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Phoenix Rising v2.0 Demo evilbobthebob - January 13, 2018
After 5 years, we finally have v2.0 of Phoenix Rising ready to demo, with the Operation Skyhook Campaign.

Download here for a manual installation: http://www.moddb.com...rising-v20-dlt;/a>
Or find us on the Steam Workshop at:
http://steamcommunit.../?id=1235783994

Experience the lead-up to A New Hope from both sides of the Galactic Civil War, as told in the Legends universe

Selection of missions provide guidance in the early stages of the campaign. The later stages are up to you!

Command the Rebel Alliance from hidden fighter bases, striking against Imperial convoys and trying to discover the location of the Death Star construction site

Lead the Galactic Empire to victory, protecting the Death Star and crushing the Rebellion across the galaxy

The Galactic Empire is recommended for first time players of Phoenix Rising.


Short summary of changes:
  • Sweeping optimization improvements, including a "light" campaign for those having performance problems.
  • Rewritten galactic conquests (Demo featured: Operation Skyhook)
  • Rewritten AI to be more intelligent and challenging
  • All hyperspace travel now done via hyperlanes, with bonus speed and income from different sizes of route
  • Complete overhaul of planet locations, bonuses, and abilities
  • Over 50 new ground maps for v2.0, many new space maps
  • Both land and space skirmish are available (though land skirmish is still unfinished for the CSA)
  • Space skirmish has been completely rebalanced to be more of a competitive experience
  • New armor/shield/damage system for space combat, bringing it in line with our ground combat changes from v1.2. New space units and ground vehicle
  • Improved weather system and atmospheric effect
  • New hero system
For a full changelog, see https://forums.revor...-v20-changelog/

Comments (13)


v2.0 Changelog evilbobthebob - December 18, 2017

Below is a summary of changes to v2.0, as well as notes regarding what will be included in the demo version, coming soonTM

General

 

landskirmish.jpg

  • Rewritten AI to be more intelligent and challenging
    • AI now has some factional differences in style
    • AI will correctly build units and structures based on its planetary bonuses
    • Improved AI in tactical mode
  • Rebalanced tech trees
  • Functional CSA faction (full release only)
  • Sweeping optimization improvements
    • Addition of “light” campaign options for those who prefer high performance
  • Many quality-of-life improvements
    • Tooltips for all units contain all the statistic information you need
    • Improved advisor hints to introduce you to the mod’s features
    • Building and shipyard tooltips tell you what they can produce
    • Improved research display
  • Difficulty levels:
    • Easy: AI gets 10% fewer credits and takes 10% longer to build units
    • Normal: AI is exactly on par with the player
    • Hard: AI gets 10% more credits, takes 10% less time to build units, and units have 20% more damage, 20% more health, and 25% more shields.

Galactic Mode

 

galacticmode.png

  • Rewritten galactic conquests (Demo featured: Operation Skyhook)
  • All hyperspace travel now done via hyperlanes, with bonus speed and income from different sizes of route
  • Starships now cost population proportional to their crew requirements
  • Complete overhaul of planet locations, bonuses, and abilities
    • Planets now provide population carefully calculated from their statistics
    • Bonuses are rebalanced and clarified with improved tooltips
    • Planet info screens notify you of environmental or population conditions that affect production
  • Many new planets added
  • Overhaul of planet icons and base level display
  • New planet textures
  • Over 50 new ground maps for v2.0, many new space maps
  • Restoration of classic EAW sandbox missions (full release only, not demo)
  • Rebalanced freighters

Skirmish Mode

spaceskirmish.jpg

  • Both land and space skirmish are available (though land skirmish is still unfinished for the CSA)
  • Space skirmish has been completely rebalanced to be more of a competitive experience
    • Units build faster and are cheaper
    • Income scales better with station level
    • Unit costs and build times balanced per unit and per unit class
  • AI greatly improved compared to v1.2

Space Combat

 

spacecombat.jpg

  • New armor/shield/damage system for space combat, bringing it in line with our ground combat changes from v1.2.
    • Damage is now applied after armor subtraction e.g. laser damage 16 vs armor 12 does only 4 damage to a starship hull.
    • Torpedoes and some other weapons can pierce armor.
    • This means that light craft can barely damage capital ships. All weapons do a minimum of 0.5 damage if armor is equal to or greater than weapon damage.
    • Shields absorb a percentage of damage from incoming fire based on unit class
  • New space units (* = buildable in demo): Lictor-class Dungeon Ship, Providence-class Destroyer*, Belbullab-22 starfighter, Defender Starfighter*, TIE Vanguard, Diamond-class courier ship, Manka-class war Frigate*, G-1A Starfighter, Sheathipede-class Transport Shuttle, Y-85 Titan Dropship*, YV-100 Light Freighter, YV-330 Light Freighter, YV-929 Armed Freighter
  • Rebalanced starship and starfighter weapons for the new combat system, rewriting thousands of hardpoints
  • Space Colonies are now armed with turbolasers at all levels, and provide minor fire support to defending fleets

Ground Combat

groundcombat.jpg

  • New ground combat bunker system, with many civilian structures available to hide your infantry
  • New ground vehicles (* = buildable in demo): AAT, HMP gunship, MTT, OG-9, S-1 Firehawke*, V-Wing Airspeeder*
  • Improved weather system and atmospheric effects- don’t let infantry get stranded on planets with a Type IV atmosphere!
  • Infantry carry appropriately-modeled weapons in most cases
  • New ground structures: Bank, Listening Outpost

Heroes

  • New hero system with consistent hero ratings and upgrade paths
    • Space heroes now require a flagship to attach to in many cases
  • New heroes (* = playable in demo release): 4-LOM, Adar Tallon, Andoorni Hui, Apailana, Appo, Barrow Oicunn, Bevven*, Blitzer Harrsk, Bror Jace, Clyngunn, Cody, Comeg, Corran Horn, Crueya Vandron, Devlia, Erisi Dlarit, Evir Derricote, Gavin Darklighter, Ghorin, Haashn, Havet Storm, Hurst Romodi*, Kirtan Loor, Kosh Teradoc, Laryn Krefey, Lujayne Forge, Male Dee, Mawsh’iye, Meena Tills, Morteos, Nawara Ven, Odd Ball, Onara Kuat, Ooryl Qrygg, Osted Wermis, Peshk Vrisyk, Ragab, Rhysati Ynr, Riv Shiel, Rojahn, Sander Delvardus, Shaak Ti, Shea Hublin, Talon Karrde, Tensiger*, Terrinald Screed, Thaneespi, Theol Drost*, Treuten Teradoc, Tundra Dowmeia, Uwlla Iillor, Verrack, Zel Johans*, Zsinj, Zuckuss

Operation Skyhook- Demo Release GC

  • Experience the lead-up to A New Hope from both sides of the Galactic Civil War, as told in the Legends universe
  • Selection of missions provide guidance in the early stages of the campaign. The later stages are up to you!
  • Command the Rebel Alliance from hidden fighter bases, striking against Imperial convoys and trying to discover the location of the Death Star construction site
  • Lead the Galactic Empire to victory, protecting the Death Star and crushing the Rebellion across the galaxy
  • The Galactic Empire is recommended for first time players of Phoenix Rising.


Comments (14)


v2.0 Demo Coming Soon(tm) evilbobthebob - December 8, 2017

As you may or may not be aware, I am still working reasonably regularly on the mod and have got it to a stage where I feel comfortable releasing a focused demo version of Phoenix Rising 2.0. Currently, the version is in testing, but you can get a sneak-peek from Corey, lead developer on the Thrawn's Revenge series of mods, who has graciously begun a series of videos of the demo test build on his Youtube channel. The first video is here
 
2.0 will include all the changes noted in previous news posts, but there will be a summary of changes around the release time.
 
There is no concrete release date for the demo build, so stay tuned.



Comments (8)


AI Breakthrough Ghostrider - June 7, 2016

After weeks and months of testing, and trying to figure out how to get the AI to react as a human does in a galactic environment, the PR team have finally achieved a significant AI breakthrough:

 

The AI now aggressively attacks independent planets, takes worlds, builds fleets, and stomps all over unwary humans if given half a chance. 

 

The AI equasions to do this have been in place do this for years, but for months the AI has lain dormant, effectively asleep. We have tried hundreds of different ideas to get the AI to activate - all to no effect. 

 

And how did we achieve this? 

 

The frustrating answer, familiar to most modders out there is simple. We changed 1 value in the XMLs, instead of increasing the value from 1.0 to 1.25 we should have decreased the value to 0.75. It just took 6 months of testing to realise that is what we needed to do!

 

WOW. Did the AI react or what?

It annihilated one of the testers in Core Worlds in under a quarter of the time taken for a human player to "WIN" Core Worlds if unopposed. 

 

Now that we know the AI is working, I have to go back and undo many of the campaign changes put in place that were an attempt to make the AI respond, but the mod is finally alive and kicking. We need to test and polish a bit more, but this makes us a lot closer to where we want to be. 

 

Ghost



Comments (35)


Anatomy of a Starship evilbobthebob - June 22, 2014

Probably the best way to introduce the new space combat mechanics is to take a detailed look at our new (WIP) infobox layout. You may recognise many of the elements from the revamped land combat; many of the elements are also new. I'll go through each in the order they appear using the classic example of the Imperial II-class Star Destroyer. Please note that all values shown are WIP.

 

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Tactical Population Cost

 

This is a new number based on the total volume of the hull (or hulls in the case of a starfighter squadron). It is balanced around the idea that an Executor-class Super Star Destroyer consists of 400 population points, the maximum available space population. For carriers, it also includes the volume of all the starfighter squadrons as in the case of the Imperial II. This means that you can field 5 Imperial II-class and their entire complements at one time. These values are currently in the process of testing and tweaking, and the exact values may be different in the released version.

 

Starship Icon

 

All the starship icons have been brought into lineusing uniform lighting and rendering settings to create a better quality icon set.

 

Starship Name

 

As usual, we retain the full names of all ships, including their upgrade version.

 

Starship Class

 

From Starfighter through to Dreadnaught, a starship's class helps shape its maneuverability and sensor range statistics. It also determines which shipyard type is needed to construct it.

 

Special Abilities

 

With the new version, we have many greatly improved autofire scripts for ship special abilities, so we feel comfortable including more than the two accessible from the GUI. In most cases, the tractor beam will be the hidden, autofired ability, and it will usually target whatever the ship has been told to attack. Note here the Imperial II has a Tractor Beam, Emergency Thrusters (power to engines ability) and Blast. Blast is a new ability we have added to many main-line combat ships. It moves the firepower of the main battery (in this case, the octuple turbolasers and turboions) up a notch, so that has increased range and firepower.

 

Manufacturer

 

We have always included manufacturer bonuses on various appropriate planets such as Kuat. Now you can see exactly which ships will benefit, with the inclusion of the Manufacturer in the infobox.

 

Cost

 

This is the base hull cost, not including complement (which is included in the final cost at a 50% discount). Costs have been modified across the board to provide a more challenging economic planning experience.

 

Time

 

This is the base hull construction time, measured in galactic time. For the Imperial II, this is 15 weeks. Note that building over a world with appropriate shipyard bonuses, or by building more of the same class of shipyard, this time can be dramatically reduced.

 

Dimensions

 

Width x length x height, in meters, the basic size of the hull.

 

Volume

 

The total volume of the hull in cubic meters, often using exponential notation. Here for example, the Imperial II is 121 million cubic meters in volume. This statistic informs hitpoint calculations and has a great effect on the likelihood for a ship to be hit by enemy fire.

 

Acceleration

 

With the change to the new space combat mechanics, we have moved towards a more "realistic" approach. While ships still have a capped top speed, it is directly proportional to their acceleration. This is measured in terms of G-force, the acceleration experienced by a being on the surface of a planet with standard gravity, roughly 10 m/s2.

 

Maneuvrability

 

This statistic is the turning speed of the starship, measured in degrees per second. It is primarily class-based.

 

Hyperdrive

 

The class of the hyperdrive in the starship (if any), which determines its ability to travel across the galaxy in hyperspace. The smaller the better!

 

Shielding

 

Here is one of the new statistics. Shielding is now measured in Shield Points (SP) and has an absorption percentage shown after it. This is the amount of damage the shield can absorb from a single shot before it takes SP damage. So for example, a turbolaser shot hitting the Imperial II shield with a damage of 96 will do around 58 points of shield damage.

 

Hull

 

Hull has also changed a great deal. It is now measured in Hull Points (HP), like that of land combat. This value is primarily volume-based. Following the HP is the armour value and type. The Imperial II has 32 Vehicle armour. This means that it absorbs 32 damage from any incoming shot before the hull itself is damaged. For example, the same 96 damage turbolaser will do 64 points of hull damage on impact.

 

Range

 

This statistic shows the maximum and minimum ranges of the weapon systems on the ship, followed by its line of sight range. All values are in meters. In this case, the longest range weapons are the octuple turbolasers, while the shortest are the individual turbolaser cannons.

 

Armament

 

We have greatly condensed the weapons display into a shorthand that provides much more information. We have done away with "light", "heavy" and so on, instead simply telling you the weapon type, their number, and their damage output. So, here the Imperial II has 6 octuple turbolasers with 240 damage per bolt, 2 octuple turboions with 240 damage per bolt, 2 triple turbolasers with 144 damage per bolt, and so on. Note that ion weapons do 200% damage to shields, but cannot damage anything except Droid armour. The number of tractor beams is also noted, which adjusts the cooldown of the tractor beam ability.

 

 

I hope this little snippet has provided some insight to the changes we've been making over the past 18 months. If you have any questions, I will endeavour to answer below, however note that I did not implement these changes myself.



Comments (129)


News. Now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time... evilbobthebob - June 17, 2014

Hello Phoenix Rising fans.

 

First off, I'd like to apologise for the extremely long time between news posts. If this was the only way you kept up with the mod, I can forgive you for thinking we'd ceased development. Those of you who read more of the forums see the team members making comments from time to time, and we made a call for alpha and beta testers for the latest version over the past year. Still, this doesn't make up for the silence we've sustained up to now.

 

I'd like to change that myself, primarily because I finally have some free time and partly because our team leader and the prime driver of the mod, Phoenix Rising, is without a computer capable of doing modding right now. This isn't particular cause for alarm, because the current build of the mod is very feature-complete. However, there still remain areas that need polish and improvement.

 

So what have we been doing for the past two years? Our initial plan for the next version of the mod was primarily based on integrating the information provided by the release of The Essential Atlas. As software project tend to do, we experienced some rather strong feature creep, and as one thing led to another, we realised we had a version of the mod that is no longer a mere incremental update. In fact, we have:

  • General
    • Made numerous changes to improve performance
    • Remade and rebalanced the hero system
    • Rebalanced tech trees
  • Galactic Mode
    • Brought our galactic maps in line with The Essential Atlas
    • Added new planets
    • Entirely rebalanced and remade our core sandbox campaigns (still a work-in-progress)
    • Created a new planetary bonus system
    • Created a new hyperspace system
    • Rebalanced freighters, including the addition of light transports
    • Improved the display of research
  • Combat
    • Improved land combat
      • Begun the process of adding infantry weapon models
      • New units
      • Improved weather system
    • Added many new maps in land and space
    • Entirely revamped space combat to be in line with land combat:
      • New armour, health and shield system
      • New weapon balancing and types
      • Better display of unit statistics
      • New units
      • Increase in map size to accommodate the changes

Many of these changes, especially those based around planets and maps, have already been mentioned in prior news posts. Check those for more information on those specific topics. As for the rest, I hope I can bring you more news posts in the near future providing examples and details. In the mean time, I'm happy to answer questions you may have here on the forums.

 

evilbob



Comments (107)


Planets by numbers Ghostrider - December 21, 2012
The key theme to V1.3 development is conforming to The Essential Atlas, which involves moving all the planets to their correct locations. In addition, a new theme has been added to this which has implications throughout the mod, some obvious, some hidden: Populations.

Planets vary enormously in their planetary populations, from the trillion on Coruscant to the airless uninhabited moon of Folor, and this now becomes the key economic driver for determining planetary income and industrial output. In general, heavily populated Core Worlds outclass anything else in terms of economic and military output (with a few notable exceptions), while some of the Outer Rim planets are so poor, one wonders if they are worth the military effort to take them. More on this later.

The second major change is fleet populations. Every unit now requires galactic population to build it. The more crew in a ship, the greater the Unit Population. Why? An Imperial-class Star Destroyer has 37,000 crew and requires consumables for 2.5 years. That's over 100 million meals stuck somewhere in the hold, and all this food, together with all the other consumables and parts required to cover every possible eventuality of running a Star Destroyer from spare rank cylinders to deflector shield parts has to be supplied from somewhere. Each planet you control will contribute to Galactic Population, and each land or space unit that is built consumes Galactic Population.

From a Campaign design perspective 2 points are immediately obvious. Firstly, while frigates and below have low crew requirements, the Clone Wars-era cruisers such as the Dreadnaught and the Acclamator Assault Ship are ridiculously crew-heavy designs, and it is not surprising that these designs were relegated to crew training and planetary defense roles out during the Imperial Era, especially with the advent of the Imperial-class Star Destroyer. While this certainly has a high Unit Population, a single Imperial is less demanding on Galactic Population than 2 Dreadnaught Heavy Cruisers, and with considerably more firepower. Yet another example of the technical breakthroughs achieved with the Imperial-class. It's not just a raw demonstration of firepower – it's also more efficient in crew requirements. Population is shown in yellow for negative numbers, such as unit population costs, and green for positive values, as per most planets.

So what defines Galactic Population?
Clearly food surplus is a key requirement to building a large fleet/army, but in addition a vibrant trade network is required to allow fleet supply to move goods around the galaxy to support front line military units wherever they are.

The current system of 10 population per planet is too uniform and simply was not going to work. But what do we replace it with? Answer – a full demographic model of each planet giving a picture of its food production, economy, trade network and industrial output that can then be used to determine a realistic figure for its weekly income and Galactic Population.

Actually this isn't quite as bad as it sounds as I had already started on a planetary demographic model during V1.2 development, but the model has grown and grown and is pretty complex. I'll attempt to break it down into manageable chunks.

Food Production
The first step in creating a picture of a planet and its economic output is food production, the mainstay of most civilisations. Planets are not just lumps in space, terrain is critical to food production, so we listed a set of primary terrain types, all with different features: Grassland, Oceans, Forests, Temperate, Mountains, Volcanic, Desert, Swamp, Urban, Arctic, Barren, Ruined urban and Primordial and Asteroid. To this we add the civilisation factors: Technology Level, ranging from Neolithic/Primitive through to Super-High Tech. I also wanted a measure of Industrialisation and Pollution, which I call Harmony. Planets with high Harmony scores are pretty, grow lots of food and are good for tourism, while planets with negative scores are increasingly polluted.

Both Tech and Harmony have significant impact on food production and industrial output. Low Tech worlds take big penalties for both economy and food production, while the polluting worlds are penalised on food production but have bigger economies and greater industrial output.

Now we apply the Agricultural Level (which is a separate but related concept to the Advantage of the same name) , which acts as a multiplier to the terrain type. While the normal level of Agriculture is set at 1, some harsher worlds (where the planetary description indicates a subsistence level economy) this may drop to 0.5 or 0.25 depending on the local conditions. High levels of urbanisation will also reduce the Agri-level. Planets with good food reserves increase to Agri-level 2 or 3, while 4 or 5 is reserved for the Agriworlds, where the entire planet is turned into a giant farm. The scale of food production varies enormously, with Tatooine's moisture farmers producing 2.3 units of food, up to the giant of Ukio's world farms producing over 200 food units.

We also decided that planetary diameters will have an impact on food production, so large planets have their food output increased, while small colonised moons with lower surface area produce less food. As a bonus, we've taken the planetary diameters and re-scaled the planets visually in Galactic Mode so you can see size differences now, where known.

And finally, we deduct a measure of food that is eaten by the planetary inhabitants, so that big urban worlds are net food importers, with Coruscant's trillion beings eating over 100 food units worth of population.

Trade
The other side of the credit chip is galactic trade. This is based on several areas of industry. First, we take the trade generated by industrial output, which includes mineral resources, general industrial output (with positive modifiers for factory worlds), art & tourism, crime, and population-based civilian demand, so urban worlds score well here. Furthermore, this is intrinsically linked to the galactic trade network, and each planet gets a special "Commercial" ranking depending on its galactic position and access to major trade routes. The Comms rank ranges from 1 to 8, with position on the Big 5 Hyperrroutes (Hydian Way, Perlemian etc) rating an automatic 4. Remote Outer Rim worlds may only rate 1-2, while the super-hubs are scoring 6 or more. This makes a massive difference to the trade created by a planet, and has a major impact on both planetary economy and Galactic Population.

Most of this data remains hidden (actually in a massive spreadsheet used for mod development), but the result is a very personalised planetary economy. Having gone this far, we decided to complete the task by calculating all the important game considerations using this data.

Land and Space slots are now calculated using all the information gathered so far. To build a base you need solid terrain and a local technological culture to build and maintain the base. Key factors for Base size are terrain type and planetary population. Harsh worlds reduce the base size, high populations increase base size. The number of space slots is a combination of local shipbuilding – ranging from general technical skill of the population to specialist shipyards as noted in the planetary advantages, with additional slots for high trade requirements and large colony size. The number of Turret mounts for Planetary Turbolaser Defenses are now biased towards urbanised centres, and low population worlds tend to have fewer turbolasers than high tech worlds. The number and frequency of build pads is often also linked to urbanisation, so don't expect too many build pads to help your troops if you invade a barren planet! And finally, when you capture a planet, you get to steal/plunder all the goods awaiting shipment, so trade planets, mining worlds and planets with medical exports will have higher capture values.

Planets by numbers
If this is confusing, let's illustrate with a few examples; Firstly we collect all the data we know about a planet: Diameter, Population, Terrain types, Atmosphere type, Description. From this we can determine a range of 18 data points that describe the planetary demographics and from with we calculate the number of Land and Space Slots, the weekly income, Galactic Population, Capture Value, Destroy value and a rough guide to the number of possible towers for all those planets with unique maps.

Overall, with 300 planets in the database that's over 5000 data points to determine that describe all the planets in the mod, and 2500 critical data points used by the mod data files. This has then been tested (hence the call for Alpha testers) and re-balanced. While both the economic and population systems worked, the initial scale estimates were a bit high and a quick scalar applied to all values. Incomes now range considerable from negative income scores for barren moons to thousands of credits for the key industrial and trade centres.

Changes to the Campaigns
So what does this mean for the campaigns? Firstly, fleets end up a bit smaller, and Capital-class warships just got a bit rarer as all the campaigns are re-balanced for the population cap. This also has the added benefit of improving game performance due to the reduction in fleet size. Unless you have a large number of Core Worlds or agri-worlds under your control to boost your population limits, those early Clone Wars-era cruisers will end up being unpopular and will put pressure on your research planets to develop more modern and more efficient designs. Overall, the dynamics of play should become even more interesting with this extra challenge.

Comments (62)


"Commenor must be some major-league trading planet" evilbobthebob - December 10, 2012
Sited in the Colonies, Commenor is a bustling, arid trade world. Its surface is covered with starports and landing strips for the tonnes of cargo that arrives and leaves, bound for the Core and the Rim. The planet swiftly became independent after the Battle of Endor, but its strategic location means that it's unlikely to stay that way for long.

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From an initially defensible landing zone, attackers must choose if they want to push up a ramp onto the upper landing strip, or move out onto the open ground below the small clusters of mismatched city buildings.

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Commenor's varied architecture is the result of its trading heritage; a melting pot of many different races and influences. Of course, both the Empire and New Republic would like to make their mark on the planet...

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Whoever takes control of this world, it will certainly assure them dominance across the Trellen Trade Route and easy access to the Slice.

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Comments (20)

This level is not made, distributed, or supported by LucasArts, a division of Lucasfilm Entertainment Company Ltd. LucasArts, the LucasArts logo, STAR WARS and related properties are trademarks in the United States and/or in other countries of Lucasfilm Ltd. and/or its affiliates. All other content copyright Phoenix Rising Team 2006-2016.