A Call to Arms - Developer Diary 2 news - Star Trek: Armada 3 mod for Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion

...Hello Sports Fans, Bane here and time for another terrible update from myself, i say terrible because i hate the sound of my own voice when recorded but hey the show must go on right?

In this developer diary we finally took the time to catch up with our developers and pose them some of your questions through the video, tune in to YouTube below for the full low-down!

Planetary System Changes

As part of our total conversion work we finally got round to swapping out the planetary system but it wasn't without a few struggles, firstly stock sins only allows certain assets to be changed so we had limits to work to and we really had to think hard and long about our concepts for the system.

We split the work into two distinct areas the planets themselves and their own research availability and their base attributes, we then made our second change with the Bonuses and Artifact's.

The planets themselves have now been overhauled to the point where you can expect to see both small and large variants, we wanted to really set these differences apart these are subject to change but for example from a research point of view it may look something like this

TIER 0, TIER 1, TIER 2, TIER 3, TIER 4, TIER 5
M Small M Large

these can also be subject to racial benefits as well so you may not always start with a Class M dependant on your racial choice.

Its important to remember that these new larger variants from a canon standpoint would require far more resources to colonise and terraform hence the scaling difference.

In addition to the above the planets now have even wider varying statistics so for example tactically a planet that allows many orbital construction facilities may not for example allow multiple turrets meaning these planets are profitable from a civilian standpoint but with their size and nature comes the requirement to main fleet based defences, this adds one of the first of many tactical challenges that were adding for players to make players actively choose whether to instantly colonise a planet and way up their options based on the type and any relevant planetary bonus or negatives it may have.

As well as overhauling the stock classes we've changed the class designation system as well so these now align with Star Trek Canon and hopefully you will now notice these changes across the planet types as well as adding completely new visuals to a lot of the planet skins making them even more realistic.

Planetary Bonus System

The bonus system in sins was expanded with the DLC and provided the opportunity for players to explore their planets for bonuses that would affect the planet.

We stripped out a lot of the stock bonuses and reinvented them as well as adding separate tool tips and names and assigning at least 10 per type with the exception of the new Demon Class planets, this means that lower tier planets will receive a balanced mix of bonuses once found, in regards to negatives though these are visible from the start so you can decide as mentioned earlier do i colonise this planet as it has a nasty negative bonus, of course it may also have a positive bonus, but you'll have to colonise and explore to find that out!

As well as changing these bonuses and negatives we ensured that from a canon point of view some of them pointed to ancient races mentioned within TNG/DS9 so you are even more deeply immersed into the relics of the ST Universe, one of my favourite back stories is that of the Promellian/Menthar war that led to the demise of both races.

Nebulas

Nebulas have also changed in the game with the creation of new types, we've again approached this from a canon point of view with game play based bonuses as well as negatives. For example one of the new nebula types is that of the Metaphasic Nebula, this new nebula will heal your ships as its dense Metaphasic particles heal the crews wounds allowing them to repair their ship at a much fast rate (Regeneration). Look out for nebulas as you decide which way to send your fleet as each nebula has unique properties that can be good and bad in many strategic ways.

Artifact System

Finally we reach the actual in game artifact system, were still adding finishing touches to this one but essentially we have overhauled the 12 artifact's and again renamed them more appropriately to Star Trek Canon, we've even replaced some altogether with new ones, I'm particularly scared of the new T'Kon Starbase Artifact as this has the potential to grant my enemy or myself an extra starbase per system, can you imagine a Romulan player with 3 starbases...! oh no!!! don't panic though we will be working on a new system for removing those pesky starbases soon so you'll just have to stay tuned in to find out about the upcoming game play changes!