Sunday, September 14, 2008

A new format / A new idea

Well, after a short hiatus (a month and a half isn't bad in the online free industry) I'm back to continue work on the mod.  

On my way home from work today, I had an idea.  I'm working on this, and I am not really getting any information from you, the community.  What do YOU want to see in the Xeonforce mod?  What kind of things do YOU think should be in here?  Should the Zeon tech tree work off of tech levels or off of researching certain parts and units that require these parts can be purchased once the avalible parts have been researched?  

Any comments or thoughts are welcomed here, I'd love to hear your ideas.  Email me at azuza001@hotmail.com with your thoughts if you wish to help on this.  Remember, there are no dumb ideas, just dumb people that suggest them.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

It's over 5000!


So an Alpha Tester of ours named Raxoll decided that he wanted to see just how powerful EA's little engine was.  He decided to see just how many units he could build before his powerful gaming machine (I'll just say it was a quad core Intel with a Radeon 3850 and 3 gigs of ram on Vista) crashed.

Here's a pic.  He said that whenever he got above 5035 (yes, thats right) Zaku II's that the game would crash.  Honestly, if you need more than a thousand Zaku's to get the job done then something is wrong here people.  Now, the game only would run at 3-5 fps after he up past 1000 but still, 5035 is DAMN impressive.  (myself, I was hoping he'd get over 9000!)

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Where the hell have I been?

Working unfortunatly.  The good news is that we're still working on the mod, even if there havn't been many updates latley.  Right now we're working on getting the settings for the units down right.

Oh, and did I mention that we have an offical Alpha version of the game for folks to try?  Email me at Azuza001@hotmail.com if your interested in testing out the alpha of the mod.  Now, the Alpha is missing quite a bit, we still don't have many audio cues on the Zeon units, we're still missing the Zeon tech upgrades and super powers, and there is no Zeon AI but most of the units are there, and GDI and NOD have their new toys that work well.  If interested, give me a buzz.  All I'm requesting in return is some info on your machine (what your system specs are) so I can get an idea of how the game will run on the different machines out there. 

Monday, June 2, 2008

Some new stuff!

Well, it's been a bit, but lets see whats new in the Xenoforce world shall we?

First off, the units in from Zeon who have funnels now actually HAVE funnels!  That makes a big difference to some units like the Quin Mantha shown here as thats an extra 30 shots!  Also, Zeon now has a defensive tower that is invisible that also detects stealth, something they desperatly needed.

On GDI's side we have the Wolverine, an Anti-Infnatry based mecha.  It's small but it packs a serious punch against other infantry.  Just don't expect it to do much damage to anything else.

Then we have NOD.  Now, not much has been talked about with NOD, so let see where we are.  Oh, whats that?  Yes, it's a new Tank for NOD, the Hammerhead to be exact.  This lovely piece of artillery is JUST what Nod needed to make it a contender.  Well, that and the fact that I've removed the 1 limit to NOD's commandos making them THE Stealth-Annoyance army.   And that's not all, I've also given NOD the Fortress.  This mobile rocket bunker is one of the toughest things rolling around on the battlefield, and it's 8 rocket men inside help make sure that everyone knows it's there.










Saturday, May 24, 2008

Cleanup duty.

So right now what we're working on is what I call "Cleanup Duty".  What this is actually is just going in and starting to fix the units little problems/settings.  Don't confuse this with balancing, for it's not the same thing.  I'm just working on the damaged animations, weapon physics (like the Dom Rocket having a chance to miss) and the like.  

We should have a nice surprize for you folks in a few days though.  :)

Monday, May 19, 2008

A few new defensive toys!

Just a few quick pics of the Zeon Defenses doing their thing.  The Zeon force has a bunker with 3 rocket men and 3 machine gunners in it making it great for early anti-air and anti-infantry and a lazer turret for anti-tank equipment.






Monday, May 12, 2008

Done by the 13th plan.

Now I must say this, as far as "Having Zeon done 100% by the 13th" go's, I will say it was a sucsess and a failure.

I think it's more of a sucsess as I've got all of Zeons units IN the game now and Zeon is a 100% Playable and seperate faction to the GDI/NOD/Scrin.  So yes, I did it all in a month.

It was a failure though as I don't have the Zeon army AI working yet (this will take a week at least so if there arn't many updates in the next few days this is why.) and I don't have the Zeon upgrades and powers done yet (though once the AI is done the other stuff will only take one solid day of work to do) and the Zeon units themselfs arn't fully balanced.  Also, I don't have the damage models working yet and I still need to do some animation tweaking on the units.  

Still, I say this is comming along quite well.  By the end of this month I hope to have the other things done and be able to move on to the Earth Federation.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Good news / bad news.

The good news is that the Nightingale, Quberey, Gwazin Class Cruiser, Zeon Barracks, and Zeon Power Plants are in the game for Zeon.  Also, ZEON is it's own faction now.  

On top of that I've giving the GDI the Mammoth Mk2 from Tiberium Sun, the Titan, and the MRLS Tank back!  These are things GDI needed to just keep up with ZEON.  

Now for the bad news.  My photo capturing software isn't working, so I have no pics for you!  :(  

Oh well, you'll all just have to wait lol.

Friday, May 9, 2008

A teaser

Something we havn't talked about is how the older armies will fair in the Xenoforce mod.  Yes, we plan on leaving them in, why not?  If you REALLY think that GDI can beat ZEON then I say best of luck.  In fact, I've got a bit of a surprize for you, I'm even gonna put a few units into the game for GDI/NOD that SHOULD have been their in the beginning.

Here's a pic of the Mammoth Mk2.  

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Enough of this small stuff, bring on the BIG guns!

Tonight instead of doing the normal thing of pics of the Zeon Army in action I decided to do a pic of each of the mobile suits that I have in the game.  Kind of a group photo thing for the little guys.  We have the Kampfer, Xamel, Zaku-2, and Gouf in the first pic, followd by the Dom, Goog, HyGoog, and Ace Z'Gok.  

Then we move on to the Air Units of the Zeon Army.  We have the Gerbera, a highly advanced and rare mobile suit next to Haman Karns Qubeley.  Both are great mobile suits and sure pack a nasty punch.  And last but definatly not least is my favorite unit of the Zeon Army, the Neiu Zeal!  One of these shows up and you win, simple as that!  Granted it's not too fair as the GDI and NOD don't have anything remotly close to the power that the Zeil offers but still it's a sick and happy thing to see it fly in and steamroll the competition.  

The final pic is a wallpaper-screen shot of the Zeil getting the drop on some enemy units.  Notice the 2 HyGoggs in the pic?  Yep, those weren't mine.  The AI is already grabbing the Zeon units and using them!  Good thing I got to the Zeil before it did!

Tommorow night I plan on putting the Nightingale and Gwazine Class cruiser in, along with the Zeon Power Plant and Troop Barracks.  Then it's a matter of moving on to "unit cleanup" and AI usage and off to the Earth Federation Army.  The plan is to have the Zeon army 100% done by the 13th, making it a 1 month project.













Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Double our pleasure? Double their destruction! Doublement GUM!

And by double I mean Double the new units for Zeon in the game as of May 6, 2008 at 5:30 in the morning!  Lets start with something that I tried out and decidedly like, a change in the way the game makes units.  In the old Xenoforce mod all of the land based mecha were built from the War Factory.  That's soooo old school isn't it?  As the actual goal of this mod is to have a more balanced AND more realistic display of the forces that are in it a change has been made.

Lets start with the why.  As I was adding the new units into the game I noticed something.  About 80% of the units that made up the Zeon forces were designed and built by 2 companies.  As it makes no sence to me that 2 competing companines would use the same war factory to build their units I decided to split it up a bit.  So now we have the Zeonic War Factory and the Zimmad War Factory.  The Zeonic factory makes the Zaku 2, Gouf, Kampfer, and Xamel where the Zimmad makes the Dom, Gogg, HyGogg, and ZGok.  Now before pureist's send me hate-mail about how the Xamel and ZGok weren't made by those companies I know this but I wasn't going to force players to build a single factory to make a single unit, and as the ZGok was a amphibious unit like the Gogg and HyGogg I thought it made a great fit to the Zimmad's line of mobile suits.  

Oh, and all of those units that I named are in the game working too!  Thats right, we went from Zaku2, Gouf, Musai, and Dom to Zaku2, Gouf, Musai, Dom, Kampfer, Xamel, Gogg, HyGogg, and ZGok in a single day!  Don't get your hopes up, this isn't going to happen often.  I'm just trying to prove something (mostly to myself) and am working like a mad-man on getting everything of Zeon's IN the game ASAP.   After this I plan on taking a bit of a well deserved break.  

In the mean time, enjoy some pictures of those units in action (there's no pic of the Gogg, sorry it was an oversight maybe tommorow?) and you'll just have to wait and see what I have planned to have done by tommorow night!  








Monday, May 5, 2008

More Toys for the Zeon Army? Hell yea!

First off I'd like to say that there has been a slight change in plans.  The Musai will not, I repeat, will NOT be building units in the game.  Upon further review of, well, what the Musai actually is it occurs to me that, by gosh, the Musai was only a carrier ship for Zakus.  Would it make since then to have it build super-units and air units?  Hell no.  So, the Musai has been demoted to just super-awsome battle cruiser.  I plan on making it be able to spawn out 3 Zakus giving it the feel of what it was supposed to be.  Also, I added missle launchers to it so that it will fire off a volly of 10 missles at air and ground units as it didn't make much since to me that it would be firing off those massive beam cannons at fast moving air units.  Works well so far.  :)  Also, you'll notice in the pics that one of the Musai's took some serious damage.  Looks great in the game.

Also, if you look at the pictures you'll notice the new toy that my post title mentions.  Yes, thats the Dom folks.  It's cheaper than a Gouf and packs one hell of a punch with it's 280MM rocket launcher.  It really compliments a detachment of Zaku's and Goufs.










Sunday, May 4, 2008

A little surprize!

And by little, I mean huge!  That's right, I've got one of the strongest ships in the Xenoforce:Zeon army now in the game.  May I present, the Musai.  Not only does this thing pack a serious punch and not only can it produce it's own units (at the moment it's producing ground units but I plan on changing it so that the Musai makes the Zeon air units) but it's able to withstand one hell of a punch.  Anything short of a direct nuculer hit won't stop this baby.  

Now I still have a few bugs to work out on it, the whole I'm a structure but I move thing is kinda tricky but it's pretty nice looking right now I think.  I may set it up so that it's either in production mode or in movement mode, what do you think?







Saturday, May 3, 2008

The Gouf, it LIVES!


So I made the chioce and decided to only make updates when there is something important to update about.  And this is definatly something important, at least to me!  I bring you, the Gouf Custom!  

Yes, yes, it's all pretty but what can it do you ask?  Well, besides being just as heavily armored as a Gundam, and besides being equipped with a 75mm gattling gun, it looks good while doing all of this too.  

Also, I finished the Zeon Propaganda Center.  As of right now it only does one thing but it's a very important thing if you wish to have a self reliant base.  It produces
cold, hard cash!  Every 20 seconds you get a nice deposit of 1500$, and with enough of them you
can be come quite self sufficent.   All and all, not bad for a few days work.










Thursday, May 1, 2008

Behold the Gouf

Here's a pic of the next unit I'm working on adding to our little mod, the Gouf.  Enjoy the pic.

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Where's the fire hose?

Well, the war factory is now 100% done, with all sounds/animation working and damage versions switching it looks good to me.  The war factory is only producing Zaku 2's at the moment, but lets see if we can't get a Gouf or 2 to pop out of it by the end of the week shall we?

Here's a pic of the factory with the door down as a Zaku is walking out as it has taken some damage.  The front areas around the door have caught fire.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

No pics for you today.

Well, here I am almost done with the Zeon War Factory a week ahead of schedual.  This one has gone much quicker than adding the Zaku.  All I have to do now is get the "repair" function to work and do a few textures/bone selections for damage states and it'll be done.  I should hopefully have some pics for you tommorow of it in damaged states and by wendsday/thursday of it as a seprate purchaseable/buildable building.  

Monday, April 28, 2008

Not one to rest on one's laurels



Well, today's been very eventful.  Here's a pic of the Zeon War Factory in the game, replacing the GDI War Factory.  It's not animated yet, but it's selectable, sellable, and it does build things.  I hope to have the War Factory actually completed by Friday.  I'm off to watching more Robotech, so this should be the last update for the night.

Wallpaper

For some reason the Wallpaper pics didn't save correctly, here are the fixed versions.





A historic and large update!

And today, Monday, at 12:05 Eastern Time, we offically have the Zaku 2 finished!  It is in the game, it has it's own structure point (so it's no longer replacing the Preditor), all of the animation is working, and it even fires at air units!  Here are some pics of a large battle I did using the Zaku 2 vrs. NOD, and I must say that at it's current settings the Zaku 2 feels right.  I even have 2 pics that can be used as wallpaper if one wish's.  Enjoy the pretty pics!









Wallpaper




Sunday, April 27, 2008

Feel the flames of my gun!

I didn't expect to get this part done so quickly, but I figured out my problem and fixed it.  Here are the pics of the Zaku firing with the shots comming from the CORRECT place!  Good news.






You sure blow up perdy boy.

And here we have a Zaku 2 blowing up.  It looks great, especially in live action.  Take a look at the shots, we're really getting close here folks!









Saturday, April 26, 2008

He only had one more day until retirement too!

I've been hit sir! Part 2

So, here's a pic of the lovly Zaku 2 in one of its, sadder, moments.  Yes, this Zaku 2 is standing next to another one, and this Zaku 2 needs to get his ass back to the repair base!  (which reminds me, I need to find out if the repair base will do that or if theres specific code that needs to be there that tells the Repair base the the Zaku 2 is a valid repairable unit).



 

Also, I fixed the OBBox issue, so I no longer have to draw a box around the zaku to select it, I can just point and click at it and it is selected.  I know, doesn't sound like a big deal right, but honestly, do you want to play a RTS where the only way to select units is by "box" mass selecting?  I didn't think so.  Lol.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

I've been hit sir!

Now that I've got the Zaku in the game, moving, with animation of firing the next thing I'm putting in is a damaged state.  Here's a few quick renders of the Zaku2 standing there after taking some damage.