Centauri...Narn?

[Poddu]

Londo,

You can find 2 additional B5 shipsets at the XRSTO Empire Site http://bossi.com/chris/ The Army of Darkness and the Army of Light. I used the Army of Darkness shipset to create a Shadow race to vie with the Earth Alliance.

To do this, I created an AoD folder in the races directory and put the contents of aod.zip in there. Then I started a game, and used "Add new" to access the race/shipset design. I then built a Shadow Hegonomy empire around it (and then saved the empire file).

You may put what characteristics you wish for your Empire, here's what I selected. Firstly, the Psychic advanced trait .. "a scream in your mind", manipulation of telepaths, etc. seemed to fit. Also, Superior Attack and Impressive Intelligence seemed good. To get these traits, I lowered Political Savvy to Pathetic (traders they ain't) and Physical Strength to Weak (stronger than a Vorlon maybe, but that's not saying much). I also chose a Warrior culture with Aggressive Demeanor and Bloodthirsty Happiness. I used the ravager.txt design file for fitting ship names. For Environment, I chose Rock - None, but was somewhat unhappy about the small number of planets which fit this type.

With the EA using Natural Merchants and the SH (Shadow Hegonomy) using Psychic, this would leave Deeply Religious for the Minbari, and Organic for the Vorlons.

Good Luck!

[Londo]

Thanks for the advice and link. The ships are very nice looking although the Army of Darkness seems to include non-Shadow and non-Drakh ships within it. Do you know if this set is compatible with v 1.19?

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Vir! You have made a mess of this post once again, now give me a large cup of brivari so that I may begin to forget the bad times and remember the glory of the great Centauri Republic.

[Poddu]

It's working fine for me so far.

[Mephisto]

In fact I thought more of crystalline for the shadows. They did not use telepath, they feared them most of the time as they destroyed the biolink to their ships.
Or am I wrong? What do you think?

[Poddu]

Well, its a rough fit.

Remember when Ivanova, Delenn and Lyta went to Z'hadum to see if Sheridan was alive? Remember how the shadow vessel [The Eye] spoke to each of them in their mind calling them by name and using their father's voice? If Lennier hadn't had that "press the button every two minutes" setup, they would have gone down to the surface, seemingly under telepathic compulsion. And they did want telepaths for "nerve centers" for their ships.

But still, maybe the Vorlons should have Psychic as they directly seeded other races with telepaths. Hmmm .. maybe the Vorlons should have Organic and Psychic, but they'd be pretty strong with both traits.

[Baron Munchausen]

This is the problem with trying to fit one "universe" into another. SE is based mostly on a game called Starfire. B5 was written by someone who knew nothing at all about Starfire. Both the Vorlons and the Shadows have 'Organic' technology. But in the B5 Universe, Organic tech is very much superior to all other (known) technologies. In order to "reproduce" the B5 setting, not only would you have to make the Shadows and Vorlons both "Organic" tech races, you'd have to boost the abilities of organic tech quite a bit in ways that would make them inherently superior to all the other races. Which would defeat the purpose of the game -- fair competition. It might be an interesting "scenario" when a scenario editor is available.

Psychic technology is almost completely unrelated to "telepaths" as they exist in B5. The way that telepaths can screw up a Shadow ship is rather like the "Mental Flailer" though... makes the ship unable to attack. But that should only work against Shadow ships in a B5 universe.

If they ever implement "Warp gates" though, we'll be able to change the game in at least one way to make it consistent with B5. Play without "natural" warp points and remove warp point manipulation techs. Just have warp gates.


[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 11 January 2001).]

[Londo]

I for one recognize that it will be virtually impossible to turn SE IV into a "Babylon 5" game. Much as I would love something that was totally faithful and consistent with the series, it just isn't going to happen. Despite that fact I think that a reasonable facsimile of the B5 universe can be created or at the very least a game that gives us the flavor of the show. This is what I ultimately want to see. That plus the incredibly neat idea of a few Vorlon ships approaching Darth Vader's death star, or X wing fighters encountering a cloaked Romulan vessel. Such a cross cultural experience would really be neat!

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Vir! You have made a mess of this post once again, now give me a large cup of brivari so that I may begin to forget the bad times and remember the glory of the great Centauri Republic.