Official "Star Wars Battlefront: Anniversary" mod thread

[giftheck]

Unless you've been over to SWBFGamers, you won't have heard of my new mod in the works called "Star Wars: Battlefront Celebration". It was once known as "Battlefront Expansion", but I retitled it in celebration of the new EA title.

It's been a very long time since I started on this endeavour. Originally, the mod was born as "Main Play Mod V7", although after consideration, this was eventually heavily reworked into "Battlefront Expansion". That mod had been on the back burners for a very long time, until recently, when EA's announcement of a new "Star Wars: Battlefront" title inspired me to continue on with this mod. The demo I am about to present is the first show of what I intend to do with the game. Bear in mind that certain things will be changed in the final version. This is to show off the units mostly.

You will be able to play two maps with this demo: Geonosis: Spire for Clone Wars Era, and Endor: Bunker for the Galactic Civil War Era. When you run the game, it is called "SWBF CELEBRATION DEMO".

You'll notice that, unlike the original Main Play Mod, I have turned my attention to gameplay balance rather than aesthetics. This was a big flaw with the original Main Play Mod. I've aimed to make this as enjoyable and balanced as possible, and so I have devised a new class-based system for this mod:

-Assault (Armed with a Blaster Rifle, Torpedo Launcher, Thermal Detonators, Mines)
-Engineer (Armed with a Shotgun, Commando Pistol, Fusion Cutter, Time Bombs)
-Sniper (Armed with a Sniper Rifle, Blaster Pistol, Thermal Detonators, Recon Droid)
-Special (Dependant on faction, see below)
-Commander (Dependant on faction, see below)

The Special and Commander units have varied loadouts for each team:

SPECIAL UNITS:

Republic: Jet Trooper (EMP Launcher, Commando Pistol, Thermal Detonators, Jetpack)
CIS: Droideka (Twin Blasters, Shield Generator)
Rebels: Wookie Smuggler (Bowcaster, Blaster Pistol, Thermal Detonators)
Empire: Dark Trooper (Flamethrower, Commando Pistol, Thermal Detonators, Jump Pack)

COMMANDER UNITS:

Republic: Clone Commander (Chaingun, Blaster Pistol, Anti-Droid EMP Mines, Health/Ammo Dispenser)
CIS: Super Battle Droid (Wrist Cannon, Tri-Shot, Wrist Rockets, Health/Ammo Dispenser)
Rebels: Rebel Spy (Spy Rifle, Blaster Pistol, Disguise Kit, Health/Ammo Dispenser)
Empire: Imperial Officer (Mortar Launcher, Blaster Pistol, Orbital Strike Beacon, Health/Ammo Dispesner)

There are no screenshots. It has been that long since I started on this mod that I've kind of forgotten how to take in-game shots. Sorry

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DEMO DOWNLOAD:
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http://www.mediafire.com/?asmi0xwi05l1t71

As well as the demo, this will be my thread here for the main mod itself.

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CREDITS:
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Credits go to:

ASSETS AND SKINS:

-Pandemic for the Mod Tools, and LucasArts for the game.

OTHER:

-Everyone I asked for help to get this done.

[kitfisto15678]

"P" is to take screenshots. Then a screenshot folder will appear in GameData I think.

[giftheck]

"P" is to take screenshots. Then a screenshot folder will appear in GameData I think.

Thanks

EDIT
Okay, it's been a while. I've been thinking on how best to proceed with this mod and I believe I've come up with how to proceed with this mod:

STAGE 1:

This version will basically be the baseline for the future versions of the mod. It will only modify the units and existing vehicles of SWBF, without adding new heroes, modes or maps to the game. There will be two versions of the Clones (Ep2 and Ep3), and no custom campaign. Stage 1 is very far along: I've just got to finish up a few bits, playtest it then release it for beta.

STAGE 2:

This version branches out on Stage 1 by adding legions to the game, introducing new heroes and new modes to the existing maps of Star Wars Battlefront.

STAGE 3:

This stage is the final stage that adds new maps and vehicles to the game. Most of BF2's maps will appear, and I'm taking suggestions on what other maps might appear in this stage. I definitely want to use Sereja's conversions of BF2 here as well as some of his original work. I'd also like to include Rends' Coruscant maps.

This is going to wind up a huge undertaking, especially on my own. So, what I need is the following:

-Unit converters (bear in mind you will need to re-weight and models I have as I can only work from OBJ)
-Beta testers (must be willing to test all three stages)
-People willing to help me in converting and playtesting space maps for Stage 3

EDIT3
Testing is already underway for Phase 1 of the mod. Here's a few tidbits so far:

Here's a few things that have changed:

*Commander units have recon droids. These recon droids are basically 'suicide droids' in that they only have Autodestruct or Strike beacons. Each faction has a different droid: Republic keeps the stock recon droid, CIS has a Sith version (ALA Darth Maul's Sith Probe Droids), Empire have the Viper and the Alliance has an R2 unit. It's basically trial and error to get them to work: you can't have the autodestruct AND the orbital strike unless they are two separate weapons.
*The droideka. Well, somebody requested I actually mod this as in every single mod it's in, it's the same as the stock version. There is, honestly, not a huge amount you can actually do with it. Having said that, I've changed its blaster to be slower (as in the films), and now it has a unique blaster texture - it actually fires two lasers (through a custom laser texture) from each blaster. It actually looks pretty cool.
*The Clone Commander's chaingun has ammo. It does run out. One clip ATM is 200 shots but I'll be changing it to 400.

EDIT2
First gameplay vid, and the first thing I actually have to show you of this mod. This is Hoth played in CW in this mod. I'll explain what I did below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qjedk0TfHuM

I know units get stuck in corridors for some reason. I haven't yet figured out why (there's no overriding of paths, planning or barriers). Also, soundspaces on this map fail. This was done through the 'mission map' method which allows me to override the vehicle spawn points of stock Hoth with new ones. That means absolutely no modification or recompiling or replacing of the original Hoth map: it's dual-loaded with the new spawn points. It's basically called through the mission.lvl underneath the stock Hoth.

I'm aware it looks like the Clone Commander only has three weapons but that's a localization error adding an additional line to the Health/Ammo dispenser. It's been fixed already.

As a counterpoint, Kamino can also be played in GCW. I'll get some gameplay of the Empire done for that soon.

There's other things I've learned doing this mod too: I've found you can expand strings on MSH files through hex-editing (for instance, you need an addon mesh hex-edited onto your unit but the PRNT section is too short for the bone name - solution is to expand it, encode new PRNT, MODL, HEDR and MSH2 values). I've tried doing sound streams too but they don't seem to be working as I intend them to - ST4 files don't like to munge.

EDIT: Final testing is underway. I'm expecting this mod, retitled Star Wars Battlefront: Anniversary, to be out within the next week. It has also been rejigged to two phases: Phase I is the first phase which will be released within the next week. Phase II will take longer as it involves a lot more in the way of adding maps. I'm taking suggestions on what maps to include: so far, I have Coruscant: Streets (Rends), Kashyyyk: Wookieland (Rends - retitled "Kashyyyk: Treetops), Naboo: Prototype (thanks to psych0fred for the BF1 source - retitled "Naboo: Outpost") and Tatooine: Jabba's Palace (moved from addon). Phase II's maps are confirmed to be the following so far:

-Coruscant: City
-Coruscant: Streets
-Coruscant: Jedi Temple
-Coruscant: Temple Training Hall
-Death Star: Interior
-Felucia: Marshland
-Geonosis: Dust Plains
-Kamino: Cloning Facility
-Kashyyyk: Wookielands
-Mustafar: Refinery
-Mygeeto: War-Torn City
-Naboo: Prototype
-Tatooine: Jabba's Palace
-Utapau: Sinkhole

Space maps are also being looked into, though I have to work within BF1's restrictions here. I have ideas on how to do this (setting it up to have three CPs per ship - two desctructible, one capturable)