Updated mod: The Babylon Project

[PaddirN]

Well, this is basically an updated version of Psientist's very excellent mod 'B5 Shadowfall'. Things new to this version include:

- Version 2.60 -
* new ship: Frazi fighter -- replaces gorith as mainstay narn fighter, although the gorith is still around...
* new ship: Thunderbolt Starfury for the Earth Alliance
* new ship: Shadow Scout -- mid-sized shadow vessel
* new ships: Brakiri Avioki Cruiser, Brokados Corvette, & Riva Fighter totally redesigned from the ground up
* changed game messages for Omega mission, only reports halfway point and so on, feels less like having a mainquest everytime now. May add Earth Civil war as a mainquest at some point.
* Tirk and the Vree are now found on the map instead of offmap.
* slightly different image for Omega to show rotating section (note: does not actually rotate... yet?)
* Omega weapon slot sizes changed so that only large guns can be place din front
* Whitestar forward weapon slot changed so that only one very large gun can be equipped
* Centauri Primus now launches sentri fighters, why should the Narn have all the fun?
* the price of Dust has gone up
* The Well of Forever isn't just a myth anymore...
* scanners have been acting funny out near the rim, as well as reports of... "things" out there.
* an Apocalypse box is waiting to be found.
* quest naming structure changed to reflect FLAG value ('ally_', 'alws_', 'evnt_', 'game_', 'main_', & 'nevr_') just easier to organize. should not affect gameplay at all, checked & double-checked folder vs. game.ini file.
* Data crystal with jump gate no longer findable, but you may get it if you wish upon the cheating star

- Bug Fixes
* Vorlon beacon event *should* work now
* beacon allies (vree, tirk, rangers, vorlons) *should* show up on large maps

- Known Bugs
* Non-occurring event somewhere out there, possibly even one that crashes the game to windows
* there is an earth alliance ally buried in here, but it doesn't work for some reason so it isn't implemented yet in game.

- Version 2.55 -
* weakened shielding on most fighters, may compensate later by adding in more fighters
* Various changes to weapons to make them more in line with how they are portrayed in the series, includes: Omega x-ray guns, Drakh weapons, and the Victory main gun
* new graphics for weapons as well as a new weapon or two
* new items!
* new lifeforms!
* new GUI "beep" sounds!
* added a B5 icon pack from somewhere (forgot where I found it)
* alphabetized game.ini file, shouldn't effect gameplay, but will help keep things organized for me.

- Version 2.50 -
* New mainquest: the Thirdspace aliens invade! Can you stop them before its too late? (not a kawangi clone, I promise)
* New mainquest: the Shadow war comes to a head as the Shadows amass a fleet to break the back of the fledgleing Alliance!
* New race & ship: Thirdspace aliens w/ a Thirdspace Cruiser
* New sprite for Raider Zephyr
* Vorlon planet killer mainquest SHOULD work now.
* New targeting system: the Holographic chamber (note that I thought it was a stupid idea)
* Fixed the Vree "multiplying beacon" bug

- Version 2.45 -
* new vorlon ship: Vorlon Fighter
* new race & ship: Vree with Xill warship
* summon more allies into combat with Beacons. only one I'll give away is Drazi mercenary, Tirk! Can you find the rest?
* adjustments to the power levels of the shadows and the vorlons, slightly more manageable
* it pays in new ways to have some passengers aboard...
* new graphics for various races
* and yet Another attempt at jumpgates, this one is a bit of a cop-out on my part, but should appeal to the non-violent score junkies
* changed way the Primus is picked up, should be a tad more interesting.
* changes to the Jump Drive particle effects, should be more "realistic", also made Jump point generator drive as a findable item now, may have to add more items to make it less common
* numerous other changes/fixes which I completely forgot to write down

- Version 2.40 -
* new drazi ship: Sky Serpent
* merged Shadows with Drakh to remove "Shadow vs Drakh" battles, can't evil just get along?
* Victory Class: main gun is now only one use (per combat); possible problems if used with other ships in flotilla (?) (simulator still uses old style for obvious reasons)
* Victory Class: size changed after looking over the actual sizes of ships in the series, an Omega is actually smaller than the Victory
* added a "Minbari ECM unit" system item to Minbari craft, practically untargetable?
* added "Justin" to Lorien quest, an alternate event for evil players who visit Z'ha'dum. May follow up with additional quest on Epsilon.
* added Garibaldi drop-off at B5 for the uncurious.
* another change to 'virus' quest following revelation that "haveitem" command only applies to cargo hold.
* further changes to narn/centauri behavior, hopefully they will behave as expected
* changed weapon for minbari fighters, should look and feel more like the tv series (more of a gatling gun effect?)
* Raider Battle Wagon: changed size, as well as layout of systems, should work better now.
* changed graphic for raiders, that pirate face was making me sick
* increased size of Minbari Sharlin b/c it is also supposed to be bigger than Omega, also gave it improved combat computer b/c they're supposed to be bad-***
* changed sizes/speed/armor/turn of various craft after comparing and contrasting from data on B5-tech manual

So why the name change? A couple of reasons. First, because Shadowfall was Psientists mod and should he decide to come back and start updating again I would probably have to rename this thing anyways. Also, I wanted to give this mod a new direction of sorts. In the TV series the Shadow war played a prominent role, but it wasn't everything. The series was centered on the B5 station but a great deal more happened than just fighting the Shadows. In addition, should I decide to just drop this whole mod altogether I'd like to hope that somebody else would pick up the torch and run with it, so I see it as a continuing project of sorts, passed down from one fan to the next.

While I've tried to test the new additions out as much as possible, I can't possibly run through every scenario, so even though this is starting from v2.3, it may not be so stable. If you encounter any problems, e-mail me at PaddirN@hotmail.com and I'll try and figure out where I f'ed up. If you have any suggestions, comments, improvements of your own, don't hesitate to send them all to me. I can't promise I'll update on a regular basis, as 2 jobs, a girlfriend, family, friends, and a 'zine all are competing for my time. But for the moment I've still got a lot of ideas for additions to this mod.

[PaddirN]

Plans for the next version include:

* Streamlining certain passenger quests so they work more efficiently
* more quests
* update to the Centauri Primus battlecruiser, that all white skin just doesn't match with the centauri's purple theme.
* possibly add more EA or vorlon ships, whichever one ends up being easier.
* the vorlons strike back!
* a new "weapon" against the shadows...
* may add the url carrier to the pak'ma'ra arsenal, but not sure if it'll make the pak'ma'ra more powerful than they really should be... I mean they're Just in the League of Non-Aligned Worlds

All this and maybe more, depending on how much time, effort, and imagination I put into it.

Graeme out.

[ImUrOBGYN]

Can't wait to give it a shot. I haven't had time to do anything or play in sometime. I'll let you know when I have time to play and any bugs I come across.
Damn, didn't even realize there was an update to WW!

[Jamiri]

Great! Just downloading it! I'll try it out tonight and let you know about any bugs I come across!

Looking also forward to your other ideas!

As for the Pak'ma'ra (and the other races that use the original WW ship graphics) I think they should be getting their proper ships, although I know that this requires even more time, which none of us have.

[Jamiri]

Excellent job! Overall you did some very good improvements, creative and very well implemented. Played about 20 games with all settings medium and really enjoyed it so far. Here's my feedback:

- I like the Starfuries a lot, they even move realistically, i.e. stop abruptly to turn and than shoot off to a different direction. Maybe the non-player Omegas should have Starfury fighter bays onboard that launch suqads as the new Urlu Carrier does (I noticed that the ones in the simulator have fighter bays).
- Raiders are also cool, but I don't think they need different kind of ships, just use the ones that are from the movies (I personally feel that original WW stuff should be minimized as much as possible).
- Garibaldi! Nice one. Maybe you could make him reward you if you bring him back to B5 before you retire (the remove passenger command should work in 1.2)
- Morden: great improvement over the old version. I usually go for the Gravitic Discharge Cannon (if I chose to become evil). I think Morden should appear early in the game (if the quest triggers) because then the player is forced to chose sides early in the game and other missions that depend on it (Keeper) are more likely to happen. It would also make battles against the Minbari more frequent.
-Jumpgates. Very creative implementation, however a bit awkward to have the jumpgate always with you as an "ally ship". Makes it impossible to retreat from combat and just "feels" strange. Also, looks a bit funny to see all the ships from top down perspective while the gate is actually a side view. You can also do funny things with it, such as placing a cloaker on it to hide it during battles.
-Music in combat! That's a brilliant addition, although the pace is a bit slow some times to be perfectly suited for battle. Would be better fitting as an intro music. Also: can you make it louder a bit? Could you also add music while travelling on the starmap - some kind of ambient B5 theme. That would be really cool.
- Liked the "Alone in the Night" event a lot, as it adds more to the theme! But what's the difference between this one and "The Coming of Shadows"?
- The battles are more interesting now. Had a four way battle with 3 Drakh Raiders, a Shadow Crab, 4 Shadow Fighters, 2 Omega Class Cruisers and 6 Starfuries, and me, i.e. the Victory Class and the Nial Fighter. Strangely, the Shadows attacked the Drakh first (BUG??) and then obliterated the two Omegas. At that time I decided to run quickly...
-the EA fleets are a nice addition to the game. On the first encounter, however, they told me that they would be really happy to see some humans this far out in deep space, while their fleet circled around Earth? I thought on Earth they would see humans regularly...They also had a free Drakh Cannon in their arsenal. Very strange! The planet graphics did not look like Earth anyway...
-I only got a peek glance at the quest where President Clarke takes over EA, because it coincided with the Drakh mission that ended the game too early. In general, I never ever managed to stop the Drakh (I had them about ten times now in all my B5 games) as they are far too powerful to be stopped that early in the game.

Bugs (some are from previous versions, but maybe you can fix them):
-Pak'Ma'Ra ally ship does not befriend me with the Pak'M'Ra (how do I befriend the League of Non-aligned Worlds anyway???)
-I destroyed a Centauri fleet, but that did not befriend the Narn.
-the Victory Class main weapon has a graphical glitch which it hadn't before on my computer. It fires from somewhere behind the ship.
-Neutrino Array does only reveal cloaked ships when NOT equipped but only in cargo hold.
-When I chose the dark side (Morden) I can still free the First One Prisoner on Zhahadum, although this should not be possible.
-I can remove the keeper from my cargo hold and drop it off on a planet (it also has a trade value?!?!?). Furthermore, the Shadow and the Drakh become my enemies again when the Drakh Keeper is on my ship. this should not be the case. Maybe you can have a look into that.
-the Drazi Merc still does not function properly

Gosh, that's a long post. Don't get me wrong by the criticism, it's just meant as creative feedback. You did an excellent job on this one and I really want to encourage you to keep up this fantastic work!

[PaddirN]

Whew, I'll try and do a point-by-point reply:

* Yea, in the race profile for the EA there actually are some fleets that have the new fighter bay omega, but in game I noticed they weren't appearing as much, I'll do some fidgeting and try and get them to show up

* I wanted to give the raiders some kind of variety, but thinking back all they really had was like, what 2 ship types?

* There actually is a little something that happens with garibaldi in some other events, but I think the chances of triggering them might be too low. I'm working on making it happen more often.

* Hadn't thought about moving morden closer, sounds good.

* With the jumpgates, allying was about the only thing I could think of to be able to implement them. It wasn't even supposed to have that system slot, but for some reason the game kept on freezing whenever I went into battle with the jumpgate, so I added a slot and shielding.

* I've noticed the sound issue, it seems like every sound I download is way way too quiet. I even wanted to change the intro music to the opening music from the series, but I could barely even make out the monologue. Not sure which program to use to bump up the volume. I think I might have cooledit around somewhere. Anyone know what to use?

* "Alone in the night" and "Coming of shadows" were just different naming schemes I came up for the "failure" events for something else that's supposed to happen there. It just depends on who you might be carrying with you at the time.

* As far as I know there's no way to make other races ally with each other. I'll look into it, but I've seen that happen before too. Off the top of my head the only thing I can think of that would work would be to make them all part of the same race, but with separate fleets. Wouldn't know what to introduce them with though.

* With the Clark storyline I pretty much cheated and made that part of the military mission b/c it seemed the most appropriate.

Bugs:
* I hadn't intended for the League allies to befriend you with their races, but I guess that was how it happened in the main WW game, may change it to work that way. What I planned to do later on was add items for every race that would befriend them. Maybe a colored sash for the Drazi and some dead rotting animal carcass for the pak'ma'ra. No idea what to do for brakiri and gaim.

* The whole narn/centauri conflict thing needs to be adjusted, but the way I intend it to work is only if you pick up allies from one group, that will turn the other group against you. The idea being that if you show up in Narn space with a centauri battle cruiser, they won't take very kindly to you bringing their hated enemy to their territory and see it as an act of war.

* I haven't even touched anything with the victory class, mostly b/c I never like playing it anyways. But I'm guessing it may have something to do with the new 1.2 update. I'll check it out though.

* I was wondering about that neutrino array. I went ahead and just added another object into the game that has hypervision, it should be in with the next update I do. As for the neutrino array, I'll either turn that into something else or just change its description.

* I noticed being able to drop the keeper off awhile ago. The only thing I can think of is to just remove it as a passenger and just keep its effect. I mean, why would you even have a drakh keeper as a passenger anyways? But as far as the FLAGs are concerned it looks alright, it shouldn't even have a trade value though. Unfortunately it doesn't look like theres anyway to make passengers into permanent non-removable guests. The only other thing would be to make it a ship component you can't remove but that doesn't even make sense.

* I.Have.No.Idea.About.The.Drazi.Merc. Sorry, I'm not upset with you its the drazi merc, it works for me sometimes, but most of the time it doesn't and I just don't know why. I've compared the code of him with the minbari ally and they're virtually identical, but one works and the other doesn't. And yet I've had no problems with the pak'ma'ra or minbari ally.

Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated, I'll add these to my to-do list.

[Fingers]

One note about sounds: sound effects should always be in mono, and music should always be in stereo. Mono music seems to play at approximately half the volume for some reason, while stereo sound effects will cause other problems.

[chabex]

Annoying: I had a nice fleet: EA destroyer, Narn cruiser, Drazi fighter and the jumpgate. I entered a black hole and boom: back to windows instantly...
Has anyone experienced this as well?

[CautiousChaos]

Wow - just tried this mod out. What a great job done! I can see myself playing the mod for quite a while to come. Keep up the (very good) work!

-cc

[Jamiri]

chabex said:
Annoying: I had a nice fleet: EA destroyer, Narn cruiser, Drazi fighter and the jumpgate. I entered a black hole and boom: back to windows instantly...
Has anyone experienced this as well?

Probably a bug in some of the encounters that are triggered in black holes. Must be one of the first Firstborn events. Had you met Morden in before? Maybe there's a conflict when the game has to create the "Timeless Bauble" effect twice per game (as there is one Firstborn who also grants a wish). Just an idea. PaddirN?

Noticed that on the large map most of the quests still do not work, either, as it was the case before in 2.2 Shadowfall. Fingers, do you know what might be the reason for this?