Command & Conquer: Remastered Collection has been released!

Posted by Banshee at Petrolution News on June 6, 2020

Command & Conquer: Remastered collection has been released yesterday. Here's the press release:

 

 

 

Command & Conquer™ and Command & Conquer™ Red Alert defined the RTS genre 25 years ago, and now they’re back and fully remastered in 4k by the former Westwood Studios team members at Petroglyph. The Command & Conquer™ Remastered Collection includes all three expansion packs, rebuilt multiplayer, a modernized UI, Map Editor, bonus gallery of unreleased FMV footage, modding support, and over seven hours of legendary remastered music by Frank Klepacki.

Check out the remastered experience in the official launch trailer below:

 

 

Both the Origin and Steam digital Standard Editions include the remastered versions of Tiberian Dawn and Red Alert, plus all three expansion packs (Covert Operations, Counterstrike, and The Aftermath), and tons of bonus features and improvements.

Head over to the PC Specs and Requirements page to find out what you'll need to start your campaign on the battlefield. And if you have any questions about how modding will work in the game, check out our FAQ or dive deeper with the Remaster Update and Open Source / Mod Support article here.

Welcome back, Commander.

 

 

It is worth mentioning that we have added support for both Conan Unconquered and Command & Conquer: Remastered Collection here at Petrolution. Also, the OS .BIG Editor tool has been updated to its latest version, with 64 bits support, being able to load and save .meg files, and correctly displaying the high resolution textures (32 bits TGA files) used in C&C: Remastered Collection. Enjoy the game and happy modding!

Yuuzhan Vong at War Mod Spotlight

Posted by Digz at Petrolution News on December 31, 2018

The Yuuzhan Vong at War Mod got an honourable mention in this years Best Upcoming Mod of the Year Awards and did so in 2016 in a similar category, so what is all the fuss about? 

 

The mod looks to bring a new era into the game, one talked about in Star Wars lore as being the greatest threat to the galaxy, we see Grand Admiral Thrawn mention it several times in the books and it brings genuine fear that a threat so large can come from the Unknown Regions that could destroy the entire galaxy. The mod is looking to be released as some point in 2019, with various stages of releases to accompany the different elements of the mod, it's a refreshing approach from the development team to release in stages and focus on the elements of getting those right whilst working on the larger incremental updates. 

 

 

 

By focusing on just one of the game modes, "Aftermath" below is the description of the game mode which describes it better than I ever could, source can be found here:

 

The Aftermath mode is a unique and exiting experience. You are the commander of a crippled battle cruiser that was left behind after a fleet engagement. Your job is it to not only protect the beings under your command but go even further and get your ship back up and running. Resources are scarce and limited, and you’ll have to send out your transports to gather resources from debris fields and wrecked ships on the battlefield.

Once you started to scour the battlefield for scraps and debris, you will make a scary discovery: It’s not only your ship that was left behind. An hostile battle cruiser suffered a similar fate, and its commander is trying to repair the ship as well.

This is the moment you will enter into an arms race and whoever manages to repair the ship first will have the fire power to defeat the enemy once and for all.

 

The mod even has its own technology upgrade structure which it has aligned to the Yuuzhan Vong war which lasts five years, aligning it with that makes much more sense and each faction will upgrade differently according to their own characteristics by lore. More information on the technology upgrade can be found on their Mod DB page here.

 

The mod also features updates to the galaxy map and adds realism and authenticity to it, it also adds in a concept of "nav points" they allow for re-routing during the longer hyperspace routes. So with all these exciting changes to the gameplay mechanics, new factions too, and adhering to the lore that captures the imagination of most Star Wars fans it is no surprise why this mod was an honourable mention for best upcoming mod category.We expect great things here!

 

If you want to get the latest updates for the mod make sure you stay tuned here and also visit their website and their Mod DB page. 

Players Choice Mod of the Year Awards 2018

Posted by Digz at Petrolution News on December 31, 2018

The Players Choice Mod of the Year Awards hosted by MoD DB have been decided, over two weeks of voting and the top 10 have been announced! Gratefully the Empire at War games are well represented with two out of the top ten mods being from Empire at War: Forces of Corruption! Those two mods are Awakening of the Rebellion and Thrawns Revenge: Imperial Civil War. 

 

The two mods have a great following and we are as a community so proud of what these two mods, as well as all other mods for the game, have performed in these awards and I'd like to congratulate the two teams from Awakening of the Rebellion and Thrawns Revenge on behalf of the community here and at Revora for their dedication, hard work, and sheer brilliance for creating such mods that we enjoy playing so much. 

 

If you haven't heard of these fantastic mods I'll put a brief summary taken from their Mod DB pages with the relevant links and a helpful gameplay video to let you see the brilliance they have created.

 

Awakening of the Rebellion

 

Awakening of the Rebellion 2.7 is the upcoming Version and its a massive Update and Improvement then the actual release Version 2.6. The AI is almost rewritten and will be a challenge as ever before There are new Story Events and reworked existing ones. All Space and Ground-Units are updated and/or replaced with new Models/Textures. New Soundeffects and Music-Tracks, a New Galaxy Map that is almost Canon and new Space and Groundmaps.

 

 

Thrawns Revenge: Imperial Civil War

 

Thrawn's Revenge: Imperial Civil War is a total conversion mod for Forces of Corruption which brings the game into the Post-Endor period. The mod features a new era-based story progression system covering the timeline betwen the Battle of Endor and up until the start of the Yuuzhan Vong War. The mod includes hundreds of new planets accross almost 20 Galactic Conquest scenarios, hundreds of units and heroes, new particle and other graphic effects, and several new gameplay mechanics.

 

 

EaW Remake Mod - Review

Posted by Digz at Petrolution News on December 28, 2018

I'm sure everyone has heard about Petroglyph re-mastering Command and Conquer and Blizzard working on remastering Warcraft 3, I'm sure a lot of people are wondering whether Petroglyph will ever remaster Empire at War - no need Petrgolyph, The Empire at War remake team have us covered!

 

The mod has overhauled the graphics of the game and has produced such quality and depth in design it really feels like a re-mastery, maybe if Jeroenimo, the creator of the mod reads this he may change the title to Empire at War Re-mastered! Before I go any further, I truly believe a picture, or in this case a video paints a thousand words so I'll just let you watch a video on Jeroenimos YouTube channel that was released a few days ago that shows off the new control ship and battleship skins:

 

 

The level of detail in the skins is completely out of this world and when playing the game it really gives you the feel of a modern day game and when you take down a ship you smile from ear to ear, just turn up the volume and play to your hearts content!

 

The mod also makes a big statement in trying to turn the world into an ever changing environment, we have seen big developers try and fail at this, we have seen others succeed. To quote the development team "The idea is to give the galaxy a more varied and alive ecosystem where you can build different units on different planets." This is a fantastic idea and to an extent EaW vanilla already has this concept but nowhere near the scale that this mod brings, you certainly do not want your enemy to be making those all powerful interdictor ships, this means expanding your empire in the campaign map and in the correct way is crucial. The level of thought required in your campaign has just increased tenfold and this, as gamers, is what we want. We want to be challenged, we want a living world that constantly changes and it brings into perspective the way we plan ahead in our campaigns. Different planets also have increased values in regards to your economy, so for example you want to go for Bespin alongside other climate planets that will give you income boosts according to its climate.

 

The gameplay itself is smooth, aggressive, and visually appealing with an expanded roster of ships. Many people will think just putting lots of ships in a game does not make it awesome, you're quite right but ensuring the factions are balanced with a large roster of ships does it make it awesome and this mod certainly does that. If you're undecided my advice would be to give the mod a go and I promise you won't turn back. A forewarning the mod is still in development stages, it has not been fully released yet so there is still some work to do and I think a top priority is to increase the stability of the game as it does crash from time to time, that is essentially the single drawback so far. It is on the Steam Workshop or you can find it on ModDB here. The Mod won an honourable mention in this years ModDB Mod of the Year Awards in the Players Choice Awards category, I'm a little sad it did not get into the top 10 but I'm sure next year upon even more work and exposure in the community it will. I've been watching Jeroenimos YouTube channel lately, particularly the tutorial videos on the mod which is essentially him doing a walkthrough playing the Empire campaign, there must be about 10 hours worth of footage in this walkthrough split into different videos so please give them a watch and by the end of the first walkthrough which is below I know you'll be hitting that download button.

 

Petrolutions official rating review of this mod is an 8/10

 

 

Petroglyph Announce Conan Unconquered!

Posted by Digz at Petrolution News on December 26, 2018

 

The title says it all and the trailer certainly wets the appetite! Alongside Command and Conquer re-mastered Petroglyph are working on another title due to be released in the summer of 2019 called Conan Unconquered. 

 

Phoenix Rising v2.0 Public Beta

Posted by evilbobthebob at Phoenix Rising News on April 8, 2018

After the success of the demo, I have decided to move forward with a public beta phase, released via update to the Steam version of the demo. This will introduce the full set of galactic conquests that are currently work-in-progress. You should expect more bugs than the demo version, but also many more opportunities to try out new parts of the mod.

Known issues:

Missing text

Poor performance in some GCs

Missing CSA units

Unit filter buttons may sometimes display an incorrect state if pressed rapidly

Sandbox missions may show incorrect information

 

Changelog from demo:
Full GC set (Work in progress)

New filter buttons: click to hide different classes of space units/research

Updated tech trees for Rebels and Empire

Fixed some weapons not firing from muzzles correctly

Space colonies now correctly show up in battle results

 

Please report bugs here or on the Steam discussion page.

More Demo bugfixes

Posted by evilbobthebob at Phoenix Rising News on February 25, 2018

A new set of bugfixes and other improvements has made its way to the demo, both on Steam and ModDB.

 

Changelog for version 2.0.2

- Did a pass on ground unit AI combat power so the AI sends more reasonable amounts of units into land combat
- Added infantry highlight icons so that infantry are more visible in combat. Current icons are Red for Imperial infantry, Blue for Rebel infantry and White for Independent infantry.
- Fixed firing muzzle positions for AT-AT, T4 series, and ground-based turbolaser turrets.
- Improved AI starbase upgrade responsiveness, they should now tend to upgrade if the opponent does.
- Garrison structures are now visible through fog-of-war
- Kyle Katarn now uses a Stormtrooper One blaster rifle instead of the post-Dark Trooper campaign assault cannon.
- Golans and shipyards are now placed better on space maps. Golans should generally protect shipyards and the colony.
- Land combat camera now has full yaw rotation and adjusted zoom
- Added Skyhook fleet information in the startup dialogue box.
- Added TIE Starfighter specific skin (the TIE Starfighter is the first in the main TIE line)
- AI responds better to planetary bonuses.
- General scripting performance improvements
- Multiple attempts at reducing the prevalance of save game crashes.
- Updated space missile models for concussion, proton torpedo and proton rockets

Demo bugfixes

Posted by evilbobthebob at Phoenix Rising News on February 5, 2018

 

Phoenix Rising v2.0 Demo

Posted by evilbobthebob at Phoenix Rising News on 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/

Forged Battalion Gameplay

Posted by Banshee at Petrolution News on January 4, 2018

For those wondering how will the next Petroglyph's RTS, Forged Battalion, looks like? Here's a 20+ minutes video featuring its gameplay, by Smash GaminG!:





Share your comments here. What do you think? Are you interested on joining its early access on Steam on january 16th?

Thanks Houseplant for the news tip.

v2.0 Changelog

Posted by evilbobthebob at Phoenix Rising News on 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 soon^TM

General

 

• 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

 

• 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

• 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

 

• 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

• 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.

v2.0 Demo Coming Soon(tm)

Posted by evilbobthebob at Phoenix Rising News on 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.

We're on the workshop!

Posted by evilbobthebob at Phoenix Rising News on September 3, 2017

Hey guys

 

With the update(!) to Empire at War on Steam, turning multiplayer back on, fixing some bugs, and adding Steam workshop support, I worked all day yesterday getting Phoenix Rising onto the workshop. It's available for download here: http://steamcommunit...873&searchtext=

 

Please post in this thread if you have any troubles installing/running the workshop version, as I haven't had much chance to test it myself.

8-Bits Armies for Nintendo Switch

Posted by Banshee at Petrolution News on August 30, 2017

If you are a happy owner of Nintendo Switch, you'll be happy with this news: 8-Bit Armies is being ported to your video game soon. At least, according to this "Nindies" trailer.

 

AI Breakthrough

Posted by Ghostrider at Phoenix Rising News on 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

Campaign #1 - CORE WORLDS

Posted by Ghostrider at Phoenix Rising News on December 9, 2015

At the centre of the galaxy, you find the oldest, richest, most heavily populated... and the best defended planets in the galaxy. Single planets in the Core have more financial and military influence than whole sectors in the Outer Rim.

 

 

CORE WORLDS is the first of the campaigns in the Rise of the Empire Era, which is set at the end of the Clone Wars. The formation of the Galactic Empire has been announced, but many worlds are either actively opposed to the New Order or are highly independent planets that will resist the Imperialisation of trade, commerce and law. You get to rewrite history with either the early Galactic Empire, or the scattered elements of the Phoenix Rising Movement.

 

 

All of these campaigns start with a handful of planets and outdated Republic-era and Clone Wars technologies. Many of the neutral worlds will be far stronger at the start than your small fleets, and these campaigns are lengthy. It is vital to plan for long term growth, and in many cases your production capacity will far exceed your initial income, and it is important to grow both militarily and financially.

 

The political influence of leaders also cannot be underestimated, and many politicians give time reduction bonuses on construction (motivation), and best of all, price discounts for the most influential.

 

You should also be aware that the larger starbases need considerable fleet strength, with destroyer and capital-class warship support for the level 4 and 5 starbases, before an invasion can be considered. It is no longer feasible to effectively destroy a starbase with corvettes alone, but your Level 2 starbases are vital to continued financial growth, so don’t ignore them.

 

 

It is worth noting that the income created by light transports is a percentage of the planetary income, so make sure your light transports are in orbit over your wealthiest planets. You receive light transport revenues once units have made 1 trip into hyperspace. XQ5 platforms add 25% to your base planetary income, and are well worth the 3 week production time on your richer worlds. However, there is a limit of 2 per planet, and many of your Core holdings already contain at least one customs station, with a welcome boost to revenues. 

 

Before considering invasion, make sure you scout target worlds by espionage, stealth heroes, and attacks by a lone scout unit to ensure any invasion is feasible, and that you can escape if it gets too difficult. Many worlds have interdictors in their fleets, trapping invaders to certain doom. And don’t forget about small infantry raids with up to 3 infantry units. This can be a quick way to capture lightly defended units, with the advantage that you destroy the orbiting starbase if you manage to capture the planet.

In Core Worlds, you start with 6 influential planets : -

 

PRM Abregado Rae

The smuggler port of Abregado Rae is fiercely independent and highly resistant to being ruled, and is looking to Corellia for guidance in the growing opposition to the Galactic Empire. If the smugglers on Abregado-rae can join forces with the Corellians, they could form a powerful syndicate.

Strategic Considerations: Threat from Byss.
Heroes: Obi-Wan Kenobi

 

 

PRM Alderaan

Alderaan has been a staunch supporter of the republic in the fight against the Separatists, with the Royal Alderaanian Shipyards providing the engines for the Acclamator-class Assault ships. Both influential and with excellent facilities, Alderaan is politically opposed to the New Order and Bail Organa is one of the key figures in promoting the idea of active resistance to the ever-growing power of the Office of Chancellor.

Strategic Considerations: No Immediate threats.
Heroes: Bail Organa
 

PRM Chandrila

Chandrila is a world of free speech led by Senator Mon Mothma, who led the Delegation of 2000 to limit the powers of the Chancellor. Chandrila has a strong defence-fleet and is working with both Bail Organa and Garm Bel Iblis to take increasing military action to oppose the New Order.

Strategic Considerations: Major threat from Corulag.
Heroes: Mon Mothma

 

PRM Corellia

The free world of Corellia is the leading manufacturer of light freighters and corvettes with unrivalled construction facilities. Invoking an ancient law, legendary Senator Garm Bel Iblis has kept Corellia out of the Clone Wars and is strongly opposed to the changes imposed by the New Order.

Strategic Considerations: Major threat from Byss.
Heroes: Garm Bel Iblis

 

PRM Farrfin

This smuggler world has a vibrant underworld and finds the Galactic Empire and its new taxes a considerable threat – especially as this is increasingly backed up by the Imperial Fleet and a growing Imperial Customs Service.

Strategic Considerations: Major threat from Coruscant.
 

 

PRM Fresia

This tiny island population is the home to Incom – producers of one of the most popular basic fighters towards the last days of the Old Republic – the Z95 Headhunter. Incom’s fortunes have dramatically changed for the worse with the creation of the Galactic Empire and the move towards disposable TIEs – and disposable pilots, something that the Fresians object to morally.

Strategic Considerations: Isolated, but Coruscant could be a threat in the future.

 

IMPERIAL Coruscant

 

Coruscant has everything – vast research capabilities, diverse production, immense wealth and a huge pool of talented individuals to nurture and develop. 

 

 

In addition, both Sith lords – Darth Sidious and Darth Vader - are present on Coruscant, giving the Imperial faction a huge advantage. The political and financial influence of Darth Sidious is worth several star-systems, and Darth Vader frightens whole armies, both in space and in ground combat.

Strategic Considerations: Minor Threat from Farrfin.
Heroes: Darth Sidious, Darth Vader

 

 

While the temptation is to focus on military research, some effort should be spend to upgrade the trade fleet and add to Coruscant’s fleet in case the threat from Farrfin increases. Military expansion, both north to Dolomar and south to the Deep Core should be considered.

 

IMPERIAL Byss

Byss is the center of secret holdings in the Deep Core. With a massive 20bn population of immigrants tricked into travelling to a utopian world, Byss could become a major planet of influence.

Strategic Considerations: Major Threat from Abregado-rae and Corellia

Much effort should be made to consolidate holdings in the deep core and expand as if the smuggler fleet on Abregadoe Rae is able to merge with the Corellians, then the Deep Core is in danger.

 

IMPERIAL Corulag

This model Imperial world is isolated from Coruscant by the republic influences at the Naval Academy on Anaxes, and threatened by political activists on Chandrila. It must rapidly expand its fleet and defeat pro-republican sentiments.

Strategic Considerations: Major Threat from Chandrila
Heroes: Gilad Pellaeon

 

IMPERIAL Kuat

The Kuat Drive yards have unrivalled military production capacity – as long as you have the credits to spend. 

 

 

Kuat has strong neighbours, but no immediate threats, and while it may be tempting to immediately start construction of a destroyer fleet, current limited incomes may prove this be an unnecessary strain on finances. It may be wiser in the short term to divert funds to more vulnerable holdings until their security has been established.

Strategic Considerations: No immediate threats. Powerful neighbours.
Heroes: Onara Kuat

 

IMPERIAL Gandeal

Gandeal is a mineral-rich resource world with small freighter yards that supplies the shipyards of Fondor with raw materials. This should be considered as facility for financial rather than military growth.

Strategic Considerations: Weak Military. Powerful neighbours.
Heroes: Barrow Oicunn

 

IMPERIAL Prakith

Prakith is the secret headquarters of the Inquisitorius in the Deep Core. With no immediate threats, this facility should be expanded to a support facility, building fleet and trade units.

Strategic Considerations: Light Military. Powerful neighbours. Medium term strategy Corsucant should make efforts to connect to Prakith.
Heroes: Antinnis Tremayne

 

Overall, this is a campaign for long term strategy. You certainly have far higher incomes than any other campaign in this era, but early opportunities for expansion are limited – and most be considered carefully.  However, you have access to unsurpassed shipyards and with a solid financial base, your regions of influence should expand steadily. 

State of The Mod

Posted by Ghostrider at Phoenix Rising News on October 26, 2015

First of all, I would like to apologiese to all of the fans for the total neglect and lack of news in the last year.

 

You may be mistaken in thinking nothing is happening with the mod. - You would be wrong; progress has actually been quite positive recently, but real life cuts back on modding time for most of the team.

 

Before detailing some of the more exciting developments in the mod, it's probably worth a recap of what has happened to date, as this has profound implications on my particular area of focus - the campaigns.

 

Combat Mechanic

The entire basis os space comabt has been rebuilt to match the land mechanic, with a detailed and comprehensive armor and shielding system. Shileds now absorb laser fire, ranging frmo 20% to 45%, depending on unit class. Armor grades range from 8 points in fighters to 32 points for capital class warships, and all the weapons in the mod now have different damage ratings. HP are considerably increased.

The biggest change in tactical battles, is that laser cannons, and especially light laser cannons, are unable to penetrate heavy armor. This does not mean that your fighters are redundant, far from it. A cloud of snubfighters and transports can strip off the shields of destroyers and capital-grade warships, making them much more vulnerable to turbolaser fire, but you can't kill a star destroyer with snubfighters alone - you have to have turbolaser support. Bombers get proton rockets and proton bombs, and can be pretty nasty.

 

We have also added space population. The idea is that in order to crew and maintain a space-based unit, you need a support base. Your planets provide population and without spare population you can't build anything. This explains why the Acclamator and other crew-heavy designs, such as the Dreadnaught rapidly became obsolote. The Imperial class is much more effiecient in terms of deliverably combat power vs population support required.

 

On a strategic level this adds a new dimension to the campaign scenario. You need credits AND population to build warships. As a result, we have rebuilt the entire economy from scratch, with new pricing and a detailed planetary model that calculates planetary economies based on population, tech level, agricultural base, mineral resources, underworld and manufacturing capability. Agricultural wolrds are particularly important to feed and grow your fleets.

 

Proximity Jumps and Trade Routes

We have removed proximity jumps from the mod, so all space-based travel is based on the trade route. This makes strategic planning much more interesting, and you will find that key planets that lie at the junction of major trade routes are extremely important strategically, as these act as choke points to access different regions of the galaxy.

For example. Brentaal IV, which lies at the junction of the Hydian Way and the Perlemian Trade Route, is now probably the most imporatant piece of real-estate in the galaxy and is defended accordingly!

 

Armed colonies

All coloneis, from levels 1 to 5 are now armed with turbolaser cannons, and are heavily shielded and quite difficult to kill.

You will need cruiser support to take on a level 1 or level 2 colony, and multiple cruisers for a Level 3 Colony.

Level 4 colonies are extremely challenging, and need a large fleet, with at least destroyers, if not capital-class warships to have a chance of destroying the base.

Level 5 colonies are exceptionally challenging.

And if you think these are bad news, the asteroid bases are worse, so it is vital to send out expendable scouting parties to see what you are facing before you attempt an invasion.

 

Heroes

Heroes no longer come with elite warships. They now have command abilities but are just that - indivudal beings that need to be attached to a fleet to make a difference. So Darth Vader IV on his own is just a pilot in an TIE, but with a fleet he commands on the bridge of the largest warship.

 

Back to Basics

If we now wind the clock back to early 2014, we are in the process of updating all of the old campaigns with these points in mind. We have always had a goal of adding new campaigns to each release, but had no idea of the change that was about to take place.

Our concept at the time was to create a new campaign to show the difference in strategic planning due to the lack of proximity jumps and have a campaign based on the 5 Super-Hyperrroutes of Perlemian Trade Route, Hydian Way, Rimma Trade Route, Correlian Run, and the Corellian Trade Spine.

60% of the campaign was completed when the campaign crashed on install and it soon became apparent that nothing was going to fix it. The problem was simple - too many planets and too big a campaign. The EAW engine simply couldn't handle it.

 

So we made the critical decision to break up all the existing campaigns into smaller chunks, each with fewer planets.

 

So - Core Worlds lost the Expansion region and shrunk back to the Core Worlds and the Colonies. This was highly successful and led to a better campaign with faster frame rates and quicker load times and much less lag.

 

The roll-out pulled appart the entire campaign set and rebuilt everything from scratch.

Prelminary testing of all 12 campaigns is now complete and the results are rather exciting.

 

I'll let you have more news, in detail, about each campaign in due course....

 

 

Ghostrider

 

 

 

 

Mega File Editor reads Config.meg from GreyGoo

Posted by Banshee at Petrolution News on July 30, 2015

Hello everyone!


Mike.nl has released a new version of his Mega File Editor that is able to read the encrypted config.meg file from GreyGoo. That file stores the core rules of the game, such as unit stats, behavior, AI and much more. Humans are able to understand the .XML files and the .CLP files. It is unclear at the moment if the game is really moddable or not and what would be its limitations. Mike.nl has also updated his .MEG File Format document to cover the changes in GreyGoo.



(Click the picture for a high resolution screenshot)


Head to Petrolution Mod Tools Website to download the Mega File Editor and much more. If you have any successful modding experience with GreyGoo, please, report it here and show it to us. It can seriously affect the future of this site.

GreyGoo's third patch is online

Posted by Banshee at Petrolution News on March 13, 2015

Yesterday, the third patch for Grey Goo has been released. It should be a quick hot fix patch with the following changes:

March 12, 2015 Update Notes

AI

Alhazen Human AI will no longer build all air pads and no units

Fixed an issue that could cause the AI to stop attacking

Hotkeys

Fixed an issue were hotkeys were inconsistent when using the Goo interface

Human Teleporter eject hotkey now works properly

Fixed issue where hotkeys were not properly displaying for tech upgrades

Units

Bastion taunt now properly affects Beta units that are mounted on walls

I guess that the issue that could cause AI to stop atttacking was the critical one that needed to be wiped from the history, considering that single player games are played by many people. That's probably the reason that they've made this hot fix in first place. They've been announcing some heavy ballance changes for the upcoming patches and you are able to test it already.

GreyGoo's second patch is online.

Posted by Banshee at Petrolution News on February 17, 2015

The second patch for GreyGoo has recently seen the light of the day. Here's the official changelog:

February 17, 2015 Update Notes

AI
Default AI is now Lambert instead of Random

Audio
Fixed an issue where the RTS Primer VO audio was incorrect in German

Units
Aircraft will now prioritize empty landing pads first when ordered to land by right clicking on Hangars/Airpads
Further improved the extents shrinking from 50% to 25% to minimize artillery/AoE impact of grouped units

Campaign
Adjusted Easy and Normal difficulty settings. Hard difficulty is unaffected.
Fixed an issue where script-spawned units were not being given the correct health modifiers
Fixed a bug in The Barricade that caused some enemy Guardian units to idle in brush instead of properly mounting wall pillars

Engineering
Added matchmaking improvements to allow players easier access to searching for matches worldwide
Improved logic for detecting players disconnecting to force a win or avoid a loss
Servers will now temporarily pause when connection loss is first detected
Added improvements to performance that prevents certain cases from lagging the client severely
Structures from an eliminated player will now properly clear up passability upon deletion
Fixed a crash local to 32 bit machines
Fixed a crash that would occur while loading a multiplayer match
Fixed a lock that would occur for clients when the host would close the lobby
Fixed an issue where 2v2 Ranked matches were not properly reporting
Fixed crash that would occur when starting skirmish match

Terrain Editor
Fixed crash that would occur when launching a custom map with the spigot marker inside the HQ boundaries
Fixed crash that would occur when loading an untouched custom map

UI
Moved Quick Match window up in the Multiplayer screen while search is ongoing
Added translations for new text
Fixed an issue with compressed Korean text
Added a new Extras section to the menu with a quick launch button for the Terrain Editor
Made various fixes to improve performance in the UI
Fixed an issue where the game would unpause immediately after pausing in single player

I've seen many people complaining at the lack of stability of this game. I hope this patch improves this situation.