[MOD] The Plague v1.0

[size=85]Ladies and Gentlemen, i have the pleasure to present:[/size]

[size=150]The Plague History:[/size]
Everything we are, is the result of a long and incredible proccess called Evolultion, strange and beatiful, defined by “any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins”.
And thanks to that diversity, the evolution let to the most intelligent lifeforms grew up, explore, advance and colonize the inmensity of the universe, filling it with the beauty of the life with his smart creativity.
But what happens when evolution takes another way? What happens when it leaves the way of the intelligence? What happens when it choses to exploit other capabilities of the life? What happens when it choses instinct, and it triumphs over intelligence and let it keep advancing without limits?
The Plague happens.

That is what happened in the star system CA-0218-NM-5, also knowed as CANMUS-5, an island full of extremely active life, far enough of those intelligent lifeforms to grew up without even let them notice its existense. Far enough… to dont let to The Plague escape from its lonely prison.

After entire eras of continuous evolution, The Plague managed to travel throught the space, and invaded almost every planet of CANMUS-5. After that, when it consumed every resource of the now corroded worlds, and there was nothing more to invade, to fight or to eat… The Plague started a “long campaign against the food crisis”, and a long hibernation cycle. For several standard decades, seemed that this was the final fate of the plague, total extintion.

But… one day, a strange body just appeared from the stars and crashed with one of the planets… The Plague awoke and found food inside of that strange, big, and hard structure, food with a strange shape, food with a strange way to comunicate, food that tried to suvirve using strange objects, food with a strange taste… and the plague liked it.

[i]<<A poor Nomad cruiser that tried to escape from a battle recieved the impact of a Rift Generator, the FTL device was activated at the same time that the ship recieved the powerful energy shockwave that exited from the momentaneous rift, overcharging it and making to the heavily damaged cruiser jump right inside the closing dimensional rift. All of that, happened in a extremely short time, less than some hundredths of a standard seconds. But was enough to accelerate the ship at such speed, that it was escaping from any kind of understanding… the immeasurable speed make possible to the ship pass throught the momentaneous wormhole generated by the now corrupted dimensional rift… and just one or two seconds after, the nomadic cruiser exited from it.

No one in the crew was able to even wonder what happened, the only thing that they knew, is that they exited to a non-known area of the universe, and that they were traveling at a FTL-like speed in normal space… in some seconds they entered to a strange star system, and managed to avoid a catastrophic collision with an asteroid that passed so fast, that when it appeared in the long range lidar, it was already passing at their side.
After around 3 standard minutes, the engineers of the ship managed to reduce the speed enough to begin able to land in the planet that was in their way…

The landing was catastrophic, the already heavy damaged ship broke in two parts before even touching the land… the smaller one exploded seconds after finished the landing… creating a HUGE fireball, caused by the cargo bay that was prepared for a long battle…
Less than half of the crew suvirved… but what they were going to face now made them wish that they had crashed with that asteroid some minutes ago… >>[/i]

The now awoke and frenetic Plague started to try to assimilate those strange devices, trying to understand for what and how it fell off from the stars.

Some decades later, a Rebel Battle Fleet encountered a strange swarm of spatial beasts that was exiting from FTL, they had no time to even retreat, the entity was not letting them escape… They were only able to send a SOS transmission with the only transmission that the entity emmited before eating the fleet… a strange patron of sounds that lately, and thanks to the best of the best in “Unknown lenguage decoding and traslation group” of the Rebels, was traslated revealing the objetive of that strange entity:

-We are The Plague… We are hungry.

[size=150]The Plague Backstory:[/size]
As i said many times, i’m wanting to make the second Modding Contest, but this time you will have to build a specie, a race of organical spaceships with insectoid/beast shape. After that everything will run as with Praetorian Industries, but this time i’m wanting to make a race of the size of a DLC, i mean, no more of 15 hulls, but with an extra of around of 40 new modules. All of this focused to create a race with a REALLY different look, a very different way to play, and therefore, a new gaming experience for the players of Gratuitous Space Battles.
I’ve already prepared a lot of ideas for new devices for this new “universal threath”, and just today (03-01-2012) i’ve coded the first module.
Praetorian Industries v1.1 will be released in some time, as fast as i write a “guide” and fix any bug or OP issue. I mean, PI is not going to be affected or delayed by this new project. And this project is meant to be completed in no more of 3 months.
Update: Slowly slowly catchey monkey the progress of the mod advanced a lot, 5 months have passed since the start of the project (very delayed due university) but now The Plague idea is taking shape and more and more closer to the final release.
Update 2: Several months of Zero modding activity just ended, i finally found some free time to deal with The Plague mod, i expect to launch the mod in less than 2 months ^^

[size=150]To Do List:[/size]

General Modding:
> Module Making: Covered By Me
> Turrent Graphics Making: Finished
> Design of Hulls: Finished
> Making of Damage/Hulk versions: Covered by Kalthaniell
> Hull Coding: Covered by Me
> Scenario Making: Waiting to deal with the hulls

Ship Classes Making:
Hunters (fighter/drone analogue):_______________Target= 4 Designs= 4 Functional= 2
Seekers (frigate analogue):_____________________Target= 8 Designs= 10 Functional= 8
Destroyer (cruiser analogue):___________________Target= 3 Designs= 5 Functional= 4
Hive (support ship analogue):___________________Target= 2 Designs= 2 Functional= 0

Functional Hulls Count:: 14
Functional Modules Count:: 23 Modules with 19 new Icons, 23 Visual Effects (FX) and 34 new Sound Effects.

[size=150]Current Version: 1.00[/size]
v0.5 - Modules Created [size=85]<<0.70% Complete>>[/size]
v0.6 - Turret Graphics / Weapon FX complete [size=85]<<90% Complete>>[/size]
v0.7 - Ships coded in [size=85]<<80% Complete>>[/size]
v0.8 - Missions Complete [size=85]<<0% Complete>>[/size]
<<Last call for new Modules / Weapons / Ships / Missions / Content>>
v0.9 - Balance Modules / Weapons / Ships / Missions
v1.0 - Remove Unused files and RELEASE !

[size=150]Plague-Ghosts Double Final Release Trailer:[/size]
mediafire.com/?xoiw860ovb2cxb1

[size=150]Download: [/size]
mediafire.com/?t9rf9tqvndq7r0q

[size=150]Download Info: [/size]
Download Server: Mediafire
Download Weight: 27.73Mb
Hard Disk Space: 137Mb
Notes: Just download, uncompress the file, copy the “The Plague” and “Data” folders and paste them inside your Gratuitous Space Battles folder. Please, read the Readme.txt file, and enjoy!!.

[size=150]Related Stuff: [/size]

[size=100]> Gratuitous Modding Pack[/size]
If you want to make your own mod, here you have a great source of visual and sound stuff, it was used to make this mod:
http://positech.co.uk/forums/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=6888

[size=100]> Praetorian Industries Mod[/size]
Enjoy the huge ammount of new possibilities that offers this mod!
http://positech.co.uk/forums/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=5698&p=39509#p39509

[size=100]> The Ghosts Mod[/size]
The invisible hand of the Ghosts is claiming for vengeance… Stills as WIP
http://positech.co.uk/forums/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=7659

[size=100]> The Exiles Mod[/size]
A bunch of fanatics exiled from The Order has started to create giant mechs! Stills as WIP
http://positech.co.uk/forums/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=7794

Moddb Page:

Thanks for your attention. This post will be updated… sometimes Last Update: Dec 7 of the 2012.
[size=85]If you want to help, you can tell me via PM.[/size]

Need any help with the damge & hulks :F

Edit: This sounds really fun adn i agree with you doing a diffrent style of a race a seemingly biological based one?

If you are ready to improve your techniques >=D

Back to the point (:P), since The Plague is going to be a full set of biological designs, some things will be allowed (like extensive areas of damage) and some others not (like red damage, sparks and maybe smoke).
This makes necesary an even higher and a bit different detail type/level, well… just in theory

We will talk about it after the 2nd Modding Contest

So how will you be manufacturing the hull sprites?

Im going to organize another contest to get some hulls like with PI, i have ready to use 129 unique organical sections for the participants.
But i will make a Pre-Contest disscusion to know if we are in a good moment to make a contest and if so, how many people will participate. The only thing that seems promissing from this contest is that is a lot easier to come with new entries in a short time since i dont need huge hulls and we have pre-fabricated sections.
The sections are not ultra-HD since they were created by MACHINE for “Battleships Forever”, but their quality is great for that game and acceptable for GSB since we dont need big beasts.

Progress Report:

> Experimentig with close combat modules, AKA melee weapons! =D
> Created a whole buch of new Fx using the Gratuitous Modding Pack, more is coming, fast.
> Going to start coding all the new stuff.

Pic Of The Day: The epicness is possible, with a good source of Fx ;D

In the pic you can see a bit of the stuff that is begin used to test melee weapons, yeah, CLAWS! =D
Also you can see a bunch of different types of weapons like blood blasts, bioelectricity bombs, sound waves, energy waves, acid puke, some beam gratuitousness and things like that ^^
I still upgrading some of them, and while not, i’m creating completly new Fx

Okay, my idea to make melee weapons with motion failed, the main idea was to use the code propeties of a tribe howitzer to make a melee weapon, say, a claw that makes a slash over the enemy, visualy similar to the Deadly Flash of PI, but not so flashy… and slower… and projecting a claw slash, lol. But i forgot that the blast animation of the howitzer (composed by two sections) has a different way to work than i thought, the idea was to have two claw-slash in opposite directions, and then they would alternate with each shot BUT seems like the howitzer code makes a fast and multiple alternation of the two pics in each shot, destroying the whole concept…

Oh well, no melee weapons with motion… im going back to the original bullet-code-based melee idea

Progress Report:

> Starting to make the turrent graphics, this is my first time doing it by myself, therefore it is going slow. But i still not exactly knowing how to code them
> Made some new Fx
> Coded a total of 11 weapons, melee class stills in paper cuz i have to decide things like class, base type, etc.
> Several new sound effects are coming!
> Finished the race.txt code, i just need to deal with the turrent coding

Thats all that i’ve done, not much since i’m waiting to the 2nd Modding Contest results so i can code the winning beasts and start the true module making/testing. The objetive is to deal with the hull codes before the end of the month, cuz in march i start the University, yeah a new phase of my life, and idk how much of my time is going to take.

Right now i’m sending to CptFox the pack of beasts that guys have made. I’ve named all of them with weird and scientific-ish names, and now we just have to decide how we are going to damage your great designs >=D

Progress Report:
> Just started the testings of The Plague propulsion system, just a graphical feature of the mod.
> Sent to CptFox the full pack of hulls, and waiting to recieve a reply to decide the damage type that we are going to use
> Made a small balancing and a full table of The Plague modules, just created 9 atm, but i’m aiming to make at least 10 for each hull type, mainly weapons cuz TP is meant to be compatible with standard modules.

Pic Of The Day: My idea applied to that nice non-winged entry ^^

I’m wanting to know what do ya think about pulse glows over the wings, the idea is to have each winged beast with a pulse glow over their wings. This one in particular is meant to be the only one without wings, it makes a full projection of energy in the form of wings. In the other hand, the gas propelled beasts are going to use standard (or modified) engine glows, with the closest possible looking of gas instead of fire.

So… what do you think? any thoughts?

Forking awesome.

Very nice sir. At least if horrible spaceborne abominations can be classified as “nice”.

I think those pulse glows / ghostly wings look mighty interesting. It makes this type of Plague critter look twice as intimidating.

Then i’ve made a good job =D

But right now i just want to fill my netbook with C4 and blow it up to the hell, cuz the last hour i just got inspired and started to work with the turret graphics of the Plague, and just before i deal with the last turret the Netbook crashes right to the blue dump window… my NOOOOOOO scream might surely have awakened some residents… F***!

I will never begin able to remake them with the same quality as before, but since i am very stubborn i will spend the next hour in re making them as closer as possible to the original quality -.-

My condolances and im sure you’ll make them better this time! The wing graphics are awsome by the way Will you be doing diffrent types for diffrent beasties though?

That design will be the only one with full projected energy/ghost wings. The rest of the winged monsters will have the same kind of pulseglow over their wings, and the non winged ones will have “standard” gas propulsion graphics, ie modified engine glows

Progress Report:
> Finally learned to make turret mapings, i’ve finished the one for the plague mod =D

Pic of the Day: A small shot of the first test with the new turrets

new turrets.jpg938×633 238 KB

Sorry for the repetition of the same graphics, i’ve coded those test modules with the same turret graphic…

Chose yer poisen! These are currently consept versions hopefully once one has been chosen i can do it in better detail for the mod

I think I like the third one best. The bright green feels appropriate. I would like the see the dark green edge of the “wound” be a little more irregular in depth. Good stuff though!

I agree with you ^^

But thats my opinion, i…errrr…WE want to read your opinions about the good job that have made CptFox to decide wich one is going to be used in The Plague Mod!