Planetfall

[Maniac]

Requires Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword patch 3.19

DOWNLOAD HERE - both the main file and the latest patch
Mirror for the main file

Optional: the SMAC sound files
See the first question in the FAQ on where to place them. THANKS to WarKirby for providing them.

***

Earth, 2060. A small group of colonists leaves the ravages of Earth for a distant planet orbiting Alpha Centauri's primary star. Their ship, the United Nations Starship Unity, carries them on their journey to a new world and a new hope for humankind. Along the way a reactor malfunction damages the Unity, precipitating a crisis among the ship's seven most powerful leaders. As they enter the Alpha Centauri system, the crew splits into seven distinct factions, divided not by nationality, but by ideology, and their vision for the new world. After the ship breaks apart, the seven leaders guide their chosen crew down to the surface of Planet, seeking their destiny beneath an alien sky.

Planetfall is a mod for Sid Meier's Civilization 4 that uses the storyline and characters from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, combined with gameplay that takes the best from SMAC, Civilization, and the modding community.

Planetfall will not be a clone of SMAC using the Civ4 engine, but rather will incorporate the Factions, general storyline and Characters combined with the newest gameplay modifications to allow for more strategic gameplay.

***

Design & Programming: Maniac
Graphics Lead: Lord Tirian
And many other contributors. See Readme.

Besides in this thread, you can also discuss Planetfall in this forum.



***

Q: Help! I can't see any fungus on land!

A: Your computer probably has an older graphics card. Fortunately there's a solution to make all features visible. It won't look as pretty, but at least you'll be able to see where there's fungus.

The solution is like this. In Planetfall\Assets\XML\Art there's a file called CIV4ArtDefines_FeatureLoGfx.xml - rename it to CIV4ArtDefines_Feature.xml, overwriting the file currently named like that, and problem solved.


Q: Is it possible to hear the original SMAC voice quotes in Planetfall.

A: Yes it is, or at least some of the tech quotes are used. This will be expanded further into the future.

To enable the tech quotes, you should copy the SMAC fx and voices folder into the Planetfall Sounds folder, as indicated on the screenshot. If you do not do this, you'll just hear a 'ping' upon researching a technology.



Q: But I don't own SMAC, and I want to hear SMAC sounds!

A: Sucks to be you. You may be able to purchase it here though. But do hurry. Good things never last.

***

I guess some screenshots would be in order now.
(Note for the last screenshot: I play with low resolution textures, so the screenie is not representative for most of you.)

[Maniac]

The following posts detail what you can do to help Planetfall if you want to.
I'll convert this to a format which doesn't require CFC's spoiler tag later...

Quick links:

Bug List
Gameplay Task List
Graphics Task List
Documentation
Discussion List


Edit: ah frack it. Just visit the CFC thread for the task list. Will post it here too once Apolyton has upgraded to newer forum software.
Edit2: Well, the forum got upgraded, but in the meanwhile I've discontinued maintaining a public ToDo list out of lack of other people's interest.

[Maniac]

Graphics Task List


* Flags for Angels, Drones, Pirates, Caretakers, Usurpers and Native Life/Barbarians
* DDS files for all seven AX leaders

* Trench feature nif model

Spoiler:

Fungus can't grow on Trenches. I'd like Trenches to be able to exist next to land, so they can act as a barrier against fungus, just like Ridges are on land.

For that reason I tried to modify the shelf terrain textures, giving them the trench colour. The results are... bad. The coastal sand textures, necessary for terrain to look well next to land, also shows up between shelf and trench. Screenie at the bottom as illustration.

Terrain graphic generation seems to be determined by a terrain's layer order. In vanilla, land has the lowest layer order, thus are generated first. Then coast gets added on top of it, creating the coastal sand look. Then ocean gets added on top of it. Because that comes last, there is no coastal sands in the water. Unfortunately this means it's impossible to have more than one coastal terrain type.

As a consequence I was thinking to turn Trenches into a Feature. They would then require nif files though. I'm not sure if this is possible, or if I have the best idea on implementation. I'm wondering, is it possible to create nif files which are a flat coloured plane, and only of minimal height (Z-axis?), so that they would cover up the terrain textures, but still look completey flat??
One nif for all trenches would look bad though. There would be a sudden colour transition etc. I'm wondering if something like the icepack nifs is a possibility? The icepack XML can be copied for trenches. That would create some variety in trench connections, and there wouldn't be a straight line seperating trench from ocean. The dds could be the trench colour that appears in the game, including at the side of the dds some colour transition from the trench to ocean colours. Can an in-game screenshot be used to create dds textures for a nif??

* Specialist buttons

Spoiler:

Buttons needed for the Engineer, Merchant, Librarian, Empath



I'd suggest using the SMAC Engineer, Librarian and Empath graphics for Planetfall's similarly named specialists. SMAC didn't have a merchant. Perhaps the Technician graphic could be used for the merchant, unless someone has a better idea.

Two problems though which I'm not sure how to solve:

1) The SMAC source material is smaller than the Civ4 requirement of 64x64 buttons. Is it still possible to make good-looking buttons for them?

2) The SMAC source material is rectangle instead of square. This doesn't cause a big problem for the Engineer, Librarian and Merchant/Technician, as the SMAC source's background is black anyways. But it does form a problem for the Empath. Any method to create a good looking square button from the SMAC source material? If not, any other ideas for what the Empath button can look like?

* Textures for the Spartan and Believer citysets

Should explain more...

* Angel & Drone citysets

Should explain more...

* Mag Tube graphics based on the Final Frontier jumplanes and/or warp-lanes, which adapt to terrain height

* Locust of Chiron unit model

Should explain more...

* Fungal Tower unit model

Example images available on request if you don't have them nearby yourself.

* Spore Launcher & Sealurk textures

Refinements, animations etc for these unit models also always welcome.

* Spawning Spot improvement model

A geological structure as on the right of the Cult of Planet wallpaper. Gaian cityset nifs could probably partially be recycled for this.

* Cloudbase unit model

See Cloudbase Academy secret project movie

* Spartan HQ building model

Let's hope woodelf re-appears...

* Subspace Generator building model

Example image: subgen_sm.pcx

* Nif of a leafy tree

For use in the Believer cityset as a generic building

* Add glow to the center of the Psi Gate building

After that building model has been made. Something similar to the FfH Inspiration spell building.

* Unity Library, Unity Cryobay, Unity Hydroponics Bay building models

Spoiler:

The current Headquarters nif model with different textures?
Instead of the faction symbols:
For the Library: the Information Networks icon.
For the Hydroponics Bay, perhaps the leaf with water inside (x1,y2) as on logo_thumbnails_v2.png
For the Cryobay, the medicine icon (x3,y3) as on logo_thumbnails_v2.png

To do: upload logo_thumbnails_v2.png

* Unity Observation Bay building model

Perhaps a slightly damaged disc as on the button for this project, together with a small side-building for control, and a windmill for energy.

* Make the Morganic cityset use Art/Structures/Cities/all_mod_lots.dds as underground

No idea how the following should look like myself:

* Centauri Preserve improvement model
* Sea Spawning Spot improvement model
* Nif models, buttons and gamefont icons for the bonus resources which don't yet have any (precise list can be made if anyone is interested in doing this)
* Models for all five religions' Missionaries
* Buttons for the Missionaries of the Consciousness, Edenism and Homo Superior
* Building models for the shrines of the Edenism, Ascetic Virtues and Homo Superior religions
* Planetary Council building model
* Unity Mining Laser building model

[Maniac]

SDK/Python task list

[Maniac]

bug list

Sorry! The administrator has specified that users can only post one message every 30 seconds.

[Maniac]

documentation

[Maniac]

discussion list

that's about it

[wangyushi]

Great!

[Main_Brain]

Wow. I thought all hope for a Civ4-Smac Mod died long ago..

[Maniac]

Rubin's Planetfall terrain for the next version

[Murg]

Looks good!

[Maniac]

I uploaded version two of Planetfall. It's mainly a graphical update. Gameplay changes to follow in the third version! Though one thing of note: as a test I've halved research costs to see if the game flows better then.


Planetfall is brought to you by:

[Maniac]

Version three of Planetfall is now available for download.

Major changes:

Ellestar has been very productive this month. As a result the mod now includes a Unit Workshop and Psi Combat. Not yet perfected, but very much functional!

The Unit Workshop screen is opened by pressing Ctrl-U.

Psi combat attack value will often not be as you'd expect judging from the combat modifiers, but it should be stable. If you do get crashes, please report!

Progress on graphics includes a new interface look by Rubin, and units by The_Reckoning.

Planetfall is brought to you by:

[Kinjiru]

[Murg]

Great work Maniac. You should see about appearing on the modcast to let everyone know about this project.