STAR WARS™ Empire at War: Gold Pack

STAR WARS™ Empire at War: Gold Pack

ESB to RotJ
 This topic has been pinned, so it's probably important
srd2k7  [developer] 22 Nov, 2017 @ 3:30pm
Dev Diary - Rebel Uprising Mechanics
The initial build of the mod (just a couple days old now) was focused on getting the map put together, setting up hero events, victroy conditions, etc.

What I imagine is a controversial bit of the mod is that the Rebellion starts with so few planets compared to even the Underworld/Black Sun faction. In the actual lore, during this time period leading up to the Emperor's death, the Rebel Alliance didn't really 'control' planets. That had a few that were open allies (like Dac) but when RotJ references THE rebel fleet, they meant THE rebel fleet.

The challenge is balance. I have the rebels starting with a lump sum of credits representing stockpiles of resources provided by benefactors over the years, but their throughput in using it at first is limited. This is compared to the Empire's lower starting credits but much greater income per day. On Hoth, the Rebels have advanced ground units beyond their starting tech level while on Mon Calamari there is a flotilla of Calamari cruisers, again beyond initial build capabilities. This should make them hard targets at the start.

The victory conditions for the Rebels have nothing to do, ultimately, with controlling planets. They need to kill the Emperor or destroy the 2nd Death Star if it is built (which just assumes Palpatine is on it like in RotJ). To get to that point they must survive and use hit and run tactics until an opportunity presents itself to chop the head off the beast, just like in RotJ.

I've put a simple system in place to incentivize that form of gameplay, in the form of Rebel Uprisings. Essentially, as the rebels win victories (and any sort of victory in battle will do) they are showing the galaxy it can fight back against the Empire. At certain thresholds planets with rebel sympathies but under Imperial subjugation will have an uprising, clearing the system of enemy units and spawning a small handful of units representing the guerilla forces that just overthrew the Imperial government on the planet. The force is relatively weak, so will likely need reinforcing or the Empire could just come in and permanently crush the opposition.

Losing battles as the rebels will not negatively impact the progression, as a long as the Rebellion is alive it is stirring the hearts and minds of the galaxy. This could change if balancing is required. If playing as the Empire you will want to limit Rebel victories, as Uprisings will occur against you. To increase the challenge, the thresholds for battles lost for the uprisings is lower than the player controlled Rebel-battles-won thresholds.

As the Empire it will (or should...) feel like the Rebels are difficult to hold down and destroy completely, requiring the use of the Death Star II. The DSII brings risk though, as Palpatine is required to sit in orbit while it is under construction. A bold Rebel fleet might be able to come in and eliminate the Emperor before the battle station is fully operational.

Ultimately the main thing to figure out is balancing. That's why I need folks' feedback. Consolidating some of the Empire's starting forces is probably needed. Uprising thresholds may need tweaking as well.
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I will install this mod. It sounds fun. Maybe allow fleets to go through imperial planets or atleast under circumstances (like no going through planets like kuat, and you cant have any moncalls going through).
Wow only 1.7 megabites. Even dark forces was more like 70.
srd2k7  [developer] 24 Nov, 2017 @ 3:56pm 
Yes, lightweight mod indeed. I am not using any new ship models, graphics, or anything like that. Simply re-using existing assets and a little code to do some new fun stuff.
Nice. I will play this after I finish up edditing a video. Do have a thing were rebel forces could move through imperial space, with varyying degrees available depending on the planet. Like nothing gooing through imperial loyal planets, but planets that are less loyal to the empire or even rebel synthasizers could have actuall fleets.
But you cant have planets stay in imperial space, or atleast nothing big.
srd2k7  [developer] 24 Nov, 2017 @ 4:01pm 
I'm not going to add any sort of stealth ability to additional units just yet. AI may not know how to deal with that.
Im talking being able to send small fleets through imperial space. But only through space that is not filled to the brim with 10 star destroyers or hates the rebels guts. It just seems realistic.
Make sure not to brake the AI, There was this big galactic conquest map with like 140 planets that I loved...until the AI stoped doing anything after 10 hours.
srd2k7  [developer] 24 Nov, 2017 @ 4:07pm 
I don't knwo for sure if the game logic cans upport what you are talking about. I'll keep it in mind as I develop things.
Same concept as raid fleets but you instead could send limited amounts of units through space. Thats the basic thing. If you decid to you could make it more ambitius in the future and make the size dependent on the planet and number of imperials over the planet.
Benjin 29 Nov, 2017 @ 5:34am 
If I knew how to script and alter AI properly rather than just do game art, this is what I'd consider ideal for campaign mechanics for Rebels vs Imperials (not necessarily suggesting you do all of this, I'm just sharing my thoughts on how EaW's GC mechanics should work on the off chance that it may inspire you to invent something close to it):

1. Make planets cost credits to be conquered by both factions - In the vanilla game, conquering a new planet gives you a lump sum of credits. This encourages the player to go on conquering sprees to get more money, which in turn contributes to the snowball effect. I don't think this is how it should work. Instead, it should cost credits to conquer a new planet as you are setting up a new base / production line on a planet every time you gain access to that planet. For faction planetary conquest cost, it should vary. The Empire pay a lot of credits while the Rebellion pay a lot less in comparison. Underworld pay either the same as the Empire or more.

2. Make most planets provide negative income except for some planets which canonically provide a lot of resources (e.g. Bespin, Kessel etc) - This makes it so that certain planets are not beneficial to being conquered, and purely act as locations for production / specific bonuses / places to hide. Stealth, barren planets (e.g. Hoth) should cost the most. Planets which are canonically wealthy or resourceful are key planets of interest. They're never Neutral; they would be owned by someone at start (e.g. Independents, Empire or even Underworld) making them harder to capture.

3. Have a (free) option to "Evacuate Planet" for Rebellion if no land units are present on surface - This makes it so that you don't have to pay for a negative income planet if you no longer have a use for it as a base location while playing as the Rebellion. All static buildings on land / in space are automatically sold for their exact purchase price rather than selling them individually for a fraction of their original price. It'd be good to keep a fleet above the planet to prevent the enemy from interrupting the evacuation.

4. Have a (costly) option to construct a large "Mining Complex" for Empire - This makes it so that negative income planets are converted into positive income planets through mining the planet for all its worth. The Rebellion shouldn't allow this to exist on a planet, as it allows the Empire to consolidate its power and gradually get more credits.

5. Longer initial retreat time - The retreat button should take a little longer to fill up until the player is able to do so. This can make some battles, where retreating is paramount to success of the overall GC, all the more intense.

6. Empire gradually gain more income from conquered positive income worlds - Although their initial conquer cost is a lot, their returns come from taxing the planet more than the Rebellion over time. Constructing a new building (e.g. Tax Centre) increases it by a percentage. Of course, there would be a limit to how much it can gradually increase to for balancing.

7. Rebellion gain income from landed mobile buildings (this is where it gets tricky) - What I'd love to do is make it so that rebel buildings act as land units and make their constructable, static, planetary buildings purely defensive (e.g. get rid of the concept of build pads entirely on battle maps and replace them with constructable defensive infrastructure for each faction, but make the Rebellion have more choice). These land buildings would have scripts attached to them which make them act like normal buildings in battle mode (e.g. spawn units over time, research tech etc) and also provide income on the GC while landed on a planet. Those buildings, and not planets, are the main source of the Rebellion's income compared to the Empire's method of income. However, they cost a lot to construct, making it hurt when they are lost. This would make encourage one playing as the Rebellion to be more mobile where they have to keep them constantly on the move and away from the Empire, landing them on planets with (ideally) the least cost to maintain and build more of them. Alternatively, they can construct heavy static defenses to keep mobile bases at a certain planet for good. If the Empire do manage to successfully encounter buildings in a land battle, the buildings are formidable foes (spawning lots of units and research bonuses), and have an ability to be mobile even in a battle through a slow air transport that packs/unpacks them (spawning / bonuses are halted while it's packed). If the odds aren't in the Rebellion's favour in a land battle with buildings, they need to hold off the enemy long enough for them to retreat and get them (slowly) to a landing zone.

With all of this working, this would really make a difference in how both the Rebellion and Empire play the game - one is a static, slow-growing force that consolidates itself while the other is a constantly moving, fast-growing force which acts like a cancer; it's harder to nail them down. The biggest problem other than scripting would be that the AI's behaviour would need to be altered slightly to accommodate some of the new mechanics. However, I asked a few of my friends in the Thrawn's Revenge team if all of this was possible about two years ago and they said that it was, but would take a lot of time to perfect.
Last edited by Benjin; 29 Nov, 2017 @ 6:31am
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