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 42)
53 PagesFirst 40 41 42 43 44  Last
on Sep 30, 2009

This is going to be completely random to the topic, and pardon for the obvious departure, but I have been looking for Gothic ship modellers for a very long time now, and I finally just came across this. I almost jumped out of my seat.

There is a game, a simple 2d ship combat game, called Escape Velocity Nova. It is absolutely perfect for Battlefleet Gothic, even with the semi-topdown view. I ask you guys to check out http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/

Play the demo for a bit. The game is built on open source and there is a free editor out as well. There is also a Wiki specifically for the game, which details the tons of Plug-Ins available and the Total Conversion mods people have made and ARE making. It is the perfect medium, and would be a ton easier to render and get ships into the game than SINS. If any of you are interested, drop me a line at smooth_italiano82@yahoo.com

Again, I apologize for the hijacking, but years I have looked for this sort of group.

 

 

on Oct 07, 2009

Is this mod going to have custom planet bombing effects?

on Oct 14, 2009

I kinda don't think so, seeing as they're relying on invasion for most of their planetary conquest, and not even 40k weapons tend to have effects visible from orbit. I might see about making a few custom comm chatter type sound effects, but considering our lack of voice talent and the difficulty of doing that kind of thing right it's rather unlikely. But yeah, even 40k races would think twice about using their cruisers' guns for suppressive fire except against certain targets. Short version is not very likely, though. Much more likely is special landers for the transit animation.

on Oct 14, 2009

nice, gonna have to try this... although I am partial to eldar ships.

on Oct 14, 2009

So just to clarify exterminatus will not be represented in any way? Also will there be a space marine battle barge, and if so will it be in the imperial Navy or space marines?

on Oct 17, 2009

I have a few questions and suggestions.

 

1. I understand that you are making Space Marines and Ad Mech their own factions. I feel that they should be an extension of the Imperial forces for a couple reasons. A.) Fluff wise, it just makes better sense. The only planets the Ad Mech control and actually care about having are Forge Worlds, and Space Marines don't control any planets at all except for their homeworld, instead they are called in to help regular Imperial forces. B.) Gameplay wise, they just don't have the ship variety to make them fun and diverse factions to play. Space Marines have 1 battleship, 1 cruiser (a light cruiser at that), and 3 escorts that are basically slight better and more expensive versions and their Navy counterparts. Ad Mech would essentially play just like the Imperial Navy with better and more expensive ships.

Instead, the Imperial Navy should be able to get access to these ships through the research tree to represent them requesting aid from these othe factions.

 

2. What are you planning to do for Demonships? I have a few ideas for abilities based on their god.

- Demonship of Khorne: 

  • Bloodlust: Passive ability: Friendly ships within range have their rate of fire increased by 10%
  • Terror: The crew of target enemy ship is overcome with fear, movement and turning speed are reduced
  • Frenzy: The population of target enemy planet is driven to violence, killing population and damaging infrastructure

- Demonship of Tzeentch:

  • Warpfire: Passive Ability: The weapons of friendly ships in range are augmented by the ever-changing energies of the warp, they have a 5% chance of ignoring shields.
  • Gift of Change: The hull of target enemy ship morphs and changes on the whim of Tzeentch, damage resistance is reduced by 15%
  • Guiding Influence: The government of target enemy planet is bent to Tzeentch's will, syphoning a portion of the credit and resource income to your empire and causing the planet's allegiance to decrease.

- Demonship of Nurgle:

  • Papa's Gift: Passive Ability: Friendly ships in range have their damage resistance increased by 10%
  • Ethereal Swarm: Target enemy ship and nearby ships take damage over time.
  • Plague: Target enemy planet's population takes damage and population growth is reduced.

- Demonship of Slaanesh

  • <Name pending>: Passive ability: Friendly ships in range have turning and movement speeds increased
  • <Name pneding>: An ethereal musk washes over the crew of target enemy ship, clouding their sense and slowing reaction times, weapon rate of fire is decreased
  • <Name pending>: The population of target enemy planet is driven to seeking pleasure and satisfaction, production rates are reduced.

 

3. How are you going to do Eldar holofields?

on Oct 20, 2009

So just to clarify exterminatus will not be represented in any way? Also will there be a space marine battle barge, and if so will it be in the imperial Navy or space marines?

no exterminatus for a long while, and many forms would need some serious scripting ability that just isn't there. Space marines will be their own race unless something changes.

Instead, the Imperial Navy should be able to get access to these ships through the research tree to represent them requesting aid from these othe factions.

The problem with adding either to the imperials is that the imperials already have a surfeit of ship types, and adding in more would be a waste. Instead, what's a lot more likely is that the space marines will have a setup somewhere near the armageddon list tweaked to represent the forces a chapter like the smurfs which focuses on building its own realm by supporting the local fleet and calling in favors when needed. The admech will need something different but largely similar. I would not be surprised at all if they went to the defense of planets which provide them with key resources, and honestly justifying them will be damn hard in any regard, if we want it to be fluffy, it'd likely be something like the space marines with admech enhanced local IN ships with occasional fully twinked admech ships. I'll have to ask prezo about that, he's the resident cogboy fan so he gets to call the shots on that.

2. What are you planning to do for Demonships? I have a few ideas for abilities based on their god.

I honestly haven't put much thought into them yet, but some of those ideas are pretty good. I may pilfer some of those ideas, but I'm not sure yet. I haven't been able to get much of any work done, school's been killing me.

3. How are you going to do Eldar holofields?

No bloody clue yet, likely an ability but maybe a custom damage type if I have to.

on Oct 20, 2009

Couple more ideas.

- In addition to the invasion and capture abilities for the troopship, give it a garrison/reinforcement ability that targets friendly planets and increases planet health. Makes sense that you want to send your own troops to stop your planet from being overrun

- Titan transport ship. High tier capital ship that attacks planets similar to the troopship, but deals much, much more damage, can't capture planets, and replenishes antimatter slowly instead of getting it refilled, since repairing and rearming titans can take a very long time.

on Oct 21, 2009

Heyo, just stopping by to see if there are any updates or progess  i love the mod!

on Oct 26, 2009

Very nice mod, Any news at all on an Entrenchment 1.041 Version and Also an idea.

- A Space Marine Capital Ship (althogh its not really a ship) From the Dark Angels chapter, Their Main "fortress" is a huge Asteroid base called "The Rock" which is the only survivng part of their home planet. this would be more of a super capital though seeing as it has Multiple Seige Grade Warp Sheilds that withstood bombardment from an entire Space Marine Chapters fleet.

it could probably also be used to colonise and such, to be honest i just want the Dark Angels in the mod lol

on Oct 27, 2009

Stupid bloody college is taking all my time. Anyway:

- In addition to the invasion and capture abilities for the troopship, give it a garrison/reinforcement ability that targets friendly planets and increases planet health. Makes sense that you want to send your own troops to stop your planet from being overrun

Definitely will add, in case you need to fill a planet quickly. Although it'll be off by default, don't want your conquest cut short by reinforcement.

- Titan transport ship. High tier capital ship that attacks planets similar to the troopship, but deals much, much more damage, can't capture planets, and replenishes antimatter slowly instead of getting it refilled, since repairing and rearming titans can take a very long time.

I will definitely think about a heavy transport along those lines, but various troop types are abstracted away, so it'd be more a higher capacity/larger hull with more defensive capacity rather than a special titan carrier. These transports all could carry titans, so it's something that'd be split up between transports if the officers had a mote of sense.

Any news at all on an Entrenchment 1.041

I'll start work on it sometime, most likely during my next break. I am waaaay too busy for it right now, though.

A Space Marine Capital Ship (althogh its not really a ship) From the Dark Angels chapter, Their Main "fortress" is a huge Asteroid base called "The Rock" which is the only survivng part of their home planet.

I'm really reticent about including chapter specific stuff, because of the large variety of chapters out there. Plus, if I recall correctly, the rock isn't particularly mobile. Seeing as I'm a Black Templars fanatic and the Eternal Crusader is a perfect fit for the ridiculously oversized unique awesomeness slot, it's a lot more likely to be the special. However, all of that is moderately unlikely, because I want to see if there's something non-chapter specific that'd work.

on Oct 28, 2009

Nice, Thanks for the Quick Reply , dosent really matter, main reson i suggested "The Rock" was cos i like the Dark Angels.

for the space marines, may i suggest that at some higher Tier, they use battle Barges to take planets? i mean they can fit 5 companys of marines and are built for planetary bombardment so, they could bombard the planet Thus weakening defences, then invade with the companys of Marines onboard. this would also be good for variation, Navy has Titan, Space Mariens have battle Barges.

-Blaz

on Oct 29, 2009

for the space marines, may i suggest that at some higher Tier, they use battle Barges to take planets? i mean they can fit 5 companys of marines and are built for planetary bombardment so, they could bombard the planet Thus weakening defences, then invade with the companys of Marines onboard. this would also be good for variation, Navy has Titan, Space Mariens have battle Barges.

Of course the marines will be able to land troops from their combat ships, seeing as their cap ships are all technically assault transports. Also, they'll definitely be able to bombard the planet, that's what bombardment cannon are for. That'll be a major advantage to the marines, since they won't have a vulnerable logistical train. Balancing it out'll be fun though. Also, pretty much any kind of titan would be able to fit in a normal sized transport just fine, keep in mind that transports are pretty well over a kilometer long in most sources I've seen, and a warhound is 45 meters tall for comparison. If you took something like an ore transport that'd have large open bays you'd be able to fit quite a few titans, even imperators. Now getting them out would be interesting, though, but that's something they have to have figured out...

on Nov 03, 2009
is this mod only for entrenchment 1.3? or is it compatible with the original sins and/or entrenchment 1.4?
on Nov 03, 2009

s a n g,

the mod from the TITLE is for entrenchment 1.03 only, but after extracting it to the mods-entrenchment v1.03 folder, the mod updater should get it working in 1.041

harpo

53 PagesFirst 40 41 42 43 44  Last