[MOD] Wing Commander : Codename "Initium"

Let's find out what happened to Blair!

If you need any voice work, let me know. I'm an ARMY vet which might help a bit.

Great! Let's talk!

This sounds like good news, I would love to play a WC mod. Tons of carriers and a greater emphasis on fighters and bombers would be an interesting change of gameplay dynamic. I'm afraid I don't have any skills to offer to help though Ideas though, I have plenty. Are you looking to have Terran Confederation and Kilrathi only? Or Border Worlds and the alien bug things from Prophecy..... Nihilum isn't it?

Theres plenty of ships classes and types to choose from too of course, fighters, bombers, corvettes, destroyers, cruisers, light carriers, heavy carriers, dreadnoughts, superweapons. This could be very cool, so long as you don't intend to do anything like the film! The games are Wing Commander, the film wasn't very good.

Incidentally, has anyone played Wing Commander: Armada, that kinda had a space campaign mode with planets. Could base some of the gameplay off that maybe, or at least examine it for ideas.

Anyway I hope this gathers support, there are so many awesome mods being made for sins now!

raxiv, you should probably talk to the guys at WC Saga, they might be willing to hook you up with some stuff.

Clicky

Reposted from the other WC thread:

If you get this project going, be sure to mention it to the WC CIC, the main WC community. They are good at getting the word out and getting you in touch with other WC modders, who often are willing to share resources.

There is a WC model archive here. Please give respect to the authors by giving them appropriate credit as per the terms on their site.

Good luck.

The models in the repository lack detail to be placed in the mod. We will use other models, and yes I'm about to talk with WCCIC members and WC Saga.

He died in the WC Prophecy (Yes - no one actually saw him die, and he COULD have escaped). But anyone I talked to assumed he dies the same as I did.

I did - it was ok, but somewhat lacking in long term playability. You could build ships (fighters) to defend systems, but were limited to a single carrier. Hence no major fleet engagements - only fighter/bombers

Thank You for posting guys, though we will try and feature only a little bit of story associated with the series [ since we will command the factions not the carrier, and we won't be flying ourselves ].

Yes, the combat will have more, and improved fighter tactics, functions and raw power. Nothing that will put the game out of balance though. One of the fighter's new abilites will be the kilrathi e-capship missiles and the Temblor Bomb for the Athomspheric-able fighter.

Our team is getting bigger by the day. We're going to start really soon!

I have no skills, but loved this game, and hope you guys can do some great work!

Thank You for the support!

Project Started!

Updated the thread.

hi there i hope you wil make it work i love wc
you still got a story problem? i got a few

1:confed/kilrathi war what if blair never dropped the templar bomb
2:confed/kilrathi war what if the bad aliens attacked when confed were still at war with the kilrathi
3:confed/kilrathi beginning of conflict/war
4:wc4 confed/borderworld conflict/war tolwyn achieved war and blair was shot/prison
and escapes to fight for the borderworld.
5:kilrathi had won the war but resistance is growing through out the system
6:bad aliens/confed conflict/war contineu
thats it il brainstorm for more, anyone feel free to add

i can draw pretty well for concept art, just, uhh, what am i drawing  

Sent a PM to You.

Now you have my ears! Finallly someone who wnats to try it and not only talk about it!
Great!

I prefer Wing Commander in the time line from Wing Commander 1 and 2.
And without Star Wars - Wannabe Superweapons like behemoth and temblor bomb!
Flashpack and the Sivar would be o.k.!

Superweapons are superweapons G.A . Hard to achieve, they turn the table of any war. Without them, every game could be balanced to a point where it would be pointless to play.

Glad to see I'm not the only one brought back to Wing Commander.

Nice touches would be to rename stars / planets in the strings files to in-universe names (here's a nice series of names in the form of the known universe map: WC Universe Map). The first thing I did when I started modding was go into English.str and change all the IDS_CAPITALSHIPNAME_TECH00-45 entries from TDN FooZaz to TCS MyAwesomeShipName. Ship names can be found at WC Universe Ship Names.

Here are some changes I'd recommend trying to get a closer feel to WC:

- Nerf the frigates. Either remove non-essential frigates (leaving only scout and colonizer) or make them much easier to destroy / weaker.

- Cruisers need to be available sooner, if not at the start. Seriously, if you can build Capships without research then why need to research a freaking transport?

- Carrier Cruisers should be able to hold at least two squadrons initially OR Carrier Cruisers should level up like their big brothers do and gain moderate abilities and increased capacity every few levels.

- Carrier Capships should start out with a higher capacity. Max capacity could be retained (if desired) by reducing the rate at which they gain more squadrons.

- Encourage more capships. This can be accomplished by removing / easing the requirements for capship crew training (so every purchased level allows 3 capships or so, or every level is cheaper to purchase). This can also be accomplished by reducing the cost of capships slightly, though their cost is appropriate in the initial release.

- Consider adding or converting existing non-carrier capships into half-carrier / half-destroyer type designs. The original Bengal class carriers in WC relied on fighters entirely to get the job done. The Confederation and Midway designs added anti-capship weapons. You could have the main carrier capship have a high capacity but not be intended for capship combat while the secondary carrier design would have less capacity and less fighter-specific abilities but be more battle worthy.

The secondary capship type is the cruiser type you are talking about here.
Also carriers and fighters will be the base fighting drill of the Mod. We realize that You don't need research for silly stuff like transports... yeah.
Every ship will be expensive, and it will take a bit of time to build [ that's a concept that will be put into work, we will see what happens next ], also the capital ships like dreadnoughts and cruisers or destroyers will be balanced out to provide good firepower, fleet support and anti-capship possibilities rendering them to rely on the fighter screen to hold out, but not entirely.

Thanks for the ideas, we always consider them!: - )

Thread updated.

I was just giving some thought to the sides, I noticed in the updated first post it says:
"The Initium will place You in a Universe, where the Terrans, Kilrathi and Border Worlds / Nephilim fight over the control of the galaxy."
I got to thinking about the sides that could implemented in this mod, and obviously the Confederation, Kilrathi and Nephilim are obvious choices. Thinking about the Border Worlds though, I tried to come up with some ideas that would give them some kind of parity with the other races in terms of gameplay, and I honestly don't think it could be done without giving them stuff that wouldn't make a great deal of sense (I imagined perhaps giving them the Black Lance equipment, explained through them stealing/salvaging plans or parts).

However it suddenly occurred to me that the Border Worlds as a player faction just couldn't compete with the other three unless they were toned down, which I don't think is a good idea, so it suddenly hit me - use the Border Worlds as pirates and neutral militia! The pirates mechanic and militia in regular Sins is a nice thing to have, and the Border Worlds would fit perfectly into that niche. Neutral planets could have a varied/random Border World presence, and the pirate system could easily be reworked to a major Border World colony, or simply Border World pirates.

I think this solves the problem of including the Border World faction in the mod (since they are a nice part of the WC universe) and not having to come up with silly ideas about how they would be able to compete with the power of the Confederation, Kilrathi Empire and the Nephilim.

Any thoughts?
On a slightly different note, I think that the Nephilim should somehow be worked so that they couldn't interact with the Border Worlds as a pirate faction, the Kilrathi would be able to have some contact, but the Confederation would be most able to barter with them, or maybe just have them hostile towards everyone, perhaps as a kind of passive AI player that just seeks to build itself up and defend its territory.

Oh and also there must be Draymans! (Make them the trade transport or equivalent!)

Drayman / Free Traders are a given. They should be made really, really slow, have poor pilots, and very poor armor. Friendlies named "Maniac" should shoot at them.

I'd be proud to lend a voice and/or hand to this project. In particular, I have the original universe map and can assist with placement of systems and starlanes.