Updated mod: The Babylon Project

[PaddirN]

That's odd about the 3rdspace alien quest, I actually just went through it not long ago without a problem, was even able to beat them with the help of a cloak. I'll play around with it more when I get the chance, anybody else had this problem?

With the Narn gorith fighter I don't recall seeing it in the series either. I believe the only one they showed was the Frazi fighter, which I actually have a nice image of. I didn't want to put it in because the Narn already have a fighter and it seemed like a waste since you can't really see the fighter too well anyways. If alot of people want it in (or I just get the coding itch) I'll put it in, probably as a replacement for the gorith fighter, though I'd prolly keep the gorith fighter and use it as a narn ally.

In the latest update I tweaked the shielding on the fighters and made them easier to kill since they never really seemed all that sturdy in the series. I may need to actually increase the number of fighters to compensate for this though.

[Jamiri]

Getting the impression that on large maps events and quests still are erroneous sometimes. For example, yesterday (using the Omega) I got Vree's beacon but Vree could not be summoned. And I also had the Pak'Ma'Ra ally, but with the text (when you fly Victory class) rejecting him due to his smell. I still got the ship, though...

[PaddirN]

That's largely my fault. Due to time constraints (i.e. not having very much of it), most of my testing consists of just running through the game on default settings with a whitestar. Not incredibly professional, I know.

With the Vree (and Tirk), I've changed the coding around some and made it so they actually appear on map, this may or may not fix that issue. Were they not being summoned into combat or on the star map or both?

The text for the Pak'ma'ra ally is fairly similar for both the victory mission and the others, I think a bad smell is mentioned in both versions and that he needs to remain on his own ship (which I figured would explain the extra ship in your flotilla). It may be that or its possible something is out of whack in the large map version.

[Jamiri]

PaddirN said:
With the Vree (and Tirk), I've changed the coding around some and made it so they actually appear on map, this may or may not fix that issue. Were they not being summoned into combat or on the star map or both?

Neither on the map nor in combat!

PaddirN said:
The text for the Pak'ma'ra ally is fairly similar for both the victory mission and the others, I think a bad smell is mentioned in both versions and that he needs to remain on his own ship (which I figured would explain the extra ship in your flotilla). It may be that or its possible something is out of whack in the large map version.

You may be right. Need to double-check that next time.

However, there's another bug I found: I allied with the dark side (Morden) and had attached a keeper to me later. When I got to Zhad'um, the radar popped up and I was about to fight. But then the mission, where I have to get Sheridan from B5, suddenly came up after I decided to stay. At the same time, the siren (warning me of a super nova) was played and when I clicked "ok" on the Sheridan mission I got to another screen (which was all the time in the back already) saying that I had followed Sheridan to Zhad'um, who was now blowing up the whole place. I barely escaped but I took some of the nice stuff from the planet with me. However, it seems broken that Sheridan was already there, when I received the mission to get him from B5.

[Jamiri]

I had a really good gaming experience with the B5 Project mod tonight. So here's my (bug) report:

I got the Narn and the Pak'Ma'Ra ally relatively early and managed to take out some fleets (played on medium), while building up a rather well equipped Whitestar. I also found the Triluminary and Delenn became "cocooned" soon, but strangely never came out again (although I explored all systems). In one of the tougher battles I lost the Pak'Ma'Ra ship but not before befriending the rest of their race.

I also got the Drazi Sash, and here's the first major bug: After getting the sash I went to the Centauri Homeworld and destroyed the fleet gaining the Jumpdrive. Then I went to a Drazi fleet and they told me that they would beat me up wearing that Sash in the wrong colour. However, another window popped up telling me that the Drazi were impressed by my battle skills at Centauri prime and that they would ally up with me. But they didn't...instead they attacked me. Maybe some of the quest conditions need to be checked here, don't know.

And then the situation became tough for me, as two Shadow fleets and one Drakh fleet appeared on the scene making their way towards B5. I decided to intercept one to see how strong they were. I had the frozen telepath with me only to reveal a Battlecrab in the fleet so I retreated from battle - for the moment. While the invasion fleets were moving I noticed another strange bug: fleets seem to stop moving when their movement path traces through a black hole. These fleets get stuck in space for good.

I used the jumpgate beacon to displace any Shadow fleet that had reached B5 until I had explored the entire map, hoping to have Delenn pop out of her cocoon after all. When I realized that she wouldn't I used the jumpgate (mirror) effect to get the Minbari fleet to B5 and waited for one of the Shadow fleets to arrive. Together with the Minbari War Cruiser I took it out easily.

However, the Minbari capital ship was destroyed during the engagement so I had to get another fleet - this time the Pak'Ma'Ra - in to defend against the second Shadow wave. I succeeded again but only to find the incoming Drakh fleet stuck in transit towards B5 next to a black hole (see above). So I retired (as everthing else was explored) only to find out that I still lost due to a Shadow victory, since I did not destroy the attacking Drakhs.

What I also had tried was sending Shadow fleets into a black holes using the jumpgate beacon (=mirror), but they did not get destroyed in there, which is a cool feature I think. On the other hand, the invasion fleets move very slowly through nebulae, as if the y had no drive equipped at all. Maybe you should fix that, as the Shadows definitely have developed such kind of nebula drive.

Comments:
Wow, this was so great to play tonight and even though I played on a medium sized map, it felt epic as the struggle against the incoming Shadow fleets seemed to last for ages. I also managed to find out some new things, such as getting into trouble if you have "dust" on board your ship (make it more valuable to have the player keep it on board at all times) and bump into a EA fleet. They scan you and tell you to stand down, but there's another bug here. During the encounter when they scan you and detect the drugs they will let you leave or investigate the system without harming you. But if you come back later or go to a different EA system, they'll attack you (which is fun nonetheless).

I still believe the jumpgate beacon is way too powerful right now and breaks the game somehow. I suggest: just remove the jumpgates from play until you find a better solution. I know it's been a great effort and it's already your second try to get them into the game, but I'm sure you'll come up with a much better alternative later. On the other hand it's just my opinion and if the others believe they should stay in the game, well, it's your choice.

On a further note: I met Morden only once recently. Have you reduced the odds for him to show up?

Gonna play the mod again as soon as I find time! It really rocks!

[PaddirN]

Whew! That's some hella feedback, glad people are still enjoying the mod, bugs and all. I'll try to get to everything.

* As far as events not showing up (Morden, Delenn chrysalis), I'm guessing thats due to the number of events in the mod now. I may change the FLAG for Morden to always or just add in another wishing event to compensate. With the Delenn (and Garibaldi) change events I didn't make the two stages linked, as in under the same event file. Before it wasn't so much a problem because chances were you'd always get both events, but apparently that isn't always the case anymore. I'm sure there's a way to make both occur in the same event file, I'll just have to play around with that.

* With the Drazi sash and centauri prime victory conditions, I can imagine how I can fix that, though I'm not sure if it'll work or not. I've noticed that when trying to cram too many Conditions into Page commands it tends to just ignore the Page altogether. Although 4 is the limit I still notice problems with even this many, I usually try to keep it down to 2 or 3. We'll see what happens.

* When the fleets come to attack B5 its actually supposed to be only Shadow ships with no Drakh, but for some reason I can't figure out which Fleet numbers its using. In the quest file it goes for shadow flets -1, -5, & -10, but the fleets it actually sends out don't seem to correspond with those numbers.

* Hmmm, not sure about the fleets being stuck in transit to B5. It may have to do with the hull flags on the ships. I may just need to set them all to 'antigravity' or something. However, that would then take away the 'black hole kill' aspect of it.

* Dust has been made more expensive for the next update, making it worthwhile to keep. I also noticed the bug with the EA not immediately attacking you if you have dust onboard and I've been working with it, but I'm still not sure why that is. I may just have to make a Page command that just makes the EA an enmy as long as you're carrying it aboard, and not just when you encounter them.

* With the jumpgate beacon I'm reminded of the vanilla version of weird worlds and every time I go into the weird worlds forum I always see that forum thread: "The non-violent high score list", so I figure there's gotta be at least some people who are interested in playing with an aethric mirror effect in the game. I'm tempted to make it not findable, but allow it to be wishable so that if you really want it you can get it.

Hope that covers everything.

[Jamiri]

PaddirN said:
* When the fleets come to attack B5 its actually supposed to be only Shadow ships with no Drakh, but for some reason I can't figure out which Fleet numbers its using. In the quest file it goes for shadow flets -1, -5, & -10, but the fleets it actually sends out don't seem to correspond with those numbers.

Isn't it just because you made the Drakh and the Shadows being one race in order to not attack each other?
If you cannot correct it, I don't see a problem here, as the Drakh may very well support the Shadow attack with a small fleet.

* Hmmm, not sure about the fleets being stuck in transit to B5. It may have to do with the hull flags on the ships. I may just need to set them all to 'antigravity' or something. However, that would then take away the 'black hole kill' aspect of it.

Don't want to be able to kill the attackers in black holes. It's too easy.

* Dust has been made more expensive for the next update, making it worthwhile to keep. I also noticed the bug with the EA not immediately attacking you if you have dust onboard and I've been working with it, but I'm still not sure why that is. I may just have to make a Page command that just makes the EA an enmy as long as you're carrying it aboard, and not just when you encounter them.

That should work, I guess. Can you make the dust be valuable regardless of the type of mission you are on (i.e. science, military, etc.)?

* With the jumpgate beacon I'm reminded of the vanilla version of weird worlds and every time I go into the weird worlds forum I always see that forum thread: "The non-violent high score list", so I figure there's gotta be at least some people who are interested in playing with an aethric mirror effect in the game. I'm tempted to make it not findable, but allow it to be wishable so that if you really want it you can get it.

B5 is not a peaceful world, so I don't think people want to play it the non-violent way (as it might be the case for vanilla). Here's my suggestion if you want to have a aethric mirror effect in the game: use something different to represent it, not the jumpgates. Jumpgates do not make other fleets swap places with your ship if you use them. That's just not as it is. It destroys some of the B5 realism in the game...

Jamiri