31-12
2018
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.
31-12
2018
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 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.
8-4
2018
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.
25-2
2018
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
5-2
2018
Demo bugfixes
Posted by evilbobthebob at Phoenix Rising News on February 5, 2018
- Improvements: Improved skirmish AI, buffed AA build pad turrets (now have double fire rate), added time-scaled particles for status effects. Made easy difficulty slightly easier.
- Improvements: Added units back into skirmish mode. Further skirmish AI tweaks.
- Bug fixes: Overracer bike icons; Text fixes for Rebel structures; attempted fix for crashes on Mustafar/Clakdor; attempted fix for save game crashes.
- Bug fixes: Fixed crash on Mustafar and Clak'dor maps. Removed debug info. Fixed reinforcement problems in skirmish (side effect: skirmish Golans and GC space colonies now prevent reinforcements in a radius around them)
- Bug fixes: Fixed squadron ability autofire scripts. Fixed CSA starbase upgrade cost in skirmish. Fixed text errors with Xg Star Wing and made Dominator III SD buildable once researched. Attempted to reduce the issue where fighter/bomber/transport units fly all over the map. Attempted to further improve savegame bugs.
- Bugfix: reduced planet texture resolution to improve performance, reduce chance of savegame crashes, and because the game can't render 4k textures.
- Fix for Tarkin respawn
- Fix for Clak'Dor VII crash
13-1
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
18-12
2017
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 soonTM
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.
17-10
2017
Forged Battalion has been announced
Posted by Banshee at Petrolution News on October 17, 2017
Petroglyph Studios has announced a new RTS game for Steam known as Forged Battalion. Here's the trailer:
In this game, you're part of a resistance group, taking the world back from a military force called The Collective at the end of the 21st century.
It should come with the following features:
- Strong focus on unit customisation and building your own faction. You can alter every unit's chassis with different weapons, locomotor types and regenerative armor.
- There will be a 'persistent tech tree', meaning that each battle will contribute to your overall progress, helping to unlock new blueprints.
- There'll also be co-op and competitive multiplayer for up to eight players, also something that is being called a 'dynamic story campaign' and Steam Workshop support.
- Expect superweapons.
- The first early access version should include at least five campaign missions, different multiplayer modes and five multiplayer maps.
Forged Battalion will launch in 2018 on Steam Early Access. Thanks to Plokite_Wolf for the news tip.
10-9
2017
Installing mods for Empire at War Gold Pack - Another method
Posted by Digz at Petrolution News on September 10, 2017
I released a video many years ago on how to install mods via Steam for Empire at War and Forces of Corruption. With the release of the new patch bringing back multiplayer and whatnot I thought I'd give the game another go and try out some mods too!
I could not install them for the life of me from the steam workshop (game just kept crashing), by my old option or in the game via the "mods" option where people said it'd close the game then restart with the mod. So I went for a final push and created shortcuts instead and used the information you would put into the launch options on Steam but into the "target" box of your shortcut file of the main .exe for the game.
Watch the video below, this was the final straw before I just played online and a few campaigns and let the game rest. Fortunately it worked for me and I can enjoy some of the great mods the community has made!
4-9
2017
New Patch for Star Wars: Empire at War (Steam)
Posted by Banshee at Petrolution News on September 4, 2017
It seems that Disney has recently made some kind of deal that made Petroglyph add some interesting updates to the Steam version of the game. Here's their developer note about this subject:
A note from the developer.
Hi Everyone,
We have continued to watch the EAW community closely over the years and appreciate all the excellent support you have given us and the game. Thanks to all of you for the great feedback, awesome mod packs, and overwhelmingly positive reviews.
Check out the full press release here.
Here is a list of improvements made to the game.
· Steam multiplayer support in both FOC and EAW
· Enabled selection/list of player mods on hard drive, including mods via Steamworks
· Enabled windowed mode support
· Additional bug fixes and optimizations
We hope you enjoy this special update.
- Petroglyph
In a small note: the original multiplayer worked with GameSpy, which is gone for a very long time already.
3-9
2017
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.
25-12
2016
Happy Holidays: OS BIG Editor support for 8-Bit and Site Updated
Posted by Banshee at Petrolution News on December 25, 2016
Hello everyone! We wish you a happy holidays, regardless of your religion or if you even have holidays in the next days. And, in order to celebrate the occasion, we've decided to bring some life back to this place. Starting by the fact that many of you might be aware that Petroglyph Games has released 8-Bit Armies, 8-Bit Hordes and 8-Bit Invaders, in this year. In fact, 8-Bit Invaders was released only 9 days ago. You see? We are not that late into bring this news for you. Only miserable nine days. And of course, there is a trailer to explain to you what is it about and give a glimpse on the graphics and some of its features:
And, of course, we are adding support for these games here in Petrolution. Specially, because we do enjoy fun RTS games released by Petroglyph Games.
In fact, we've repaired all our content and updated the game icons for some of them, for the site revival.
But... some of you may be wondering... after all, isn't Petrolution a site about game modifications? Are these 8-Bit stuff moddable? To be honest, we don't know how much it could be modded. The Steam Discussions Forum for 8-Bit Invaders doesn't have a single topic about modding the game. If you browse its directory, you'll notice that it reminds a lot Empire at War in some sense. Afterall, both use the Alamo engine, except that it has received some upgrades in these years. And EAW is very modding friendly, which means that the current Alamo engine is still friendly with many things. However, so far I only could figure out that they allow you to customize the in game music quite easily there. However, we certainly want much more than tweaking the music of the game, right?
So, there is another occasional bonus of this place: we are offering you in first hand the latest version of OS: BIG Editor. This tool was supporting .MEG files for a while, but now it opens the encrypted config.meg files from Grey Goo and 8-Bit Armies, Hordes and Invaders. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out the Key and Initial Vectors from End of Nations beta, otherwise, I would have added support for that too .
Anyway, OS: BIG Editor is not the first tool to support these encrypted config.meg files, since Mike.nl was the one who figured it out and implemented this knowledge at his Mega File Editor.
So, that should allow you to modify the XML files that are used to specify the features, powers and weapons from each unit. Does the Alamo engine used in 8-Bit Armies reads external files? Is there any volunteer to figure it out and share this knowledge with us? Post your thoughts here and, if these games are really moddable as they seem to be, we'll create dedicated modding forums here.
So, share the word and enjoy the place: Petrolution lives!
7-6
2016
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
11-3
2016
8-Bit Armies
Posted by Digz at Petrolution News on March 11, 2016
Petroglyph have just released a video announcing a new game they are working on and looks close to release from the games Steam page. It's features currently indicate a simple, back to basics retro-style RTS game that will get us playing what we love: a simple, fast paced RTS! Check out the video below they released:
Here's what Petroglyph are describing this game as on their Steam page:
A Blast from the Past
8-Bit Armies is a classic, C&C-style Real-Time Strategy PC game. It's our most fast-paced, friendly, and accessible RTS game to date. Featuring offline single-player missions, co-op mode, skirmish, and PvP multiplayer modes running on dedicated servers.
Initial release includes:
- 25 offline campaign missions
- 10 co-op missions to play with your friends
- 10 multiplayer/skirmish maps that support up to 8 players online
- AI with multiple difficulty options to play with cooperatively or fight against
- Classic Base-Building mechanics let you construct the ultimate HQ from which to launch attacks against your foes
- Destructible environments on maps ranging from small to very large
- Easy to understand modern military units and structures lets RTS beginners jump right in
- From the same team that brought you RTS classics such as Star Wars: Empire at War, Universe at War, and Grey Goo
8-Bit Armies is for anyone that enjoys RTS games, or felt overwhelmed by more serious games. With hours of solo and co-op gameplay included, there's something here for everyone!
9-12
2015
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.
28-3
2015
Grey Goo's 4th patch: the ballance patch
Posted by Banshee at Petrolution News on March 28, 2015
A couple of days ago, Greybox has released the first ballance patch for Grey Goo. Here's the official notes on it with a long list of changes:
The first balance patch is here!
Here is the finalized list of changes going into the first major balance update released on Tuesday March 24th. These include revisions inspired by the testing done on our Public Test Branch. See the previous balance details here.
Any changes labeled with [PTB] resulted from data collected during the Public Test Branch.
Due to the number of balance adjustments we are implementing with this patch, both 1v1 and 2v2 ranked leaderboards will be reset upon the update's arrival. Your Elo matchmaking rating and win-loss records will be wiped during this reset, allowing you the opportunity to test your skills in a new season.
General
The formed Goo, Repair Subroutine Upgrade, and Sentinel Repair Upgrade regeneration effects now only activate when the units and structures are not actively taking or dealing damage.
Targeting priorities have been re-factored to prioritize units over structures in most cases.
Beta Faction
Air Canister Upgrade
[PTB] Range down from 450 to 350
Stalker
[PTB] Health up from 100 to 110
[PTB] Damage down from 11 to 9
[PTB] Movement speed down from 120 to 115
Stealth Sniper Upgrade
Range down from 500 to 425
Stealth is now always active outside of combat and will reapply 8 seconds after combat ends.
Predator
Health up from 130 to 140
Hailstorm
Damage down from 25 to 20
Range up from 750 to 800
Armor penetration down from 3 to 0
AoE radius down from 150 to 125
Guardian
[PTB] Rate of fire down from 1.75 to 1.5
Range down from 650 to 550
Long-Range Ballistics Upgrade range down from 1200 to 900
Long-Range Ballistics Upgrade damage down from 35 to 25
Cloudburst
[PTB] Damage down from 40 to 24
Stratus
Health down from 100 to 75
Warbird
Rate of fire up from 0.5 to 1
Ammo up from 4 to 5
Cost up from 270 to 315
Nimbus
Ammo up from 2 to 3
Damage down from 75 to 50
Nimbus Napalm Upgrade now lasts 5 seconds down from 5.5
Nimbus Napalm Upgrade AoE radius down from 250 to 200
Avalanche
Shot timings have been shifted to have a smaller cast time and a longer cooldown. Rate of fire remains the same.
Cost down from 675 to 600
Hand of Ruk
Range down from 2000 to 1500
Wall
Armor down from 3 to 0
Build time up from 25 to 30
[PTB] Pillar cost up from 50 to 90
Pillar health down from 1250 to 1000
Straight cost up from 50 to 90
Small Power Hub
Health up from 300 to 400
Medium Power Hub
Build time down from 50 to 45
Large Power Hub
Health down from 900 to 800
Repair Pad
Heals for 15 every 2 sec up from 20 every 5 sec
Build time down from 50 to 30
Cost down from 500 to 300
Health down from 1500 to 1000
Hanger
Rearms aircraft 1 ammo every sec up from 1 ammo every 2 sec
[PTB] Build time up from 30 to 35
[PTB] Cost up from 240 to 245
Extractor
Health down from 1000 to 750
[PTB] Extractor size reduced to match the Human Extractor
Harvester
[PTB] Health up from 80 to 120
[PTB] Movement speed up from 100 to 125
Refinery
[PTB] Creates Harvesters every 20 sec up from 15
"No-Build" Influence Radius
Small Hub radius increased from 400 to 600
Medium Hub radius increased from 400 to 600
Large Hub radius increased from 500 to 600
Headquarter radius increased from 800 to 1000
Goo Faction
Drover
Range down from 250 to 200
Strider
[PTB] Health down from 125 to 115
[PTB] Rate of fire down from 1.25 to 1
Tempest
Damage down from 25 to 18
Small Protean
Health up from 150 to 160
Small and Large Protean
Slow enemies by 50% down from 90%
Crescent
Damage down from 10 to 6
Range down from 1500 to 1000
Projectile speed up from 150 to 200
Projectile Endurance Upgrade AoE radius down from 100 to 75
Projectile Endurance damage down from 5 to 2
Projectile Endurance range down from 1500 to 1000
Destructor
[PTB] Rate of fire down from 1.75 to 1.5
[PTB] Damage down from 42 to 36
[PTB] Health down from 155 to 150
Movement speed down from 120 to 105
Target damage and splash damage have been separated. Splash damage down from 42 to 15 but target damage remains the same.
Purger
Range up from 800 to 1000
Damage down from 400 to 300
Catalyst Vents
Grant 160 health per pickup to the Mother Goo and Proto-Purger up from 85
Mother Goo
Stealth detection range down from 800 to 400
Armor penetration down from 10 to 0
Max health has increased from 1300 to 1600
Health per size has increased from 200 to 320
Catalyst digestion health per second up from 5 to 8
First size max health down from 500 to 320
Initial Mother Goo starting health down from 400 to 240
Proto-Purger
[PTB] Starting health down from 2000 to 200 to maintain build time from Catalyst Vent change.
Human Faction
Trident
[PTB] Health up from 115 to 140
[PTB] Damage down from 8 to 7
Build time up from 20 to 25
Cost up from 100 to 125
Revolver
Damage down from 6 to 5
[PTB] Health down from 100 to 95
Dagger
Armor down from 3 to 0
[PTB] Range up from 350 to 375
[PTB] Damage down from 3 to 2
Health up from 75 to 90
Gladius
[PTB] Range up from 350 to 400
Movement speed down from 95 to 90
Howitzer
[PTB] Cost down from 440 to 385
Damage down from 30 to 23
Range up from 800 to 900
Armor penetration down from 3 to 0
AoE radius down from 150 to 100
Mine (default) no longer has stealth
Mine duration down from 12 to 3 sec
Proximity Mine Radar Upgrade mine duration down from 18 to 9 sec
Longbow
Movement speed down from 130 to 110
Damage down from 42 to 24
Lancer
Damage level one DPS down from 50 to 10
Damage level two DPS down from 60 to 40
Damage levels one and two now last 3 seconds up from 2
Scimitar
Damage down from 125 to 60
Ammo up from 1 to 2
Rate of fire up from 1 to 2
Cost up from 300 to 350
Mine Drop Upgrade
[PTB] Armor penetration down from 3 to 0
[PTB] Mine no longer has stealth
[PTB] Mine duration down from 10 to 6
Monitor
Health up from 75 to 100
[PTB] Movement speed down from 275 to 250
[PTB] Vision up from 1000 to 1200
[PTB] Cost up from 75 to 105
[PTB] Build time up from 25 to 35
Scythe
Movement speed down from 400 to 375
Armor penetration down from 6 to 0
AoE radius down from 75 to 50
Damage up from 13 to 20
Rate of fire up from 0.5 to 1.25
Aircraft Repair Upgrade
Repairs 8% every sec up from 5% every sec
Alpha
Movement speed up from 50 to 75
Explosion interval health threshold down from 500 health to 300 health
Repair Subroutine Upgrade
Repairs 10% every 5 sec up from 5% every 5 sec
Air Pad
[PTB] Cost up from 60 to 80
[PTB] Build time up from 15 to 20
Rearms aircraft 1 ammo every sec up from 1 ammo every 2 sec
Conduit
[PTB] Health up from 250 to 300
Teleporter
Build time up from 75 to 120
Cost up from 750 to 1200
Cooldown up from 150 to 180
Now has a visible 5 second charge up telegraph and an audio queue before activation
Wall
Armor down from 6 to 0
Build time up from 30 to 40
Pillar cost up from 30 to 80
Pillar health down from 1000 to 750
Straight cost up from 30 to 80
Regeneration up from 15/sec to 25/sec
Human Sentinels
Now have a population of 1
Take 10 seconds to teleport up from 5
Artillery Sentinel
Range down from 1750 to 1000
[PTB] Damage up from 15 to 20
[PTB] Health up from 250 to 300
Armor down from 6 to 3
Anti-Heavy Sentinel
Armor down from 6 to 3
Anti-Air Sentinel
Damage down from 8 to 4
Armor down from 6 to 3
Extractor
Health down from 1000 to 750
Harvester
[PTB] Movement speed down from 130 to 125
Refinery
[PTB] Creates Harvesters every 10 sec up from 7.5
"No-Build" Influence Radius
Core radius increased from 800 to 1000
17-2
2015
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.
27-1
2015
Grey Goo has been released.
Posted by Banshee at Petrolution News on January 27, 2015
Ladies and gentlemen, as the title of this news says, Grey Goo is the latest game released by Petroglyph Games. Of course, Petrolution will be supporting it. You can now post your mapping tutorials, tools and anything related to Grey Goo in our site. And in order to start our support for this new RTS game, we have an exclusive updated Open Source .BIG Editor in our download section. This new version of OS BIG Editor opens .meg files with format 2 and 3 (Grey Goo uses format 3) from newer games from Petroglyph. It still does not open the nasty config.meg file from Grey Goo, neither the one from End of Nations beta. They seem to be protected with some very odd sorcery that has yet to be studied by the community. So, that's it. Get posting and help us to make this game become more modding friendly.
22-6
2014
Anatomy of a Starship
Posted by evilbobthebob at Phoenix Rising News on June 22, 2014
Probably the best way to introduce the new space combat mechanics is to take a detailed look at our new (WIP) infobox layout. You may recognise many of the elements from the revamped land combat; many of the elements are also new. I'll go through each in the order they appear using the classic example of the Imperial II-class Star Destroyer. Please note that all values shown are WIP.
Tactical Population Cost
This is a new number based on the total volume of the hull (or hulls in the case of a starfighter squadron). It is balanced around the idea that an Executor-class Super Star Destroyer consists of 400 population points, the maximum available space population. For carriers, it also includes the volume of all the starfighter squadrons as in the case of the Imperial II. This means that you can field 5 Imperial II-class and their entire complements at one time. These values are currently in the process of testing and tweaking, and the exact values may be different in the released version.
Starship Icon
All the starship icons have been brought into lineusing uniform lighting and rendering settings to create a better quality icon set.
Starship Name
As usual, we retain the full names of all ships, including their upgrade version.
Starship Class
From Starfighter through to Dreadnaught, a starship's class helps shape its maneuverability and sensor range statistics. It also determines which shipyard type is needed to construct it.
Special Abilities
With the new version, we have many greatly improved autofire scripts for ship special abilities, so we feel comfortable including more than the two accessible from the GUI. In most cases, the tractor beam will be the hidden, autofired ability, and it will usually target whatever the ship has been told to attack. Note here the Imperial II has a Tractor Beam, Emergency Thrusters (power to engines ability) and Blast. Blast is a new ability we have added to many main-line combat ships. It moves the firepower of the main battery (in this case, the octuple turbolasers and turboions) up a notch, so that has increased range and firepower.
Manufacturer
We have always included manufacturer bonuses on various appropriate planets such as Kuat. Now you can see exactly which ships will benefit, with the inclusion of the Manufacturer in the infobox.
Cost
This is the base hull cost, not including complement (which is included in the final cost at a 50% discount). Costs have been modified across the board to provide a more challenging economic planning experience.
Time
This is the base hull construction time, measured in galactic time. For the Imperial II, this is 15 weeks. Note that building over a world with appropriate shipyard bonuses, or by building more of the same class of shipyard, this time can be dramatically reduced.
Dimensions
Width x length x height, in meters, the basic size of the hull.
Volume
The total volume of the hull in cubic meters, often using exponential notation. Here for example, the Imperial II is 121 million cubic meters in volume. This statistic informs hitpoint calculations and has a great effect on the likelihood for a ship to be hit by enemy fire.
Acceleration
With the change to the new space combat mechanics, we have moved towards a more "realistic" approach. While ships still have a capped top speed, it is directly proportional to their acceleration. This is measured in terms of G-force, the acceleration experienced by a being on the surface of a planet with standard gravity, roughly 10 m/s2.
Maneuvrability
This statistic is the turning speed of the starship, measured in degrees per second. It is primarily class-based.
Hyperdrive
The class of the hyperdrive in the starship (if any), which determines its ability to travel across the galaxy in hyperspace. The smaller the better!
Shielding
Here is one of the new statistics. Shielding is now measured in Shield Points (SP) and has an absorption percentage shown after it. This is the amount of damage the shield can absorb from a single shot before it takes SP damage. So for example, a turbolaser shot hitting the Imperial II shield with a damage of 96 will do around 58 points of shield damage.
Hull
Hull has also changed a great deal. It is now measured in Hull Points (HP), like that of land combat. This value is primarily volume-based. Following the HP is the armour value and type. The Imperial II has 32 Vehicle armour. This means that it absorbs 32 damage from any incoming shot before the hull itself is damaged. For example, the same 96 damage turbolaser will do 64 points of hull damage on impact.
Range
This statistic shows the maximum and minimum ranges of the weapon systems on the ship, followed by its line of sight range. All values are in meters. In this case, the longest range weapons are the octuple turbolasers, while the shortest are the individual turbolaser cannons.
Armament
We have greatly condensed the weapons display into a shorthand that provides much more information. We have done away with "light", "heavy" and so on, instead simply telling you the weapon type, their number, and their damage output. So, here the Imperial II has 6 octuple turbolasers with 240 damage per bolt, 2 octuple turboions with 240 damage per bolt, 2 triple turbolasers with 144 damage per bolt, and so on. Note that ion weapons do 200% damage to shields, but cannot damage anything except Droid armour. The number of tractor beams is also noted, which adjusts the cooldown of the tractor beam ability.
I hope this little snippet has provided some insight to the changes we've been making over the past 18 months. If you have any questions, I will endeavour to answer below, however note that I did not implement these changes myself.
17-6
2014
News. Now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time...
Posted by evilbobthebob at Phoenix Rising News on June 17, 2014
Hello Phoenix Rising fans.
First off, I'd like to apologise for the extremely long time between news posts. If this was the only way you kept up with the mod, I can forgive you for thinking we'd ceased development. Those of you who read more of the forums see the team members making comments from time to time, and we made a call for alpha and beta testers for the latest version over the past year. Still, this doesn't make up for the silence we've sustained up to now.
I'd like to change that myself, primarily because I finally have some free time and partly because our team leader and the prime driver of the mod, Phoenix Rising, is without a computer capable of doing modding right now. This isn't particular cause for alarm, because the current build of the mod is very feature-complete. However, there still remain areas that need polish and improvement.
So what have we been doing for the past two years? Our initial plan for the next version of the mod was primarily based on integrating the information provided by the release of The Essential Atlas. As software project tend to do, we experienced some rather strong feature creep, and as one thing led to another, we realised we had a version of the mod that is no longer a mere incremental update. In fact, we have:
- General
- Made numerous changes to improve performance
- Remade and rebalanced the hero system
- Rebalanced tech trees
- Galactic Mode
- Brought our galactic maps in line with The Essential Atlas
- Added new planets
- Entirely rebalanced and remade our core sandbox campaigns (still a work-in-progress)
- Created a new planetary bonus system
- Created a new hyperspace system
- Rebalanced freighters, including the addition of light transports
- Improved the display of research
- Combat
- Improved land combat
- Begun the process of adding infantry weapon models
- New units
- Improved weather system
- Added many new maps in land and space
- Entirely revamped space combat to be in line with land combat:
- New armour, health and shield system
- New weapon balancing and types
- Better display of unit statistics
- New units
- Increase in map size to accommodate the changes
- Improved land combat
Many of these changes, especially those based around planets and maps, have already been mentioned in prior news posts. Check those for more information on those specific topics. As for the rest, I hope I can bring you more news posts in the near future providing examples and details. In the mean time, I'm happy to answer questions you may have here on the forums.
evilbob