KA2: Empire at War 1.2 beta

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posted on November 8th, 2012, 2:49 pm
There is an existing thread for KA2 in the Armada II modding forum, but I am sort of retiring that thread now that KA2 is a Fleet Ops mod, and opening up this one instead :)

Sounds cocky to say it, but I am sure most of you have heard of KA2. It's been around for a while now :) But I will introduce it here as if you are a brand new member of the community.

What is KA2?

Klingon Academy II: Empire at War (hence KA2) is the latest version of a long-running mod of mine. It started off as the "Klingon Academy Total Conversion" (KATC) for Armada 1 back in 2002/2003. Several years passed and I was asked by a lot of players if I could make a new version for Armada 2, as Armada 1 was showing it's age. Took me a while to adapt the concept, but KA2: The General War was the result. It was essentially a faithful conversion of the ships, stations, weapons and setting of the space sim Klingon Academy to a strategy environment, as was it's KATC predecessor.

I felt however that it lacked some depth. It needed some lore added in game (rather than just manuals and forum posts etc) and it did have some bugs, quirks and elements I wasn't happy with. I decided to make a multiplayer/instant action addon for KA2 (since KA2 was designed to work with the original A2 Campaign missions, modified to my own TMP Era story).

KA2: Empire at War is the result. I've taken it beyond it's Klingon Academy background, but I feel it still stays true to the setting and feel; it just shows "more" than KA did. Think of the difference between say Call of Duty and Company of Heroes, or Assassins Creed and something like Medieval Total War. KA was a simulator and of course that limits how much of the game world is seen by the player. KA2 EAW by virtue of being a strategy game shows more of the world that KA is set in.

What is the setting? the storyline? stuff like that...

It's a little complex, but I shall try and put it as concisely as possible. The setting is the "TMP" (Motion Picture) Era of Star Trek, more precisely set between Star Trek V The Final Frontier and Star Trek VI The Undiscovered Country. The story is my own blending of the story arc from the Motion Picture Era films, the original Klingon Academy, and the Starfleet Battles/Starfleet Command story arc. I also attempted to explain some of the changes that took place between ST VI and the Next Generation.

The exact Gregorian calendar date I place KA2 into is 2292. The events in the original KA, which nicely lead into ST VI, took place in the middle of 2291, and naturally focused around the Klingon Empire. I tried with KA2 to tell a wider, galaxy wide story. In my storyline, prior to the events of KA was the "War of Pacification" from SFB/SFC2 with the Interstellar Concordium taking control of most of the galaxy in the aftermath of the Organian Conflict (again from SFB/SFC1). The ISC have been forced back from most sovereign territory by the combined forces of the Alpha and Beta Quadrant powers, and as is always the case, old rivalries have resurfaced and the spirit of cooperation soon forgotten. Exiled out to the very edges of the galaxy, the ISC are trying to contact their homeworld for reinforcements whilst evading the Federation Prime Fleet sent to remove them as a threat forever.

Relations between the Klingon Empire and Romulan Star Empire, allies during the Organian Conflict and the War of Pacification, have cooled to the point of an undeclared border conflict in 2290 which ended inconclusively. Romulan involvement in the recent Klingon Civil War in 2291 did not help either. The galaxy, as a whole, is at peace, a most unexpected turn of events. Every power is exhausted from the near continuous state of war since the 2280s and in some cases their own internal power struggles.

Melkor, the traitor who attempted to overthrow the old Chancellor Lorak in 2291, has resurfaced, reportedly after being in hiding in Romulan space. In an audacious move, he overthrew Chancellor Gorkon, but the High Council refused to recognise his claim. In order to prevent another devastating civil war, they granted him the honourary title of "Warlord", but honourary or not Melkor essentially took control of the Klingon Empire. Expecting his lust for power to be slaked by his new title, the High Council are shocked when in order to legitimise his claim as Chancellor, Melkor launches a devastating surprise attack on the Federation Reserve Fleet docked at their shipyard in the Pearl System. The old Federation ships dating back to the 2260s and beyond are no match for modern Klingon Warships, and at the behest of the Federation President, Ambassador Spock requests aid from the only power strong enough to aid the Federation; The Gorn Confederacy.

Allies since the 2270s, the Gorn Royal Navy sends their Grand Fleet under the command of General Thormasskt to drive back the Klingon invasion. There are many pitched battles and for many weeks the situation looks grim for the Federation. The Gorn Royal Navy soon takes the upper hand, and despite their brutally straightforward method (somewhat alarming to the pacifist Federation) they manage to prevail not only against the KDF, but against several Romulan Fleets sent to aid the invasion. Driving the Romulans out of the conflict and restoring Chancellor Gorkon as ruler of the Klingon Empire, Thormaskkt pursues Melkor to the Talh'Nor Nebula, the site of another of Melkor's acts of terrorism, and despite Melkors use of highly dangerous ex-ISC technology, defeats him for the last time.

The Federation Prime Fleet, unaware of the brutal conflict back home, managed to find and destroy the ISC staging grounds in the Galactic Fringe. Their mission successful, they found themselves trapped when the captured ISC Subspace Portal they used to traverse the distance between the Alpha Quadrant and the Fringe destabilises and collapses.

In their hunt for a way home, they soon came across unfamiliar Tholian vessels, and it becomes apparent that whilst trying to perfect their subspace portal back to their homeworld, the ISC have inadvertently contacted the Neo-Tholians in Andromeda. Pouring through a Subspace Rift, the Neo-Tholians threaten the ISC, the Federation and the whole of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants. In an unusual act of cooperation, Commander Nortene of the ISC and Captain James T. Kirk sign a mutual cooperation pact to drive back the Neo-Tholians. After a climatic battle in Andromeda, the Neo-Tholians rift to the Alpha quadrant is closed, just as the last Federation vessel returns through it back home. Commander Nortene, seeing that perhaps the Federation are a worthy race, gives Captain Kirk a cryptic warning that there are races deep in the Fringe that cannot be won over by diplomacy and to be prepared for even greater bloodshed. He then departs with his fleet, heading off out of the Milky Way, and is never seen again.

What can you tell me of the gameplay?

I've tried to make KA2 feel less like your usual strategy and more like a simulator with strategy elements. Combat now takes far longer, with ships more likely to cripple each other than be completely destroyed. The strategy elements are inspired by those from 4X games like Galactic Civilisations and Masters of Orion, and by the RTS 4x hybrid Sins of a Solar Empire. Each of the 6 playable races has a different "style" of play, with different research paths that also help explain the backstory behind KA2.

Speaking of races, the playable races are;

The United Federation of Planets
The Klingon Empire
The Romulan Star Empire
The Gorn Confederacy
The Tholian Assembly
The Interstellar Concordium

There are several map races also, such as the Orion Pirates or the Sha'Kurian Duchies, and "space monsters" such as the Asteroid Miner from SFC, and the Whale Probe from ST IV Voyage Home

Whilst each side varies, ship classes are based on those from KA and SFC. Standard hulls are the;

Escort (EC)
Frigate (FF)
Destroyer (DD)
Light Cruiser (CL)
Heavy Cruiser (CA)
Torpedo Cruiser (CT)
Command Cruiser (CC)
Battlecruiser (BC)
Dreadnought (DN)
Battleship (BB)

As well as the usual construction ships, freighters and other non-combat types. A comprhensive list is available in the PDF format manual, along with more information on planet and moon types, and a break down of starships weaponry and tactics.

http://www.moddb.com/mods/klingon-academy-ii-the-general-war/downloads/ka2-eaw-manual

I hope that help explains something about KA2. If you have any questions I haven't answered, do feel free to ask in this thread :) I'll also be posting the latest KA2 news shortly.
posted on November 8th, 2012, 5:51 pm
As promised, the latest KA2 news. :)

As players, we often forget the "little ships" when we're playing, naturally aiming for the cruisers and capital ships. One such "little ship" is the pIH (Suspicious) Class Frigate. One of the amazing things about the otherwise unremarkable pIH Class is it's versatility. There are no less than four variants in service with the KDF, and two very similar designs (stemmed from the same F5 Class Frigate as the pIH) in use by the Romulan Star Navy.

Due to the difficulty in converting models from Klingon Academy, I used a modified version of the pIH-S Class Science Frigate to stand in for the "proper" Battle Frigate variant. It also differed stylistically from the Cargo Frigate version (which was a model from SFC). Well, after painstakingly remapping the relevant textures, I have rebuilt both the Science Frigate and Battle Frigate using mesh and texture parts from KA. I also remapped the side of the "neck" of the SFC Cargo Frigate model since it didn't look as good to me as way it was mapped on the KA models.

So now, KA2 has the three main pIH variants (the Repair Frigate being a modified Cargo Frigate) all using the same base model, and using the correct model parts as per KA. It's not a huge difference but it does help tie them all together style wise. They all look like they come from the same base design now, as they should.

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I also redid the Romulan Finch and Finch-S to feature a visible CFDI Cannon in place of the Heavy Disruptors on the Klingon model (with it retextured as a sensor pod on the -S Version). In this same vein, I added a visible CFDI Cannon to the Gladius Class Frigate, and removed the torpedo tube from the Gladius-S version)

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Finally on the modified ship front, I decided to do to the Oberth what I did to the Excelsior; "SFC-ise" it. As with the Excelsior, the Oberth by p81 is a very nice model and very accurate to the series, but KA2 isn't strictly based on the series, ergo I have tried to make the models look like they did in KA. The Oberth in KA had a unique style to it compared to that seen in ST III and in TNG. (particularly the TNG one). Basically, the saucer was of a different design, the warp nacelles had a lighter blue glow rather than a blue-purple glow like TNG version, and the dark blue panels on the TNG version are slate grey on the KA-TMP one.

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The rest of my work on KA2 recently has been dedicated to fine tuning the way certain special weapons work (now that they can be implemented in a better way thanks to FleetOps code changes) and adding additional map elements.

Firstly, I have redone the CFDIC, QCB and GHRC weapons using the uniBeam weapon. They kill crew, damage shields (and not hull) and hull (but not shields) respectively, as did their KA counterparts. I have redone the Sha'Kurian missile weapons using the uniTorpedo weapon so that the 3d model used for said missiles now functions correctly (when originally made as antimatter mine type weapons, the missiles would not always point in the direction of travel).

The Lyran ESG has been remade to better function like it's counterpart in SFC. It is essentially the same as the GDDS from KA, namely it has two modes, one used for ramming ships and the other used as a defensive shield. On the subject of the GDDS, I have redone the defensive mode (as I did the ESG) using a selftargetting shield remodulation weapon rather than a corbomite reflector. This way it protects against all weapons fire, as it should.

In gameplay tweaks, I have increased the damage caused by Hydran fusion beams, but lowered the range. They are portrayed in SFB and SFC as basically being TMP Borg Cutting Beams. At close range they WILL slice you to pieces! I have lowered the damage caused by the Light and Medium PPDs, as they were too powerful. Previous the damage ratings were Light = 450, Medium = 600 and Heavy = 800. Now I have changed that to Light = 200, Medium = 400 and Heavy = 800, which also better matches the number of pulses launched by the weapon.

For coding reasons I have given the "space monster" ships a crew complement. The reason being that for some reason, unmanned ships will self-destruct after a given time in the A2 and FleetOps engine. Ships with crew do not. I have made the monsters unable to be boarded and unable to board, and altered damage rates so that the crew will not die when it by most weapons. Consider the crew in this case to be "consciousness" , so if it hits zero the monster becomes unconscious. It's the only way I could make map "monsters" hang around for longer than a few minutes. Other races like the Orion Pirates and such work fine as they have a crew.

As mentioned there have been quite a few map changes. I have implemented a new set of planetary rings along side the existing set from the Ultimate Universe mod pack. These new rings use textures from KA, and just add a greater variety of rings to choose from. I have also tweaked a few of the planet textures so they aren't quite so "bright". I find things with a slightly lower saturation to look more realistic than bright, toylike colours. I have also added an extra type of Infinite Dilithium moon specifically for the Qo'Nos System map. Yes, you guessed it, Praxis :) KA2 is set prior to ST VI remember, so, go ahead Klingons, mine away...for now! :P

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Regarding planets, I also added a new homeworld planet; Andoria. I am considering adding Tellar, since I now have 3 of the 4 founding worlds of the Federation.

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I also decided to add an extra black hole type, as well as changing the existing type. Now you have a choice of a blue-purple coloured black hole, or a red-yellow type. I suppose the colour depends on the matter it is absorbing, and of course the red-yellow type is intended for a map with that sort of ambient.

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posted on November 8th, 2012, 7:02 pm
Squire James wrote:For coding reasons I have given the "space monster" ships a crew complement. The reason being that for some reason, unmanned ships will self-destruct after a given time in the A2 and FleetOps engine. Ships with crew do not. I have made the monsters unable to be boarded and unable to board, and altered damage rates so that the crew will not die when it by most weapons. Consider the crew in this case to be "consciousness" , so if it hits zero the monster becomes unconscious. It's the only way I could make map "monsters" hang around for longer than a few minutes. Other races like the Orion Pirates and such work fine as they have a crew.


I always found active NPC's self destructing to be really annoying, though the reason it does this is so a map does not become crowded with derelicts and cause lag. Unfortunately the engine does not seem to differentiate between inactive ships with no crew and ships that have have no crew at all. Until it's fixed I just have my NPC's in Sigma respawn from an invisible base after they all blow up. I kind of like the "unconscious" idea you came up with though. It's a nice little creative workaround I might try. :shifty:

Squire James wrote:I have also added an extra type of Infinite Dilithium moon specifically for the Qo'Nos System map. Yes, you guessed it, Praxis :) KA2 is set prior to ST VI remember, so, go ahead Klingons, mine away...for now! :P


I like the idea of being able to mine Praxis. Would be funny if it exploded and destroyed everything within a certain radius after it ran out of dilithium... though I'm guessing that won't happen since it's infinite.
posted on November 8th, 2012, 7:14 pm
I did consider having "nests" of monsters that will spawn new ones, but I decided I didn't really want them to swarm over the map (although the Species 9341 map on Armada 1 was fun) so my current work around was the only way I could really get it to work. Glad you like it though. :) It's a shame I couldn't conditionally replace the crew icon and string with a "consciousness" icon and string. But, a little suspension of disbelief won't hurt.

I did consider having Praxis act like that, but I thought it'd be a bit cheesy and unfair on the player who was mining it ;) I made it an inf moon since the Klingon Empire (according to KA, after the destruction of the Talh'Nor Gates system by Melkor) mined the crap out it for dilithium and they wouldn't have done that unless it had particularly rich reserves that they thought they wouldn't destabilise or exhaust. Well, they got it half right :P

I am debating adding more types of graphically different moons and such to add map variety. I am trying to provide future map makers with a wide palette from which to work; lots of planet types, planetary rings, different moons and asteroid fields, map backgrounds, map races etc. but naturally there does have to be a limit. I guess I also like adding things that make the game feel like KA. It all adds to the effect I am going for :)
posted on November 8th, 2012, 7:39 pm
Squire James wrote:I am debating adding more types of graphically different moons and such to add map variety. I am trying to provide future map makers with a wide palette from which to work; lots of planet types, planetary rings, different moons and asteroid fields, map backgrounds, map races etc. but naturally there does have to be a limit. I guess I also like adding things that make the game feel like KA. It all adds to the effect I am going for :)


I'd push past any limits if you were willing, there's a nice method of doing so in FO if you don't mind a bit of randomness. FO uses an "object trigger" to spawn their dilithium and tritanium moons from a list of odfs at the start of a match. You could have a moon trigger for certain types of environments, for example one that spawns from a list of icy moons for an ice themed map. This is of course not just limited to moons, the triggers can be used for any type of object in the game.

If you don't want to use the trigger method, there's another method that's a little less convenient. Basically making a bat file that switches the map editor odf's files based on map themes. So if you wanted to make a volcanic themed map, you could have a bat file that replaces the editor odfs with entries for volcanic map objects and so on.
posted on November 8th, 2012, 8:09 pm
Interesting, random moons :) I may try that.

What I was referring to by limits though was not a game limit, more of a "how many moons do you *really* need?" limit :lol: I mean I can add a huge mass of planets, but there is a reasonable maximum that would ever be needed.
posted on November 8th, 2012, 8:16 pm
Squire James wrote:Interesting, random moons :) I may try that.

What I was referring to by limits though was not a game limit, more of a "how many moons do you *really* need?" limit :lol: I mean I can add a huge mass of planets, but there is a reasonable maximum that would ever be needed.


Ah I get what you mean now. I thought by limit you meant when you run out of Function key catergories. I think the limit is 144 catergories and 1728 objects for the map editor function keys. I'm not even close to that limit for Sigma even though I have a lot of map objects, and even with an insane amount of moon and planets I don't think anyone will hit that limit. :lol:
posted on November 8th, 2012, 10:56 pm
Up to now, KA2 has used a 3d model loading screen much like the original Armada, only more elaborate. This did cause a few problems however in that it was not easily editable and it could cause odd texture glitches. It also used up more resources than was really needed, and since in FleetOps the background 3d file is hardcoded to use the MBG02 file with a certain UV Map, it's not very pretty. (In the A2 version of KA2, I remapped the UV on the background SOD so the background appeared more detailed, it seems the FleetOps version won't use this SOD)

Anyhoo, so I decided that if a psuedo 2d background (tis in fact a 3d plane with 6 images mapped on it) is good enough for FleetOps, then well tis good enough for KA2. The only downside is the coloured background that shows through on a widescreen resolution but even FleetOps suffers from this problem, and with a recolour of MBG02.tga to a red colour, its not so noticeable.

So here she is, the new KA2 loading screen...
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(Full size)
http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/8781/ka2loadingsmall.jpg
posted on November 13th, 2012, 1:58 am
I will definitly download this when its done! The Oberth looks great!
posted on November 13th, 2012, 11:44 am
Thanks :) In most peoples eyes I actually made it look worse :D But as I said, trying to make it look like it did in Klingon Academy itself.

The current version is for stock Armada II (or, I should say it uses the A2 exe. It installs a bit like FleetOps) but the FleetOps version is still in beta and late production.
posted on November 13th, 2012, 9:33 pm
Decided that it was high time that the Unity and Washington Classes, both based on the later TNG Curry Class, had a facelift to match the Excelsior they are based on. The Washington is a Troop Transport (FAPA) , the Unity a Fleet Repair Tender (FAR)

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Foreground is the Washington, background the Unity

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As you can see, the Washington has a single Photon Torpedo Tube mounted in the neck section, the Unity has her Molecular Repair Beam.

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Focusing on just the Washington, here are her lightmaps.

http://imageshack.us/a/img824/4342/foscreenshot12111321183.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img802/7685/foscreenshot12111321185.png

And two ginormous screenshots to show that yes, I even replace the registry on the nacelles and on the rear of the engineering hull.

I kitbashed her together from the Constitution Class Refit (unknown modeller, KA/SFC textures) for the Nacelles, and P81s Excelsior Class (with my own SFC-ised textures) for the Saucer and Hull. Rebuilt the Nacelle Pylons and built the forward Torp Tube/Repair Beam Emitter myself. Also redid all the registries and names etc, naturally.
posted on November 14th, 2012, 9:30 pm
Currently uploading KA2 EAW V.1.2 Beta to ModDB. This is the first FleetOps version of KA2, ergo the Beta status. I have tested it but without delaying the release immensely it isn't possible for me to exhaustively test it. There shouldn't be any massive bugs, but as I am not intimately familiar with the changes that FleetOps makes to the Storm3d Engine I cannot guarantee it. Again, hence the Beta...

To install, run the installer and install in your FleetOps Mod directory (so Mods\KA2 EAW). To get it to run takes a little tweak. Remember to download the "Replacement Texture Folder" RAR also.

Firstly you will need the STA2 Classic Mod installed.
Copy the Classic Mods folder and rename the copy to "CutDown".
Open this new folder. Find the textures folder. Delete it.
Open the Replacement Texture Folder RAR and copy the Textures folder from it to your new CutDown directory

What you have essentially just done is made a bare-bones version of the STA2 Classic Mod that does not feature the texture files (_1 and _2 files) that cause KA2 to crash. It's an incompatibility i've never really been able to solve.

Once KA2 EAW 1.2 Beta has been uploaded I will post links here.
posted on November 15th, 2012, 1:12 am
You sir are my hero. I can't think of a better excuse to rummage through my old video games and find my STA2 disk and reinstall all the things.
posted on November 15th, 2012, 1:38 am
Thanks :) I appologise for the (frankly) assbackward way you have to install it even with FleetOps, but just thank the Storm3d Engine, and MadDoc for all their wonderful _1 and _2 files, even though the game was graphically miserable when it came out, inferior to it's predecessor anyway (that DIDN'T have unnecessary mipmaps) and never taxed anyone's graphics card ever.

Sorry slight rant there.

The links should work now. I think my uploads have been authed

http://www.moddb.com/mods/klingon-academy-ii-the-general-war

Link will take you to the main page for KA2 on ModDB. Should be able to find the DLs from there. I could link the DLs directly but I would ideally like people to go via the main page as, well, it increases KA2s mod rating :)
posted on November 15th, 2012, 2:03 am
pretty excited for this i have to admit..i never got a chance to play the last one that you tried to release.. you know why im sure..but lets get this one right bro!! We can just drop it right into the mod folder of 3.2.7 right?
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