SotP Dev Team Q&A (and Videos!) news

Let's just jump into this Q&A:

Q: Will there be any Titans in this mod in the foreseeable future? If so, what will you use for them? If not, that's perfectly fine too! :) Fantastic mod guys! My inner nerd freaked out when I found out about this mod. LOVE IT!

CanadaMan7: There will eventually be titans, but it's been a struggle enough just getting the base game balanced. All good things in time.

sloosecannon: Yes, there will be. Currently the UNSC Infinity is planned for the UNSC, and the Super Destroyer is planned for the Covenant. They will be superpowerful Capital ships and will be extremely late-game.

Q: Is there any possibility in the future of a nerf against the Flood? Does the Forerunner faction have any sort of immunity to Flood infection? As I recall, Sentinels can't get infected.

sloosecannon: No, and yes, to a certain extent. The flood behave exactly like we wanted them to. Forerunner sentinels are immune, but their bigger ships... aren't. Don't get one captured, it WILL be a bad day...

VDNKh: No. The Flood are meant to be near impossible to defeat. The Forerunners had to light the Halo rings and kill themselves to "beat" it. They still can be defeated, it takes knowledge of the game's mechanics and team work. Yes, sentinels are immune to Flood capture. Other diplomacy like techs will be made for all factions to combat the Flood.

Q: Will the UNSC going to get any new ships beyond the possible upcoming Titan class ship, or is the list now solid?

sloosecannon: It's pretty much solid. We're moving some ships around (namely the Stalwart replacing the Mako and the Strident will be making an appearance, probably related to Infinity). Now though, we're pretty much done with our UNSC additions.

Q: Could you possibly give a guess date until the Covenant faction is fully worked out to the point that it is at least as polished as the UNSC faction?

sloosecannon: Honestly, no. Due to the nature of modding, we have really no way to guess how long it will take. You'll see our progress pretty publicly though, we do post pretty much everything that we finish...

Q: Why don't any of the ships have a type of cloak, when clearly they have them in the games

sloosecannon: Due to the way Sins handles, or in this case, doesn't handle cloaking, any attempt at making a "cloak" ends up looking, honestly, pretty gimmicky. Cloaking isn't a major part of the lore in Halo, so we decided the result wasn't really worth it.

Unikraken: It's very hard to do in SoaSE that isn't shitty, but after talking with the guys working on Star Trek: Armada 3 we may have a way to do this, it's just going to take time to plan out and see if it works well enough for public use in the Halo universe. We don't want hacky implementations in the mod.

Q: Will the Covenant/UNSC get the diplomancy pact researches and upgrades? If you go the route of 'split' factions like Rebellion base, would the elite-side of the schism Covenant have more diplomancy tech?

sloosecannon: We're not splitting factions that way. It's going to be done through research, similar to how Lavo handles titans in SoGE. We will be expanding the diplomacy tree eventually.

CanadaMan7: The Covenant split will indeed be brute/elite. I believe the UNSC have weapons research already.

Q: Will the UNSC get weapon research upgrades like the Covenant?

sloosecannon: They already do. The UNSC's weapon research is combined with its AI research. It may not seem like much but the percentage damage and range buff makes a huge difference in fights.

Q: Will the super-destroyer get a new model eventually?

CanadaMan7: Yep. The current model is definitely a placeholder.

Q: Is the "CSO-class supercarrier" going to be the covenant titan?

sloosecannon: That's a negative ghost-rider. The roster is full.

CanadaMan7: Get out

Unikraken: Seriously, somebody get this guy the fuck out of here.

Q: Will the UNSC Get late stage shield tech or are you going with the better economy research upgrade? (personally i would love shields). If the UNSC does get shields what will the cov get to keep the 'balance'?

CanadaMan7: If you choose the ONI research, there will be a path to gaining some shield tech for your ships.
sloosecannon: Both. Shields will be on the ONI branch of faction research, while econ, fleet supply, and other buffs like that are the MIC branch. The balance late-game is already heavily UNSC, so if you let the UNSC get there as a Covenant player, you're probably doing it wrong...

Q: Are you going to change the ship-class names from the coveant into something that sounds more cov'ish?

M468: Yes, you can see this in some of the ships already. We have been busy working on balance and some stuff under the hood that specifically relates to the text you see in-game.

CanadaMan7: Suggestions are always welcome.

Q: Will the SDV have fighters as it did in Reach or will it keep its role as just a simple siege frigate?

Dianno: We are currently experimenting with the SDV, we have it with fighters and that is the goal. Preliminary reports of giving the Covenant CCS fighters has shown that the AI in Sins will build those and not as many SDVs. As long as our tests continue to show this trend the SDV will have fighter and siege capabilities.

M468: As of now it does, the main influence regarding whether or not it keeps them is how it effects both balance and gameplay.

Q: What can you tell us about the Forerunner faction at this time?

Dianno: The Forerunners are a nice idea and we would like to get them eventually but they are seen right now as an addon rather than something that needs our attention right this second. If implemented, their design is to have no middle ships. Their "frigates" will be different classes of sentinels which are just glorified fighters. Then they will have more Sins like Capital ships but no cruisers or destroyers. So either hordes of sentinels supported by a few very hard to kill, very powerful, Capital ships.

Bornsteller: As of now, the forerunner faction is still under heavy development. What I can tell you however is that they will play very differently from other faction. Frigates will be fast, agile and numerous sentinels and cruisers/caps will be slow, steamroller and smaller in number. The art style will be hardcore geometry, reflecting that of the games.

Q: So in the newest release the Athens Carrier has been removed from the capital ship slot and placed into a non capital ship slot. Will the Athens be playing the same role as it was before or will it be different? Also will anything be filling the void of capital ship slot that the Athens has left?

Dianno: The New Athens role is essentially the combination of the Eion's carrier role with the added damage of the Athens being a much newer and bigger ship. Essentially with the Eion and Athens, they could not coexist without damning the other one since they didn't fill enough of a role to warrant building. This way the Athens takes over the entire role and becomes an awesome asset. I do not see any likely scenario where the Eion would come back to the UNSC fleet. The void left by the Athens in the Capital ship Dept is very small if not zero and we do not have any plans to replace that slot.

CanadaMan7: To be honest, the reason it was moved around was because some felt it lacked a role. A replacement capital ship remains to be seen, though nothing specific has been definitively planned at this time.

Q: Why was the Athens carrier no longer a capital ship? Would it be possible to make the Eion better?

Unikraken: It's not a case of the Eion being shitty, we can always change parameters within the ship's stats to improve it. We simply had too many ships competing for similar roles.

Q: Will the CCS cruiser glass planets again?

Dianno: At the moment no. Non Capital ships have a bad tendency in sins to use planet bombardment abilities or weapons a part of their ship to suicide rush the planet and not fight your fleet. Unless the CCS made its way to the Capital slot (which has a very little <1% chance of happening.)

Q: Will covenant and a handful of unsc ships (I.e. Infinity) be able to make pinpoint slipspace jumps like the Vasari titans ability to plop here then plop there

Dianno: We had experimented with something like that and we decided against it for various reasons. The ability was hard to micro in fleets and the ships could freeze up leaving you paralyzed. The flow of combat we have is very nice and this ability pops up now and again but I do not see this ability being actually coded in.CanadaMan7: Funnily enough, that was the exact ability of the former Covenant light frigate a few years ago. Probably not, though.

Q: Is it possible you guys will do a rebel version for each faction? Like the rebels for the humans could be the insurrectionist, the Covenant one could be the storm and the forerunner one could have the Didact.

Dianno: We are not doing the traditional split, instead we are going to put in "end game research" That will be coded in a such a way that only allows you to research one or the other. The ones we have planned thus far is the UNSC will have a split between the tech superior ONI (shields and such) vs the Military Industrial Complex which focuses on mass ship production. The Covenant will have a split between the Elites which will get more tech and diplo buffs such as faster movement speed and bonus to relations. The second will be the Brutes which will get some sort of military bonus or production bonus we haven't fleshed that one out all the way yet. Nothing for the Forerunners, just ideas right now.

Q: Will the Infinity have the two side MACs? And will it have 4 MACs or will you implement those two energy projectors we saw at the end of Halo 4, about which there is no information, not even a hint on the guide?

Dianno: The Infinity does not have its final details down yet on what exactly it will posses. We do know however that it will be the only "Titan" in the game that will behave as a force of destruction. Best example of what I plan is something akin to the Tiger or King Tiger from Company of Heroes. Something very powerful and destructive. Properly supported will make you nearly invincible as you pound your opponent into tears.

Q: Will the super-destroyer get a new model eventually?

Dianno: Yes, all placeholder models will get reworked models and textures. Our Texture artist Zero and modeler Didact (both from the Homeworld 2 mod Homefront)are very busy people. We are happy to wait for their products as they are extremely talented people as shown with their work on the ships that are completed.

Q: Will the UNSC Get late stage shield tech or are you going with the better economy research upgrade? (personally i would love shields). If the UNSC does get shields what will the cov get to keep the 'balance'?

Dianno: Their economy research is already plenty without adding in a late game tech for it. The Covenant have their own late game tech to keep them relevant in the late game. But also the game is balanced that the UNSC are struggling early and mid game with them overtaking the Covenant in the late mid game to late game stages. So when they get shields, its designed to sway it in their favor at this point.

Q: Why do only select ships have fighters in the covenant? I at least expected the CCS to have a fighter squadron. The only ships I've seen that have fighters are the capitol ships, and the SDV.

CanadaMan7: This is tied into why the Athens was switched around and why the Eion was removed. If we gave everything strikecraft, it makes it hard to give ships a specific niche.

Q: Is there going to be a increase in covernent fleet size? as i was playing a 2 hour or so game and my fleet of ccs and assault cariers plus CPV's couldnt take the Ai's UNSC fleet as they have a considerately larger fleet size ( and yes all my tech was upgraded) Also the weapon the vallient class crusier has to disable ships is a bit long lasting! is it going to be reduced? (Uni's note: There is no way I'm going through and correcting all these awful spelling errors. This is egregious. You will suffer with me.)

CanadaMan7: So you're telling me that you had a fully stocked fleet (while fully upgraded) and you micro'ed them? And you still lost?

Q: Ground Combat has always been a major focus for the Halo books and Video Games. Are there any plans to an expansion to the current system in place for the mod, where ground invasions are simply reskinned planetary bombardment? I'm aware of the engine limitations in place on the current engine, but more can always be done to bypass limitations in a creative manner (e.g. using the planetary improvement system as a way to simulate fortifications, as Halo isn't known for it's infrastructure management.)

CanadaMan7: We're restrained by the notoriously restrictive hardcoding that SoaSE has. That being said, I'd be curious to see if we could expand the invasions into something more. It would be something that would be put on the afterburner until the space portion is done, since that's our obvious focus.

Q: My only question would be why does the model of the Paris class frigate only has 2 pin point cannon per side on the Hangars if they had 6 on each side (3 on top and 3 on bottom). In Reach at least. (And yes I do realize the texture has slots for them just curios about it)

Unikraken: At the time we brought the Paris-class into the game we were still unsure about how far we should reduce the polygon count of models, and guns are one of the costlier parts of a ship. You also have to keep in mind that during this time one could build over a thousand ships in internal build of the mod, so we were gravely concerned about mini-dumps, crashes, and frame-rate drops.

Q: will u guys be making the forerunner ships mostly anti flood?

Unikraken: Given that they failed to contain the Flood in the canon, I don't see why we would. We intend on making them a complete and balanced race that should be able to compete as well as the others against the Flood.

VDNKh: I think there will be some elements of that.

Q: What is the planned fighter complement for the Infinity?

Unikraken: Eventually Broadswords when we finish the model and work out the details. Sabres until then.

Q: Are there any plans to create custom "relics" that are based firmly in the lore of the Halo universe?

Unikraken: Yes! More on that later.

Q: The splaser ship and the omega station, is it official that you want them in the mod?

Unikraken: I absolutely want a late tier starbase for the UNSC in the mod that is actually a defensive structure like the vanilla SoaSE starbases. (If you're an artist we're now looking for good concept art suggestions for the make of this structure that fit the UNSC aesthetic.)

Q: Will you guys release the song from the trailer Legacy of reach?

Unikraken: Actually I believe Waseem and I Am Sancho are planning their own news post that will cover that question as well as some news about the audio department.

Now that the Q&A is over feel free to watch our newest cinematic trailer by Putte08! (Like and Subscribe to ensure you see the latest SotP work he's done!)

You should also check out CaptainShack's Mod Library Review of our mod! (Again, like and subscribe so you can catch his upcoming Let's Play of our mod!)