The Revolution Is Here: Phoenix Rising v1.2! Phoenix Rising - March 25, 2012 The culmination of 39 months of work. Hope you enjoy it! We look forward to your feedback. If you've previously installed other mods, make sure they haven't put any files in XML or Scripts folders in EaW\GameData\Data and FoC\Data. PR v1.2 is fully compatible with other mods; it just looks like certain mods are incompatible with us! If you've previously installed the LucasArts 64-bit OS, 2+ GB RAM patch found here, you must apply this compatibility fix after running the PR v1.2 installer. The LA patch alters the original files for FoC v1.1, creating an instability in mods with custom AI. PR v1.2 allows 2+ GB RAM natively. Mirror 1 - Mod DB Mirror 2 - FileFront/GameFront Comments (297) Version 1.2 In Numbers Phoenix Rising - March 24, 2012 I had a noble goal when we started work on this version: to keep a record of everything we would change. Somewhere between the advantage revamp and the AI trials, that goal became impractical - nothing was being spared from improvement. So, in lieu of a conventional changelog, here's some analysis on just how different the game is from v1.1. 532/577 game object XMLs modified or created for this release. 3/7 enumeration XMLs changed. 82/82 custom AI XMLs implemented. 320/320 LUA scripts edited and compiled for v1.2. Several major code projects were completed in the course of development. The complement formula was overhauled and transports were allowed to be carried (total spawn tags increased from 655 to 1218). Laser color variants were finished (+1641 blue laser hardpoints alone). Heroes were given leadership qualities, greatly expanded, their ships switched to canon variants, and generally don't resemble their former selves (+112 named hero variant net gain). A mechanic was devised for planetary advantages and galactic combat bonuses were standardized (advantage abilities expanded to 372 from 151). Custom AI was realized for the first time, with cunning infrastructure logic (56 novel equations). The land rules were redone from scratch, in essence, making this the Land Mini-Mod (43 new infantry types converted from vanilla assets, 3 droids, 8 vehicles, 15 buildables). Salvaged variants, along with most legacy units, projectiles, damage/armor types, corruption data, cinematic data, and story props were cut for the sake of optimization. It's hard to track every minor change done for performance, so here are some current benchmark comparisons courtesy of Ghostrider: 2.2 GHz dual-core laptop with 2 GB RAM running Windows 7 v1.1 Loading Logo - 55 s, Menu - 125 s Core Worlds - 160 s, 2 FPS v1.2 Loading Logo - 55 s (-0%), Menu - 110 s (-12%) Core Worlds - 120 s (-25%), 8-9 FPS (+425%) 3.0 GHz dual-core desktop with 2 GB RAM and a GeForce 7200 running Windows XP v1.1 Loading Logo - 30 s, Menu - 80 s Core Worlds - 100 s, 7 FPS v1.2 Loading Logo - 25 s (-17%), Menu - 75 s (-6%) Core Worlds - 75 s (-25%), 26-30 FPS (+400%) This will be the first release where we've completely moved away from my time as campaign designer - and so much for the better. Ghostrider brought his vision of the Thrawn Offensive and Operation Shadow Hand to life, redoing every single unit in the process. We added a brand new historical campaign in Operation Skyhook, and the heroes to match. I can't even venture a guess at how many passes were made to update the sandbox set, but assuredly everything has been optimized. Historical campaigns now get free upgrades to start; we fixed the tech slider for Rebels and the credit slider also finally works properly. We assembled a team of testers, led by Reedek, who spent an unfathomable number of hours poring over these campaigns for bugs. Finally, Ghost drafted a 115-page technical manual to explain the intricacies of the mod. Aside from name strings, all planetary text, all hero text, and all land text was rewritten. The campaigns all have new intro text. Land stats were put on individual lines and all buildable land units were given descriptions. The master text file added 429 kB. 7 GUI dialogs were modified. 8 Conquest land maps were added and the terrain of every GC space map was spread out to better accommodate pathing. A couple map-related exceptions were caught. 2 Skirmish space maps also made it in. Not to worry; evilbobthebob was only promoted from the testing team at the tail end of our beta phase. 326/868 new ALO model exports. +211 model net gain. 291/331 new ALA animation exports. +298 animation net gain. 958/1402 DDS textures edited. +598 texture net gain. 305 TGA icon changes or additions, most hero icons thanks to Invadious. 28 space unit models added: Acclamator I, Acclamator II, Action VI, B-wing, Cargo Containers B-D, Droid Tri-Fighter, Gozanti, I-7 Howlrunner, IRD, Research Station, Shadow Droid, Space Colony 1-5, TIE Bomber, TIE Drone, TIE Fighter, TIE Interceptor, TIE Targeter, T-wing, Victory I, Victory II, World Devastator, Xiytiar. 7 space unit model spin-offs or significant changes: Im418, Independence MC120, Liberty MC80, Reef Home MC80, Tector I, Tector II, TIE Interceptor RG. 9 space units with new animations: Barloz, BFF-1, BTL Y-wing, Delta-7, DX-9, ATR-6, RZ-1 A-wing, T-65 X-wing, Z-95 Headhunter. 8 unique Nertea land unit models added: Armored Freerunner, Arrow-23, Heavy Tracker, Overracer, PAS, PX-10, QH-7 Chariot, Talon I. 6 third-party land unit models added: B1 BD, B2 SBD, Greedo, LAAT, Luxury, T-16. Custom single energy bolts sized for damage added. 10 land unit model spin-offs or significant changes: A6 Juggernaut, AT-AP, Digger, Garm Bel Iblis, Guild House, Navy Trooper, Spy Network, Storm IV, T-47, X-34. 21 map props added. With that said, the release candidate for v1.2 is undergoing a final evaluation by testers at this moment. If nothing goes catastrophically wrong, the release date will be Sunday, March 25th at 00:00 GMT-5. Comments (51) ...the more star systems slip through your fingers Ghostrider - December 21, 2009 The spark that ignited the formation of the Rebel Alliance has become a roaring flame of defiance across many parts of the Mid and Outer-Rim. Insurgents in the Tion Hegemony are beginning to combine with Mon Calamari forces following the successful civil uprising that liberated the waterworld after a series of Imperial atrocities. The desperate struggle for freedom, equipped with stolen Imperial warships, privateer vessels and the secret conversion of liners to warships in underwater shipyards has forced the Imperials to withdraw from the region, and a large mixed fleet of Mon Calamari designs and human forces from the Allied Tion are gathering at Turkana. This fleet is being further strengthened by the presence of hand-made T-65A X-Wings stolen by defecting Incom scientists in a daring raid on Fresia, and technicians have now made schematics for the mass production T-65B model available to all Alliance forces. The fleets of Turkana and Ralltiir raid Imperial bases This news has had repercussions throughout the Empire, and the entire Kwymar Sector has rebelled and given total support to the Alliance Cause. This is not without its risks, as the Alliance leadership is concerned about potential reprisals, and while the Mon Calamari have contributed a large number of converted warships to the emerging rebel fleet, in many locations the meagre stock of civilian and trading starships lack the firepower to even deal with an Imperial cruiser, let alone any of the capital warships that are even now looking to suppress any world that shows anything other than total acceptance of Imperial law. Taking losses from illegal warships Worse still, recent intelligence reports are much more frightening. The existence of the DEATH STAR project casts a shadow of fear across the entire galaxy, although it is not known where this battlemoon is being built. While its final weapon systems are unknown, the test firing of a small prototype super-laser on Toprawa has been seen to easily destroy a Star-Destroyer in orbit, and the final weapon system for the DEATH STAR is said to be much more powerful. Bothan spies have found that huge amounts of material and funding have been diverted to a secret projects near Kessel and also to the prison world of Despayre. Listening posts in the Cron Drift have also seen a marked increase in freight traffic to both systems, suggesting that this could be where the project will be completed. Charging an Imperial Star-Destroyer However, Alliance High Command currently lacks the fleet firepower to undertake a assault on this scale. In the meantime, several tasks must be attempted, and the disruption of Imperial supply lines is a key goal. The Liberty and her task force have been dispatched to the Corporate Sector with orders to seek and destroy unprotected Imperial interests in the region. Mustafar is also vulnerable to raiding forces and is a good target for a starfighter strike from Polis Massa, and Bothuwai is near to open rebellion, although several resistance groups have recently been slaughtered by the Emperor in retaliation for information leaks. Elsewhere in the galaxy entire corporations have sided with the Alliance, the Yutrane-Trakata plant at Doniphon, and the Koensayr facilities on Ralltiir are probably the best suppliers of war materiel. The call to arms has been heard and volunteers are joining the army ranks daily, though that alone may not be enough. The Force must be with us for the final confrontation, and the Rebellion has lacked a Jedi champion since Galen Marek. To that end, Bail Organa has secretly tasked his daughter with tracking down whatever remnants of the Jedi may still exist. The Force must be with us for the final confrontation... Comments (18) The Thrawn Offensive Part I – The Economic War Ghostrider - June 18, 2009 The revamped Thrawn Campaign, renamed to the Thrawn Offensive for reasons that will soon be clear, is nearly done. For those of you not familiar with this campaign, it is set in the post-Endorian New Republic, when Grand Admiral Thrawn appeared out of the Unknown regions to weld the Imperial fleet into a cohesive force, and following the discovery of the Katana Fleet dreadnaughts, Thrawn proceeded to dismantle the New Republic, taking a large number of planets in rapid succession, inflicting heavy losses on the New Republic before his assassination at Bilbringi by his bodyguard Rukh. This revised campaign attempts to capture this explosive conflict with modern Imperial and Republic warships – full details of which will be given in Parts II and III respectively. It soon became clear in the development stages that the challenge with this campaign was the economy – and how to balance the economies of both opposing sides. We now have a standardised method for determining the amount of starting cash in any given campaign. Bonuses are given for each type of planet controlled by the faction in question, with significantly greater cash bonuses for Core worlds than those on the outer rim. To this base sum is added about 2 month’s cash reserves based directly from the faction’s weekly income. A severe maintenance penalty is then applied for the military construction cost for all fleet combat units – the bigger your military, the less cash you get at the start. The Imperial War Machine The Imperial economy is the simpler model, so let’s take a look at the numbers. The Imperials start with only 2 core and colony worlds, 4 mid rim, 8 inner rim and 6 outer rim worlds, giving a starting cash bonus of $145,000 (with core worlds contributing much more than rim worlds). The Imperials have a reasonably large trade fleet, mostly centred on Chazwa and Svivren, comprising mostly of Action IV Mark IIs, BBF-1’s, CTF-1’s, and Super VIII Bulk Cruisers, with a handful of armed Action IV Mark III’s. Freight carrying armed transports, such as the Lambda-a & b, as well as the more heavily armed Sentinel and Sentinel Mark II tend to be located on military worlds more for their assault capabilities than their revenue generating ability. Even with the huge trade fleet on Svivren, the Imperial economy was still a meagre $17,000 per week compared to the $22,000 for the New Republic, and a further source of revenue was required for the Empire to have sufficient economic muscle to instigate a major conflict. The solution was simple, in the 3 years prior to the assault, it was assumed that Thrawn’s meticulous attention to detail would ensure a strong economy, and so many Imperial worlds have been heavily industrialised, with the majority of space and land slots filled with construction yards, barracks, defensive systems and mining facilties to boost the Imperial war machine. So despite the Empire having fewer planets than the New Republic, it has a higher weekly income, if only by a fraction. This contributes a further $168,000 to the starting cash reserves. The penalty for this industrialisation and the massive military build up is a large maintenance bill of $213,000, leaving the Empire with a paltry $100,000 starting credits. Diplomatic expansion The situation for the New Republic is more complex. With a number of Alliance military victories, such as the taking of the Core Worlds, and the destruction of rogue warlords, such as Zsinj, the New Republic has been focussing diplomatic efforts to expand its membership, with considerable success, with the political leadership successfully persuading the Bimms to join the Republic only days ago. In addition to leaving many worlds relatively undeveloped and with little focus on infrastructure, this has stretched the ageing merchant fleet to the limit, with craft such as the 20 year old Gallofree Transports and Quazar Fire Bulk cruisers and a few captured Imperial transports unable to meet the demands of an expanding republic. Even and the recent addition of new freighters such as the MCF-1 and the heavily armed YT-2000 has not helped much as these are more suitable for smuggling operations and moving high value gemstones past customs stations than the bulk transport of goods to support major interstellar trade routes. The New Republic has taken the drastic step of cannibalising some of its older warships to make much needed cargo ships. CR90s, EF76 Frigates, Mark I Dreadnaughts and even Liberty-class Star Cruisers have been gutted and pressed into freight duties. While these ships maintain their military grade shields, they only possess skeleton crews and, at best, will only have defensive armaments, if any. Worse still, these ships do not have the damage control parties needed to survive long exposure to enemy fire, so loss of these ships would have high impact, as their freight carrying ability is considerable, and furthermore their home port of Sluis Van must be protected at all costs. It should also be noted that unlike the Imperial fleet, which has tended to separate military worlds from trading ones, most Republic worlds carry both military fleets and a range of small merchant vessels in orbit. Overall, this has given the Republic a well needed cash injection, with the added benefit of removing older ships from military service and thereby reducing the fleet maintenance bill at the same time, giving a healthy $200,000 starting credits at the beginning of the campaign. The Future for Economic development The high level of industrialisation on most Imperial worlds leaves little room for further economic expansion, and while some planets are almost totally undeveloped, such as Honoghr and Trogan, there is good reason for this – development of these worlds will only bring very limited benefits. The Empire will be looking to its military forces to find new sources of income, and Grand Admiral Thrawn has located a number of vulnerable planets that should be easy to capture and exploit. For the New Republic, some hard choices must be made. While the cash reserves will be vital to boost a weakened military, some effort must be made to quickly increase the level of industrialisation on some of the safer worlds, and to build up the limited military construction facilities to defend the Republic from the predations of a Grand Admiral. Comments (28) State Of The Mod Phoenix Rising - July 21, 2008 A lot of people are probably wondering where I went. And I don't really have a fantastic explanation; the daily grind concerning finishing up college simply got to the point where I was forced into putting the mod on hold. But that was a couple of months ago. As I gradually received fewer demands on my time, I decided that I could not return to the public eye without having accomplished something significant, realizing that the time I have left as an "unemployed" student is coming rapidly to a close. So, despite my extended disappearance from the forums, this mod is not dead, not even close. Quietly, behind the scenes, I've been putting the finishing touches on space combat. First and foremost, after two setbacks and two jury-rigged fixes, starbases levels have been torn asunder. Now, in order to build from the entire spectrum of ship classes at a single planet, you will need to construct one of each of the five starbases there. Specifically, Level 1 produces utilities, fighters, and bombers; Level 2 produces transports, freighters, and corvettes, Level 3 produces frigates and cruisers; Level 4 produces destroyers and capitals; and Level 5 just produces dreadnoughts. The impetus behind doing this was to reduce the likelihood of units falling off the right of the interface, but more importantly, it allows for specialization previously unseen in Empire at War: if you build two of the same starbase level at a single location, all of the corresponding ship classes will be built in half of the time. It is now possible to, for example, dedicate a planet entirely to churning out new capital ships by installing five Level 4 starbases there. The only exceptions to this are research and upgrades, which take the same amount of time regardless of how many duplicate bases there are; however, you will still need the proper starbase in orbit in order to make such developments. One of the improvisations I had to make to get this to work properly was to introduce a central, logical starbase to the game because the actual starbases could no longer serve in that function and other orbital structures seem to require exactly one to be present. Therefore, I came up with a space colony concept to serve as the focal point of your orbital presence. Space colonies work just like vanilla starbases in that higher levels replace lower levels, except they're cheap, totally defenseless, and only provide additional population. You must build a space colony in order to put any other structure in orbit; that's just how the engine works. Furthermore, if you lose the space colony in combat, all other structures will be lost as well at the end of combat. You've been warned. The remaining majority of my work has been on revisiting the existing content from v1.0 and ensuring that it's as good as it can be. That could mean anything from redoing the previously-estimated stats for a ship based on new source material to devising a more interesting or fair upgrade branch to improving art assets. In the latter case, I'd like to unveil the new look for the Lancer-class Frigate: I was never completely happy with the model that's currently in use, so I took the opportunity to bring in this one by Axingus and it's nearly perfect. Also, if you look closely, you can see a couple of the new projectile damage particles that I've come up with. Remember, the more feedback you as the player can give me as to what's off in the current release, the better I can respond to it in the next. Everything is still on the table. Of course there is more, but it's not all ready to be revealed just yet. Hopefully that's enough for now though. I'm going to attempt to catch up on responses to posts and messages over the next few days, so I may not get to everything right away. Thanks for your patience. If you tried to contact me recently and I obviously didn't reply, you have my sincerest apologies. There's really no excuse for it whatsoever, but I'll try to get back with you shortly, if possible. Comments (81) Some Love From PC Gameplay Phoenix Rising - April 1, 2008 For those of you living in Belgium or Holland, you might have already had the opportunity to read about Phoenix Rising in your local gaming periodical, but for those of us not so fortunate, here's a recap. PC Gameplay, a Dutch-language magazine circulated throughout the Low Countries, featured us rather prominently in their mods section for the March 2008 issue. From what I can garner, the review was quite positive, even going so far as to compare us to an official product. I'm, of course, both flattered and thrilled that so many people are enjoying the hard, often uncompromising effort that was put into Space. But the truth of the matter is that this mention was no random coincidence. Getting an article published for us was wholly the enterprise of our very own Theempirewins. Many thanks to Peter for taking it upon himself to do this for us out of no prompting of my own and also PC Gameplay for sending it to the presses! May it be the first of many such mentions for PR. Comments (9) Mod Of The Year 2007 Kicks Off Phoenix Rising - December 2, 2007 The polls opened today for Mod DB's 2007 Mod of the Year Awards event. This is the definitive player's choice awards event for the amateur game development community - the past three winners have all gotten their projects commercialized and published via Steam or some other means. You know the history of Star Wars strategy games and you've seen what I've been able to do alone on a closed-source mod, just imagine what could be accomplished with a little professional help. If you're enjoyed the mod at all, please vote for us this year by clicking on the golden wrench below. In the preliminary round, you can nominate as many mods as you want, so it can't hurt. Here are some important dates in the voting process: December 2nd - nominations begin, you can nominate as many different mods as you like. December 15th - field is narrowed to the Top 100 nominations. December 20th - voting begins, you can vote for up to three mods in the Top 100. January 1st - voting ends. January 25th - player's choice winners revealed. January 26th - editor's choice winners revealed. I absolutely believe Phoenix Rising can make the Top 100. Our Mod DB topsite was averaging around 50th overall before they pushed out the new version and broke the daily reset. If that's any indication, we should put up a fight against some of the larger communities, but it's going to be close and we're going to need all the votes we can get. Whatever you can do to get the word out would be much appreciated. Comments (78) Phoenix Rising Turns One! Phoenix Rising - September 14, 2007 A little over a year ago, I came up with a few basic ideas on how to improve the gameplay of Empire at War by not only making it feel more like the movies, but also simply making it more fun to play. It started rather humbly, with changes being made directly to my personal copy of the game to address things like squadrons not having twelve ships and unrealistic scaling. As my ideas grew to encompass canonical stats, proper gun counts, and the asynchronous tech tree, I realized that this was bigger than just a personal mod. So on August 25, 2006, I decided to come up with a name and logo for this future mod. Phoenix Rising was born. One year and seven logo iterations later, Phoenix Rising is nearly ready for its first full release. The past year has seen the launch of the mini-mod, now with over 6000 combined downloads, the addition of or improvement to 64 ships with a staggering 2629 total hardpoints, 40 heroes, and 142 planets. Yes, 142 planets. I would like to take this opportunity, while reflecting on the birth of the mod, to announce a rebirth, if you will, of something that I had not originally planned on doing last August. Fully unique campaigns will make their debut in version 1.0! Unlike the vanilla campaigns, these are based on actual military campaigns within the Galactic Civil War, so they generally span a series of books, comics, or games. In fact, I've spent hours looking over source material in order to represent these conflicts as accurately as possible, from planet position to fleet makeup to hero availability. Combined with the planet revamp that I did, this really revolutionizes how you play the game. The first campaign that I would like to showcase is called the "Thrawn Campaign," after that same conflict. This 61-planet affair between the Galactic Empire and the New Republic, which features hotspots from the Thrawn Trilogy, offers an unprecedented look at the state of the galaxy in 9 ABY. To highlight the level of accuracy that went into this, the Empire starts out with the Dark Force - 178 Dreadnaught-class Heavy Cruisers - but you don't need to destroy all of them or conquer every planet in order to achieve victory. Instead, you only need to cripple the other's naval production by taking three key shipyards: Bilbringi, Ord Trasi, and Yaga Minor for the Empire and Coruscant, Kuat, and Sluis Van for the New Republic. As you can see, this doesn't exactly look like a regular EaW campaign; planets are not evenly spread out without regard to the model of the galaxy behind them, but arranged into sectors. Where planets used to be connected to their nearest neighbors, they are now largely connected by trade routes in Phoenix Rising, as you see parts of the Corellian Run and Hydian Way in the first screenshot. Control of these trade routes is vitally important to keeping your war machine mobile - in such a large galaxy, you must localize your forces and open multiple fronts - not to mention the income they provide. Additionally, all planetary advantages have been revamped and planets canonically scaled relative to each other (when such information is available). Stay tuned for more exciting changes! Comments (73) This level is not made, distributed, or supported by LucasArts, a division of Lucasfilm Entertainment Company Ltd. LucasArts, the LucasArts logo, STAR WARS and related properties are trademarks in the United States and/or in other countries of Lucasfilm Ltd. and/or its affiliates. All other content copyright Phoenix Rising Team 2006-2016.