Hello everyone,A couple months ago, a mod appeared on the Steam Workshop for the game Stellaris. It was called 'Systems Alliance Ships' and was a mod that used models for the Systems Alliance from the Mass Effect games.This mod became rather popular fairly quickly, however Steam removed it from the workshop, citing that the models had been stolen from a 'Mass Effect mod for Sins of a Solar Empire.' Personally, I hate mod thieves with a passion.
Considering the fact that a big majority of mod creators (myself included) would happily give permission to use our content as long as credit was given, there is no logical reason to steal anything from anyone. And if I had been the author(s) of that mod, I would've been beyond pissed.That being said, I see a lot of messages across the Stellaris community desperately wishing that mod would return.
People seem to be absolutely in love with those ships.I'm an author of one of the most popular and subscribed-to mods for the game, New Ship Classes & More. I am always getting messages from people asking if I can add the ME ships, to which I have to reply that I can't because the original mod was stolen.The purpose of this post is to attempt to get in touch with the author of the original models and see if there is any possibility that anything can be worked out in terms of reposting this mod on the workshop, with all due credit where it is deserved.If this is not possible, or the author does not wish to provide this permission, then nothing will be done. But it would be really cool to have these ships available for the game again, but this time have it done the RIGHT way, with full permission and credit given.If the author of this mod is willing to do this, please contact me, whoever you are.
No one knows for sure which mod these ships came from, so I have no idea who to contact directly. If you are the original author, you may reply to this thread or contact me on Steam under the name CaptainX3.Either way, thanks for taking the time to read this.Sincerely,Tim Graham aka CaptainX3. Well Dawn of the Reapers would be the likely suspect, as its the main Mass Effect mod for Sins and the only one I know of that was publicly released.
You should probably ask them directly.However, this has been happening a lot to many big Sins of a Solar Empire mods. Star Wars, Star Trek, now Mass Effect. The whole not asking before taking assets thing is really hurting the chances of good relations between the Sins and Stellaris modding communities, which is really too bad.
This kind of thing did not happen with Sins predecessors, Homeworld and Empire at War. Perhaps by lowering the barrier to entry, Steam workshop has inadvertently encourage this kind behavior by making it easy for those who do not care or do not want to make a proper mod project to get large followings re-purposing others work without permission. One of the users here has given me the name of the original author of the models that I'm referring to, and I've reached out to that person to see what the response is.But you're 100% right. Stealing mods/models is one hell of a lousy way to start community relations between the two games. Sadly, Sins and Stellaris are so similar to each other in basic concept that most people here probably own both games, meaning there's no reason for great relations between the two communities and lots of mod sharing. And it's a real disappointment that a few thieves stand to ruin that for everyone.I haven't done much Sins modding myself, although I've used lots of Sins mods. I'm guessing that the models used for Sins are easily converted to Stellaris, which is something the two communities should be celebrating and sharing, because modeling from scratch for Stellaris is both difficult and expensive (Maya is the only format the game will read).
That being the case, there's a severe shortage of good ship sets for Stellaris, which is probably what led to thieves grabbing models.Hopefully the two communities can eventually reach an equilibrium and work together for both games. But the mod stealing has to stop, it's ridiculous for sure. If modders defend the rule from do not take nothing from everybody without permission, there will not be problems.The unique community where I have seen people defending how they can take things from everybody without ask, it is the EAW/FOC community, a guy named JediCloneX2 from BattleFront Commander (who at the end uses thousands of nicknames around the net) and Burnstrobe from Vong at War defended how they can take everything from a Star Wars mod because anybody can be the owner.It can be true reading Disney rules. But by respect, for years people have respected and taking in consideration the work made by others.At the end, the attemps from this bad people named themself as great modders when they are not more than leeches were stopped by Moddb rules and other legal attemps.Here at SOASE and other communities. Never I had a problem. I have shared freely with everybody when they asked me and everybody shared with me when I asked them.
Respect and be friendly is the main matter from everything.
While we wait for a dedicated team of modders to recreate the epic space battles of, we'll have to make do with this ambitious, and very likely cease-and-desistable, based on the space operatics of Mass Effect. As, Mass Effect: Dawn of the Reapers will feature three factions - the Council, Cerberus, and the Reapers - with 'asymmetrical gameplay unique to each race.' That presumably means the robotic death-gods will be as all-powerful as they were in BioWare's original trilogy.Cerberus Skunkworks, the aptly named team behind it, are obviously adding a bunch of new models and weapons to the game, including - rather amazingly - the Crucible, the doomsday weapon from Mass Effect 3. Befitting its awesome power, the team reassure that it will be a 'tough research' and 'the very last thing on the tech tree'. If it's not capable of wiping out every last unit on the map, they've missed a trick.Though this stupidly exciting mod hasn't matured to the point of a beta version, there are several videos, a metric ton of concept images, and frequent updates on its.
We'll let you know as soon as it's released - or as soon as it's been squashed under the steel-capped boots of EA's legal team. Whatever the case, we'll always have this moderately awesome trailer.
Posted on December 17, 2014, 6 Total Conversion Mods for Sins of a Solar EmpireSins of a Solar Empire is one of the most popular 4x RTS titles made. What it lacks in any sort of story or plot, it more than makes up for in just how moddable the game is to a persons preference. Fans of RTS games will almost certainly enjoy just how simple the gameplay is, but also how complex it’s capable of becoming.
Stardock did one great thing with the title by allowing an extremely powerful toolkit that, not only allows you to build new custom maps, but change virtually everything in the games’ ruleset which gave its community to come up with some awesome looking mods.Here’s six total conversion mods that change the gameplay into one that resembles a different, but popular science fiction franchise.1.You can’t consider yourself a video gamer and Star Trek fans and not know about Star Trek Armada. The franchise, while having an extremely rocky start with the first game, was still one of the most popular RTS games on the market in the early 2000′s. Activision made a sequel, but never a third installment to the franchise.
Thankfully, a group of folks decided that Sins of a Solar Empire’s engine would be perfect for an unofficial 3rd game to the Armada series. It features custom designed ships and all too familiar factions.
Star Trek fans looking for a new RTS game to command a fleet in should absolutely take a look at this mod. The work was definitely put into this one.2.Dawn of the Reapers is a Mass Effect universe inspired total conversion mod. When you were playing Mass Effect, haven’t you wondered what it would be like to be more involved in that huge fleet battle between the Reaper ship and the Council’s fleet? Well, now you can. While the mod is still considered in development, you can download it from its web-page and check it out for yourself.
If you’re a fan of the Mass Effect franchise, this mod will certainly interest you.3.Star Wars is the other big franchise that you will always see a mod made from in a science fiction game. The storyline is as follows, “The sudden arrival of armadas with trillions of refugees and thousands of warships between the events of Episodes 5 & 6 forever alters the Star Wars universe and plunges the galaxy into an unprecedented period of chaos and violence.
Begun, a new conflict has.” So far, 2 of the 4 factions have been released, the Galactic Empire and Imperial Warlords with the Rebel Alliance and New Republic still under construction. Star Wars fans, keep an eye on this one.4.Bungie/343 Industries may seem to hate the PC platform for the Halo series, but there are still fans that wish they didn’t. Sins of the Prophets creates an unofficial RTS game to the Halo franchise. It’s still in an Alpha state, and its design is subject to change before its final release, but right now it has an active and dedicated team dedicated to making a quality game that Halo fans will enjoy (a heck of a lot more than the Master Chief Collection did, apparently).5.The Stargate show created a lot of hardcore fans to the series. It would be surprising if a Stargate mod wasn’t created for Sins of a Solar Empire. With custom ships and races that Stargate fans will surely recognize, Stargate Invasion does a service to those who wish there were more games based on this Sci-Fi(SyFy is a stupid name) channel series. Stargate fans, check this mod out.6.Homeworld is considered by many to be the origin for 4x based RTS titles.
Any mod that’s based on this game, is going to be held to a higher standard because of this. Homeworld itself wasn’t any better in terms of storyline or plot than Sins of a Solar Empire was, but the ability to fly in any direction, at the time, was considered revolutionary.
The Homeworld Returns is still quite a bit in development, but so far it’s similarity to the original game is certainly there. As long as we show the author we want him to not only finish the mod, but do so with the quality level we expect, the end result we receive should be one amazing mod.Do you know of a mod for Sins of a Solar Empire you feel should be played? Let us know in the comments!
Alright folksI've seen quite a few requests and questions about a Mass Effect mod, i myself asked for one a while back but after the release of the second game (which is epic by the way) I've been putting some thought into how you could go about doing this. I myself cannot skin or model, but i can code pretty well as I've been modding for quite some time now so if anyone has some these skills we might have something. So heres what I've come up with so far:Well first is the gameplay, we disable the research for star travel, this would force players to use wormholes, which we would replace with 'mass relays.' These are both simple and easy tweaks to the game.
The only downside is that we would have to redesign all the maps to fit with the gameplay, but seeing as this would be a complete conversion thats pretty much a given.Races and factions have been built up considerably in mass effect 2 so there really isn't a whole lot of guess work, not to say there isnt any at all. My idea was to use the mercinary groups as pirates, but the collectors also came to mind.
(Ideas?) I was thinking along the lines of making the 3 main citadel species as the 'Citadel' race and combining theAlliance and Cerberus as 'Human' but i can't seem to come to a good conclusion. The other races might be a little tougher as there isnt a whole lot. The Geth is a definate and could throw the Reapers in there as a super race or something else.
Thoughts?The Alliance and Citadel both have a pretty good diversity in vessels, but the geth might need a wee bit of imagination. I was thinking of putting the Normandy SR2 as a Human Dreadnaught mainly because of its abilitys weapons. The original Normandy could be an expensive frigate perhaps? A crusier could work as well. The Normandy SR-1 class of frigates could be the basic scout frigate for the Alliance. They're small, poorly armed, extremely fast, and it could have its stealth systems operate similar to SoA2's cloaking, and the cloaking would be unlocked via research to prevent it from being OP.I think the Normandy SR-2 should be a cruiser as its too small to be a capital/dreadnought.
Sins Of A Solar Empire Rebellion Mods
You could unlock the Normandy SR-2 design by research, and it would be a bigger, slower, and tougher version of the Normandy SR-1, but still be armed solely with GARDIAN lasers, just more powerful ones than the SR-1. The advanced upgrades such as Multicore Shields, Silaris Armor, Thanix Magneto-Hydrodynamic Cannons, and Helios Thrusters could all be added in as expensive research which unlock them as active and passive abilities on the SR-2.And why do you want to make the Geth enemies? This forum doesn't have spoiler tags (shame on you Stardock!), so I can't go into greater detail than that. Perhaps you should start small and then expand - for example, have only 2 factions to start with (Citadel and Reapers/Geth/Collectors) For the Citadel, you could have all the Alliance vessels, all the Turian frigates and dreadnaughts, and the Destiny ascension. You could also use your imagination for designs, just as long as you stick to the basic design dynamic.You could eventually expand the factions to become seperate (Geth seperate from Reapers, Cerberus seperate from Citadel, etc).Also, for pirates, what about the Migrant Fleet? They weren't explicitly 'pirates', but, rather, scavengers.
Would certainly be interesting.Just my 2 cents. Two thumbs up to Vipervenom for starting a new discussion to seriously talk about this mod. The Mass Effect universe is too interesting and developed in story for Sins to ignore. I'm no modder but as a Mass Effect fan and someone who would play this kind of a mod, I'd also like to contribute my thoughts if no one objects to hearing them.K, well first off, on instinct I really like the idea of converting wormholes into a mass relay network.
It's the most logical option in order to include them. However, I might suggest making a research requirement for you to be able to activate them once they're found. Might make expansion a bit more of a challenge and slow things down nicely. And as for star travel, I don't know if I would take it out completely. The point to the mass relays is that when you go through them, you're not limited to that single star system, but to the entire local star cluster. However, I don't know if it's possible to implement any kind of system like that in the game, so if that can't happen then oh well.Second, I liked Yanxa's suggestion as to starting with only two factions.
For a beta or a first release it would be easiest for a modding team to just create a Citadel faction and then an opposing faction, whatever the team decides that to be, Geth, mercs, etc. We've seen several different ships throughout the two games so far, but barely enough to constitute entire individual fleets.Third, the ships and factions. The singlemost important element to the success of the mod. The Alliance Navy is the easiest - or the least difficult, that is to say - to model ships for, because we have pictures for three of their ships and codex details for how the other components of the fleet operate. We have the first Normandy to have a basis for small frigates, the Alliance cruiser from the Battle of the Citadel, and there's also a picture of a fighter on the 'Starships' main page on the Mass Effect Wiki. From these three we see that the common element to Alliance ships is their wings and engines, running parallel to the main shaft of the ship and hanging at an angle. Also, on the carrier we see two main guns projecting out of the front of the ship.
Also, from codex details we know that dreadnoughts have a similar cannon running almost as long as the ship itself, so we might assume that this as another common detail to powerful ships.It's the other Council races which would probably make up the main factions that present a problem to a modding team. For the salarians we have absolutely nothing to go off of.
With the Asari there's the famous Destiny Ascension, but we don't know how this dreadnought relates to the rest of their fleet. The same goes for the Turians, where at least we have a common cruiser from screenshots. All you can do is focus on the prominent elements of those two ships, and try to apply them to other ship types. With the Asari, you have that abstract four-point cross design and a hollow middle. Oy vey, all I can say is good luck with the asari, that's hard to work with. For the Turians, at least they're a bit more straight to the point in style. Long broad shaft opposed to the roundness of the Normandy or the narrow boxiness of the Alliance cruiser. And their wings are more at an angle like a V shape, not parallel like Alliance ships.
Might be easier to apply to different ships.With the release of Mass Effect 2, we also got a new look at the Quarian Migrant Fleet. There are plenty of views of some of their ships, and since we have that, I don't think they should be left out of the mod. I don't know if they can be included in the mod, but I think it would be a waste of starships to ignore them.The geth have their dropships, which have been labeled as frigate-class.
Also in Mass Effect 2 we saw a geth space station. I suggest look at those two and compare for ideas.I really wish that there were images of krogran spaceships, I don't believe they should be left out of the mod, but maybe they'd be better for a role as pirates or something.And remember you even have a new model for trade ships by replacing them with Kowloon-class freighters.
Normandy SR-2 is a cruiser according to the CE art book.Destiny Ascension is a dreadnought yes, but according to Joker in ME1 it has no firepower. Apperently servering some other purpose (capital envoy ship? ).About the other ships, my memory isn't as good as it could be but I don't remember that many different types of ships seen in the game. Everything looks about the same, and considering there are like 5 frigates, 5 cruisers and 5 capitals for each race in SINS that makes it an awefull lot to figure out on yourselves.Will be insteresting to see where this leads though. Quoting Sarlocal, reply 13Normandy SR-2 is a cruiser according to the CE art book.Destiny Ascension is a dreadnought yes, but according to Joker in ME1 it has no firepower.
Apperently servering some other purpose (capital envoy ship? ).That's not true - I believe it's either Ashley or Kaiden who, upon seeing it on approach to the Citadel, note that the guns on it could take down the kinetic barriers on any ship in the fleet - proving that it has immense firepower, as opposed to none.My bad, you're correct. Will have to replay that ME1 part though cause I'm sure Joker say something along those lines. Anyway, you were right.Edit: If I was wrong about that, I thought I might be wrong about the Normandy size-class too so I checked it up in the art book. It doesn't say SR-2 is a cruiser, it only says it's twice the size of SR-1. I'm no ship engineer so I can't say what classifies as a frigate and what as a cruiser, but for me it does sound a bit odd that SR-2 would be a frigate and still be twice the size of another frigate. Unless SR-1 was boarderline fighter/frigate that is, which would might make the two two extremes for the frigate class.Also, there are fairly good pictures of several types of ships in the art book.
That's a good point about enemies. The geth are an option always, the 'Heretics.'
Batarians, or a faction labeled as the Terminus Systems might be an option. Personally with the storyline of Mass Effect 2 out I would recommend the Collectors as an option.As for Destiny Ascension, I wouldn't doubt it if Joker was downtalking it, his character loved the Normandy so much. But yeah I'm pretty sure I saw it somewhere on the wiki that it's supposed to have as much firepower as the rest of the asari fleet.I got to see the pictures from the art book, some of the starship concepts were pretty cool.
Sins Of A Solar Empire Trinity Mods
I don't know how much I liked some of the turian ship concepts, but that's not for me to decide what goes in a mod or not. Glad they included that description though of the defining features of a turian ship, that it should look like overlapping metal sheets to look like ruffled feathers.I actually really liked the salarian ships though, and their description as well that they should look like ocean-faring vessels. Honestly they reminded me of the Advent a tiny bit too in some respects. Im not a modder but I have a couple ideasAs a more core part of the game then just new skins what about replacing artifacts with Prothean data disks it would really just be a change of name but still would help with conversion.Also would it be possible to put the citadel into the game as a capturable point.?And Omega could also be a planet but on the opposite side of the galaxy and capturing on of them should give a bonus to your empire.Also heres a link to another topic for a mass effect mod I made a long time ago on my first account their are some good ideas on there. Why stop with the geth? Why not go all the way and add in Sovereign?
Heres my idea:Alliance:Capital Ships-1. Human Dreadnought: Battle Ship.2. Destiny Ascension: Carrier3. Salarian/Quarian Ship: Mother Ship4. Normandy SR-2: Support Ship. It could have abilities like electronics warfare to fry enimy systems Only one at a time. Extra long build time. Upgrades would parallel the ones you get in ME2.5. Turian Dreadnought: Heavy Assault ShipAgents of the Reapers:Capital Ships-1. Sovereign: Battle Ship.2. Geth Dreadnought: Carrier (Based off of the design of the geth drop ships)3. Geth Ship: Mother Ship3. Geth Ship: Support Ship5. Collector Ship: Heavy Assault Ship.