Mod reboot: EDF Chronicles: Generations Past

[Sean Mirrsen]

Hello everyone.

The EDF Chronicles is in no way a widely popular or widely known mod, simply because it never reached any stage of completion. However, it attempts to introduce some interesting new strategies, so I decided to resurrect this mod from its grave in TAU Boneyards.

The key sides are The Earth Defence Force, or EDF, and The Drones.

There may or may not be other races introduced.

The EDF are the defence fleet of the New Earth government. It was formed to keep control of population in the far reaches of colonized space, and confront any threats, real or fabricated, as ordered by higher command.

The Drones are remnants of an ancient civilization, highly capable machines controlled by one robotic being. Their true origins are unknown, just as those of their creators. A colony mission on a planet in a remote star system encountered them, and was destroyed, mistakedly assuming their friendliness. A patrol sent to investigate found nothing, yet after their return, the Drones started appearing all over colonized worlds.

The EDF are currently undergoing revision by their author, The Legacy, so there may be details that no longer exist, or those I don't know of.


I wish there could be beautiful screenshots I could show you, but with the latest bugs in s3o model format, the creation of units is going slow.
I can only describe the main races with words.

The EDF are similar to the present armed forces. Their early armies consist of infantrymen and armored vehicles, that get stronger and stronger (30 infantry types), but later into the game the main attack force of the EDF are the aircraft. Starting with a static base and having only infantry for protection, the EDF may seem vulnerable, but almost every one of their buildings posesses a certain defensive ability, from point defences to cloaking devices, making their base a hell to assault. At the latest game stages, the EDF can call upon the supporting fleet orbiting the planet, getting access to the fleet's corvettes and cruisers, as well as superheavy tanks dropped by the fleet's dropships.

The Drones are a very mobile attack force. Starting with only a basic builder, and having no real commander on the field, the Drones are very hard to find and exterminate, much like the insects that they take the shape of. There is no preference or any particular attack pattern in Drone attacks, their armed forces are comprised of both aircraft and ground units, similar in sizes and power. In effect, the Drones can always choose only one direction of attack, either ground or air, while keeping maximum attack power. Even though their attack units increase with size over the 6 tech levels, the main power of the Drones are the Drones themselves, small spheroid units each serving a particular role, and performing exquisitely in their area. While a giant 6-legged weapons platform may rain destruction and spread panic, it fades in comparison to the combination of power and small size of the Drones.


As soon as I get some screenshots to show these races in action, I will post them. Comments welcome.

[Zoombie]

Cool

[Masse]

i wanna see pics before i can go COOL... but it really really sounds cool

[GrOuNd_ZeRo]

Well, sounds alot like WD in the sense that you go from infantry, to vehicles to aircraft, it does sound interesting though, esspecially arming all buildings, I would have done that in WD if I just figured how to properly compile factory scripts lol.

But I do like the overal concept, However I do not like the name EDF, it sounds like a SNES game I know.

Maybe we can combine my project with yours? my unnamed Mars vs Earth mod which features the Martian colonial rebellian VS the Earth Federation? the drones would make a nice addition to the plot, and my mod already is VERY similar to that EDF mod.

[Sean Mirrsen]

I can show a few pics, but there's really nothing worth showing yet. Most models are being redone and are still in lightwave.


"Fly" scouts on patrol.


Same from a different angle. Notice the awful glitches of the alphamap texturing, and the texture resolution. The original is 128x128, this one looks like it's 32x32.


Level 1 Air Drone plants. Almost looking good, especially since they share one 512x512 texture with other four levels.


EDF Gunner soldiers. Model is currently 3do. And is being reworked, this one looks like shite.


EDF Stinger soldiers.


EDF Gunners from a different angle.


EDF Gunners firing. They should actually fire from a crouched position, but the script for that hasn't been finished yet.

As you can see, there's really nothing to look at. But wait till I redo the level 1 Drone land units.

edit: EDF are not my race, they were created by Legacy. I saw Earth Defence Force even in Duke Nukem 3d, so I would probably agree that EDF is kinda.. used.

[raikitsune]

wil the infantry be so ridiculously cheep you just feel like it'd be a waste not to buy them?! (and the massive humand wave attacks ensue with all the infantry being stomped on the occasional tank exploding such forht) sorry i think i lost myself there.

[Sean Mirrsen]

First level infantry will be cheap. Actually, they will be very cheap in comparison with later infantry, that includes advanced infantry, heavy infantry, special infantry, jumpjet infantry, and even droids. Field Training Centers are very cheap and fast to make, and this early infantry will be in high demand to repel any early Fire Ant and Stinglett rushes before the turreted machineguns of the Dash and Quad vehicles become available. Afterwards, light infantry will be used with its ability to swim (advanced infantry can't swim with additional armor, troopers and droids can move underwater, but can't fire until ashore), and low radar signature. But they still are very vulnerable, and die very quickly, especially from friendly fire.

[GrOuNd_ZeRo]

I'd like a script for swimming infantry, esspecially for Navy SEALs in WD.

Sean, i'll be glad to help out on this mod since it's so similar to my idea anyway.

[Caydr]

Sean, aren't you the guy who made the sound effects for his mod by blowing into a mic?

[Sean Mirrsen]

No, I don't think so.

[Zoombie]

This looks cool, and i like chep infantry.

This one time in WD i just build five barracks as MOSPACT and just told them ALL to make 1000 AK-47 weilding troopers and patroll them in the enemy base.

Result: a huge wave of walking cannonfodder, leaving a lot of corpses. I destroyed ONE building, for all my troubles.

And the enemy only had two pillbox's...

[Sean Mirrsen]

Hmm. Legacy seems to be redoing the entire EDF from scratch, so I wouldn't expect much progress in that direction for a while. Even at that, any help with scripting the infantry will be welcome. My primary concern is the walk script, I never seem to be able to get it right. What looked good in TA just won't do for Spring.

[BlackDawnBR]

Very cool!

The EDF Stinger soldiers look like the Core Crack made by Magma (M3G).

Still its a new way of playing the game and would make a diference for anyone who is tierd of the normal TA.
(Is there some one on Earth that ever got tierd?)

[GrOuNd_ZeRo]

WD's infantry use the Zipper walk-script since I can't be bothered to create a walk-script blindly, frame for frame.

[SwiftSpear]

WD's infantry use the Zipper walk-script since I can't be bothered to create a walk-script blindly, frame for frame.

IIRC some guy figured out a way to automate the script with animating normally... I think he posted about it in the Epic 4000 thread...

[Maelstrom]

Yea someone did. I think it was actually to do with a walker from SWTA. Well it was a mech walking thing of some sort, that looked like an ATST. What he did was animate it normally with a skeleton and joints and stuff, then export the join positions/rotations to a text file somehow. He then preceded to import that into excel where he formatted it and exported it as a script. But if you want to particulars on how he did that, you will have to find the thread.

[j5mello]

here is a link (third post): http://spring.clan-sy.com/phpbb/viewtop ... &start=220