Gratuitous Universal Battles! DEVELOPMENT HAS STARTED![Mod]

This mod is a compilation of every mod on this forum (with permission to use), as well as my own mods. This will not only take a massive amount of time to develop, but the mod’s final size might be sort of close to one gigabyte. I plan to get it ALL done sometime over the next few months.

[size=150]PERCENTAGE COMPLETE[/size]:

• graphics: 0.5%
• coding: 0%
• other: 5%
• total: 2%
  [size=70](I have a really long way to go)[/size]

The current plans are this:

Every module, race, and other stuff from every mod, expansion, and base game will be fully revamped, redone, re-whatever-ed, until everything is unique and wild and fun!

The current plans for each race are:
[size=150]- Unique bonuses to each race:[/size]
Federation: Integrity and Power
Alliance: Speed and Armour
Empire: Shields and Power
Rebels: Speed and Integrity
Nomads: Cost and Speed
Swarm: Huge Cost and Speed bonus, but impairments toward Integrity and Power.
Tribe: Integrity and Armour
Order: Shields and Speed

Race bonuses are affected by ship classes:
[size=75]Fighter: 10%[/size]
[size=85]Corvette: 15%[/size]
Frigate: 20%
Destroyer: 25%
Cruiser: 30%
[size=115]Dreadnought: 40%[/size]
[size=115]Juggernaut: 50%[/size]
[size=130]Worldship: 100%[/size]

[size=150]- 8 ship classes (from the original 3) for every race (including modded ones), which are:[/size]

Fighter (Size: 11-15) (Power Produced: 4-5) (1-5 hulls) (1 weapon slot, 1-3 module slots) (128x128 texture)
Corvette (Size: 20-40) (Power Produced: 10-15) (1-4 hulls) (1-2 weapon slots, 2-4 module slots) (256x256 texture)
Frigate (Size: 100-130) (Power Produced: 25-35) (1-5 hulls) (2-5 weapon slots, 4-7 module slots) (384x384 texture)
Destroyer (Size: 130-160) (Power Produced: 50-70) (1-4 hulls) (3-6 weapon slots, 3-8 module slots) (512x512 texture)
Cruiser (Size: 210-240) (Power Produced: 350-525) (1-6 hulls) (5-8 weapon slots, 8-12 module slots) (768x768 texture)
Dreadnought (Size: 300-425) (Power Produced: 650-850) (1-4 hulls) (8-12 weapon slots, 10-15 module slots) (1024x1024 texture)
Juggernaught (Size: 500-700) (Power Produced: 1500-2000) (1-3 hulls) (12-16 weapon slots, 15-20 module slots) (2048x2048 texture)
Worldship (Size: 800-900) (Power Produced: 9000-12000) (1-2 hulls) (16-20 weapon slots, 25-30 module slots) (4096x4096 texture)

Texture sizes are for MY new ships, not ones already included in the base game, expansions, or mods

[size=150]- Every module is race specific, but some can cross over into other races.[/size]

[size=150]-Said modules will also be semi-interchangeable:[/size]
[Fighter-Corvette]
[Frigate-Destroyer]
[Cruiser-Dreadnought-Juggernaut-Worldship] (Go ahead, try sticking a Worldship’s main gun onto a cruiser hull, see “how well” that works.)

-Tons of scenarios (I’m talking like 12-15 per race.)
-Tons of new backgrounds (for said scenarios)

-New sounds!
-New turret graphics!
-New music!
-New comm chatter!
-New ship names!
-New main menu!

[size=150]Current races that are allowed in the mod:[/size]
Alliance (No duh)
Federation (Duh)
Empire (Double-duh)
Rebels (Okay, I’m tired of saying duh, so I’m replacing duh with an asterisk.)
Tribe *
Swarm *
Order *
Nomads *
Unity 2.0
Union
Legios - Eich
Scavenger - Eich
Pirates! - Eich

Much of this is subject to change, and may be altered before long.

Before I get started, I definitely, DEFINITELY need permission from the owners of the following mods to include their mod into this giant compilation.
I might also tweak some of your stuff, if need be, to balance things out, even though I admit when it comes to balance I generally don’t know what I’m doing.
So don’t be surprised if I make mild changes, or even add new ships and “classes” to provide for what I plan to make this. I am sure that if my changes are bad, the community will let me know. But I’ll try not to shove the whole weight of the balance work onto you guys instead of on me.

Anyway, here is what mods I want to also include:
My own additions
Star Blazers - tater
Classic Dreadnoughts - Archduke Astro - Permission denied
Deserters - Ponyus
Eve-online - Lonestar and Severian-Void - Permission denied
Galactic Concordium - N3MES1S
Star Trek - N3MES1S - Permission conditional on future mod changes by creator
Star Wars Reloaded - Dantalion
Ancient vs Microbe - 123stw
Beastslayers - Peter1x9
The 3xper1ment4l era - SirJamon - Permission denied
His Voice - Kete
Homeworld united fleet - GATC (I’m separating Taiidan and Kushan)

If you are the owners of any of these mods, either post here or message me to tell me whether or not it’s alright to use your mod in this compilation.

If the owner of these mods has not logged in for a long time (i don’t know, let’s say 12 months or more as measured from today 2011-08-10, plus or minus four weeks), I will include their mod unless otherwise told. Hopefully this won’t be a bad move on my part. Maybe if a lot of mod creators are unreachable by me, i’ll just reverse course and remove my plans to use those modders own content. That sounds fair to me.
It might mess things up for a lot of my plans, but plans can change.

If I did not list your mod in this thread, just send me a message, or post here, and I will add it. Obviously your mod must have a race, or something unique, (not something where you can stick frigates and cruisers into squadrons, that is obviously not what I’m looking for, since I can do that myself rather easily.)

Updates are coming very soon!

I will also accept volunteer help, if you want to do anything, and not feel useless.

The mod will be fully compatible with everything, since I will be separating everything for each race.

[size=150]Some parts of my mod WILL overwrite the original GSB directory, so I request that you make a back-up of the game and name it something like ‘Gratuitous Universal Battles’ or something that signifies the mod’s game.[/size]

I’ll begin working when I get some permissions granted from owners of other mods on my list.

My first ship:

I guess u are asking for use the ships sprites right, or something else?? well, u have my permission for use the galactic concordium hulls, but i have a question, wat do u mean we will need to replace the base modules and hulls??? are u planning to make a entire game mod (u know, basically replacing all the entire game stuff)?

I wanted to include your mod into mine, basically I am making a mod that modifies the original game and also adds new stuff, along with adding everybody else’s stuff, and if need be, changing their stuff a bit to make everything more balanced.

I would also like to include your Star Trek mod, but that isn’t finished yet, so I can wait for that one.

G’Day alimarin, please make sure you fill out your re-induction fom in triplicate and sumit it for processing

Now this is a mod that you have thought about for a very long time and i have the same question about your GUB mod:
When i install the GUB mod, will it overwrite the existing original authors mods I already have installed ?

For example: lets say i have Unity 2.0 installed . . .
When i install GUB - will it overwrite the Darkstar Version of Unity and replace it with the GUB version ?
or
will there be a second race called “GUB Unity” ?

Since your going to be modding the vanilla content, you might at restricted the vanilla modules while your at it.
Might be worth to consider some of the work from the balance thread as well.

Thinking about it, I will probably just have a new race for everything, so you CAN have both Unity, and GUB Unity at the same time.

o.O Wow, that is gonna take a ton of work.
Might i suggest that you look at using a perl, python, <> script.
Make the job that much faster

Anyways - yeah, knock your self out and throw Unity into the mix.
so long as:

• GUB does not overwrite any original versions of Unity.
• You remove the viral content (they are not my ships to begin with)

There is also this addon:
[Ships] Uni-T mod Expansion: Hybrids which was created by xeranes ( you will have to ask him)
viewtopic.php?f=23&t=5235#p34551

If you do look at restricting the vanilla modules / weapons you will need this patch for Unity 2.0

As for Union, Cen2050 is the Author - i was only tech support.

what about me? check out Wandering Empire.

I didn’t know that your mod was done.

ohh… yeah its not… well give me 3 weeks to finish and then 2 more for balance and it will be a o k

Alright, when it’s done I’ll include it in this mod.

By the way, Darkstar, what do you mean by a script? Like what am I gonna use it for?

Dude, I wish i could finish a mod that quickly (yeah i am jealous - so what)

One thing i am curious about is the tweaks you plan for the different mods etc. to achieve a balance of sorts

If you are aiming for the GUB races to be seperate from the authors version, you will have to change some of the names in the files to avoid conflit with the original authors mod.

Take Unity for example (again)
To start with you open the race file, unit.txt you and change
name = “unit”
to
name = “GUBunit”

Then you go to the hulls and would have to change
name = Dominator Cruiser hull
to
name = GUB Dominator Cruiser hull
(rince repeat 18 times)

Then you go to modules and would have to change
name = “cruiser_mega_beamlaser”
to
name = “GUB cruiser_mega_beamlaser”
(rince repeat 348 times)

Then you go to Etc,etc,etc
blah,blah,blah - you get the point

And that is one mod complete
Now repeat that for every other mod you want to add.

OR

You write a program to seek out these naming conventions and automatically make the changes for you
An example - i used a perl script to automatically generate the varient weapons from the vannila weapons. (then tweaked them mannually)
It changes names, values, icons - everything. the way i wrote the script is rather bunky but it saves me from manualy creating every single individual freakin file.

i hope that explains it

search for Crimson Editor on Google, it can mass search and replace text over dozens of files.

Sounds like a plan

can you tell it to ignore words that are not “name” ?
like guiname etc ?

::Edit::
Or change them back afterwards

I use perl because i am also doing other things like turret mapping, nerfing etc at the same time

no, but here is the process I use to subdue that:

ctrl + h
search: name = "
replace: name = "GUB

replace in:
this file only
all open files

[replace]

ctrl + h
search: guiname = "GUB
replace: guiname = "

replace in:
this file only
all open files

[replace]

Tada, you just filtered out all of the GUI names

Yeap that will work, just keep adding in extra lines to cover the other “names”
and for any lines that have name =
and for people that might have made their modules with name=
and blah blah blah yadda yadda yadda - you get the point (again)

But yeah, that google editor should work well

Thank you for requesting permission from the creators of the mods first before simply going ahead with your project.

By all means throw the Union into the proverbial mix…I HOPE to have more material for it soon-ish as well.

Here are some clever ship names I have been making:

Partial predetermination
Supremilated supremity
Mandatory consolation
Honor among greed
Communing socialism
Elongated elevation
Animosity toward life
Killing death
Malignantly benign
Magnetically discharged
Commanding chaos
Swimming through land
Every-man’s land
No-man’s space
Nuclear Star-crafting
Nebula or bust
To be, or to blast
Fractal luminescence
Physically mental

In that case, DO NOT use my mod, cuz i am not finished with it. I plan to make updates of the scenarios, hulls, modules and deployments. For now, for the interest of a clean modding community u must wait until AFTER i make those updates (but that will not be soon, im afraid).

I say this cuz it will be very weird to see on your mod ships that belongs to another mod that is already pending updates and improvements. Thats the reason i was asking u if u plan to use only the hulls (in that case i will never have any problem, since in the updates im not going to “touch” the hulls) or u plan to modify modules, ship configurations, etc…

I really dont think u will have enough energy to put 50 mods in one after adding my star trek mod… the star trek mod itself its about 10 mods in size, with more than about 150-200 hulls , more than 500 modules… and i could go on. Besides, i dont think a star trek theme will fit enough in a universal mod since it is a specific sci-fi show based mod. Anyways, my last part of the star trek mod is far from finished, so maybe we can talk in time -.-.

By the way, u can try Notepad++ too, with a strong search-replace engine too.

Alright then, right now I’ll just build my base mod.

I’ve run into a snag though, how should I handle the official expansion races? I have all of them, I just don’t know what to do with making a mod that expands on them, without giving people the race for free.

A valid concern.
Based on my knowledge of the game i would suggest that you dont include the DLC sprites and only use the hull code.

For example - I am guessing that you are changing the hull code (ie tribe’s 100% intergiry bonus)
So in the hull code keep the refences to the hull sprites the same.
In theory it still should run the same (i would have to check my notes again to be 100% sure)
Same can be done with weapons (aagin i think - need to reference my modding notes)

down side the mod will not run unless you have ALL the DLC’s that you have included.