The Latest Ultimate Empire at War News
Server Move
September 24, 2011, by Mike.nl
Hey everyone.
You may have noticed a bit of downtime recently. This was because we moved UEaW to another server; my server.
The previous server was slow, laggy and suffered from outages. Although graciously provided by Jones, we eventually decided to move the site to my server. Additionally, the DNS was transferred from Fynbos to me as well in order to consolidate everything related to UEaW. Some administrative... difficulties... made all this took a while before we were ready to go again, but here we are.
Hopefully, the new and improved server should allow the mod team to speed up development on the mod. Ultimate Empire at War is looking better with each day.
Also, along with moving the site to the new server, I took the liberty of upgrading the forum from SMF 1.1 to the recently released SMF 2.0, so some things about the forum may still be a bit rough. If you come across anything that you think shouldn't be the way it is, please let me know here.
- Mike
You may have noticed a bit of downtime recently. This was because we moved UEaW to another server; my server.
The previous server was slow, laggy and suffered from outages. Although graciously provided by Jones, we eventually decided to move the site to my server. Additionally, the DNS was transferred from Fynbos to me as well in order to consolidate everything related to UEaW. Some administrative... difficulties... made all this took a while before we were ready to go again, but here we are.
Hopefully, the new and improved server should allow the mod team to speed up development on the mod. Ultimate Empire at War is looking better with each day.
Also, along with moving the site to the new server, I took the liberty of upgrading the forum from SMF 1.1 to the recently released SMF 2.0, so some things about the forum may still be a bit rough. If you come across anything that you think shouldn't be the way it is, please let me know here.
- Mike
10 comments
Update!
March 7, 2011, by s-t-n
Hello everyone, and welcome to my first news post for UEAW!
Well, firstly, let me say that no...Shim hasn't died and gone to coder heaven. He is just very busy coding and we felt that it would be a much better use of time for me to write the post, not him...but more on that later. I am also happy to announce the return of Fynbos to the team, who was summoned by dark magic from the great beyond. Welcome back to the team! Okay, now all that is out of the way....Progress!
As of me writing this post, there are just 23 tasks left until UEAW is complete. Some of these are just simple tasks (like deleting certain text) while some are more complicated (such as coding the orbital structures). For a mod this large, that number is TINY. I have played the mod myself and, while it is most definitely playable, we don't want to cut the remaining features out just to release a sub-standard product a bit earlier...and I am sure you don't want that either!
Currently, Shimrra is the only person able to work on the mod [what code remains is very high level] and he is being a trooper. Over the past months he has taken the garbled mess of material that he inherited and created a truly amazing mod. However, this is starting to take its toll on him. Too much LUA can drive a person mad. So I hearby propose a morale boost for Shim. Comment with your supportive messages or just a "Keep it up Shim!" to let him know how many people he has behind him! If we can amass enough messages of support, I'm sure he can use his evil coder powers to drain the goodwill/happiness and forge a few more pages of code to bring us that little bit closer to completion!
I should also point out our site is having a few problems, so we apologise that it is so slow to load. Patience is rewarded, however, as it does still work. We hope to have the problem fixed soon.
So, that is all for now. I bid you all farewell and a safe journey through the inter-tubes!
s-t-n
Well, firstly, let me say that no...Shim hasn't died and gone to coder heaven. He is just very busy coding and we felt that it would be a much better use of time for me to write the post, not him...but more on that later. I am also happy to announce the return of Fynbos to the team, who was summoned by dark magic from the great beyond. Welcome back to the team! Okay, now all that is out of the way....Progress!
As of me writing this post, there are just 23 tasks left until UEAW is complete. Some of these are just simple tasks (like deleting certain text) while some are more complicated (such as coding the orbital structures). For a mod this large, that number is TINY. I have played the mod myself and, while it is most definitely playable, we don't want to cut the remaining features out just to release a sub-standard product a bit earlier...and I am sure you don't want that either!
Currently, Shimrra is the only person able to work on the mod [what code remains is very high level] and he is being a trooper. Over the past months he has taken the garbled mess of material that he inherited and created a truly amazing mod. However, this is starting to take its toll on him. Too much LUA can drive a person mad. So I hearby propose a morale boost for Shim. Comment with your supportive messages or just a "Keep it up Shim!" to let him know how many people he has behind him! If we can amass enough messages of support, I'm sure he can use his evil coder powers to drain the goodwill/happiness and forge a few more pages of code to bring us that little bit closer to completion!
I should also point out our site is having a few problems, so we apologise that it is so slow to load. Patience is rewarded, however, as it does still work. We hope to have the problem fixed soon.
So, that is all for now. I bid you all farewell and a safe journey through the inter-tubes!
s-t-n
December News
December 2, 2010, by Shimrra
Good evening,
Due to the Mod of the Year award and several other factors, this monthly post is a little earlier than usual. First, the entire UEAW team thanks everyone who voted for us. We didn't expect this at all, and we're very happy about the confidence placed in us. We will do our best in the coming weeks to fulfil your expectations.
It's my pleasure to announce the publication of several new screenshots (see here), and the publication of a trailer within the next few days. Even if the trailer doesn't show a specific level of our mod's progress, we have recently Chris declared inactive, and put a remarkable amount of progress behind us.
Thus, we have implemented a complete sub menu system (for further explanation see later on this post) and implemented a new tech system. In addition, we have almost completed all the models now , so this is what remains before the release of V1:
While Chris was more concerned about secrecy, I'm more inclined to be transparent about our progress.
Some information follows regarding the sub menu system and tech systems.
Sub Menu System
Since we wanted to bring a lot of new units into the mod, it was clear from the beginning that the 26 build buttons would not be sufficient for all the units we will add. The fact that in every era, more than 11 Special Structures are available in space, means half the available space is gone already.
With all the new heroes and space units, and the new tech systems (more on that later), the limit of 26 buttons has always been impossible for us to work with. So we had to opt for an alternative and we finally came to the Sub Menu system.
Chris wanted to implement this from the beginning, until he was declared inactive. He had uploaded some icons of this sub menu, but hadn't uploaded anything else. For this reason, we had to start from scratch and needed some time to implement the system. There are 3 subcategories: ship menu, structure menu, and research menu.
By clicking on each specific menu button, the other buttons are hidden and the relevant unit or structure buttons are shown. This system only works in Single Player mode, but there is no way to circumvent this problem and unfortunately there are no alternatives to this system. Therefore, as preliminary information:
The multiplayer is unfortunately somewhat reduced because of the FoC engine requirements, so the tech system we have implemented does not function in multiplayer.
Tech system
Now a few words about the tech system. In normal EaW research is linked, so that when the Empire researches the components of Death Star (tech levels), they get lots of nice unrelated technology as a by-product. This isn't realistic. So we opted for a new tech system to try and fix this. Individual techs will be researched, specifically new ships, and only the researched technologies will be enabled. In early eras, this means that for the first corvette units (unlocking the Foray Class) , corvette technologies must be researched; or, to unlock the Thranta Class, cruiser techs must be researched. Researching each component will unlock further research. This system is also adapted for realism. It will cost a lot to research a ship class, more than the individual unit. The time per research has been increased. However, a special building for research is no longer necessary because the research is usually carried out on the planet's surface - so for V1 (as a space only mod), this is not relevant. The tech tree for era 1 (Light Side) can be viewed here.
One last note about a release date: We are now increasingly focusing on the recording and release of a trailer that also shows the internal team and fans that we are making good progress. A specific release date cannot yet be determined. Originally we planned a release for Christmas, but this will be unlikely to happen due to some problems lately.
What can be expected in any case, is a release no later than February and possibly even January - but I will not set a January date, as we may continue to experience problems - and nothing is worse than a disappointed fanbase.
I wish you all a beautiful first Christmas week
with best regards,
Shimrra
Due to the Mod of the Year award and several other factors, this monthly post is a little earlier than usual. First, the entire UEAW team thanks everyone who voted for us. We didn't expect this at all, and we're very happy about the confidence placed in us. We will do our best in the coming weeks to fulfil your expectations.
It's my pleasure to announce the publication of several new screenshots (see here), and the publication of a trailer within the next few days. Even if the trailer doesn't show a specific level of our mod's progress, we have recently Chris declared inactive, and put a remarkable amount of progress behind us.
Thus, we have implemented a complete sub menu system (for further explanation see later on this post) and implemented a new tech system. In addition, we have almost completed all the models now , so this is what remains before the release of V1:
- MP GCs
- AI
- Balancing
- Heroes (partly)
- Coding of the VA sounds into the game
- Some minor things to be fixed, bugs and various minor flaws in some models
- Perimeter outpost (sorry, created by Chris before he left, not uploaded)v
While Chris was more concerned about secrecy, I'm more inclined to be transparent about our progress.
Some information follows regarding the sub menu system and tech systems.
Sub Menu System
Since we wanted to bring a lot of new units into the mod, it was clear from the beginning that the 26 build buttons would not be sufficient for all the units we will add. The fact that in every era, more than 11 Special Structures are available in space, means half the available space is gone already.
With all the new heroes and space units, and the new tech systems (more on that later), the limit of 26 buttons has always been impossible for us to work with. So we had to opt for an alternative and we finally came to the Sub Menu system.
Chris wanted to implement this from the beginning, until he was declared inactive. He had uploaded some icons of this sub menu, but hadn't uploaded anything else. For this reason, we had to start from scratch and needed some time to implement the system. There are 3 subcategories: ship menu, structure menu, and research menu.
By clicking on each specific menu button, the other buttons are hidden and the relevant unit or structure buttons are shown. This system only works in Single Player mode, but there is no way to circumvent this problem and unfortunately there are no alternatives to this system. Therefore, as preliminary information:
The multiplayer is unfortunately somewhat reduced because of the FoC engine requirements, so the tech system we have implemented does not function in multiplayer.
Tech system
Now a few words about the tech system. In normal EaW research is linked, so that when the Empire researches the components of Death Star (tech levels), they get lots of nice unrelated technology as a by-product. This isn't realistic. So we opted for a new tech system to try and fix this. Individual techs will be researched, specifically new ships, and only the researched technologies will be enabled. In early eras, this means that for the first corvette units (unlocking the Foray Class) , corvette technologies must be researched; or, to unlock the Thranta Class, cruiser techs must be researched. Researching each component will unlock further research. This system is also adapted for realism. It will cost a lot to research a ship class, more than the individual unit. The time per research has been increased. However, a special building for research is no longer necessary because the research is usually carried out on the planet's surface - so for V1 (as a space only mod), this is not relevant. The tech tree for era 1 (Light Side) can be viewed here.
One last note about a release date: We are now increasingly focusing on the recording and release of a trailer that also shows the internal team and fans that we are making good progress. A specific release date cannot yet be determined. Originally we planned a release for Christmas, but this will be unlikely to happen due to some problems lately.
What can be expected in any case, is a release no later than February and possibly even January - but I will not set a January date, as we may continue to experience problems - and nothing is worse than a disappointed fanbase.
I wish you all a beautiful first Christmas week
with best regards,
Shimrra
November News
November 19, 2010, by Shimrra
Long time no post, and this is my first News Post as well so here goes. Got some lovely Alpha shots from the first Era this month, been playing it a little in Galactic Conquest mode (i know, lucky me :p) well, here goes - got our first shot which is of the GC itself, mostly Republic territory.
All good stuff as you can see. More next month and maybe hopefully more new content completly as we near release
Yours, Solar
GC Picture
Next up is a picture of a fleet i took to a planet for a lovely picnic with some killing and destruction of the sith for afters 
And finally, we have a closer shot of the Sith Interdictor in combat:
All good stuff as you can see. More next month and maybe hopefully more new content completly as we near release
Yours, Solar
October News
October 20, 2010, by Shimrra
Greetins fans,
The release date previously posted is incorrect, release will be when we are finished, however should be soon. Chris is being declared inactive now, due to an ability to communicate with his team. He is welcome to come back when he has the time. Myself and Solar will carry on this mod to completion as much as possible, and to demonstrate that we have a video at moddb.com about our new sub menu system (look here).
Until next time
Shimrra
The release date previously posted is incorrect, release will be when we are finished, however should be soon. Chris is being declared inactive now, due to an ability to communicate with his team. He is welcome to come back when he has the time. Myself and Solar will carry on this mod to completion as much as possible, and to demonstrate that we have a video at moddb.com about our new sub menu system (look here).
Until next time
Shimrra