Assault Frigate Mk II image - Rise of the Mandalorians mod for Star Wars: Empire at War: Forces of Corruption
The Empire has fallen and a New Republic is born out of the conflict. But in the ashes of civil war, yet another life stirs...
When the New Republic was searching for ways to quickly and inexpensively expand it's new fleet, a program was initiated that experimented with taking a Rendili Stardrive dreadnought and modifying it to suit the New Republic's needs. These experiments resulted in several ship designs known as Assault Frigates. The Mark One series of this starship type was literally just Dreadnoughts that had been extensively modified and there was no predefined "blueprint" for the class, so many versions could be seen in service, all modified slightly differently to test out new weapons, shielding, etc. They retained parts of the original Dreadnaughts but were stripped down and reconfigured to great extent.
The knowledge gained from these testbed craft that were collectively known as the Mark One series was then applied to an actual production line craft, which was unsurprisingly called the Assault Frigate MkII. The Mark Two series did follow a blueprint, unlike it's predecessor, and incorporated the best features discovered in the testbed crafts, as well as making allowance for Mon Calimari shield generators and various new weapons systems. The result was a totally new Rendili ship that was a venerable front-line attacker, fit to counter most threats.
Will it be more suitable fersion of old MK2? It will be more maneuver and faster?
The MkI will be very similar to the Imperial dreadnaught ship, focusing on offense and attack power. The MkII will ultimately be a little slower ship but will be more balanced in terms of defense and offense.
I love this design.
Hmmm needs more sports stripes. Maybe even some flames painted on.
Y'know, to make it go faster.
Greenskin... So primitive.
Always glad to see a Farseer update. Wonderfully incorporated front facing dual turrets, This break-up from the otherwise monotone spherical shape pleases me greatly.
In all the right ways hue hue hue
She's a big girl but she knows what Jeroenimo likes.
She definitely has some serious curves and a tight rear engine...
stunning
Amazing. The Christmas drought has been very hard on me but it's nice to come back to new pictures. I can only hope they're soon to be followed by release!
Don't worry, work was being done...just nothing picture worthy.
Remember the script I talked about in the Jedi Padawan/Shadow Knight post a while back? If not, the short version is that it's a script to randomize the appearance of units when they spawn. Kad from the Vong mod and I worked together on that one and I've got it now so the units can be modular.
The longer story, infantry can now have random faces, armor, gadgets, backpacks, etc. And all those things randomize independently from the others so you have a wide array of possible combinations, potentially. No two infantry squads will be identical.
This also allows for ONE model to be used for each infantry squad, rather than a model for each race, species, armor configuration, etc. Because each of the modular pieces is contained in a single model file and just hidden/revealed on a random basis in the script...if that makes sense. Additionally, the "old" way of doing varied infantry required each variant to be called independently as its own unit in the XML code. So it was like one squad would consist of, “infantry_default, infantry_twilek, infantry_asian, infantry_no_armor” and so forth. This presented an issue when selecting multiple squads at once by double-clicking a unit. Because this script allows for ONE model to be used, there also only has to be ONE unit called in the xml….”infantry_default” or whatever you name it. So now the selection bug is fixed too. Added bonus!
And thirdly, this also cuts down on the number of unique units actually called in the XML code, which helps with overall game stability. All I do is win win win, no matter what what what…. Lol
So anyway, I've been modeling/texturing the modular parts for each faction and adding them, plus working out scripts to support their randomization for each unit. It's been fun!
That's some seriously awesome news. Selecting infantry was always a pain in the ***.
Is it possible to apply the same concept to space infantry i.e. fighters and bombers?
Yep. The script can be applied to any object, units or props. The only drawback is that it has to have the same rig, which means identical hardpoints and animations. So you couldn't swap an X and Y wing in this way, for example.
However, it will be very useful with mercenary or pirate fighters.
Well, now that sounds damn awesome.
Thank you! Kad is a genius. My LUA abilities are pitiful compared to his...but when I can lean on his knowledge to bolster my own, great things happen. Lol
I'm Darth Weasel and I approve this model.