New Planet: Taanab (mini-expansion)

Takhomasak

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I am very pleased to announce that my current project, Taanab "Remastered", has reached a stage where it needs to be tested by other players. My files are NOW AVAILABLE for anyone to download.

Taanab is found on the original game discs from 2003. It was pink, and unfinished. There were only tall white rock spires and thousands of identical, ugly bushes. There were random, angular rivers scattered across the entire map, and tall white buttes full of sharp cuts and spires.

I have tamed that martian-esque wilderness and created what I believe to be a more appropriate representation of Taanab, from old Expanded Universe lore and sources. It is a green planet of wide, rolling plains, and low, young forests, and no indigenous wildlife. Invasive species include Robas, Banthas, Ambrian Staga, and the Nerf. It is in the Inner Rim, but out of the Galactic Civil War. Taanab is sparsely populated (by Earth standards), full of farmers and ranchers locked in a constant struggle against the invading Norulac raiders. It still manages to produce enough organic supplies to be a regular stop on the trade routes.

Here's what Taanab features:

> A brand new, full sized planet to explore. Even if you've been to the unfinished Taanab, you've never seen this.

> One new NPC City - Pandath Spaceport, one new NPC Outpost - Starhunter Station.

> Two new creature types - Ambrian Staga, and Nerf (tamable).

> One new NPC type - Norulac Raider.

> Six new exploration badges: Arcon Multinode Hybrid Plantings, Pandath Spaceport, The Great Herds (...Nerf Herds), Taanab Mining Facility, Taanab Shipwreck, Painted Hills.

> Two new dungeons - Norulac Raider Cave, Black Sun Shipwreck.

> Missions appropriate for intermediate to advanced players. Help is always needed with eliminating the pesky and dangerous Grassland Nerfs, Crazed Robas, and Feral Banthas. High level Norulac Raider missions may require a group to acquire.

> Brand new local creature resources.

> Some great views, a nice beach, good camping and fishing at the lake. massive herds of animals roaming the range, impressive man-made canals and river canyons, my custom-designed hexagonal farms...


Technical:

> Full integration into game systems. By default, as an 'adventure planet,' player housing and cities are disabled, factories are disabled, personal harvestors are able to be placed.

> Very lightweight.

> "Drag and drop" ready for unmodified SWGEMU-based servers.


This is being released 'as is.'  I know it could be fleshed out a little further, but the point is to demonstrate what is possible in the way of adding new content, and to finish the job that SOE started. There are no quests as of yet, and a few places left for server administrators to use their imaginations.

But...

It's just the beginning.

I am planning on making many more wonderful things in the near future.  Galaxies is my favorite game, and has been since the first day I played. Nothing has ever come close.  As a modder for nearly 20 years, as well, this has been the most intensive project I have ever undertaken, but has been immensely informative and rewarding.

I truly hope this is something the community will enjoy.

If any server admins are interested in implementing or hosting these files, please let me know, I'd be happy to assist and happier to know they're being used.

Special thanks to Sytner for custom-generating the planetary map for me!

I used Sytner's IFF Editor, The Jawa Toolbox, GIMP, Notepad++, and the Zonamadev SWGEMU Developer Environment.

Download Link:  https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bzb2t9aISuXjNkpIbHQyRUFJMUE

*****Updated to 1.1 to include object string list for manual entry*****

*****Pictures*****
For starters, here are Sytner's maps of the unfinished Taanab: http://i.imgur.com/X9Dd8NB.jpg
and my "remaster": http://i.imgur.com/l1fcj0d.jpg

Here is a fully connected 'base' Taanab from the SWG discs:
http://i.imgur.com/ZX0WhE9.jpg
and without the sky (so you can see the original colors well):
http://i.imgur.com/Hj4ZYnz.jpg

Those were shots I took a couple of years ago...

Then, last month I began tinkering again:
http://i.imgur.com/nQ9gdpy.jpg

Now it's more like this:
http://i.imgur.com/urb72uM.jpg

Here is Pandath City and Spaceport - capitol of Taanab
http://i.imgur.com/QaJImKg.jpg

Here is Starhunter Station - recently constructed - this is the hub of corporate and criminal control.
http://i.imgur.com/f0HN0hr.jpg

Some POIs:
Mining Outpost:
http://i.imgur.com/uoUTAsT.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/LIDbM2j.jpg

Black Sun Shipwreck (my camera toon couldn't get too close :p)
http://i.imgur.com/eU9JJuJ.jpg

a very wide shot of the Great Herd lands - the herds are protected and kept in check by a number of assassin droids:
http://i.imgur.com/Tf9Qd8R.jpg

some Arcon Multinode Hybrid Plantings:
http://i.imgur.com/HsilR2v.jpg

Some natural sights:
The ocean beach:
http://i.imgur.com/BUMebBq.jpg

The lake: (it was foggy)
http://i.imgur.com/mrVAkpK.jpg

The painted hills: (left from the original design)
http://i.imgur.com/BNF93b4.jpg

Here's the Norulac Raider Cave: (have fun finding it!)
http://i.imgur.com/2lThNHX.jpg
 

Takhomasak

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Messages
230
We will be trying to implement and test this over on swgchoice.com pretty soon!

I'm going to continue developing it there, and like I said... work on some brand new things.
 

Halyn

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I'm going to get this up and running on the Empire in Flames server this week - I was fascinated by the screenshots.
 

Halyn

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Question - in the current version of SIE, the CRC Merge function is broken. Do you have a list of changes done to the object_template_crc_string_table.iff file? It's rather cumbersome to deal with otherwise.
 

Takhomasak

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Messages
230
Halyn said:
Question - in the current version of SIE, the CRC Merge function is broken. Do you have a list of changes done to the object_template_crc_string_table.iff file? It's rather cumbersome to deal with otherwise.
Ahhhh, give me a few.  I did not realize that that function was broken or I would have provisioned for that like I did with the resource spawn script.

I will update the files shortly

I know that the only objects I actually added were related to the new spawns. They were mostly strings for the base Nerf template and the baby.
 

Takhomasak

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Another note for anyone trying this out in their Dev environment, travel is only enabled from Corellia by default, which is disabled in the config.lua by default. So you will have to enable it to experience the full interplanetary travel, or just teleport there your first time. You can shuttle around on Taanab to see my awesome travel UI integration though!
 

Sytner

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Halyn said:
Question - in the current version of SIE, the CRC Merge function is broken. Do you have a list of changes done to the object_template_crc_string_table.iff file? It's rather cumbersome to deal with otherwise.
I forgot the fix for this didn't make a release yet. We're gonna need a bigger whip.
 

Takhomasak

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Messages
230
Halyn said:
Question - in the current version of SIE, the CRC Merge function is broken. Do you have a list of changes done to the object_template_crc_string_table.iff file? It's rather cumbersome to deal with otherwise.
I just re-uploaded a "1.1" version that includes a JPEG of the few strings you need to add, manually, to that very long string table.

Here's that picture just so you don't have to re-download it:

http://i.imgur.com/s5mfr3y.jpg
 

Halyn

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Takhomasak said:
Halyn said:
Question - in the current version of SIE, the CRC Merge function is broken. Do you have a list of changes done to the object_template_crc_string_table.iff file? It's rather cumbersome to deal with otherwise.
Ahhhh, give me a few.  I did not realize that that function was broken or I would have provisioned for that like I did with the resource spawn script.

I will update the files shortly

I know that the only objects I actually added were related to the new spawns. They were mostly strings for the base Nerf template and the baby.
Yeah, I only became aware of it after I released the new species patch and someone trying to implement it told me.
 

Takhomasak

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Messages
230
Halyn said:
Takhomasak said:
Halyn said:
Question - in the current version of SIE, the CRC Merge function is broken. Do you have a list of changes done to the object_template_crc_string_table.iff file? It's rather cumbersome to deal with otherwise.
Ahhhh, give me a few.  I did not realize that that function was broken or I would have provisioned for that like I did with the resource spawn script.

I will update the files shortly

I know that the only objects I actually added were related to the new spawns. They were mostly strings for the base Nerf template and the baby.
Yeah, I only became aware of it after I released the new species patch and someone trying to implement it told me.
Let me know if that list covers it all.  I can't think of anything else that would have an object string. 

If any of the other lists are cumbersome to update, or not apparent what I've added, let me know and I will do others.  But I think the STFs are more malleable.
 

Halyn

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Yeah, STFs are fine. Resource datatable appears to be a PITA, but I don't think anything is going to help that.
 

Takhomasak

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Halyn said:
Yeah, STFs are fine. Resource datatable appears to be a PITA, but I don't think anything is going to help that.
It was a HUGE PAIN.  But unless you've already messed with resources, it just adds the new categories for Taanab, they seamlessly populate the database.
 

Halyn

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Unfortunately, they've already been messed with here for another planetary implementation. I'll figure it out, though.
 

Takhomasak

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It's just tedious and delicate to paste all the new types in the correct place on the table.

You can sort and filter, though, to make it display only the new Taanab types that I created, then copy and paste those rows, they just have to be in order with the rest - and the row number is not what it goes by, it's the position in the tree.

I just made my resource_tree to work with an unmodified server.
 

Halyn

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Mostly have things working on my server now. Looks beautiful.
 

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Takhomasak

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Halyn said:
Mostly have things working on my server now. Looks beautiful.
Thanks!!

Well, I put it up on choice test server last night, waiting on getting the patch on our launcher though.

I had no problems merging it. It was fresh though.

Excited to hear if anyone else has had any success.

Already started on a couple brand new maps now that I have this out of the way.
 
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