MOD developers wanted

[Thei R'vek]

The situation is simple. I and one(possibly two) of my friends are collaborating on making a new MOD for SEIV(I know, "not THAT stuff again!" but wait and hear me out) and we need between 2 and 4 new developers. We will be making something very original and new here and we want it to be fully developed and play tested before release. We need people that can be original and creative without going to overboard(no god-like techs so powerful a level one weapon will blow up anything from an escort to a fully populated homeworld type stuff) and can stay away from the Hollywood Sci-Fi techs(no Star Trek/Star Wars/Babylon 5 or any other TV/Movie/Book/etc. technologies). The project could take a while although we have already started working on it and we need people who can commit themselves to the project as well as keep tight-lipped about what's in the MOD until we finish it. Email me(Adrik) at darksorcerer@bolt.com or Nick at e3g4r3@hotmail.com if you're interested or post here(there is a copy of this post on the PBW forums as well)

Happy Conquering!

[Will]

Umm... in general, if you're going to be secretive about a mod, you won't find help. You will find plenty if you explain exactly where you are going with the concept, what you have, what you need, etc. Being "tight-lipped" about it, the assumption usually runs along the lines of "Oh, probably just another kid with no real idea what he wants to do, just wants to say he made a mod".

As for the creativity of the fine people in this community, I personally believe it is among the highest of all gaming communities. Check out the various story threads, the many shipsets, the excellent and well-maintained mods. These people know about balance, and they know how to think of new and interesting things.
They are also intelligent enough to not commit themselves to a project without knowing what it's about first. That's exactly what you're asking.

Consider letting everyone know what your mod is all about. I'm sure you will recieve support once you do that.

[Thei R'vek]

Ah, I suppose I can do that. Can't go into too much detail we've just made the first Version of the mod with all racial techs moved into the standard tech tree and the AIs have been modified to compensate for the removal of the racial tech areas. What we are doing is rather simple and yet involved:
1) All standard racial techs become part of the standard tech tree but cost much to get ahold of. - This has been done the Racial Studies techs cost 500,000 points(same as colonisation) to get access to all the tech from that racial tech. e.g. Temporal with 2 levels of Temporal Studies is 200,000 for level 1 and 300,000 for lvl2 while Organics with one level of Organic Engineering is 500,000 for that tech. After that the Technology and Weapons trees cost the same as usual.

2) The dev team(5 or 6 people we have 2 possibly 3 already) will then have new racial tech areas made based on their empires. - This is the current phase we are working on. The R'kallian and Eteru racial tech trees are currently in the conceptual stage with only a few components created. The names are provisional until we come up with the final Version of the MOD.

3) All Races and Neutral Races are to be replaced with new ones(some created by the dev team, others MODded from other racestyles default or player created) customised for the MOD. Each member of the dev team will have a racestyle with the best AI possible in the Races folder and all neutrals will be modified to use racial points instead of staying "average" with no advance traits - thus making them a bit more difficult.

That's the basic outline of what we are doing. Step 1 is done, Step 2 is underway, Step 3 to follow as soon as Step 2 is done. We are also modifying the stteings file and adding more system names although that's nothing major. We need some goog graphics people for the new component pics and we are also adding 2-3 new planet sizes whixh we will need pics for.

[Fyron]

So why would people want to play a mod in which your empires are made more powerful?

[Thei R'vek]

Pardon me, allow me to clarify that "racial techs" part. They aren't empire-specific they are tech trees in the advanced traits area. New ones like for example nanotech or metallurgy which I've seen in other mods. The main thing is we are making a mod with longer gameplay for the people that like longer games. The main deal is we are modding everything that can be modded but doing it all from the ground up so that it will all fit perfectly. Most full MODs out there are combinations of different people's partial mods and are a bit imperfect as a result. As we are doing the entire mod from the ground up all modded files will fit together perfectly.

[President_Elect_Shang]

Geez Thei R'vek you should see the Mod I have been slowly working on for almost a year (Ok VERY slowly), you would hire me on the spot I beat.