B5 MOD Discussion Thread

[Sangius]

Nah, Excalibur is powerful but still wouldn't hold up to the Sharlin. If it uses its Main weapon, its dead in the water for a full minute. Plenty of Time for a Sharlin (or its remaining fighters on the off chance the Excalibur actually manages a fatal hit) to dice it to pieces. Lets not forget that other than its Vorlon "I am out of power now please kill me" main weapon, all its other weapons are either Minbari or Earth Alliance, all of which are going to be inferior to the Sharlin's. Its close enough to be a good fight, but as i said, Its most advanced normal tech is Minbari, and isn't going to be their top of the line.

you do know that the mimbari fighters would have a hard time to even dent the excalibut right!!!!

that ship has taken direct hits from drak ships and not even slowed down
its main gunn can take down a shadow ship no problems and a sherlin cant even dent a shadow vessle alone

[Ragnarokx]

I was thinking about saying the same thing, but i figured it wouldnt work out since Tial believes he knows everything better.

*Obviously* the Excalibur is superior to even a Sharlin, let alone tiny Nial.

[Bri_Dog]

The Main Gun needs to one shot everything except for First Ones.

[Zeelich]

Just going to wade in here before I post some pics the almost complete mesh of the Omega. Keep in mind guys that B5 isn'y 100% consistent episode to episode. Sometimes the writers make ships blow quicker for dramatic effect. It's a TV show guys, it's not real. The Excalibar is a tricky one. It's got that reflective armour so it takes less damage. B5Tech says that the warlock is about equal with a Sharlin. (Probably better weapon, less armour) So, I'd imagine the Victory would be more advanced than a Warlock, it's newer anyway. But than again Sheridan commented that it's regular weapons wern't much more powerfull than a Whitestar. So, I'd imagine it would be pretty close to a match with a Sharlin. The Main gun would do a lot of damage and the armour would keep it alive untill it can open up with it's regular weapons. I'd say close to a equal fight. As for fighters, the Victory as a good number of anti-fighter weapons, so they shouldn't be too big a prob.

Anyway, enough of that from me, check these pics out....










It's getting there, slowly but shorly. I think I'll be adding a litle bit more detail though, and now that I look at these images again, there are a few minor things I've left out.

[BitchX]

Looking really good Zeelich.

What comes to the Excalibur vs. Sharlin, as Zeelich already pointed out the Excalbur has the reflective armour which reduces energy weapon efficiency by 80% as mentioned in A Call to Arms. That would make the fight a bit tricky for a Sharlin.

[Sangius]

yerh that crystaling armor is a bitch to energy wepons

[Avathar]

wow zeelich its good to see you didnt lost you sence of detail and perfection, btw i was Breal on the TGU, maybe you remember me

wel again nice work really looking forward for this mod now

[Thunderbolt]

Really nice progress on that omega.

but if i could just nitpick a tad, something is off on that engine section but i cant put my finger on it

what is the tri/poly count on that bad boy now?

[Ragnarokx]

Pretty awesome. Will the AG-section move around ?

[Jewegee]

Wow that is a great model! Keep up the good work!

[Zeelich]

Hi Breal, I remember.

The AG section will rotate if HW2 will let me.

Poly count is around 6500. More or less.

More pics....

[Jewegee]

Are the missile tubes actually going to function? Or, will they remain essentially useless as in most of the show?

[Avathar]

looking good, i actualy never seen those missile tubes shoot in the show.

[Bri_Dog]

Those red doors are escape pods, not missile tubes.

[Avathar]

ahaaa well that makes sence :P but still looking good

[CadianShocker]

funny to see it fire escape pods at other ships lol

unless your in one

[Kou Uraki]

what should happen is that the escape pods should launch as the ship's exploding. then attach themselves to any nearby ships in the area. that would kick ass!

[CadianShocker]

that would be cool, but would it work?

alot of escape pods and would be a pain in the ass probably (not a modder so no idea)

[Riess]

No offense, but where did you get that info from? Who the hell would place escape pods away from the most populated area of the ship (the section with, you know, gravity)? Apart from them looking much like missile tubes (and nothing like escape pods), everywhere I looked they were identified as such.

If speculation is allowed, I like to think of them as the Omega's arsenal of thermonuclear warheads, which is why we don't really see them in action much.

[Ragnarokx]

I dont think Omega Destroyers have several douzen nuclear warheads onboard. Apart from that, was there EVER use for nuclear weapons in B5 ? Even when sieging plants, i remember the stuff used was mainly large-scale Gauss weaponry.

[DatonKallandor]

Nuclear weaponry was used in the fight at Coreana 6. Even more powerful weaponry was used by the berserker probe, aswell as the shadow bomb at B4.

It's very likely that an Omega has nukes - they are nothing special. In Space, they don't have a lot of effect unless you get a direct hit in, while they are very easy to manufacture.

[Riess]

We've also seen nukes held by Hyperion-class cruisers in the Minbari War, when Sheridan used them against the Black Star.

Although you're right, if all of these tubes were nuclear missiles, that'd be a bloody lot of nukes.

[Captain Pierce]

We've never seen them launch missiles, and we've never seen them launch escape pods... so really, nobody but Ron Thornton knows for sure...

I would tend to lean toward escape pods simply because we've never seen them launch missiles, and there were a lot of times that missiles would have come in handy. (Like against the orbital weapons platforms orbiting Earth, or the planet killer in "Call to Arms.") Also, I seem to recall Sheridan muttering something like "Get to the life pods... get to the life pods!" when an Omega was about to go up in "Severed Dreams," so we know there are some. As to putting them away from the habitat section... it seems to me that launching them from the rotating part would be problematic in terms of giving the escape pod some sort of weird trajectory that it would have to waste maneuvering fuel to cancel out.

But there's nothing that directly contradicts the possibility of them being missile tubes, so who knows?

Anybody remember why Sheriden's cruiser had nukes on it in the first place? The Hyperion doesn't look like it has any tubes...

[BitchX]

The Lexington (Sheridan's ship) apparently had nuclear mines with it. Judging by the way Sheridan asked about them in In The Beginning ("do we have any tactical nukes left?") they had been used to some extent already prior to the engagement with the Black Star. The explanation as to why we dont see nukes in missiles being used, or missiles being used much at all (outside fighter vs. fighter fights) could be because of the apparently quite effective point defense of most races in B5. Not much point investing mass to missiles if few or none of them get through to hit the target.

[Crook]

Nice to see some quality B5 work make it's way into HW2 How many polys is that Fury?

[Sangius]

the omega has nukes... they were used in a trap when a wunded omega lure a sherlin in to an astroid feald mined with its onbord payload of nukes.... sherlin goes bye bye after 2 or 3 hits.... but the big question is if the omega has somthing to mount the warheads on?!?

[mr. WHO]

@Sangius: You mean Sheridan ship? It was Hyperion not Omega (Omega wasn't even started to design during EA-Minbari war).

[Captain Pierce]

The Lexington (Sheridan's ship) apparently had nuclear mines with it. Judging by the way Sheridan asked about them in In The Beginning ("do we have any tactical nukes left?") they had been used to some extent already prior to the engagement with the Black Star. The explanation as to why we dont see nukes in missiles being used, or missiles being used much at all (outside fighter vs. fighter fights) could be because of the apparently quite effective point defense of most races in B5. Not much point investing mass to missiles if few or none of them get through to hit the target.

Something about the whole nukes on the Lexington thing doesn't quite add up. "Do we have any tactical nukes left," if that's Sheridan's line (and I'm not arguing that it isn't, I just don't have my DVD's accessible right now to double-check ), would imply that they had already used some as part of this fight. But (IIRC) we didn't see any; and certainly they couldn't have been meant as mines, because the idea of using them as mines apparently took the Black Star completely by surprise.

I do agree with you about the point-defense, though. Attacking something like B5 with missiles would be totally useless with all those quad-guns the thing has.

[maxdamage]

posted by Zeelich:
Good to see you too Maxdamage. I knew the name was familar. New forums? I didn't know TGU was still going. Going to need to have a little look around. Can you email or upload those meshes? That would save me a heap of time. Havn't had much time this week, busy with real life stuff. I do have a couple of pics though....

Unfortunately I only got my pc fixed now and have to re-install all my stuff so it will be a while before I'll touch anything related to B5 and HW2.Can post pics of the meshes atm but as I said before most of them have to be re-texture mapped.

BTW I also have an almost finished Heavy Ballistic missile seen in the episode when Sheriden and his attack fleet engaged the G.O.D. Platforms orbiting Earth.

[BitchX]

Something about the whole nukes on the Lexington thing doesn't quite add up. "Do we have any tactical nukes left," if that's Sheridan's line (and I'm not arguing that it isn't, I just don't have my DVD's accessible right now to double-check ), would imply that they had already used some as part of this fight. But (IIRC) we didn't see any; and certainly they couldn't have been meant as mines, because the idea of using them as mines apparently took the Black Star completely by surprise.

I do agree with you about the point-defense, though. Attacking something like B5 with missiles would be totally useless with all those quad-guns the thing has.

Well, Sheridan's line does very strongly suggest that they had already used some nukes during whatever battles ,the fleet the Lexington was part of, had been participating in. However, I still would think that they originally had been intended to be used as mines. Afterall, Sheridan did lure the Black Star in by using a distress signal. Perhaps the Minbari did not expect a badly damaged ship to be capable of much anything. Ofcourse, this also suggests that the Minbari would be more retarded than they are shown to be. However, its hard to figure out any other use for the nukes than mines since missiles are really rarely used in B5. Using nuke warheads in missiles against other vessels would be a waste of perfectly good nukes.

Another note on point-defense and missiles though, it seems that missiles can get through if the PD is saturated enough. For example the G.O.D satellites used missiles extensively and were able to cause damage to Sheridan's fleet with them. Which in turn raises the question why dont EA ships utilize missile swarms to saturate PD, since it's obviously within their capabilities.

[Zeelich]

Sorry about the lack of updates guys, been busy with RL stuff. Made some progress with the Omega textures, nothing to post pics about though. Got a couple of days of this weekend, gonna try and get the Omega finished and in-game. No promises though.

The Starfury has around 4000 polys I think. Have to double check. The Omega's poly count has risen too, about 7500.

No stress Max, pics would be nice though, if you get a chance.

[maxdamage]

Pic of my Poseidon carrier:


Pic of my EA shuttle:

Will post some more pics.

[Jewegee]

In lieu of the discussion about nukes, escape pods and bloody huge missiles in B5 I would like to just point out a few things; there are known inconsistencies in the b5 universe. One example is the size of the Sharlin, another is the naming of ships seen in space battles. A third is the fact that based on damage output, the human particle lasers are more powerful than the nukes that destroyed the black star (even though the particle lasers couldn't scratch a Sharlin).

The point is that it's not worth arguing about.

I would suggest checking out b5tech.com as it has a plethora of information (even if it is under reconstruction). While a lot of it seems contradictory, that is about as close to canon as we have.

On a lighter note, great work on the models!

Edit: the operators of b5tech.com seem to think the red objects in question are missile launchers. See this link, and scroll roughly half way down to the bit about Ivanova

http://b5tech.com/science/scale/omega/omega.htm

[BitchX]

Well, the main problem the EA and most younger races would have (and the EA did have) against the Minbari was the stealth tech the boneheads had. Remember that even the Hyperion-class carried sufficient firepower to damage a Sharlin (as shown in the first contact situation when Prometheus opened fire) but it doesnt matter if they cant hit.

But, in order to avoid derailing this from discussion about the actual mod too much, Im dropping this here.

[Crook]

SThe Starfury has around 4000 polys I think. Have to double check.

Ahh that makes me feel better about my fury then That one looks quite superb but at 4k it's no wonder. How does the HW engine handle 4k fighters? Doesn't it grind it to a halt with a lot on screen?

[Zeelich]

Ok guys, finally got some new pics for you all. I'll post 'em in a tick.

Nice work on the meshes Max.

The Furry runs like a charm ingame, but that may be because I was very tough with LODing. Not that you can tell when it's flying around.

And now on to the pics. Almost done, just got the turrets to do. Poly count is over 8000 including goblins/turrets. About 3500 without goblins.









Comments/critics welcome.

[BitchX]

Looks deadly and full of purpose

[CadianShocker]

looks sweet, does the middle bit rotate?

[Jewegee]

Wow great progress!

[Crook]

Looks like that omega has 12 sided engines (ish). For the sake of a few more polys I'd bevel those ends in and model the interior of the engines instead of doing it with a flat texture. Not much of an increase in polys for a lot of benefit.

In fact, looking at the model I'd change some of the circular parts (the ends of the rotator and the engines) and I'd redo them with more polys. The larger the part the more polys should be spent on it. If necessary to keep the poly numbers down I'd do this at the expense of the detail on the front or the goblins.

For the engines I'd maybe go 16 or even 20 sided, and maybe more for the rotator as it's even larger. The actual jump in polys won't be much as compared to the benefit of detail you get from it.

[Ragnarokx]

Cool, sounds like Crooks wants to contribute. If im not mistaken, you worked for the "ancient" H2 B5 mod ?

[Crook]

Yep, but as a team we had lost interest in modding at that point. HW 1 was our thing. I managed to do a bit of modeling and got my fury and tbolt in game, but I just wasn't keen on HW2 modding.

[Jewegee]

So is this mod dead/dying?

I suggest anyone interested check out the "I've found her" game available at http://ifh.firstones.com/. It is a freeware game that is loads of fun

[Ragnarokx]

Unfortunally ive found her is an action/space simulation and no strategy game, so somehow your post is not quite on topic

[Crook]

But amazing fun. If anyone is interested in B5 then you have to play IFH.

[Ragnarokx]

I have to admit i never played it. But heard people talking its about 90% simulation and about 10% action. I was told the Starfury is very, VERY difficult to manover, hence its several thrusters etc.

[Crook]

There are levels of difficulty from full thruster control to computer control. It's a game after all.

[Zeelich]

Hey there guys. No the MOD isn't dead yet. Progress is just slow. Work and Neverwinter Nights 2 has been keeping me busy.

Hmmm, good comments Crook. I think your right. I'll get on it.

Ok, as per Crooks request I've updated the Omega. Poly count is now 9068....





It really does make a big difference. Nice call Crook.

[Jewegee]

I know that this is a HW 2 place, but does anyone know of a WORKING link for the Great Wars mod for hw1? Does anyone still have it?

[Thunderbolt]

wow 9068 polys that thing is going to need plenty of lods

glad that things are progressing well.