also use custom animations for them. Basic set is almost done and overall we're at 33% milestone.
Credits: CheekyBugger.

Plans for the future

Many people ask us about changes New Order introduce to space combat and GC mode. Well, space combat was reworked for the mod 10 years ago (that was where it started) and GC was not touched at all. That's the reason why we're focusing on land combat rework (which is the main feature of v.0.5) in 95% of our promos, news and progress reports. GC rework will start in v.0.5 but only minor changes so as to not delay the release (new planets will be the part of it), the main changes will appear in v.0.6.

We plan to completely overhaul existing space combat, along the same lines as our current land rework, and that would be the main feature of v.0.6. Some progress has been made already during this year, mostly to try some visual and gameplay concepts and we also have early alpha v.0.6 (which took about a month to build) to test everything we want.

Tests are coming

Yeah, we're preparing a new build for tests which will be released at the end of this month. If you have a wish to participate - join our discord and contact us there.
The goals of upcoming session are same as they were previous times: to check land combats finding any bugs or issues.
We've severely worked on game balance: stats (fire distance, visibility, etc.) were changed and improved to perform more pleasurable gameplay.
We hope you'll appreciate all improvements and share your expressions.

OSF Campaign: Finishing Line

Finally, maps for our scenario are ready. They are highly detailed and much bigger than most of original maps (sized to 10x10). Some of them are quite unique as new props and terrain elements were used during their creation.

We have also started to collaborate with developers from 'Ultimate Galactic Conquest CE' and 'Galaxy at War: The Clone Wars' deciding to aid each other with maps for further GC scenarios. So, it's okay if you notice same (or modified) maps used in different mods :)

More content

A lot of new content was created recently and soon it will be placed in game after all preparations are done.

Sudno has worked with new space domes based on ones from 'Empire at War: Remake' mod. Space maps in such style are planned to be given to all new planets, and maybe, if we have time, other planets will also acquire reworked space.

Our new 3d/2d artist - ynyk3d, he worked on our old concept of New Republic heavy trooper. And It was just the beginning, so we are all waiting to see another brand-new stuff from him.

Some other stuff was also made: banners, props, and a new cannon :D

We will also appreciate if you vote for us in Mod of the Year contest. We're trying our best to provide the most unique experience in Empire at War, to add as more unique content as possible, and to give you refreshed gameplay in our good old game!

Thank you very much! And thanks for following us, too!!!

Hello, everyone! We proudly present our pre-final screenshots of all ground maps for planets which will be used in Tion Cluster campaign(s).

Credits:

Maps - Du}{, Sudno, DEADVO1D, Darth_Nissarus (from TIE-Clan_Map_pack)

Props - Yoden;
DarkGrazi;
MiniGui and RadicalEdward (UGC mod team);
Republic at War team;
Pandemic, Bioware, DICE.

Hello, everyone. In today's article we'd like to pay your attention to all those features which were implemented into 'New Order' before, are already added or will be represented in mod in nearest release.

Land battles

Yes, as you may know the most important feature of the new version will be remastered ground combat. We have never told about remaking in details, so I think it's time to.

Infantry

I will start from infantry, as large part of modelling work is aimed to add and optimize models, ported from different sources to the mod.

The assortment of units for each faction will consist of different types of units, and will consist of different weapons, armour classes and abilities (some of the them will be new). Depending on the era, the same types of units will have their armament or armor upgraded. That means, for example, army troopers in era 1 will be weaker that the same army troops, but in era 5.

Despite the difference in the types of infantry, the basic classes will be the same for each 
faction, but with different flavour.
Here you can see the list of all infantry classes to be implemented: 

• Light infantry - basic infantry, weak and cheap.
• Heavy infantry - well-protected, equipped with heavy weaponry, but expensive and having special requirements to be built.
• Support infantry - light infantry, with weapons and/or utilities, which are best used together with other units.
• Command squads - field officers, give additional ground combat bonuses.
• Raid infantry - special operations units, quick, stealth and deadly, purposed for raids, infiltration and sabotages.

Vehicles

Imperial vehicles has on average more durability per unit, a larger radius of view (due to walkers) and 
narrow specialization. Aviation has a transport and fire support function.

Alliance vehicles are twofold:
The tank line has average weapons and heavy protection.
Speeders, on the other hand, are mostly un-armored, very manoeuvrable, bristling with hard-hitting guns.
Both of those lines are characterised by heavy use of missiles and torpedoes of different sorts, and
fewer number of vehicles per platoon (than Imperial ones).
Aviation, starting with the T-47, has the attack function.

Balancing

We use following basic concepts to balance land units:

• All units should be in demand - there should be no units that duplicate others in the same faction for their intended purpose or characteristics (except for upgrades, such as T1-b ⬄ T2-b).
• For each unit there should be one or more counter-unit.
• The minimum diversity required - the use of only one (any) type of units should be a less advantageous strategy than the use of a mixed force.
• Increasing armour of units should not be accompanied by an increase in its strength.

Space battles

No remarkable work on space combat was done for v.0.5, but there was a lot in previous versions. As we have changed tech levels to eras, you are able to build anything from fighter to destroyer on any era.

For v.0.5 we plan some minor visual improvements, minor changes to stats and getting rid of a few bugs. Rebalance of space units is planned after the ground balance is finished.

Heroes

One of the main scopes of our work in older versions were heroes. All information about current features we described in this article.

Maps

The other main line of work for v.0.5 is mapmaking. We decided to set the standard for all maps which will appear in GCs:

• majority of maps shall be sized 10x10;
• popcap during land combats should be set to 10 from the start;
• more variants for building positions and garrisoned forces;
• realistic prop placement;
• and other features.

We've made our best to think about New Order's concept and to implement it. It should include a mix of unique features, balanced experience and diversity of stuff with strict adherence to 'Legends' canon.

And now, we hope for your support, which may increase the chance of our release in nearby future :)