The Shattered Star

Now that the DoW mod tools have been released i think it'd be really cool to see someone make an SSX campaign. As people who were on IRC last night know, it was my intention to make a campaign, i made the campaign file, and wrote the briefing for the first mission. But when i reached the part of constructing the first mission i discovered that in order to edit Terrain Height in missions (i.e. Making mountains etc) you have to use Photoshop. Now, i neither have Photoshop or have any idea how to use it, so that basically rules me out for making this campaign. Perhaps someone with knowledge of Photoshop could take on the task?

For those of you who are interested here is what i wrote for the first Mission Briefing. If someone decides to make the campaign and wants to use this briefing feel free to do so.


Log Entry #145 - Force Commander

Several days ago I recieved word that the forces of the Eve battalion had engaged the rebel forces known as Hidden Agenda without prior permission from the Imperium Council, an action which has thrown the entire Imperium into a state of war. The council has done nothing, despite it's questions as to whether or not this attack had been planned for some time. Unfounded accusations have been issued and even i am guilty of doing and saying things that should have gone undone and unsaid. I fear for the worst, a rift has formed within the Imperium, with the forces of the Eve Battalion and their allies on one side and most of the Imperium Council on the other, it is true that i have feared such an occurance for some time but never did i imagine it would be this damaging to the Imperium.
I myself have now left the homeworld where the debate about the situation was taking place with many of the council in attendance. Myself and the Community Battalion under my command have been charged with the task of aiding the Eve Battalion quash the Hidden Agenda presence on one of the Emperium colony worlds where they have been murdering innocent civilians in an attempt to gain control of the capital city. I must say that i am less than pleased at being assigned to work with the Commander and his men. If past experience is anything to go by he will take command of the operation and ignore all Imperium regulations as he does so. However i will not yield to his command, my Battalion will remain my own, and we will follow the law of the Imperium to the letter. To do less would be unbefitting of a Force Commander.

EDIT: Names removed

Must we go over this again? We had serious issues, we split, end of story. I don't think we should participate in it and make it an overriding issue in every game we play. We have too little troll blood in us for that.

Anubis wrote:For those of you who are interested here is what i wrote for the first Mission Briefing. If someone decides to make the campaign and wants to use this briefing feel free to do so.


Log Entry #145 - Force Commander

Several days ago I recieved word that the forces of the Eve battalion had engaged the rebel forces known as Hidden Agenda without prior permission from the Imperium Council, an action which has thrown the entire Imperium into a state of war. The council has done nothing, despite it's questions as to whether or not this attack had been planned for some time. Unfounded accusations have been issued and even i am guilty of doing and saying things that should have gone undone and unsaid. I fear for the worst, a rift has formed within the Imperium, with the forces of the Eve Battalion and their allies on one side and most of the Imperium Council on the other, it is true that i have feared such an occurance for some time but never did i imagine it would be this damaging to the Imperium.
I myself have now left the homeworld where the debate about the situation was taking place with many of the council in attendance. Myself and the Community Battalion under my command have been charged with the task of aiding the Eve Battalion quash the Hidden Agenda presence on one of the Emperium colony worlds where they have been murdering innocent civilians in an attempt to gain control of the capital city. I must say that i am less than pleased at being assigned to work with Commander and his men. If past experience is anything to go by he will take command of the operation and ignore all Imperium regulations as he does so. However i will not yield to his command, my Battalion will remain my own, and we will follow the law of the Imperium to the letter. To do less would be unbefitting of a Force Commander.

EDIT: Names removed

Let's..... not glorify that whole thing. Crap happened, we moved on.

Phayse said he was gonna make a campaign too i think. He has, and is good with photoshop too.

I'm all for an SSX Campaign for DoW, i think its a great idea. - But i think we should keep anything to do with the split and our past out of it. Cos thats what it is, the past. Storyline doesn't have to be true, it could be fictional


Whoever is gonna be working on the campaigns though, remember to use the SSX colour scheme for the squads cos those would fit in great hehe

I was planning to tell our true story to date in the campaign, sort of a historical thing, but it would seem that that idea isn't too popular. Thats why i was going to produce one mission first to see if people approved It seems the general opinion is against me, i thought it'd be good tell have a campaign telling our story. Perhaps not.

eek.

If a different, fictional story were put in place, it sounds like a great idea. But as for the true story:

Let's..... not glorify that whole thing.

Height maps... Hieght maps...

Well...

There's a few things you can do.

get a terrain modelling software - Theres one on freeware for use with worldcraft and QEradiant... But I forgot it's name - - anyhow...

Make the terrain in that - ---> top down view ---> screeny and then colour inversion - OR do it the tedious way and use the height edit tool inside the program...

I'll start on a few maps when I get back home from boro. Along with a few new models - such as plasma turrets and heavy flamer turrets, a landspeeder typhoon and a few mods for the dready like twin assaul cannon...

I'll let ya know how it goes... Bearing in mind I got uni work (2 reports due next week ) and Haven on the go as well.

BTW Me=Phayse for those unsure.

Feel free to drop ideas for a storyline because at the mo, I got nothin'

This is summin Anny started on as a storyline, hope he doesn't mind me posting it


"Almost an hour ago we recieved word of certain.....complications with the operations taking
place in the Cynextrik system. The Imperium has lost all contact with the Space Marine chapter
who had been assigned to prepare the system for colonisation, their last report indicated that
their mission was almost complete and several planets were deemed suitable for immediate
colonisation. After the loss of the Freelancer System to Ork forces many millions of people
require relocation therefore it is vital that this mission be completed as soon as possible,
the Imperium canot afford to have a full chapter out of action because they are harbouring
civilians aboard their vessels.",
"Therefore our chapter has been ordered to the system in question. Our orders are to locate
the missing Chapter and complete their mission. We should be arriving in the system
momentarily, what we may find worries me. If this system has been struck by the Ork
infestation many good men may have been lost. All we can do is follow our orders and
hope for the best."

Sounds good for the first mission.
Almost forgot, Gryph you thinking about making custom units and buildings, or are we gonna use some original ones?

Kahn wrote:Sounds good for the first mission.
Almost forgot, Gryph you thinking about making custom units and buildings, or are we gonna use some original ones?

Well now I know the workings of em, I can whip up pretty much any unit I want.

That said there isn't really any need to redo a lot of the stuff for the sake of it. I will however whack a few more models in there.

I am restricted in certain areas though, for example I have only four upgrade slots for units and some are fixed (meaning I can't for example give marine units the upgrades for terminators - like heavy flamers and assault cannons)

I can add extras to any that don't use up all four slots - so if anyone remembers the rocket launcher terminators of old - get ready to say hello to them again

I'm also thinking of giving them the option to carry plasma rifles as plasma weapons are great against other heavy infantry - which to be honest terminators suck against. But I'd have to spend some time balancing stats for that.

Cool. Where can I get these MOD tools?

Kahn wrote:Cool. Where can I get these MOD tools?

http://www.fileplanet.com/files/140000/147526.shtml

Mod tools can be found there

Might I just add - those tools are the devils work.

Gryphon wrote:Might I just add - those tools are the devils work.

Never a truer word spoken. Time to quote my rant in IRC about how awful the level editor is.

[20:52] <SSX-Anubis> thats it, i give up
[20:52] <Thunderbird> package upgrade complete, reboot time
[20:52] *** Signoff: Thunderbird (Client closed connection)
[20:52] <SSX-Anubis> it is hereby impossible to make a remotely good DoW map without Photoshop
[20:53] <SSX-Anubis> because the level editor is useless
[20:53] <SSX-NF> whats it doing?
[20:53] <Drafell> sure, would lover to plat DoW, pity i dont have it :-/
[20:53] <SSX-Anubis> you can only place one object at a time
[20:53] <SSX-Anubis> HOW IN LORDS NAME ARE YOU MEANT TO FILL A MAP WHEN YOU HAVE TO PLACE ONE TREE AT A TIME????>
[20:53] <SSX-Anubis> its ridiculous
[20:53] <SSX-MS> o.O
[20:54] <SSX-NF> cut & paste not work?
[20:54] <SSX-Anubis> AOE2 Level Editor > Life sentence in prison > DoW map editor
[20:54] <SSX-NF> cut a group of trees and paste them multiple times?
[20:54] <SSX-Anubis> no it doesnt
[20:54] <SSX-Anubis> doesnt work
[20:54] <SSX-NF> must admit I stared at it for 5 mins, imported one height map then gave up
[20:55] <SSX-Anubis> and even when you've done that, you cant get any, and i mean any, height difference without Photoshop. Cant make mountains, hills, slopes. Not one thing
[20:55] <SSX-Anubis> it is the sorryest excuse for a map editor i have ever seen
[20:56] <SSX-Anubis> i think i'll stick to mapping for STV:EF with EF Radiant
[20:58] <SSX-Anubis> and then to mark what is passable and whats impassable you have to use a circular tool that sets certain parts of the map to passable and certain to impassable etc, and no matter what you do it comes out uneven with jags. Because the foolish program is making you use CIRCLE tool on a map made up of SQUARE FLOOR TILES

Rant over and my opinion of the worlds worst level editor is out there for those who weren't in IRC to see

Indeed - followed closely by the doom3 editor.

Reminds me why I hate anything with the name radiant in there.

Bumping this because it sounds interesting, if we can pull it off.