Opulence in War : the Hapan Battle Dragon Myth... image - Yuuzhan Vong at War mod for Star Wars: Empire at War: Forces of Corruption
Behold the Yuuzhan Vong Army! This mod adds the Yuuzhan Vong Race as a playable faction and all units of this era. We are a community of modders working for the greater goal, so anyone who wants to help or support us is welcome!
Hapan Battle Dragon
One of the most ornate designed battleships in the SW Universe. Before unveiling our design for the Song of War and the Dragon Queen, 2 oversized Battle Dragon Hero units, I thought we would first revisit the original Battle Dragon to discuss some items.
From a distance, the Battle Dragon appears as an lavish symbol of Hapan Wealth. Reflecting starlight from its delicate support struts, the Dragon is a beautiful sight... until it unleashes its Hell upon you. And this is where I have found a problem with the ship's lore...
The Battle Dragon is described as being a deadly foe, especially in groups. It was evaluated as a severe threat by New Republic intelligence and was avoided by Imperials and their fleets of Star Destroyers... so this ship simply can't just be all pretty without having significant purpose to back up it's design. So what is the deal for the support struts?
When we compare the Battle Dragon to the Victory Star Destroyer, the Vic only carries 2 squadrons of fighters, the Dragon carriers 3. The Victory is much larger, and appears to therefore have a larger internal hangar space compared to the Dragon. So, that led me to an idea... What if the caged hollow space of the Battle Dragon was used as a protective workspace... This would allow fighters to fly into the protective area of the Battle Dragon, receive quick onsite repairs, then quickly launch back out into combat...
So I adopted this idea. The Battle Dragon becomes a mobile fighter hangar/repair yard. Small repair cranes have been added to interior of the caged area to enforce this idea, and in the mod, the Dragon will have a passive repair ability for any nearby fighters.
In addition, the Dragon is armed with an auto-firing Tractor Beam, 10 torpedo tubes, and has the special abilities of launching Pulse Mass Mines (interdiction mines) and switching Ring Weapons from medium ions to heavy turbolasers.
carries 2 squadrons of Miy'Til fighters, 1 squadron of Miy'Til Bomber
The rings animate when firing, but this only provides 2 constant streams of weapon fire at its target. Both rings act as 2 independent turrets and can target different ships to attack. The rings fire a constant salvo of shots, but only from 1 fire point each that rotates around the ring. While this is less firepower coming from the Battle Dragon, it is constant and without pause. Also, the ring weapons cannot be destroyed, and only stop firing once the entire Battle Dragon has been destroyed, allowing it to fight to its death.
And so in conclusion, instead of just being something pretty to look at in space, the hollowed cage area of the dragon now serves as a protected hangar/repair space, giving purpose to the design. This makes the true threat to Hapan space not ring weapons of the Dragons, but the fact that the Hapan Starfighters can easily and quickly be repaired by flying to and from Dragons while in the midst of combat.
That's freaking epic!
I actually find this ship to be very ugly xD I like my floating triangles. For the Empire!!
Cool beans bruh
Come to think about, it really does look like a flying circus. Or an airport terminal that suddenly thinks it's a spaceship.
Starwars.wikia.com
I alway thought it looked like a jellyfish. Partly because of this picture. Vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net
a flying circus? Anybody expecting some kind of spanish inquisition here?
Oh dear god no.... Don't jinx us....
Funny though, I "didn't expect it" ;)
Its an interesting concept to take with the Battle Dragon and I think it will work very well in the mod and make the Battle Dragon a dangerous foe. That's one of the best things about this mod, you make the ship designs and load outs, and so much more seem alive because of small details like this. I applaud you. Just a quick question, have you been focusing exclusively on space models for the last while, or are ground units (not structures) been designed?
aside from infantry, nearly all ground vehicle models are complete.
Are you going to use hardpoints for your ground vehicles and buildings?
i don't know, if you can realize this, but this will be strange if fighters can reapair during the ballte. It will be fair if they only repair when not in combat
Well, the entire ship is covered in shields, so the hollow becomes a very large, open protected space. In reality, this can probably never happen, but in terms of game mechanics, we can have passive healing, but it can not be turned off when a ship is in combat, and activated again when the ship is not in combat, so the fanon lore that we write is based upon the world created soley in our mod.
It is a blend of canon lore, justifications and explanations for limitations due to the game engine.
There is only so much we can do, for the alamo engine is over 10 years old already... I am still amazed that we were able to figure out a way to actually have bomber payloads and have carriers reload bombers, so bombers cannot just fire missiles and torpedoes forever
You are doing fantastic work! It was just how a perfect thing, can become a little better
reading htis... i'm wishing for a new EaW even omre... problem is... EA Games... so if it WOUDL come... DLC wall, no modding... etc.
Loving those things in the thrawn mod, hopefuly they will slaughter the vong too^^
*remembers that the center point station is a thing too in your mod*
nice how that liitle mistakes in the lore are getting explained ...
in terms of fighter repair, destroyed fighters arent getting replaced right?
correct, each ship only launches a specific amount of fighters. Fighters can only be obtained by building ships, they cannot be built by themselves.
Aie !! Ça pique les yeux !!
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Ouch !! It stings my eyes
I always imagined that the design was a way to allow for such a large ship to hold together when flying in atmosphere, even if it's deflector shields were completely down. Like wing braces on a biplane, the would hold the upper and lower sections together in situations where g-force would normally pull them apart.
One thing that always gets brought up is how terrible the Empire's ships were when not flying in the vacuum of space (specifically TIE Fighters, but the others too). Something like this, while creating a significant amount of drag, would seem to have more structural integrity than other ships.
Having said all that, your explanation is not only plausible but allows you to incorporate a cool gameplay element as well. In the end though, as with most things in Star Wars, I'm sure it was just artistic license ;)
Did the Dragon ever enter atmosphere?
If so and I missed that, yeah that makes sense for structural support
Oh, I have no specific recollection of it happening...more just my imagination going wild.
i wonder how your mods battle dragon would stack up against the awakening of the rebellion mods one. there one battle dragon can kill or heavily wound a ISD depending on the circumstance but 5 working together are capable of annihilating a superstar destroyer in less then a minute. (even if one of them dies.) only weakness of the design was one turbo laser hard point. also what color will the lasers be?
Green for the heavy turbos, and green for turbolaser towers also. SoW also has medium dual turbos which are red.
that is not correct though I hope the Battle dragon is more balanced here cause IIRC it is mentioned somewhere that 3 battle dragons could beat an ISD MK1 easily. but one would lose for sure not quite sure who thought that was balanced. Also it took and entire fleet of battle dragons to destroy the SSD Iron Fist not a mere 5. but I am interested to see how the YVAW one stacks up strobe any comment?
After it is rigged and textured we can test it in the game, and determine how strong armor and shields should be, which will be the determining factors for balance.
ok cool look forward to it :)