[WiP] X2-Pandora

Shadow dream · Post by **Shadow dream** » Wed, 27. Jan 10, 00:09

X2-Pandora

Some of you might know that some X2-Fans are working on a mod that we named X2-Pandora. This mod changes many aspects of the game and expands it in almost every part.

X2-Pandora has it's own (top secret) story that runs next to the original X2-story. Pandora is fully compatible with the vanilla-story. Therefore it uses a map based on the original one but widely expanded.
X2-Pandora developes the aspects of X2 way further than ever before. Those aspects affect graphics and gameplay. Fight, trade and think are more strategic and difficult. It won't be enough to fight with a single good M6, nor to build some stations somewhere in the universe that send some TS for trade runs The main issue we're having at the moment is that many of our ideas are still ideas that are written down on our to-do list. We're in urgent need of some more people helping out. That is one of the reasons why the development of the mod seem to take forever.

The Team:
Chris Gi (The mod's brain - Scripter)
Adlantis (Model maker)
Shadow dream (Model maker)
Gravemind (Forum-keeper and Model maker)
eescoto71 (Tester)
Lord_Dakier (Tester)

What we are looking for:
Experienced scripters who help us creating the commands
Moddel maker to make the ships from some races as Argon, Split, Xenon,...
Voices to give the guys in the Universe a new voice.
Texture-maker to bring a new life on the ships and stations

What we have done yet:

New Sectors
New Textures
Fully self-building map
Configuraions
New shipclasses
new stations
ID-Jammer
bailed-out pilots
Capturing pilots
New races
experimental Scripteditor
menu-extentions
shield/laser-extensions
Effects

New Sectors: We have added plenty of new sectors. We have not worked on the map for a while but we're still going to extend this map.

New Textures: Many (maybe all) backgrounds have been replaced. Even planets and ships are more beautiful now. The aim is an optical better quality.

Fully self-bulding-map: Every new gamestart brings a completly new map! This point is very important to us since we don't like the fact that we get used to the map or even know it by heart. This will never ever happen again! The only things that won't change are the sectors themselves, the gate-connections and the stations that are needed for the plot to work.

Configuration: Since the sector content is generated it comes in handy to be able to control this build-up process. It enables the player to create the universe as he wants to have it. Further this is a way to adapt the univers to the computer-system. E.g. to build less stations or asteroids in a sector. Further you can change game difficulty or how the races behave (aggressive, trader,...)

New Shipclasses: Our ships are not "only" M1 or M3. We make a difference between police and military ships. The jobs for those are under development but the scripts already make a difference between them. Further we have added dozens of new models. Further we added a new trading-class: SuperFreighter. Contrary to the ones in X3 they are TL-like.

New Stations: We have added some new stations. This brings new wares to trade with. Additionaly we change at least the "big" stations (shipyard,...) and maybe even the "small" ones.

ID-Jammer: Pirates have developed further than in any X-game. It won't be easy to find them anymore, especially when they are flying a usual race-ship!

Bailing-out pilots: A bailed-out pilot is not just a ware anymore. You can decide what to do with them: either sell them as slaves or hand them over to the police, or bribe them or just let them go... and everything has it's consequences...

Capturing: In standard X2, pilots randomly bail out [i}only if[/i] the player shoots at them. In Pandora, pilots may leave their ship in every fight, whether the player is involved or not, depending on many things including the characteristic you assigned to a race. If a ship is given up, it belongs to noone. You first have to hack the ship system before you can board it to take it over. And you have to be fast since other races are interested in those ships too.

New Races: The ships are still under construction but the new races are added to the scripts and just need to be completed. Further they are attached to the plot -> there will be lot of fun and action.

Experimental Script-editor: This point will be especialy interesting for experienced scripters! We have ... modified the script-editor and are adding new commands as playing cut-scenes. But those changings are not only on script-base. For example we have added drifting as known from X3. There are much more things that we have added that I just don't want and can't name them all. At least there is enough to do!!

Menu-extensions: We have tailored the menu to our needs. This includes the weapons menu to display more lasers than usual. There's also a new, similar menu for shields...

Laser/Shield-extensions: We increased the number of lasers and shields to be able to use race-specific shields and lasers = each race uses it's own equipment. Therefore you can't install a paranid laser on a boron ship (by default). We still work on the balancing of lasers and shields, because we are complety reworking the fighting system (in the sense of which ship class can effectively fight against which other shipclass). Additionally we have added a small extension for the shields that allows a new type of shield (WiP).

New effects: The old effects have been changed or replaced. They look much better now. And after an explosion of a ship or a station debris floats in the sector - an easy way to get money?

Things that are planed or worked on atm:

Story
M0-abilities
M0-Laser
extended fighting scripts
Taxes
Own sectors
bubble-shields
race-specific abilities
and much more

Story: Pandora comes up with it's own story. Julian will have to face more quests that are not only based on fighting - you can't solve any problem with a laser.

M0-abilities: Obviously, M0 are not just big ships with strong lasers and shields. Therefore we plan to add special abilities as repairing docked ships or concentrate energie on shields.

M0-Laser: This is planed to be a planet-destroyer. This is more an idea than a must-have. Never the less we plan to add such a laser to offer the possibility. The way how we add this laser and it's conditions are unclear yet.

Extended fighting-scripts: The times when you could erase a sector only with your M2 are over. Pandora makes heavy use of fleets and wingmen. Even the AI will become more intelligent so that their ships won't try to attack an enemy it can't defeat.

Taxes: If you build a station in a sector you will have to pay taxes to the owning race. The price is different from sector to sector and can be seen in the galaxy-map. If you own your own sector, you can also raise taxes. If your taxes are low and if you provide a secure environment, other races will gladly build their stations in your sector...

Own sectors: The conditions to be the owner of a sector is set clearly. This way even the player could own sectors. On the other side this means that the AI is interested in getting sectors. But this is part of more advanced concept: Border-Wars / Race-Wars

Bubble-shields: We have found a way to use bubble-shields (StarTrek like shields) and are going to use them. You can look forward to more eye-candy.

Race-specific abilities: The aim is that Races have abilities others don't have. e.g Boron ships as semi-organic ships, should be able to regenerate hull.

and much more

Last but not least some screens we have made so far:
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More in our Galerie.

Again: We really need Scripters and model-makers that help us finishing Pandora so that it won't take further 3 years until release!
(Changes in this post reserved to the Pandora Team)

Shadow

Rockettman · Post by **Rockettman** » Wed, 27. Jan 10, 15:23

Wow some nice screenshots there, I cant wait.

I can help if you need a noob worker, bear in mind I don't know how to script or mod.

Shadow dream · Post by **Shadow dream** » Thu, 28. Jan 10, 20:57

Well, I might have forgotten to mention, that we're not only looking for modders and scripters (though those are the guys we need most right now).

If you have other talents as:
- Writing stoies (no matter what! We need Descriptions for Sectors and ships, names for sectors and ships, BBS-news,... and creative universe-like stories! so do not hesitate and contact us

)
- voicing (we have some caracters that could need a voice, sector messaging, ... just lend us your voice

)
- Ideas for missions, gameplay improvements, ...
...

So if you are interested feel free to visit us on www.x2-pandora.de, register (free) and say what you need to say. ideas or help is always welcome.

Shadow

Gravemind · Post by **Gravemind** » Fri, 12. Mar 10, 13:40

bump

We are still looking for People who are experienced in Modelling or Scripting, Storywriters are welcome too!.

Lord Dakier · Post by **Lord Dakier** » Fri, 12. Mar 10, 15:54

Give me the universal descriptions and sector naming stuff and I'll get them done. I'll need to see the universe map though.

Shadow dream · Post by **Shadow dream** » Fri, 12. Mar 10, 17:18

You can post any ideas of names and descriptions in our forums. We'll make them fit

well, you shouldn't write things as "it has two shipyards" in the descriptsion, since the map is build randomly

Shadow

Lord Dakier · Post by **Lord Dakier** » Sat, 13. Mar 10, 04:34

Ahhh forget about the random uni map.

Chris Gi · Post by **Chris Gi** » Fri, 19. Mar 10, 17:03

Here are just two screens I like to share. I made them while traveling the universe (of course doing some nasty stuff - testing something...):

Argon M6
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Boron M6
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I'm often quite surprised how beautiful X2 can be...

Shadow dream · Post by **Shadow dream** » Fri, 19. Mar 10, 17:38

I think I'll never play X3 anymore

Pandora just looks better [ external image ]

Shadow

dathion · Post by **dathion** » Fri, 19. Mar 10, 21:23

wouldn't know haven't been blessed with Pandora yet

Witchking · Post by **Witchking** » Fri, 19. Mar 10, 21:43

Hi, I've just got back to playing X2 after a gap of a couple of years. I've got to say that this mod looks amazing and I wanted to offer my congratulations and best wishes to all you guys for the dedication and hard work that you are putting into this project.

I have, unfortunately no experience of scripting or modeling but I do have some experience of writing and experience of recording, editing and performing voice overs. I would like to help out if you guys need those kind of skills. This seems like a reasonably long term project which would suit me as I have 4 young kids and not a massive amount of time, so if you guys can deal with that aspect and could use the skills I have then I would be more then happy to be involved.

As far as the writing goes below are links to a short story (sadly never finished) that I started back in 2004.

One Roll of the Dice Parts 1-6

One Roll of the Dice Parts 7

From a scripting point of view I would like to ask, what are the possibliities of adding additional sounds to the game. It was discussed several times in the past but nothing ever seemed to come of it but one thing I always felt was lacking in the game was radio chatter. Flying through sectors is stunning and seeing all the ships passing is great but apart from the background music the silence is deafening and frankly it feels more then a little lonely and empty despite the visual traffic. When I first installed the game when it came out I edited several of the background music tracks in my game and added suitably disguised NASA recordings and even edited air traffic recordings, the difference it made to the immersion feeling of the game was huge, but this method had it's limitations as the tracks are repeated and despite my attempts to be subtle with the added radio chatter pretty soon I began to tire of hearing the same samples repeated. If there was a way through scripting to randomly access and play different samples it would be so much better. However I don't know if this is even possible from a scripting POV so what do you guys think?

Shadow dream · Post by **Shadow dream** » Sat, 20. Mar 10, 10:03

Witchking wrote:I do have some experience of writing and experience of recording, editing and performing voice overs. I would like to help out if you guys need those kind of skills.

Yeah, we could need someone who can do such things

We haven't startet recording voices since we haven't got all our texts (Shipnames, Sectornames, chatting,...) atm. So if you would join us you'd have some freetime for now

Witchking wrote: From a scripting point of view I would like to ask, what are the possibliities of adding additional sounds to the game. It was discussed several times in the past but nothing ever seemed to come of it but one thing I always felt was lacking in the game was radio chatter. Flying through sectors is stunning and seeing all the ships passing is great but apart from the background music the silence is deafening and frankly it feels more then a little lonely and empty despite the visual traffic. When I first installed the game when it came out I edited several of the background music tracks in my game and added suitably disguised NASA recordings and even edited air traffic recordings, the difference it made to the immersion feeling of the game was huge, but this method had it's limitations as the tracks are repeated and despite my attempts to be subtle with the added radio chatter pretty soon I began to tire of hearing the same samples repeated. If there was a way through scripting to randomly access and play different samples it would be so much better. However I don't know if this is even possible from a scripting POV so what do you guys think?

That's a point we want to change with new voices. We won't add that to sector back ground but play them randomly. (I think it will be some kind of AL-Plugin if someone doesn't like that). So you fly through universe and hear some radio chats. Depending on how many people will voice for us (and how good you could manipulate the voices

) there will be a wide range of different voices.

Shadow

Chris Gi · Post by **Chris Gi** » Sat, 20. Mar 10, 10:52

Witchking wrote:This seems like a reasonably long term project which would suit me as I have 4 young kids and not a massive amount of time

No. It's unreasonably long

. We're insane, megalomaniac. If you can deal with that aspect, you're very welcome.
Besides: a have a family myself - and thus, not much time myself. I know the drill..

.

If there was a way through scripting to randomly access and play different samples it would be so much better. However I don't know if this is even possible from a scripting POV so what do you guys think?

I haven't thought about a way to realize this up to now - at least in terms of actual scripting. The general plan is, to have additional speech samples in a mp3 format . The file will reside in the mov-folder (quite like the other spoken texts). This way the speech samples can be easily accessed from scripts.

Shadow dream · Post by **Shadow dream** » Tue, 13. Apr 10, 17:55

We're not dead ^^ Here's a little update of screens I've made while checking the universe:

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Here we have:
Kha'ak M3 - Boron TS - Teladi M4
Teladi M4 - beautiful Teladi Sector - some Teladi Stations
Teladi M5 whithin a Teladi Tradingstation

and nope, the M5 is not docked inside, I was just flying arround

If the other modders of Pandora wish to present some of their ships you'll get some ships of other races too; I'm only the "credit-man"

hope you like the screens

Shadow

dathion · Post by **dathion** » Tue, 13. Apr 10, 22:03

Great work Keep it up.

Zeron-mk7 · Post by **Zeron-mk7** » Wed, 14. Apr 10, 07:52

Kha'ak M3 and Boron TS looks very good.

Graceburn · Post by **Graceburn** » Tue, 20. Apr 10, 07:45

Sad to see my models seem to have dropped, it's understandable though, they were just x2 part compilations! My x2 doesn't seem to want to work anymore and I'm busy with my last year of school, so I'd just like to say hi and good luck with the rest of the mod!

Also i had some old screens with my ships but can't seem to find them

Shadow dream · Post by **Shadow dream** » Tue, 20. Apr 10, 17:34

@Graceburn: your ships have not been kicked yet - we have noone who makes Split, so they remain ATM. If you want to try something you're welcome to post them.

(We really need someone to make: Split, Argon, Xenon(*), Pirate (*))

*basicly we have someone but they didn't made a sound for quite a long time

Shadow

NavaCorp · Post by **NavaCorp** » Sun, 13. Jun 10, 15:18

I've looked at the Gallery in the Pandora's website and this mod has the potential to be very impressive if you add also the new features described in this thread.
I dare to say that this could end to be the X2 expansion that the Egos should have done instead of doing Reunion.

Keep this thread updated please!

dathion · Post by **dathion** » Sun, 13. Jun 10, 19:25

NavaCorp I agree with you 100% cant wait till it's finished.

egosoft.com

egosoft.com

[WiP] X2-Pandora

[WiP] X2-Pandora