Eras of the Mercenaries (Revived)

[Mobius13]

Hi guys, it's been a while since I've been around, and playing RAW has made me want to return to modding, so, as of a week and a half ago I am working on Eras of the Mercenaries from scratch.

For those of you who don't know, Eras of the Mercenaries is intended to deepen the gameplay of Star Wars Empire at War: Forces of Corruption by adding in dozens of era specific units, heroes, GCs, and mercenaries. As the name implies, mercenaries (denoting special units available to be bought) will be a major part of this mod. The player will have to decide on long term and short term goals, as shipyards and defensive structures become available to them they will also unlock special items, that in the correct location, can unlock units, heroes, and of course, mercenaries.

The Tech Trees of every faction have been completely revamped as well in order to match the unit's corresponding eras/factions. The Eras include:

Tech 1 - Rise of the Empire Era (Late Clone Wars/New Order Technology)

Tech 2 - Early Imperial Rule Technology.

Tech 3 - Height of the New Order (Late Imperial/Rebellion Era Technology)

Tech 4 - New Republic Era (Imperial Remnant Technology)

Tech 5 - Legacy Era (40 ABY) (Post Yuuzhan Vong war Technology)



Now, as a disclaimer, i will note that this will not be "All Era" mod. The tech levels will represent the technologies available in that 50-60 year period and the heroes and technologies available will reflect the correct time periods. I will NOT be adding all ships available in the eras nor will I be adding random ships for no reason, although there will be a good variety of units.

The units available will all be split into classes and into subclasses (level 1-5). For space these will include: Frigates, Capital Ships, Escorts, Fighters, Bombers, and Carriers.



Some shots of newer material to start things off:












Special thanks to Warb_Null for giving me permission to edit his models.

Check out the Modb page at Eras of the Mercenaries Moddb Profile

[Mobius13]

I'm pretty sure this community is in its death throes, but I'll keep posting here in an attempt to get some sort of response (:


First up are the new weather variants. Many units will now feature weather variants with realistic camo.




Next up, an Imperial Unit Expo:


Re-skinned/Re-rigged Victory-II Frigate




M17 Outbound-Class Cruiser/Carrier




And some update on the texturing process of the Turbulent SD (definitely not finished)




That's it for now, follow the mod on MODDB for near-daily update (:

[JAS]

Nice work, I like the swamp/forest pattern and the Victory II.

[Slornie]

Yeah, using the weather variants to do camo paint for vehicles is something i don't think i've seen before. Great idea!

[Mobius13]

Originally Posted by Slornie

Yeah, using the weather variants to do camo paint for vehicles is something i don't think i've seen before. Great idea!

Thanks! I believe the main reason it's not seen very often is the hassle of re-skinning every variant

Originally Posted by Slornie

Nice work, I like the swamp/forest pattern and the Victory II.

Thanks JAS, the model itself is by Codeuser, I just re-rigged it and re-textured it (:

[JAS]

Well in any case, excellent texture work Mobius

[Mobius13]

Originally Posted by JAS

Well in any case, excellent texture work Mobius

Thanks again JAS

Moar updating!

To read news on ModDB click here!


First off, I'll be describing the approach I'll be taking with the mod for the next few months. I'll be splitting up the mod into several separate parts (in the order I'll be working on), each one of these will focus on an area of development. They will include the following:

Part 1: Space Units
1st - Imperial Space Units (All Coded)
2nd - Alliance Space Units
3rd - Underworld Space Units

Part 2: Balancing
1st - Realistic Scaling
2nd - Stat Changes

Part 3: Mercenaries/Special Units
1st - Land Units
2nd - Space Units

Part 4: Special Structures
1st - Shipyards, Space Mining, Defenses
2nd - Ground Structures, Special Buildings, Economic Structures

Part 5: Graphical and Gameplay Changes
1st - Updated Particles (In progress)
2nd - High resolution Textures (In progress)
3rd - Gameplay Dynamics (In Progress)

Part 6: Cleanup
1st - Make Mod User Friendly (GUI Updates, Junk xml and texture removal, etc.)
2nd - Zip and release
3rd - ????
4th - Profit

*Note, the profit part is a joke. Obviously.

Unit Update


As this mod follows the technology of the factions up to the Second Galactic Civil War, many of the new units portrayed in Legacy of the Force don't have canon reference images, which allowed me to get creative with some of the modelling. Therefore, I present to you: two of the Empire's new toys:



TIE Starhunter
As Empire's Level 5 space superiority unit, the Starhunter fills the role of both Bomber and Fighter, replacing the TIE Defender of the earlier Tech Level. Starhunters were first seen in LotF: Invincible. Considering Starhunters are the next generation of TIE Interceptors, I based the design heavily off the interceptor, while maintaining features from the TIE Avenger and TIE Advanced.




Starhunters in formation:






Heavy Imperial Carrier
The Empire lacks in capital ships during 40 ABY (Early Legacy Era), therefore a new carrier based design had to be introduced to balance things out with the Strident-Class. This led to the development of this yet-to-be-named carrier design. I took alot of influences from the Venator, including the large dorsal hangar bay and several ventral bays, which aren't targetable and can continue to spawn reinforcements until the entire ship is destroyed. It also has a gravity well generator, which will keep enemy ships in range until its Heavy Turbolasers and considerable complement of Starhunters can destroy them. This ship is a fanon design, but is based off of the hull of the Arc Hammer, and off the mission profile of the Palleaon Star Destroyer.





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There will be many more units unique to this mod, some of which I will begin developing soon, these include:

- Imperial version of the Crusader - Corvette (As seen in LotF)
- Alliance Aleph - Class Heavy Bomber (As seen in LotF)
- Underworld Modified Dreadnaught - Class Heavy Cruiser (Fanon)

That's all for today! As some of you have noted, I'm open to idea, suggestions, criticism, anything! Let me know what you'd like to see in this mod, and if it's practical I'll add it in.

- Mob

[Manwithablaster]

I like the look of the heavy imperial carrier, it's very new and oldschool imperial at the same time.

[scorch]

This seems very close to Thrawns revenge mod...What will make this one different?

[Mobius13]

Originally Posted by scorch

This seems very close to Thrawns revenge mod...What will make this one different?

How is this "very close"?