A collection of developer journals for the Battlefleet Gothic mod for Sins of a Solar Empire.
Bringing the Warhammer 40k universe to Sins
Published on December 8, 2008 By xthetenth In Sins Modding

The Battlefleet Gothic mod is now compatible with Entrenchment 1.041 as of 1/17/10, and has a new version (1.30) out as of 1/17/10


This mod contains the Imperial navy in a fully modelled state, and Chaos, the Tau and the Orks in a proxied state.

 

BE WARNED: THIS MOD IS STILL RATHER BETA AND IS MISSING MANY FEATURES, INCLUDING:

-A research tree (unlocks, colonization, fleet supply, cap ship crews and long range jumps are quite literally all that's there (well, there's a missile tech, but it doesn't do much, and you WILL be able to get late game ships early)

-GUI elements. some 2D icons aren't done yet, and the ones we have are a bit odd. They will be fixed eventually.

Things that we know about (IE we know about it and it's odd, but it's either a design decision which will be explained or something not implemented):

-Counter description text. It's wildly off and somewhat arbitrary, but the ship descriptions are pretty good and should give the player a decent idea of what to expect, and I'll write more on them on our forum (link here).

-Shield Mitigation. It's gone, but it says it's at 15%. Trust me, it's gone.

-The Emperor Battleship. As a compromise on its heavy dorsal armament that can be fired to either broadside, we made it have the strength of the dorsals and a broadside point forward, and slightly stronger broadsides. We think it works pretty well, but please tell us what you think.

-Chaos ships and tau ships in the Additional Races Compendium are odd. The chaos prow weapons are locked to fire left, so they can broadside well to one side without turning into brawlers and tau weapons are locked forwards so they can concentrate fire, but they lost their ability to fire at half strenth to the sides because multi-arc weapons are impossible in sins as far as I know.

-No stock sins races. GW wouldn't let us include them, and they have a very different gameplay mechanic anyway, and need a very different setup for damage types, much to my chagrin, seeing as I want to know how it'd end up .

 

Okay, now that that's out of the way, we can get to the fun stuff. The ships are working great. If you know the tabletop game you'll know the key things that I need to tell everybody else so they understand the game.

-Ships turn and fire SLOWLY. You need to think ahead, and you can fit in a lot of micro if you know what you're doing. This is intentional.

-Shields recharge VERY VERY VERY VERY FAST. This is a legacy of it being a tabletop game where focusing fire is a big achievement. Shields will fully recharge in the time it takes for you to fire a second salvo of your weapons. Firepower supremacy is big here, and so is using your weapons to their utmost. However, hulls repair rather slowly, so protect them.

-Ships will go up like popcorn, even caps if your fleets get big enough. A fully experienced cap has quite a bit of damage absorbing ability, but it isn't even close to invincible. They're about twice as valuable as a cruiser, and if you're careful, can absorb 3 times as much damage easily. It's a great bargain, but they will die, don't get attached to them.

-Oh right, cruisers. There are cruisers in this game, and frigates are now fragile scouts and flankers. Frigates are cheap, expendable, and surprisingly dangerous in numbers. Cruisers are a lot bigger, much tougher, and carry a good bit more firepower, but a really big price tag. Battleships come in on top, and are really durable, and host a lot of long ranged firepower.

-The weapons are different too. Weapons batteries and Lances are your basic weapons. Lances are focused beams of energy that do best against escorts (accuracy) and armored ships (penetration power, but with just the imperials that isn't that big an issue). Weapons batteries are massed guns that do best against battleships because they can actually be expected to hit a lot. They aren't that different, and the range and strength of the guns means more than their type. Torpedoes are great. They punch through shields 100% of the time, but tend to drop off against bigger targets, which boast the point defense turrets to shoot most of them down. They make great escort killers, and are your best weapon in smaller fights.

-Attack Craft (fighters and bombers) are also very different, they come in squadrons abstracted to one ship, and are much more fragile. They're also much more dangerous. They, like torpedoes pierce shields and can do a lot of damage, especially against smaller ships (including cruisers, battleships are nasty to them though). However, every ship has turrets that can kill them, but if they stagger their waves, they can hit home very hard. They also replenish quite fast until their parent ship runs out of antimatter, so they're really quite good. Fighters are quite capable at interception duties, if you have more fighters than the enemy, your bombers will be able to strike enemy ships while your ships are safe from enemies.

 

Please note!

-Planet capturing is quite different from in standard sins. The transport is your one stop shop for planetary warfare and colonization. They land troops instead of bombarding. The whole idea is a little bitcomplicated, and I encourage anybody who's interested to read the thread I'll post on our forum shortly. The short version is that you build transports, use their bombardment ability to pound your enemies into dust, and then return them to the munitorum depots (they have the advent antimatter recharger icon for now, shouldn't be hard to find on the screen) to refill. It should especially suit the Imperium's style of defend and counterattack.

 

Now that you know the basics of the game, you can download the mod here:

DOWNLOAD (7ZIP, 109 MB) (This should work properly but I've been having lots of problems with it, if not, please tell me so I can remove the link while I fix it. )

7zip or winrar both can open 7zip files, and both are available for free, and much smaller than 50 MB.

DOWNLOAD (ZIP, 162.63 MB)

And please visit our forum at Modcraft if you want to learn more about the mod and what to expect, volunteer or give detailed feedback:

OUR FORUM

 

Dev Journals: These guides will help you know what to expect in the future and understand the current state of the gameplay.

Dev Journal 1: Ships of the Imperium It explains all the imperial ships and their fleet's way of fighting. Should be useful.

Dev Journal 2: Fleet tactics of the Imperium It focuses on the use of the Imperial ships in a fleet. Definitely good food for thought, may apply more to tabletop than the mod, I need to test the theories some before I fully endorse them.

Gratuitous screenies:

Gothic class cruiser pummeling a dictator class cruiser

Gothic class cruisers pummeling a Dictator class cruiser with lances and torpedoes

 

Retribution class Battleship firing at an enemy cruiser

Retribution class battleship firing its prow lances and torpedoes at an enemy cruiser.

Finally, the trailer for the Imperium (thanks again, Thrawn!)

 


Comments (Page 12)
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on Jan 04, 2009

I like the Eldar fleet the best actually. Don't know why. Their ships just seem to belong

on Jan 04, 2009

Well My question is Being not a hardcore fan of the 40K universe is how many ships do the marines have that are not just the IN ships to begin with I know that in Game they play IG and Marines like two seperate races but as far as I know they both usethe IN for Ship to ship fighting.

 

Fluffwise there was much debate between whether or not Space Marines should have huge powerful fleets for their Chapters. After the Horus Heresy (big betryal of half of everyone to chaos) Earth admins and normal Navy die-hards were nervous about huge Space Marine fleets. So, they decided to allow them fleets but limit them. Spacemarines have dedicated ships but not huge quantities of them and they are specifically designed to help in planetary invasions. Also, they can sure dish it out and take it in.

Here's a Space Marine Battlebarge, their biggest ship!

on Jan 04, 2009

Their fleet has a strong focus on escorts as their main fighting ships because their capitol ships are a lot more strictly limited, and escorts only need about 12 or so marines and can mainly be crewed by chapter serfs.

 

They have:

The battle barge (battleship) Huge and very powerful, but very expensive.

The Strike Cruiser (light cruiser) Nimble ship with relatively diverse armament.

The Nova, Gladius and Hunter escorts, I believe, all better than their imperial equivalents, but more expensive.

All imperial escorts (or almost all).

on Jan 04, 2009

You kinda have to wonder if the Imperial Fists still have that HUGE moon-shized ship.

on Jan 04, 2009

Yes the Imperial Fists still have the Phalanx. It's their base!

on Jan 04, 2009

Thrawn2787
You kinda have to wonder if the Imperial Fists still have that HUGE moon-shized ship.

 

So its no moon, and its no space station, but instead a Space Marine Chapterhouse?

 

OMFG.

on Jan 04, 2009

Yeah, the phalanx is pretty awesome, but I've gotta say the eternal crusader is win. It's the Black templars' main base and it's absolutely huge but still a combat ship if it needs to be.

on Jan 04, 2009

So its no moon, and its no space station, but instead a Space Marine Chapterhouse?



OMFG.

 

Yeah even battleships look little itty bitty compared to it and battle ships and stuff dock on it's huge spires it has.

on Jan 05, 2009

Thank you Admiral for answering my question, because honestly in the books I have read and the Wiki's for the universe none of them mention Space marine ships being their own. And I know the Primarchs Had their own ships before the Heresy and through the restructuring because they were leading the Crusade. Until Horus got all chaosy and decided to try and kill the emperor which he almost suceeded at. Then there were no more Primarch led fleets, which is where my question came in.

on Jan 05, 2009

i'm not very well versed in the contents of the Black Library (but i'm trying to get hold of the Horus Heresy books, and reverse my ignorance), but what happened to the primarchs? the only one i know about for sure is the Blood Angles one (whose name i cannot remember) got his head kicked in by Horus, whilst he tried to defend the Emperor (or something like that)

 

 

also, wouldn't it be awesome if the Grey Knights put engines on Titan, and fitted it with guns, like a Ramillies? just for shits 'n' giggles?  i reckon if the got drunk/bored enough they could flog the Martian Tech-Priests into doing it

on Jan 05, 2009

Here's the ones I remember:

Thousand suns: Magnus the red got his back snapped by Leman Russ (iirc) and died (iirc). I know the backsnapping happend, I just don't remember what the aftermath was. He may be the one who wound up very mutated with six arms.

Ultramarines: Robute Gulliman's chillin' on Macragge in stasis with a mortal wound that's apparently healing

Blood Angels: yea, sanguinius got pwnt by horus.

My memory is bad officially.

on Jan 06, 2009

Archaon6044
also, wouldn't it be awesome if the Grey Knights put engines on Titan, and fitted it with guns, like a Ramillies? just for shits 'n' giggles?  i reckon if the got drunk/bored enough they could flog the Martian Tech-Priests into doing it

 

Drunk superhuman psykers = a very bad thing for the galaxy.  Almost (but not quite) Horus Heresy bad.

 

On an unrelated note, can Space Marines even get drunk?  I know they have some sort of super-special toxin-neutralizing gland system, but does it apply to alcohol?  If so, I pity the genetically-enhanced foo's.

on Jan 06, 2009

On an unrelated note, can Space Marines even get drunk? I know they have some sort of super-special toxin-neutralizing gland system, but does it apply to alcohol? If so, I pity the genetically-enhanced foo's.

Dude, they're de facto celibate and they've given up their humanity, so they get my pity, but given the tales about the space wolves, they better be able to get a bit drunk, otherwise they're the biggest wastes of ale ever.

Anyway, I think the grey knights are buddy buddy enough with the admech that they might be able to wheedle the boys on mars into doing it for them without any head crumping.

Drunk superhuman psykers = a very bad thing for the galaxy. Almost (but not quite) Horus Heresy bad.

Didn't you know? The only reason the horus heresy started is because Horus couldn't hold his ale when he got into a drinking challenge with Leman Russ and he's an angry drunk. =p

on Jan 06, 2009

marines can get drunk yes but it takes a lot... very quickly. the space wolves have drinking competitions that are the first to pass out wins, and they do htat by drinking barels of highly alchoholic substances very quickly

Fate of the Primarchs

Traitors

Loyalists

  • Ferrus Manus died at the Drop Site massacre at the start of the Horus Heresy by Fulgrim who presented his head to Horus.
  • Sanguinius was slain by Horus after refusing to join him.
  • Lion El'Jonson returned to his homeworld of Caliban only to discover that his friend and second-in command Luther and the Dark Angel garrison had turned against him2. He led a strike force of his own loyal Dark Angels against the traitors. He disappeared amongst the inferno as the world was blasted apart by a Warp Storm and a bombardment from his ships in orbit. He sleeps deep within the Rock, the biggest piece of Caliban and current home base of the Dark Angels1,2. Only the Emperor and the Watchers of the Dark know of this secret.
  • Jaghatai Khan disappeared as he was pursuing Dark Eldar into a webway portal after they had managed to raid Mundus Planus. Rumours abound that he fights there still, lost in the twisting paths of the Webway. After nine thousand years it seems highly unlikely, but not impossible.
  • Leman Russ disappeared in the Eye of Terror. The Space Wolves hold a legend that says Russ went on a quest to find a means to cure the Emperor. His final words before his disappearance is that he would return for the Wolftime (the final battle). It is also said that Leman Russ led the 13th Company into the Eye of Terror and ordered them to hunt down the Traitor Legions which had fled to the Eye of Terror, particularly the Thousand Sons.
  • Rogal Dorn boarded a Chaos cruiser during a Black Crusade alongside a company of his sons and died fighting. He died after many of his loyal brother Primarchs. Today, his hand is housed in the holiest shrine of the Imperial Fists chapter, and his dead body encased in amber and put in Phalanx 11.
  • Roboute Guilliman was struck down with an envenomed blade by his former brother Fulgrim. His body is perfectly preserved in a stasis field at the heart of the Temple of Correction3. It is rumoured that he is alive and that his wounds are slowly healing, something normally impossible in a stasis field. The truth of this rumour is unknown but this is seen by many (including the Ultramarine captain Uriel Ventris)) as mere optimistic thinking.
  • Vulkan disappeared. The position of Chapter Master, filled by the Captain of the First Company, is considered to be a regency as the Salamanders believe that Vulkan will one day return and lead them on a great crusade against Chaos.
  • Corax was racked by guilt and shame. In order to rebuild quickly the strength of his legion from the dropsite massacre on Isstvan V, Corax accelerated the growth of the gene-seed organs, producing more Space Marines, but this process also deteriorated the Gene-seed, causing many to become hulking monsters. Riddled with guilt over what he had done, Corax administered euthanasia to all of them and then locked himself away within his sanctum, the Raven's Tower. Exactly one year later he left his tower, haggard and gaunt, and took a small shuttle craft with the words Never more. It was last monitored setting a course for the Eye of Terror.

(taken from  the lexicanum, i dont know all that from the top of my head =P

and finaly, the ad mech would probbly do it but the grey nights would have to prommise to turn a blind eye to some of the AMs more suspicious activities =P probly being used to make the god damn death star that it would become

on Jan 06, 2009

and finaly, the ad mech would probbly do it but the grey nights would have to prommise to turn a blind eye to some of the AMs more suspicious activities =P probly being used to make the god damn death star that it would become

Na.  It would most likely pwn the Death Star, as long as it attacked from behind.  Charging directly at a planet-exploding superlance is stupid, insane, and suicidal, even by Astartes standards.

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