[MOD-IDEA] X3 Ultima, Sword of the Ancients, X3TC TotalC Mod idea

[ReeverDrak]

Hi all, just taking a quick rest from my duties in XTM-P as I’ve been working hard, sorting, cataloguing and so on and iv not given my creative head room to breathe so I thought I’d let rip a bit with an idea that popped into my head about some time ago.... I also want to get it down on record before I forget it as I would like to make it as soon as I’m done with my other mod...

The idea is for a total conversion mod for X3tc with the only original race still in the game being the Xenon, but all their ships ect have been upgraded.

The other part of this is that there are no gates... non what so ever... now I believe this is not a new idea, and that there are mods out there that have that or people have been playing with the idea for some time... I have no info on this and if there are any objections to adding it well I don’t want to step on people’s toes, but as you'll see its part of what the idea is about.



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Right now ask yourself this question? what if the Xenon worked out that they don’t really need to be kept trapped with the confides of the X universe gate network?, and that space is free and open for the taking.... the only problem is that it would take a millennium to get anywhere without gate travel... but to a machine dose that matter? and so what if there are patrols going around hunting any Xenon attempting to escape... if something was really fast, like a modified N, it could get through... and if it kept on going what would it find?.... in short... Nothing... for light-years... just nothing except open space and the odd nebula... A void between the X universe and the rest of the gate network.... a void that could span the length and breth of the X universe and have extra room to spare... The Ancient believe it to be a dead zone, lifeless.... or is it? For if that N kept going at the fastest it could go, for 100 years.... then it would find the Ultima sector, right in the heart of the Void.... Hidden deep within a giant Nebula... 23 stars, all with their own planets, each supporting life.... now what if this modified N found this sector? that would be a one in a billion chance, but maybe that was the point, maybe it was sent to find this hidden sector, to hide and survive, and maybe it’s more than just an N, but the Xenon new hope... the seed for the new Xenon era... a colonizer.... a thinker.... a dreamer.... a new Xenon One.



Time to introduce the inhabitance of Ultima;



The first race is the Zonory; they police this sector and are the high lords and keepers of this region of space. They are also the founders of the Senork Council of Specieum (like a collaboration of races and factions to generally keep the peace) which is held in the Senork Chamber in the orbiting harbour City of Senork, which is in the Zonory home region. They are masters of light manipulation, relying on advanced light based weaponry; they are also skilled ship builders, preferring to build larger heaver capital ships and corvettes than all the other races, whenever they are seen they are described as being sleek and graceful ships covered in a light greyish blue.
It is said that the Zonory where once part of the same race as the founders of the Ancients who built the gate network, but where exiled and hunted for strongly opposing the grand design the Ancients laid out, and so fled the gate network to Ultima to hide from any attempt to destroy them. As a result there technology is highly advanced but nowhere near the level of that of the Ancients, however they do have one advantage that they shared with the other races of this sector that the Ancients do not have, Advanced Polarised Molecular Jump travel or APMJ for short.* As the keepers of this part of the Universe they tend to act like the guardians of everything, accepting and protection anything that looks like it needs help and they are more than happy to help a new race integrate within the council... and as a gift the APMJ is freely given to speed up the process (Some also believe it is to undermine the grand plan of the Ancients and there gate network).


*It’s basically a self recharging direct to point jumpdrive system that relies on navigation data gained from preplaced bacons also known as Nav Hubs which (most of the time) automatically upload the data to you nav computer as soon as it’s within the sight of you sensors (a few might get funny with you and not do this, that is generally because they expect you to pay for the Nav data, which you can do by comm-ing with the Hub and paying the fee. Notoriety also affects this, as although they might be free, unless you have high enough rep with a race you won’t be allowed the nav data to get there, this normally only occurs with high level core sectors however). Once you’ve visited a sector though you can visit it whenever you like, and you don’t have to rely on the hub, as the APMJ can jump you to any point within a sector once you have instigated it, no matter your Notoriety. Now the APMJ needs alot of power to get you anywhere, and the size of your ship effects how far you can travel (unless you buy the power extention but that means you'll have no cargo space left). Small fighters (M5 equiv) can only jump up to one or two sectors befor they have to recharge, (this gives carriers meaning) then corvetts can jump up to 5 to 10 sectors, Frigates upto 20 sectors, Carriers and Destroyers cand go up to 45 to 50 sectors without needing to recharge, and anything larger has a maximum of up to 150 sectors. Due to the Type of Reactor TS and TL have thanks to there large cargo bay they are all able to jump up to 50 sectors before needing to recharge (the Vec home fleet only jumps one sector at a time to make shore all the ships make it).




The next race is the Vec; a completely nomadic race with no fixed installations or station, everything is made on the move, and they rely on the other races for raw materials via trade. They live in one massive fleet that is always moving from sector to sector, and can be hard to trace. They are expert scavengers, able to fix and repair almost anything they lay their hands on, and there is nothing they like more than tinkering with things for this their ships look as though they were made from scrap, and come in all shapes and sizes, but for combat they rely on ultra fast, very light fighters loaded up with particle plasma weaponry.
They as a race like to barter and trade, items for other items, as they don’t seem to have a system of currency. The Argerhan call them space gypsies, and upon meeting a Vec you would start to see why, as they love to dress up. They are a highly spirited and cultured race with many a tail to tell, and one of their favourite past times is telling stories in there large flying taverns, and one of their exports as a results is a liquor called Shnoz’not, which has been outlawed by the Zonory for being to intoxicating to the other races.
The Vec only have one spin off faction, called... Well to everyone else Pirates, but to themselves... The Uoolamhar, they are basically taking the easier life and are fed up of scratching a living from running around. The Vec and the Uolamhar don’t get on and will fight each other on sight.




The next race is called the Argerhan, and bizarrely they are the descendents from a large Goner exploratory mission with an Argon escort. They found themselves here over 500 years ago when investigating an anomaly that popped up once in the sector Omicron Lyre that at the time they believed might be a new gate to an unknown sector. This was because it had the same power readings as a normal gate (the incident however resulted in there no longer being said anomaly).
On hinge sight the Goner scientists believe that the anomaly was the remnant of a gate that once existed there but for some reason hadn’t close down fully when it was removed, some say that it may of been a prototype gate that didn’t work and was disassembled, but an unknown power source kept the wormhole open, so when the expedition came into contact with it they were all shot across the universe until the worm hole ran out of energy and dumped them short of their unknown destination, and so where left to wonder the outer reaches.
It took them 50 years to navigate the Void till they found by chance the Ultima region and when they got there first made contact with the Zonory who welcomed them, and offered a new home and of course the APMJ. To this day relation between them have remained solid with a consistent sharing of ideals, technology, and rescores, you will also often find Argerhan personnel serving on Zonory security ships and vice versa.
Argerhan have two factions which reflect on their heritage, Firstly you have the Gonnar (Goner descendents) who focus there attentions to research and development, as well as infrastructure, Then you have the Silencers (the Argon escort descendents) who defend the Gonnar and provide the entirety of the military force, as well as helping the Zonory with their security.
Ship construction also reflects their past, with ships like the Deference class attack carrier looking allot like the old Titan class (X2 style) but with a much greater size and streamlining of design with conurbation of Zonory technology.



The next race is called the Normadia, a brutal and savage race that doesn’t have much to do with any of the other races and relations between them have always been tense, however peace has been steady and has existed in the region for 400 years after the war with the Argerhan when they first established themselves in Ultima. The Normadia are comprised solely of tribes that constantly fight amongst each other for no reason. Each tribe specializes in a particular tactic of combat, which reflects on the design and technology they use. There are five main or larger Tribes (the smaller tribes staying planet side), being, the Culitch (Heavy weapon lovers), the Bayanar (Snipers, watch your back!), the Tyramor (swarmers, prefer large numbered fast hit and run tactics), the Normadia Pri (they believe themselves to be the first tribe. Tactics reflect a more balanced approach but they also tend to be the most aggressive of all the tribes) and finally (or rather what’s left after the millennia of fighting) the Yarmanon (ramming things is a nation past time, and along with being dependent on self propelled missiles). All Normadia weaponry is projectile based as there development is stunted due to their focus on the fight and constant focus on stopping the other from gaining the upper hand. Whenever a tribe gets too big it spits up or if one gets destroyed, another takes its place so the fighting will always continue.



The last race of the of Ultima is called the Myrun; Bio technology specialists, everything they make and use is organic, even their ships, which are considered the most powerful ships for their size ever made, as well as being the most fearsome and majestic, and possibly being as powerful if not more so than even the Zonory ships. They have even managed to reverse engineer the AMPJ to make an organic version that works just as well but uses less energy (sadly as with all their components and upgrades it’s only compatible with their ships and vice versa). Their ships are able to clock themselves as the skins of their ships are able to change to any colure rather like that of cuttlefish or squid, but much more advanced(this also reflects on their tactics as they tend to hide and skulk around, and they also like to spy allot). All their ships and ship components self repair over a short amount of time if damaged and docking is not required for ship upgrades, as long as the ship is within com distance of a bio upgrade centre then the semantics are transmitted over and the neural nexus of the ship and then it beings to assimilate the raw material in the cargo bay to self construct the upgrade (the same is needed to repair). All Myrun ships start off as small tadpole like fighters (M5 equivalent) but then can be made to grow larger with “expensive” size upgrades all the way up to super capital ships (M0+) and when they get that size can give birth to new baby ships (all of which cost recourses and money). Be warned, these ships need food and will start to die otherwise (but thankfully they are not that fussy about what they eat).
The Myrun as a people are very weary of others and don’t trust easily, so you have to gain allot of rep before they’ll even let you buy any of their tech off them. Rumour has it that this is due to a massive conflict with an unknown race millennia ago that left them almost on the brink of extinction and ever since then they will not trust outsiders that quickly. The Myrun are matriarchal and almost Elvin in their culture, with strange magical abilities and rituals, living in huge communal tree like cities that cover their home world. The average life expectancy of a Myrun is about 1356 years.
Relations between the Myrun and the Zonory are going well, although tentative, with the Myrun actively helping out occasionally with security along their border and give monthly intel on the developments within Ultima. Relations with the Vec are strong as they both seem to have a shared history together (it is said by the Vec that they and the Myrun stood together against the peril (the name of which they never say even when asked) and that is why to this day the Vec roam Ultima with no home as it got destroyed in the conflict) with Vec make annul pilgrimages to the Myrun home world where they celebrate a 10 solar day festival and drink many vats of Shnoz’not (Myrun can’t however drink Shnoz’not for the high sulpha content). Relations with the Argerhan are un-trusted and only just starting as they wouldn’t even talk to the Argerhan for centuries out of fear. And finally relations with the Normadia are nonexistent, partly because the Normadia don’t have relations with anyone and part because the Myrun know not to trust them and avoid all contact for fear of conflict.



Now one big thing about all this is that the trading stations, EQ docks and shipyards with most of the major races are all one thing (except for the Vec as theirs is a really big mothership) and come in upgradeable sizes and all have fighter bays (capacity depending on size).
The sizes are;
The Trade outpost or Village, and has all the same functions of a trading station except with a small population centre.
You can then upgrade that to an Orbiting docklands, or Town that has both the functions of a trading station and EQ dock, a larger Population centre and fighter bay.
And the last upgrade (and the most expensive) is The Harbour City, with not only the centre for trade in that sector, act as an EQ dock but also can build ships and stations. It also boasts greater defences with a massive hanger bay for ships of any size and has large long range anti cap ship turrets, and smaller point defences.
Like the PHQ in the normal game all stations and ships that build other stations or ships will take time and recourses to build (even if it’s an NPC station or ship) so you will be able to sell all the materials that station need to build to that station (ever wondered where to sell all the high end goods? Well now you can sell then to a shipyard).


All ships require and extra component> The Reactor, it provides power to all ship systems, and if knocked out will ether breach and explode or leave your ship there at a standstill with nothing (all ships will have a fast life pod that will let you escape if you’re smart enough to evade the enemy).
Different Reactors provide power to components at different rates, (like one type of reactor can provide faster shield regeneration than another but has a slower AMPJ recharge rate and a moderate weapon power recharge) and they differ from race to race(like the Nomadia have very pore to almost no power to their weapons as they rely on projectiles, but the Yarmanon of the Nomadia for example have really high shield regeneration as they need it to hit other ships.), as well as different classes of the different sized ships. Some reactors are incompatible with some ships, like the Myrun use organic fusion reactors that are incompatible with everything except Myrun ships and info on there capabilities is top secret. The Zonory and the Argerhan both use a form of quantum controlled fusion drive Reactor that both gives a fare to good amount of speed and a general balance across the board with their systems. The Vec have unparalleled speed from their EMC2 hydrogen Drive Reactors and they are also universal with the other races except the Myrun. The Nomadia reactors are under-powering inefficient Fission Reactors that are extremely dangerous if damaged; focus will differs between tribes, avoid unless you’re really short of cash, and they are not compatible with Vec or Myrun Ships.


As a nice little addon- Player and race owned repid responce super flag ships.... (M0+) basicaly a ship 3 times the size of the standard M0 but the player can only buy one of these and there is only one for each race/faction (the race owned ones respond to high threat levels so expect them to pop up if you turn up in yours and start destroying everything), the point in them being a replacment for the PHQ, that you can buy from one of the races (rep, trade / combat rank and money alowing)... chose wisely as differant race ships have differant +'s and -'s.


Now, as I mentioned before, there is a Xenon N added to the picture, and it has travelled a long way to get to this place. So what happened when it got there? Well being an N it’s not very big so it wants to avoid getting see and shot at as best it can, and then it want to find a nice little place to set up stop, somewhere quiet and preferably uninhabited... which as it turns out is not all that hard to find in the outskirts of the Ultima sector... and it finds a nice small rogue moon that the local Vec call Deveros, and slowly the N lands and begins its work...


Lastly, there is a legend of a lost ship Built by the Ancients that the Zonory used to escape milena ago, some call it the Sword of the Ancients, the Zonory call it Pennathia and it is the most advanced ship in Ultima, and is also able to open up the bridge between two gates (some say thats why the Goner had that accident because someone left the lights on, on this ship) and if the Xenon got there hands on it then that would be then end of all life in the known universe. Why the Zenory Lost such a thing is a mistery, but you must find it before the Xenon do!

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Hope you like the idea so far.. here's a poster i made for it

[[Snipe] Bando]

Wow!!
Awesome.

Are you really trying to make this mod?
Seems like a lot of work, but if you can, I will try this.
Great story

Bando

[ReeverDrak]

Thanks, just wish i had the time at the mo, but as soon as XTM-Plus is doen i will be making this mod... so what do you like about it? and how can it be done?

[Deadbeat_Spinn]

Personally what you have laid out is very interesting. By bringing in a whole new set of races, though the background on some reflect on the Commonwealth races, is a grand idea along with a new area of the X universe. I gather this project will take time since you're building everything from scratch, i.e. races, ships/stations, sectors, and the story/plot.

A few minor questions in no particular order:

The lone Xenon N who sets up shop, I take it the "new" Xenon faction will have new ships, stations, and have an M0+ as well?

When you made mention of the M0 and choosing which one you had both a + & a -. I take it that the +/- is advantages/strengths and disadvantages/weaknesses. Would there be a regular M0 or only the M0+?

Would the player be able to return to the regular X universe at any given time or once the story/plot is finished, through a P2P jump or an advanced type of gate?

[ReeverDrak]

Personally what you have laid out is very interesting. By bringing in a whole new set of races, though the background on some reflect on the Commonwealth races, is a grand idea along with a new area of the X universe. I gather this project will take time since you're building everything from scratch, i.e. races, ships/stations, sectors, and the story/plot.

Welll yes and i will be needing a team so if anyone wishes to help out when it gets going please PM me... lol

The lone Xenon N who sets up shop, I take it the "new" Xenon faction will have new ships, stations, and have an M0+ as well?

In the sand box game yes right from the beginning but what I'd like to do is a proper story mode with a main character. Now what this means is that at first the Xenon will be like the ones from the Original X but over time will adapt and adopt the tech by capturing ships and the crews and doing nasty things to them and uses them to learn... which will be part of the story and in tjhe end they will be as bad as everyone else around (and even be a bigger threat to the Ancients, let alot all other forms of life), as they start to m=no longer just be teraformers, but something else... something worse.

When you made mention of the M0 and choosing which one you had both a + & a -. I take it that the +/- is advantages/strengths and disadvantages/weaknesses. Would there be a regular M0 or only the M0+?

Yes the +/- means advantages/strengths and disadvantages/weaknesses. and yes there will be normal M0 in the game... as there is no gate based limit to ship size i want to put the boat out as much as i can without the game crashing lol

Would the player be able to return to the regular X universe at any given time or once the story/plot is finished, through a P2P jump or an advanced type of gate?

Now this is the thing lol (if i can do this it would be fantastic lol) if i can have a link i would as it also ties into the story... you see the only true way out of Ultima is with a really advanced ship, (ill make it apparent that dew to the strange nature of Ultima that Gates just cant work here) so in the story mode you are on the quest to find the lost Ancient Ship; Pennathia, or the Sword of the Ancients, the only ship in the Ultima sector that can bridge a wormhole between two gates and thereby being able to connect them or like a super long distance jump drive jump to any gate you wish... it is that same ship that stranded the Argon explorers 500 years before (they are now the Argerhan).

Upon finding this ship you are able to open a wormhole to the known X Universe and begin a new story there, and maybe have the original races have colonies in Ultima. (CTD will be limiting this, so the exploring the original X Map part will have to come in a second Mod/Story, i plan to make a Series)
and also you must not let this ship end up in Xenon hands for well known reasons lol


A link to the XTU thread for this that is asking different thinks (would be good to see what others say to it lol if you like) is Here

Tanhks for sayin you find it interesting and that lol and thanks for your comments

Reever

[The_Lost_Marauder]

I found this topic really for a mere coincidence, and I'm surprised no more posts followed the initial ones.

The overall idea is interesting (although like Spinn said it reminds Commonwealth races) but there are a couple of things which I don't understand.

You say you're creating a space without gates, but are you planning to have only a single HUGE sector like 10.000 x 10.000 km? Otherwise you'd still have to separate each zone otherwise the single map will lag as hell because it's "full" of ships, stations and so on. Ok, it may be true that staying 100km away will reduce lag and problems, but still I see this solution working hard (think about Aldrin sector).
You could still have separate "zones" (I won't call them sectors) and you can travel among them only by getting close to the beacons and then jumping to the next area.

However another problem arises: are these beacons big or small, can they be destroyed or not? I have two models which I consider similar to your idea: the navigazion beacons seen in X³ (which are small and can be easily destroyed) and the Jump beacons of X-Wing Alliance, which are unbreakable and you can't eighter crash against them.

Nothing to say about new races, although I'm a bit puzzled by those Myrun who remind me the Borons: how can you make ships "growing" ??? This is something I don't know how to figure out, and I hope you can, otherwise you might have really bad days trying to figure out what to do.

Finally, a consideration about the Xenon N: if it's a true Terraformer, it should have only one purpose, and you can guess which one is. And I guess Zonory won't be cool with it.

[ReeverDrak]

hi, thanks for the post dude, i was starting to get dishearted by peoples lack of posting so i welcome your comments, and ill try to answer your question as best i can.

I was hopeing for areas of the map to be unjumpable due to there being to many obsticals like roids and station but in essence the idea is that once you have the jump data from the beacon and you'v explored that "zone" you can jump to any point on the map... the beacons are only there to unlock the next zone, like give your nav computer the info needed to jump there any time you want as long as its in range... as for the beacons themselfs, they are indestructable like the gates but will rely on the same modle as the X3 beacons, as all they are, are small data stores with a interactive computer to allow asses to the data and to give out directions to serton stations (i played around with this idea for some time.

as to sector size, once development is started i think it would be good to find the best size according to "find the lagest you could get away with without it lagging" as that would be logical lol.

The overall race, yes they do have simularitys and that was deliberate as a point of refference for the player, as you will need a trade heavy race, in X3 you have the teladi, in Ultima you have the Vec, but there are major tech and personality differnces between them, and the same is to be said for all the races in Ultima, its like all the X3 races were put in a blender... say the Normadia for example, they are a war like race like the split but dont share the same values and due to the constent in fighting there tech is very primative unlike the split, and if you ever got the two fighting each other the split would win, but the Normadia's advantage is veriaty and price, you wont find any cheeper ship off any of the other races.

The Myrun unlike the Boron, if in a fight will excell at offence and defence, but at a price, to own one of there ships you have to earn alot of prestege and then pay thro the nose to buy even a starter ship. as a people they keep themselfs to themselfs and are to scared to engage directly with other races even tho militerily they are strong enough to wipe anyone out, they just lack the confidence due to there history, they prefer cloak and dagger and hidding in the shadows then anything else. (think the romulans in star trek)

as to growing a myrun ship, well its the same as buying an upgrade in some respects, you just need the scmatics off a genetics lab then fill your hold with ecells and activete the upgrade and in essence grow a bigger ship (this is the simplets way i can think of doing this, and would only involve like a basic script to remove the old ship and have a larger ship in its place). the same with equipment like weapons, go to the genetics lad, buy the scematics and grow it with ecells, and you can buy and sell scmatics on a supply and damand basis for a profit.. all in all the econemy of the Myrun is simpler than all the other races.

lastly, the Xenon N, keep in mind that the Xenon are not just teraformers, but AGI aswell, an intelegance that keeps growing... if so it would eventualy workout a few things about its existance.. it will still do what its ment to do, which is teraform, but it would also do its best to servive and learn, and what if it worked out that the only way it can live on is if it sent out a seed that could think for itself and adapt to escape the X3 network and head out into open space, altho not fully self aware yet, but enought to realies that something must be done... the Xenon in X are like wasps, the same level of intelegence, well the new Xenon is the next evoltion up, to something a little worse, and thats the story in ultima and how you as the player and the other races do there best to stop it...

and yes when the zenory find out they would do all in there power to stop it, as they understand what it would mean to the rest of the universe.

i hope this helps, feel free to ask any more questions.

Thanks guys

[omega_lionheart]

i hope you make this mod it sound like it will be one hell of a convesion of the game i like the idea of the organic ships bring a new type of ship design into play i hope you do make it i know i will get it when you finish

[ReeverDrak]

well i will but i cant do it on my own, an idea like this is a huge undertaking for just one person, so i need more interest from others so i can put a team together... if there is anyone willing to help then let me know.

[Wolvan]

Wow, good read, I'm really liking the idea, especially the idea of a totally nomadic race. When playing XTM I always tried to keep all my assets as mobile as possible using T0s for production and mining and basing my fleet around an ozias and a brace of Panthers.

I have absolutely no scripting, modeling, or texturing ability but I'd be happy to help write anything necessary, BB articles, dialogue, back story, you name it. I really hope this one gets off the ground.