Babylon 5 Mod Ideas

from Sins Forums
So since it should be inevitable for a B5 mod to get made, i figure it couldn't hurt to talk some about it, and perhaps maybe plan and get a team going for it.

Major Major Questions...

1. How many playable races to attempt, and which ones?

2. How many ships per faction, should ship roles/designs and numbers be based off the existing Sins races or not care?

3. Which general era of ships to use for the Earth Alliance?

4. Should capital ship mechanics remain the same? IE should the current game mechanics be kept in more or less the same condition?

My personal ideas is that the general game should play about the same, but that many ships should be condensed into one for some races, or expanded for others, notably I am in favor of maintaining only 3 Capital ship choices, as I think finding 5 for each major race would be quickly silly.

I would say for the beggining 3 balanced major races would be best, in general I view the technical/qualitative tiers being as such

Lowest: League Worlds, Early EA, Dilgar
Medium: EA, Centauri, Narn
High: Minbari, Drahk
Godish: Shadows, Vorlons, Additional Ancients

The mod would preferably come with several maps, one of which would represent the B5 universe just before the shadow war, it would be nice if a timer was included so that perhaps 3 hours into the game 2 special pirate worlds (the Shadows and the Vorlons) launch massive and mean pirate strikes... regular Raider Pirates would otherwise conduct themselves normally.

Other special maps/scenarios: Dilgar EA war... Earth Minbari War, and Narn Centauri War (The Shadows should/could be present here as well.)

While some races would be playable in these scenarios, for example in the Earth-Dilgar war you could play these or the League worlds, as the Early EA faction would be balanced with them; but the Earth Minbari War should be a 2V1, with the Minbari being powerful enough to take on two players.

This means that in the generic game, the balanced races would be EA, Narn and Centauri. The Minbari, Drahk and League worlds would all be special militia or pirate forces, we could easily design new planets that corresponded to these races and would spawn with special militia units, thus you wouldn't have Minbar being guarded by Raiders or Drazi.

Ship wise, the most important is obviously the Capitals- My personal choices for the 3 main powers are as such, with the TEC similar ship noted.

EA: Omega Destroyer (Kol) Posideon Super Carrier (Sova) Nova Dreadnought (Marza)

Narn: Bin`Tak Dreadnought (Kol) G`Quan Heavy Cruiser (Dunov) (Third????)

Centauri: Primus BattleCruiser (Dunov?) Octurion Battlship (Kol) Balvarin Carrier (Akkan?)



Additional Scenarios: Psi Corp Rebellion, EA Civil War, Mars Rebellion, The Centauri-League War (with Drahk as Pirates?) The list goes on and on.

Oh and for the EA, I would use Hyperions as the basic combat unit, to give fans an iconic mainstay for their fleets, as opposed to the too awesome for Frigate Omega, and the lesser known Olympus, Tethys, Saggitarius, or Oracle... (or the others   )
modding
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Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
OH and also, I would generally re-balance the game so that firing arcs were far more important! The main advantage that the Narn have is in durabillity and a general universal firing arc, they have guns on every side, so it is advantageous to fly into the middle of the enemy... whereas Centauri ships are faster but have forward arcs, forcing them to fly around and around, the EA, would be weak in the Rear, and only slightly weak at the sides.

The Drazi of course would be universaly straight forward... and extremely fast.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

1. How many playable races to attempt, and which ones?


I'd go with the "major powers" plus the league. Earth Alliance, Mimbari, Centauri, and Narn. All of those are within a reasonable shouting distance of each other, even if some significantly overpower the others (Centauri / Narn clearly respect the EA's power... so the Mimbari are probably just way beyond all of them until the days of the Alliance, when they presumably share some of their technology). Add in the league when / if you feel like it. Vorlons / Shadows are so terribly overpowered I'd only add them in at the end.


2. How many ships per faction, should ship roles/designs and numbers be based off the existing Sins races or not care?


Until we find out more about the other races, and whether or not they match the TEC's approach, we can't answer this. Personally, I'd let each race define its own roles and setup.


Other special maps/scenarios


Personally, until we find out just how scriptable scenarios are I'm going to reserve judgment. Some, such as the Earth-Mimbari war, just scream for special triggers (to win, you have to delay defeat for so long, then actually loose).

Personally, I'd like to see if its possible to make the game use actual physics, as the series did, and see just how fun / unfun that comes out to be. (Devs labeled it unfun... but I'd love to see if we could find a way to prove 'em wrong!)
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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
Hmmm, I wonder if Earth forces should be divided into the EA and the Earth under president clark (was that his name?). This way, we could have the highest tech EA ship be that hybrid Vorlon/Destroyer they used the in the spin off show. The Shadow allied Earth forces would have those awesome hybrid Shadow/Destroyers that got all killed off by the White Star fleet.

As for factions, I would like to see 1) League Worlds, 2) Vorlon/Neutral Earth Alliance, 3) Shadow Earth alliance, 4) Centauri, 5) Narn, 6) Minbari, and 7) Drahk.

The Shadows and Vorlons should be either neutrals or pirates.

Perhaps League worlds could get some sort of income/trade bonus. The Centauri could get a planetary bombardment bonus. The Narn could get a population growth bonus. The Minbari could get a phase space jump time/speed bonus.

Unfortunately, we still don't know fully what kind of options we will have with the modding tools when the game is finally released. We might have some truly amazing race customization options.

Of course, somebody will have to make the ship models/textures.

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
There was a B5 mod for GalCiv II, I'm sure it will be done for this game. Along with a Star Trek/Borg scenerio, Star Wars of course, etc.

Who knows, possibly the Andromeda series, Stargate, Battlestar Galactica
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
There was a B5 mod for GalCiv II, I'm sure it will be done for this game.


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Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
Right here from a guy known as Rav8 on the GalCivII forums:

http://b5mod.awardspace.info/
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
The sad thing is, unless the modding suite will allow folks to add gun mounts to frigates, every ship would have to be a capital class, since just about every ship in B5 I can think of has more than one mounted weapon (Starfuries aside). And most of them aren't even frontal firing And, at least with TEC, capitals seem to be the only ships that are allowed to have more than one weapon type, as well as controlled placement..

That said, recreating events like the Earth-Minbari war or the Narn-Centauri war would be fun. The *most* fun would be everyone caught between the Shadow and Vorlon fleets (easily the best series of episodes in the show, for me), but also the hardest to pull off
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
Well making ships classed as capitals isnt too big a deal if we have to,you can mod them into differen factories, or just have one factory, and reduce their stats to be apropriate.

I'm betting it won't be too too hard. Not to mention I'm no stickler for absolute accuracy, if the ships look right its not a big deal if they only have front arc-ish weapons.
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
The *most* fun would be everyone caught between the Shadow and Vorlon fleets (easily the best series of episodes in the show, for me), but also the hardest to pull off



You could take one race and have it be combined to include Narn/Centauri/Minbari/Earth/Leauge Of Non-Aligned Worlds/Ancients

And have their ships represented in different costs and power. Then have the Shadows and Vorlons separate and obviously very powerful in their own rights.

Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
special pirate factions for the Shadows and Vorlons would suffice IMO, twould be nice if you had to destroy at least one of their bases to win.
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
Well, several White Stars did manage to destroy a Vorlon observation post without too many losses in one episode.. though I suspect a full military base might be another story
Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top
Captain Sheridan thought that the combined Earth Alliance fleet could have beaten either the Vorlon fleet OR the Shadow fleet, but not both. So maybe the Vorlons and Shadows are not as overpowered as people are making them out to be.
Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top
or maybe at the time he did not realize just how nasty either side was, or that they had planet killers... been a long time since I've seen the episodes. I dont think JMS was the most consistent writer and this would suggest a big difference compared to the visuals of the show.
Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top
No, by that point of the show, he already knew of the planet killers and had seen both in action. If I recall, the fleet he assembled was thousands of ships, and he did mention that it wouldn't be enough to defeat both fleets at once with the implication that they stood a chance against one of the fleets.

And in a way it made sense. After all, in the first test he tried with Lyta jamming a Shadow ship, his White Star managed to gather enough firepower to destroy it by itself.

I cheat, though, it just so happens that I've been re-watching all of B5 recently. Just starting season 5. Gotta love Netflix..
Reply #15 from Stardock Forums Top
The sad thing is, unless the modding suite will allow folks to add gun mounts to frigates, every ship would have to be a capital class, since just about every ship in B5 I can think of has more than one mounted weapon (Starfuries aside). And most of them aren't even frontal firing And, at least with TEC, capitals seem to be the only ships that are allowed to have more than one weapon type, as well as controlled placement..

Sins is perfectly capable of having weapons that are non-front firing on frigates. Look at the TEC Garda flak frigate, which has full coverage.

I'm currently experimenting with frigates with multiple weapon systems for Kin of the Stars. I hope to have it working in the next day or two.
Reply #16 from Sins Forums Top

Right here from a guy known as Rav8 on the GalCivII forums:

http://b5mod.awardspace.info/


Thanks!
No, by that point of the show, he already knew of the planet killers and had seen both in action. If I recall, the fleet he assembled was thousands of ships, and he did mention that it wouldn't be enough to defeat both fleets at once with the implication that they stood a chance against one of the fleets.


Huge difference between "the entire galaxy standing in one alliance" Vs. "One (relatively small) government, standing by itself". The EA was powerful, but I simply don't think it could hold up against the combined fleet he pulled together for that "final op".


And in a way it made sense. After all, in the first test he tried with Lyta jamming a Shadow ship, his White Star managed to gather enough firepower to destroy it by itself.


There is a huge difference between killing something thats been "jammed" into inaction, and actually being able to face either force. After all, last I checked the Vorlons were never stated to be vulnerable to telepathic jamming.
Reply #17 from Sins Forums Top
Huge difference between "the entire galaxy standing in one alliance" Vs. "One (relatively small) government, standing by itself". The EA was powerful, but I simply don't think it could hold up against the combined fleet he pulled together for that "final op".


Well, creating a mod with that scenario already assumed a combined fleet, not EA by itself I wasn't building off Paradox's post, just sort of correcting Gauntlet that Sheridan did know about the planet killers and the respective fleets

There is a huge difference between killing something thats been "jammed" into inaction, and actually being able to face either force. After all, last I checked the Vorlons were never stated to be vulnerable to telepathic jamming.


True, but, jammed or not the firepower is there. Plus, if you recall they supplied as many ships as they could with telepaths to do just that. Obviously there weren't enough to jam any big chunk of the Shadow fleet, but the point I was trying to make is that they were able to defeat Shadows (and Vorlons), just with heavy losses. The show didn't really handle this very well, I thought. When the Shadows just started showing up they were this invincible force.. and then sort of suddenly the 'good guys' started to be able to beat them, and the only real development they had was the addition of telepaths to jam them. So I don't know..
Reply #18 from Sins Forums Top
I was trying to make is that they were able to defeat Shadows (and Vorlons), just with heavy losses


But they didn't "beat" the shadows, they didn't even drive 'em off! What they did (with the help of other "First Ones") was to get their attention. No more did "Mommy and Daddy" squabble, they tried to get the "kids" to choose sides. And the "kids" told them to take their squabble and shove it where the sun don't shine -- "Get the hell out of our galaxy!"

And the first ones, at the prompting of Lorien, did exactly that.

Edit: That point needs to be driven home: The first ones were convinced to leave the galaxy -- to accept that the "kids" were old enough to need to find their own path, make their own mistakes, whatever those might be.
Reply #19 from Sins Forums Top
The whole point of the "shadow wars" was a coming of age story for younger races of the galaxy at the time (Minbari included). You had "order, and chaos" (vorlon, and shadows) trying to force the younger races to chose a side, and the younger races rebelled, and decided to chose neither side. They probably would have chosen the vorlons side had the vorlons not started to destroy worlds touched by the shadows. In any case it is like what was said the "kids" are all grown up now.

As for a mod, you can chose any number of scenarios. The Shadow Wars (Vorlon vs Shadow) with Minbari, EA, and League as AI nuisances. Centari vs Narn (Very short war with Shadows occasionally helping Centari). The ISA vs Centari/Drakh.

Not much is known about the Dilgar war. Only that the Dilgar attacked the League, and EA joined in. Wiping them out in the process. Ironically not long after the Minbari almost wiped out the EA (always a bigger fish). Most of a Dilgar mod would have to be non-canon ship designs with the few known exceptions for EA.

You can do "sandbox" ala GC2 where you pick whatever race you want to play vs random opponents, and go from there.

Reply #20 from Sins Forums Top
But they didn't "beat" the shadows, they didn't even drive 'em off!


They didn't try, because that was not the point of that particular engagement But there was another battle where they discovered where the Shadows were going to ambush, and *did* defeat their fleet Also, for the battle you're referring to, they had no help from the First Ones in getting their attention, they planted nukes all over asteroids in the paths of both fleets and detonated them as those fleets were passing. The First Ones joined in only when the Vorlons refused to take the bait Sheridan wanted (that is, to start talking to him so he could show everyone else what they were up to) and he had to call them in to stop the planet killer in time

It doesn't do much good to argue about whether or not Sheridan's alliance would've been able to beat the Shadow/Vorlon fleets since we'll never know The point is, they're very powerful but not unbeatable
Reply #21 from Sins Forums Top
The Dilgar War was before the Earth minbari War, and notably we know a good bit about it; for one the Dilgar used biological weapons to decimate or anhilate whole populations, also they were driven to war by their foreknowledge of the fate of their sun. Once the war failed and dragged a bit, the sun went nova destroying the Dilgar. What few troops or ships are or were lefts probablly turned to piracy and by the time of B5 (maybe 30-50 years later?) they were probablly hunted to extinction.
Reply #22 from Sins Forums Top
I don't think the Alliance could have defeated the Shadows or Vorlons. In that final decisive battle, Sheridan's entire fleet was drained of power and life support by the Shadow/Vorlon fleet. The only thing that kept Sheridan alive was that other ships took suicide hits to protect him.
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Reply #23 from Sins Forums Top
Sheridan's entire fleet was drained of power and life support by the Shadow/Vorlon fleet. The only thing that kept Sheridan alive was that other ships took suicide hits to protect him.


I was under the impression it was only his ship that was drained.. if it was the whole fleet, how could the other ships take the suicide hits?
Reply #24 from Sins Forums Top
Wiping them out in the process.


Actually, form what I understand, they simply drove them back to their homeworld -- which promptly got blown up in a supernova.



I was under the impression it was only his ship that was drained.. if it was the whole fleet, how could the other ships take the suicide hits?


Plot holes are lovely, aren't they? Apparently the ships were drained of power, but still able to maneuver.

Also, for the battle you're referring to, they had no help from the First Ones in getting their attention, they planted nukes all over asteroids in the paths of both fleets and detonated them as those fleets were passing. The First Ones joined in only when the Vorlons refused to take the bait Sheridan wanted (that is, to start talking to him so he could show everyone else what they were up to) and he had to call them in to stop the planet killer in time


Eh, he had their attention but it wasn't on him in the way he wanted it.
Reply #25 from Sins Forums Top
Plot holes are why it's pretty hard to judge whether or not he would've been able to match them or not As I've pointed out previously, at first the Shadow ships were pretty much 'invincible', so much so that Sheridan had to convince Kosh to send a Vorlon fleet to take out a few to show the other races that it can be done, since it was never managed before. But after that, they were just sort of able to start taking them out, supposedly with telepath jamming help. There was no clearly suggested reason as to why, other than the telepath development, so it pretty much happened overnight