[MOD] Play the campaign as Substrate!

[TSP]

Description:

This DLC contains the original campaign, 100% playable as Substrate. Only the first two missions are missing. These two missions didn't let you build anything and only navigate the map with a few units, so I skipped them.

There are a few tweaks here and there, made a bit easier in some places and a bit harder in others. I'd like to emphasize that this DLC is intended for people that already completed the campaign as PHC. Substrate plays quite differently and the difficulty of some missions were tweaked towards people that already have quite a bit of experience. Of course, you can still select the difficulty levels during the selection.

Some of these missions may have a nasty surprise where you're probably not expecting something, but all of them have the same events they had before.

Installation:

Download here![www.dropbox.com]

Unzip the contents in your Ashes of the Singularity map.
Example:
c:\Program Files\Steam\SteamApps\common\Ashes of the Singularity\

if you've done it properly, you will see it along with your other Scenario's like this:

That's a big list![i.imgur.com]

More info:

It is not practical to actually add a campaign in the list on the top instead of adding like 11 scenarios. I could do it with relative ease, but the DLC would have to alter your main game files, causing all sorts of multiplayer issues (Because your file versions are different than other people's etc.). So that's why they're all Scenarios. I hope it's not too disappointing.


This took me a lot more time than I expected. I had some difficulty getting used to the Alpha/Beta names of PHC units and buildings in the game files, and then converting them to their Substrate "equivalent" was a really big challenge. Substrate don't have Orbital Incursion for example, so I had to get trigger to fire off of "Avatar", but another problem was that Orbital Incursion was tied to a building called "PHC_Logistics". Yeah go figure. Now a lot of those buildings had different names and I had to carefully look them up.


On top of making sure that the tech was about equivalent on all maps so that the restrictions apply (No Dreadnoughts in mission 3 for example). Getting triggers to fire and balance the game for SS was sometimes very challenging.


Take Decanus for example, you had to quickly take out the Power Relays with an incursion or the factories would overwhelm you. Calling simply an Avatar as SS wasn't adequate, while the unit is great, it has nowhere near the kill speed of an Incursion. And kill speed is very important at that time. So I had to learn some new Triggers to make sure that when you called the Avatar on that spot, it'd get some reinforcements.


This is just one of the many examples I could give you that may feel really subtle but are very important to keep the difficulty level about equal. It was all quite a challenge and I'd have postponed the release by at least one day if I didn't set up a deadline for myself to release it today. This wasn't really comfortable (But very motivating trying to keep on the deadline.)


I did a lot of polishing, including making sure objectives get marked on building Assemblies instead of Factories and also make sure the text reflects the new SS buildings instead of PHC.


I hope you will thoroughly enjoy playing the campaign as SS! Please leave your feedback here! Any bugs (I really, really tried to prevent those!), suggestions, criticism and compliments are very welcome. I spent a week's worth of work in just under 3 days to bring this to you!


Also, please feel free to try out my very first Scenario called Back to back.



Special thanks to Stardock for their amazing game!

[AussieMark]

is this legit?

[XxLaVaxX]

i consider these mods, dlc term for these makes me wanna puke,as ppl tried chargin for mods while back,
dont care eitherway though
if dev make this then dunno then maybe

oh this awesome prolly bit challenge so will be firin' er up in while thx

[TSP]

Messaggio originale di XxLaVaxX:

i consider these mods, dlc term for these makes me wanna puke,as ppl tried chargin for mods while back,
dont care eitherway though
if dev make this then dunno then maybe

oh this awesome prolly bit challenge so will be firin' er up in while thx

Hello,

I have trouble understanding what you mean. Do you prefer me to not call it "Free DLC"?

And don't worry, I'd never charge money for something I create for AotS. And I plan to release free download content (See, sneakily said DLC!) for months to come for AotS!

I hope you'll enjoy it!

Messaggio originale di AussieMark:

is this legit?

Well, coming from the creator you probably won't be convinced by my words. At the bottom of my original post is a link to my previous scenario, someone in that link shows gameplay footage of that scenario I made. Perhaps that will help convince you.

There's a "teaser" thread in the modding section about me making this, there's a few screenshots there where you see me using some substrate units.

If you'd prefer to wait until someone tells you that it's "legit", that's okay too. Hopefully I'll be able to gain trust from people after a few scenarios so they know the stuff I make isn't a scam. I'm not offended either way, the internet is a nasty place and there's terrible people out there trying to ruin everything for everyone. Better safe than sorry

[Sakhari]

Messaggio originale di Agent Orange:

I have trouble understanding what you mean. Do you prefer me to not call it "Free DLC"?

From a marketing standpoint, people generally expect "DLC" to be something produced by the actual game developer. If you're not directly affiliated with Stardock, creating this content as part of their official canon, and marketing it on their store page, calling it DLC instead of a mod is just going to generate confusion.

Which it did, as you can see.

[TSP]

Fair enough, changed the tag to [MOD] even though I feel DLC is more accurate.

[TYRO3]

I have played a couple and enjoying, thanks.

[TSP]

Messaggio originale di Tyro3:

I have played a couple and enjoying, thanks.

Thanks for the compliment. Glad you're liking it!

[TSP]

Please let me know if any of you come across bugs. There shouldn't be any gamebreaking ones but if you notice a couple, feel free to poke in here!

[Frogboy]

Looks awesome!

[RAZORLIGHT]

DLC = Download Content.. nothing wrong with it :)

[Sebiksia]

Really enjoying it so far. A few nice twists in order to account for sub tech units vs phc units (avatar vs incursion as example) changed the mission flow a but and required changing stategy, which was nice.



Definitely will help people unfamiliar with substrate learn the basic capabilities and some strategy which only improves the new player curve if they play the singel player as phc and substrate they have a much better understanding of what to expect going into multiplayer.



All around an excellent addition. Would be great if Stardock could officially incorporate this as there are a few minor inconsistencies that I don't think can be fixed through the mod. Mostly with the campaign cuts cents and voice overs that reference phc units/abilities. Not sure you can mod those



Cheers to you AgentOrange and keep up the great modding! Looking forward to more of your work.

[Sebiksia]

Would be nice to see this pinned to the top as it's a great way for new players to learn the substrate basics rather than on the fly during multiplayer.

[TSP]

Thanks a ton for the kind words.

I am a single modder that plays games as a hobby like pretty much anyone else. I don't have a team or anything (And that's fine, I like working on my own). I am not able to change the voices like that. At best I could use computer (synthetic) voices to make sure they actually call out the Substrate units and not the PHC units. This is done for example in SPAZ 2. Some people really liked the synthetic voices while others really did not. It's definitely a "taste" thing.

I am currently working on two scenarios and I am considering making them part of an unofficial Substrate campaign. Of course the story will not be canon (As only Stardock can do that) but I will try to stick really closely to the characters; Haalee will for example not suddenly turn into a very friendly AI and Mac won't suddenly become the bad guy.

My main concern right now is that my mods don't seem that popular, although it is likely this is because they're just not that well known instead of my mods being terrible. Perhaps a sticky or so would be nice but as the forum isn't very active, it's not likely that this thread will end up on page 25. An integration by Stardock would be too much of an honor and credit to me.


So yeah people, if you enjoy this mod, please don't shy away from telling other people/friends that play AotS about it. Some like the single player side of the game and they may appreciate the Substrate side of things!

[online]

Was fun to play thru, I really love the majority of single player missions Ash's has to offer, and this was right on point. Thanks for this.