Deadlock III: Manifolds Destiny

[Buster's Uncle]

...This is what got me back into the saddle. One day in late October, I was playing Deadlock II and was seized by inspiration. See, Deadlock was this game that came out in 1996 about seven factions colonizing a planet...

A few hours later I was emailing the Humans faction to Darsnan. I knew he remembered the game fondly, too. He loved the idea -for about two weeks, until RL challenged him to a wrestling match.

I gather he has finally pinned RL, and may resume work on this soon, so here's some goodies to look at. I have some texture files, an icon and some screenshots, but the faction .pcxs and one set of thumbnails are as much art as I can attach in one post...

Attention: DarkCloud!

[Buster's Uncle]

D, you got anything to add at this point? I think I should have mentioned that it's a scenario (or full mod- we don't know which yet) in the thread title. Wanna fix that for me?

[Darsnan]

...This is what got me back into the saddle. One day in late October, I was playing Deadlock II and was seized by inspiration. See, Deadlock was this game that came out in 1996 about seven factions colonizing a planet...

Ah yes, Deadlock. For the planetary sci-fi TBS player, before SMAC the best game up to that point (IMO) was Deadlock. Set in a galaxy where all habitable planets were already colonized, a new habitable planet (Galius IV) is discovered. The game picks up with 7 of the 8 races agreeing to colonize the planet with eqally pitted forces: the race who end up dominating the planet then claim it. The game had parallels to SMAC in that there were temples which provided extra resources, a tech tree, and some smart dialogue. The game also possessed some really great ideas not seen elsewhere (at least by me) in that when you launched an invasion of an enemy city center, the game went from TBS to RTS: you got to give your individual units orders (attack city centers, attack science centers, attack housing complexes, etc.), and when you launched your attack you then got to see your forces go to work as ordered. I used to replay these battles time after time, giving my units different orders, just so I could see them progressing thru the battle and how they responded to the different battle queues I had lined up for them. Great stuff!

I also have it on good authority that Santa Clause is going to bring me a copy of Deadlock I for Christmas, so I will once again be immersing myself in the conflict for Galius IV!

A few hours later I was emailing the Humans faction to Darsnan. I knew he remembered the game fondly, too. He loved the idea -for about two weeks, until RL challenged him to a wrestling match.

I remember seeing Buster's Uncle's first E-Mail on this and immediately thinking, "yeah, I can do this np!". Within a week BU had knocked out all the artwork for this (and more!), and I was like "gah!" , as all I had done to that point was sketch out a rough draft of a map for a scenario. I had forgotten how quickly BU can work!

Anyways, I digress. As BU has discussed above, why I am going to build a scenario built on the Deadlock universe. Currently I have not played Deadlock in about 12 years, so my recollection of the various races (factions) is foggy. The following is what I see right now as my first stab at representing the Deadlock factions in SMAC:


ChCh-t

Alien
+2 Growth (insectoid reproduction rate)
+2 Production (industrious workers)
-2 Morale (short life cycle fails to pass on experience to next generation)
-2 Research (all workers are drones, except the queen)


Cyth

Alien Usurper
+1 Research (superior intellects)
-1 Growth (less inclined to reproduce)

Maug
Human, Consciousness

-2 Growth (sickly species)
+2 Research (innovative research capabilities)
+1 Production (innovative species)
-1 Morale (sickly species)

Tarth

Human, Spartans
-2 Research (not very bright)
+2 Morale (high grav world species)


Humans

Human, Morganite
-1 Efficiency (dunno on this one: can't remember too much about the humans and their abilities in this game)


Re'Lu

Human, Angel
-2 Morale (not used to physical conflict)
+2 Probe ( superior empathic ability allows better gleaning of enemy information)


Uva Mosk

Human, Cult
+2 Planet (complete empathy with a planet)
-1 Industry (conflicts with planetary harmony)
-1 Economy (conflicts with planetary harmony)


Skirineen

There is no analog for the Skirineen in SMAC. My take on this right now is to use them as the replacement for Planet and its minions and make them a sort of 8th faction vieing for control of Galius IV.


Timeline

Right now my thought is to immerse myself in the Deadlock universe again for about a month (say till the end of January), and then produce the scenario and balanced factions at that time. In between I'll probably ping interested people as to direction and scope of this project: things like factional makeup, the alphax.txt setup, text file updates, etc., so that I am really capturing the essence of Deadlock in this mod. I envision in parallel BU looking for feedback as to the graphics he has provided so that we can ensure we are also providing a good graphical immersion for the players as well.

So if anyone is interested in joining this frey please let us know and we can start ramping you up. Or if you just have questions why ask away and BU and I should be able to scrounge up the answers one way or another.

D

[Buster's Uncle]

Larrin, I'm posting those screen shots I promised you here.

From the Deadlock II Manual:
***
The Environments
Different environments provide different strategic challenges. Choose from tropical to arctic - alien to desert. If Use World Resource Amounts is checked in the Game Startup screen, the choice of planet type modifies the game's resource abundance, as detailed below.

¥ Alien: High Endurium (a metal), Low Iron

¥ Volcanic: High Metals/ High Energy

¥ Earth-like: Balanced Resources

¥ Tropical: High Food/ Low Metals

¥ Martian: Low Energy

¥ Icy: Low Wood

¥ Dry: Low Food
***
Not always what I called the screen shot files, and I must've missed two, but here. Deadlock divides the planet into territories, which we're not going to try to simulate as such, but each is one of a terrain type: Plain, Forest, Swamp, Mountain, and sea. I made samples of each environment I found in some random thrashing about with each terrain type (water small in the middle) shown- reduced, as I think we need more the color schemes for each than slavish attention to the details. I had way too many images to work through to get each in the same place in each file, but I think it'll be easy to pick out which is which.

I've reworked ter1.pcx to incorporate Deadlock-style resource bonuses and replaced the monoliths with hidden shrines and some equivalent structures such as farms- but anyway, I need to go figure out which environments I missed...

[Buster's Uncle]

I made a desktop icon for this project (attachment- upper right). I was really on fire with it then.

[DarkCloud]

Good luck guys. I really enjoyed Deadlock 1- It's in my CD tray right now. I never played Deadlock 2 though.

The Ch'Chkth were my favorite group.
Are you able to port the videos into Alpha Centuari as well?

I don't recall the Ch'Chkth having a morale penalty- but I could be wrong. Generally if you didn't build more than one house in a sector you'd be fine in Deadlock 1, but you always needed to get to 50 max pop... and that's when the problems started hitting.

And the research problems could be murder with them when the Maug or someone reached some high level of tech and you were still in the laser cannon age.
--
The Skirineen could be responsible for the "alien artifacts" on Planet. And perhaps they could charge you access to the artifacts (can you do that in SMAC with scripting?) So you go over the artifact, it asks you if you want to spend X dollars and then you can choose to accept or to wait.

-DC.

[Darsnan]

Are you able to port the videos into Alpha Centuari as well?

Doubt it as the videos are most certainly a different format, but good idea! I will see if this is feasible.

The Ch'Chkth were my favorite group.
I don't recall the Ch'Chkth having a morale penalty- but I could be wrong.

I haven't played the game in like 12 years, so my memory is very foggy on this. All I did was take a first stab at outlining how I think the traits should go. Once I play the game again for a little bit I'll flesh out the faction traits and see how playable it is from there.

The Skirineen could be responsible for the "alien artifacts" on Planet. And perhaps they could charge you access to the artifacts (can you do that in SMAC with scripting?) So you go over the artifact, it asks you if you want to spend X dollars and then you can choose to accept or to wait.

-DC.

Buster's Uncle had suggested in the past adding pics to different pop-ups, and what I found was that in some instances the pics appeared, and at other times they didn't. As far as what you are proposing is concerned, why I don't think its feasible, but I can look into it. And if you have any more ideas please let us know!

D

[Buster's Uncle]

I just rifled through the folder, and I can't even tell where/which the videos are. However, there are a lot of .wav files with battle noises and such. Worth listening to.

[Larrin]

i may be able to help with videos, i should have the software needed to edit/view and swap the videos for you...

Also, something Darsnan might want to look into, you said you have never seen a game where tbs and rts are mixed, try the total war series of games, (Shogun: Total War was my favourite) you can probably pick the older ones up for next to nothing these days.

[Darsnan]

i may be able to help with videos, i should have the software needed to edit/view and swap the videos for you...

Really!?! That would be quite the accomplishment there! I will indeed keep this in mind.

Anyways, I noticed in the Christmas Scenario thread that BU had posted a winterized terrain graphics file. I think right now, since I won't be getting Deadlock till X-Mas, I can create an icy planetoid environment and have it in place for when I do start work on this project in earnest. I can take the iceworld terrain graphics BU made for the Christmas scenario, and take a stab at a first-edit of an alphax.txt to accompany it. I'll then post them (and any other edited text files) for review. We can then use these as a template for the other world-types we determine need to be generated. Sound good?

Also, something Darsnan might want to look into, you said you have never seen a game where tbs and rts are mixed, try the total war series of games, (Shogun: Total War was my favourite) you can probably pick the older ones up for next to nothing these days.

My son plays Rome: Total War (and the Barbarian sequel). Do those count? If so I can ping him on this and see what is being refered to.

[Larrin]

Yep, Rome is one of the newer ones, looks pretty good..

[Buster's Uncle]

LarRIN! LarRIN! LarRIN!

[Larrin]

Oh, and just to add to the videos comment, i can definately do just about anything you want with sound files.

Also am i supposed to be having a go at putting those terrain graphics into smac?

[Buster's Uncle]

I believe Darsnan would very much love it if you did something in the style of each of the terrain screenshots, yes. Otherwise, I'll have to do it eventually.

Here's the latest version I've done of ter1.pcx, with the monoliths, most of the terrain improvements, and Deadlock terrain resource bonuses swapped.

[Larrin]

cheers, haven't got my usb drive on me now, but will get that down and have a crack at the rest of it later.

[Darsnan]

Update on where I am with this: Premise is done. I reviewed the manual (aka the "Colony Leader's Guidebook") which came with the game, and have been able to tweak the storyline to my own ends. Map is about 90% done. After reviewing Deadlock and comparing it to SMAC here is where I am recommending we go with this:

1) there is no equivalent for the Skirineen in SMAC, and there is no equivalent for Planet and its minions in Deadlock. Therefore per my statement above I am tweaking the storyline to wedge the Skirineen into the SMAC environment (i.e. it is verboten to contact the Skirineen in Deadlock, so you can probably see where I am going with this). I hope you will like how I have handled this.

2) There is no equivalent for fungal blooms and psi warfare in Deadlock. Therefore I am going to borrow from my Beta Lyrae mod here, as well as mold the original storyline to fit the SMAC environment. I will be including an amended script.txt file with the scenario which will hopefully drop enough hints as to what is going on.

3) I still need to finalize the factional traits for each faction. Should have this on Friday or Saturday, and will start playtesting then.

4) There are only 34 techs in the Deadlock tech tree. I'm not seeing a reason to switch from the SMAC tech tree as I see it to be much superior.

5) There are only a handful of units on Deadlock. Here again I don't see a reason to implement them outright. Instead I think adding a handful of additional units to the default #UNITS section of the alphax.txt file will make the game more enjoyable.

Thats about it for now. Will update Friday or Saturday on this. FYI.

D

[Buster's Uncle]

Sounds good.

[Darsnan]

OK, after thinking about this, here are some additional changes:

1) if a person hasn't played Deadlock before, I don't think their going to "get" the encrypted Skirineen pics (i.e. the top right pic in the attached photos below). Therefore Jack can you give me a pic to replace the Btwrm.pcx pic using the top left Skirineen pic instead?

2) I am reasonably sure I can do a set of interludes for this scenario as well. I'd rather not go into detail, but it will play off of and explain in more detail the premise I have written for the scenario.

D

[Buster's Uncle]

That shouldn't take long.

Are you playing Deadlock or Deadlock II?

[Buster's Uncle]

Here yeh goes.