I was wondering and pondering, why there's no such mod for Freelancer, which would be set in Cataclysm Era.
It is perfect era, because we have variety of factions in this one - Kushan people are already settled down on Hiigara, Taiidani Empire and Taiidani Republic are waging war, Turanic Raiders are still alive and kicking, harassing everyone who stands in their way (sometimes merging fleets with Taiidani), and there is Somataaw, releasing The Beast.
I fail to see why there is no such mod, because at there majority of the factions has at least two subfactions. I'll post a list here:
Hiigarans:
- S'jet (research, in fact could be omnitted)
- Sobani (elite of elites)
- Manaan (naval fleet)
- Nabaal (construction guys)
- Somataaw (miners with unique tech and shipline)
- Paktu (tech guys, could be omnitted)
Taiidani:
- Loyalist Imperial Fleet
- Remains of the Elite Imperial Fleet (Black Hulls) - Rebelious Republican Fleet - Ragtag Taiidani/Turanic fleets
- Other
Turanic Raiders:
- Clans here, rather confederated (as I have seen at least four colour schemes for those)
- Ragtag Taiidani/Turanic fleets
- They could be quasi-lawfuls within Taiidani Space
Bentusi:
- Zoners and overpowered traders of the universe (jokingly)
- They could be also the ADMIN team vessels, aside of NPC ones
- Also, could be NPC only faction with vessels being obtainable only via Admins
The Beast:
- The Beast of Naggarok (original Virus)
- The Beast of Infected Module (part of the Kuun-Lan)
- They could be divided bythe types of infected vessels, because The Beast (as the "house") would have a lot of vessels.
Progenitors:
- The very old race... Not sure, if H1 (Junkyard Dogs) and H2 Progenitors are even related.
- Could be NPC only faction, very hard to beat up by single player (think of the boss here).
Kadeshi:
- Provided those were not completly destroyed.
Galactic Council:
- Rather unknown races, as shown in the outro of the final mission in original Homeworld.
(11-01-2014, 11:48 PM)Scourgeclaw Wrote: I can dig it
Bring me my damned Thief-class Corvettes
I was wondering what is affiliation of the Turanic Raiders. On the one hand, they kept the ambush on outskirts of the Kharak System (H1) on the Taiidani accord. On the other hand, they were said to pirate even Taiidani (HC manual) because Riettsu IV of Taiidani died. Hell, they could be quasi-lawfuls inside Taiidani Space (as mentioned before).
(11-01-2014, 11:58 PM)Scourgeclaw Wrote: The closest analoge for them in Disco would likely be what'd happen if Kusari contracted Junkers to pirate in Liberty or something
It could depend on the fact Turanic Raiders are just "bunch" of the different chiefs or something. Because I found something on the Homeworld Wikia:
Quote:It is well known that the Turanic Raiders are a series of Kingdoms that are always in strife and complex Alliances.
Northern Turanic Raiders
These are the most seen Raiders, they have been seen in several areas in the Great Wasteland. Their most important system apart from their homeworld is the Turanic Raider Planetoid Station, their systems are near Kadesh.
Vigoth Turanic Raiders
The Vigoth have been known to lurk in Osyrrian and Valhalla space, for thousands of years they have tried to use the Galactic Council as stepping stones to the Core, but they will usually fail. (Probably non-canon.)
Quote:It could depend on the fact Turanic Raiders are just "bunch" of the different chiefs or something. Because I found something on the Homeworld Wikia:
The general consensus within the Homeworld fan-writers (and myself) is that the Turanic Raiders are basically a bunch of squabbling internecine kingdoms with various political dispositions and territories. It sort of depends on the author.
In basically everything Homeworld related I've done (background fluff for the old PDS mod, Relic Forum Boardwars, and the odd Fanfiction), I've gone the route with the Turanics being essentially divided up into sedentary kingdoms and distinct, more violent, nomadic raiders. The latter were often hired out as mercenaries, mostly by the late Taiidan Empire as "deniable assets" to strike targets the Imperial Navy could not for political reasons or as a cheap border guard who knew the area and knew how to conduct asymmetric warfare effectively, and weren't bound by Imperial or Galactic Council law.
After the Empire collapsed, the Turanics would have been able to run amok due to the economic and political chaos, with a whole host of Taiidani splinter governments, bandit kingdoms, and client states. So, as far as alligence goes, they basically ally with whoever will pay for their services, and raid/pillage/burn like vikings when nobody will pay.
In Discovery, probably the closest analogues would be a fusion of the Outcasts or Corsairs with the Junkers, as the Turanics are certainly powerful (atleast as powerful as the Pre-Makaan Vaygr), most of their territories are in the great wastelands (with their only real canonical challengers being the insular Kadeshi). They're also not quite like the Hogosha, as they have no deep political connection to the governmental or corporate systems of the powers they serve.
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Now talking about Freelancer mods... It's always been a neat idea to have a Homeworld-themed FL mod. Infact, the current GMG, Renzu, and IMG shiplines used to use Homeworld Imports before we went through and replaced everything. I was tempted to make a Taiidan Empire faction (this was in the days of =BSG=, Mandalorian Mercenaries, etc when we could get away with it) but never did so.
If I -was- going to do a whole mod, using Freelancer as an engine, and keeping in mind my experiences with Discovery, I would probably have it set during the immediate pre-cataclysm era (and have the events of cataclysm unfold during the mod's plot-line), or alternately, during the Vaygr War (with HW1 era ships available as military surplus, of course).
The problem is, we'd need to add in a whole bunch of things like Corporations, Smaller Militaries, Pirate Groups, etc to achieve the same volume of organizations and factions even Vanilla FL has. Also, in the Homeworld games thus far, we've pretty much only ever seen a handful of nonmilitary ships, to say nothing of those used by minor galactic powers (Frrern Aggrigate comes to mind) so we'd have to either sweet talk some of the HW2 mod makers into borrowing their designs or make our own based on concept art.
The fundamental problem is that Freelancer is slowly dying. Outside of Discovery, I don't think there's a huge community willing to get together and make a big mod. Homeworld's community on the other hand is active and is going to have a renaissance soon what with Gearbox re-releasing the collector's edition of the game... at some point, and mods like HW@ and HWU growing in popularity.
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Also since I told Leviathan I would do this at every oppurtunity:
