ORB - Planetary Mod

ORB - Planetary Mod

Total mod conversion of ORB that changes the entire sound and look of the original game.

visit this forum post for more info.

http://www.strategyfirst.com/forum/showthread.php?t=32474

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O.R.B PLANETARY MOD

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This mod changes the look and feel of O.R.B.

- NEW SHIP SKINS

- NEW SUNS

- 9 NEW LOGOPACKS

- NEW LOADING SCREENS

- NEW TEXTURES FOR SCENARIO CREATORS

- ALL SCENARIOS WERE MADE TO THE MAXIMUM SIZE THAT THE GAME WILL SUPPORT [Even the 2 player scenarios]

- ALL SCENARIOS ARE DYNAMIC [Rotating Planets,Slow Orbiting Asteroid Fields and Roving Collision Asteroids]

- FRIENDLY FIRE DAMAGE

- DEBRIS COLLISION DAMAGE

- NEW CAPITAL SHIP MOVEMENTS [Capital ships can now move straight up,down or even tumble upside down]

- SINGLE FIGHTER COMBAT [Fighters move in squadrons but break formation when attacking]

- TORPEDO PROBE BLAST RADIUS INCREASED [Not to high,makes the game still playable]

***NEW AMBIENT AND BATTLE SOUNDTRACKS

****ENABLED CAMPAIGN SOUNDTRACKS

SHIPS & STARPORTS MATCH THE DYNAMIC LIGHTING OF THE SCENARIOS [You won't find glowing ships in dark scenarios]

SHIP HEADLIGHTS REMOVED [These are combat ships in space,not sportscars on a dark highway]

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THE MAPS

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The Planets and Asteroids have been made to look as realistic as possible.

Some maps will have reinforcements [Carriers,Fighters,Freighters or entire fleets] sent in to help you but these maps are race specific.

You must read the OBJECTIVES on all of these maps and if it says "PLAY AS MALUS" or PLAY AS ALYSSIAN" then thats the race you have to play as because you will recieve reinforcements belonging to that race.

If it says "PLAY AS MALUS OR ALYSSIAN",then you can play as either race.

I made these Scenarios to be played with the highest research level already set,[I love quick huge battles] but they can be played in the standard mode of researching everything for those who really love long stategic gameplay.

If there are any maps that you want either made into a Single Player or Multiplayer version let me know.

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INCLUDED MAPS

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AGARUS [2 Player] Huge resource field,Combat and Mining Reinforcements.

DETOUR INTO PERIL - RETURN [8 PLAYER] Resource and Pilot addition.

NAMURA [2 Player] Alien attack.

NIGHTSPACE [4 Player] Double Resource and Pilot addition,Alien attack.

RED SKIES OF ORION [4 Player]

RISE OF GAMARA [2 Player] Triple Resource and Pilot addition.

BROKEN MOON BETA RETEX [1 Player] Gravgon's original Scenario but with new Textures.

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MAP BUGS

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The Scenario DETOUR INTO PERIL-RETURN is an 8 player Scenario and was created from the original Detour Into Peril but for some reason,if you try to play it with less than 8 players it crashes the game at start up [at least on my PC] so you must play it with all the races.

The Scenario RISE OF GAMARA at first looks like an 8 player but its actually a 2 player Scenario that was created from the original Detour Into Peril so those "NON PLAYABLE" races that you see in the screen don't even exist.

The Editor would crash if I tried to delete the player slot.

Both of these maps though,are still playable.

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KNOWN BUGS

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I have not tested this mod on other PC's [except on the 2 that i own] but it seems that all the Missile and Torpedo Fighters at times don't want to fire their missiles against the Capitalships on the their first attack.

This may be due to a bug in the game itself.

On some Carrier maps you can't build frigates so what i did was to send in some sort of frigate reinforcments.

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TEAMCOLORS

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New TeamColors have replaced the standard ones.

I have also added a new color to the ship teamcolor...BLACK.

For those of you that like an extra edge of challenge,when playing a Single Player Scenario,give this color to the enemy CPU that you are battling against.

I have a few Scenarios that will have very dark settings and a few Space Scenarios [no fog,just space and stars].

When you play in such map,if you give the enemy CPU this team color,it makes it very hard to see the enemy ships until they get in range and if your fighting dozens of enemy ships it really makes the game much harder.

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SCENARIO MAP PACKS

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The Scenarios in this mod are just a few of the total amount that I wanted to release.

I will be releasing the rest of the Scenarios in packs of 5 and I have a large amount of Scenerios.

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DON'T LIKE IT

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If you don't like the new Capital ship movements:

OPEN THE ORB INI FILE

FIND THIS LINE [body_limit_angles=0]

CHANGE IT TO [body_limit_angles=1]

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***Soundtracks

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PIRATES NEST - rENAMED BATTLE 1 fOR pLANETARY mOD - eXTENDED aND eDITED fOR pLANETARY mOD bY aDAMSTRANGE

Composed by:Pierre Langer, SESAC (50%), Scott P. Schreer, BMI (50%)

Published by: Dynamedion Publishing, SESAC (50%), Freeplaymusic, BMI (50%)

VICTORY PLANET - rENAMED BATTLE 2 fOR pLANETARY mOD - rEMIXED fOR pLANETARY mOD bY aDAMSTRANGE

Composed by:Phil Garrod, BMI, Reed Hays, BMI, Scott P. Schreer, BMI

Published by: Freeplaymusic, BMI, Freeplaymusic, BMI, Freeplaymusic, BMI

CARRY ONWARD - rENAMED BATTLE 3 fOR pLANETARY mOD - rEMIXED fOR pLANETARY mOD bY aDAMSTRANGE

Composed by:Todd Haberman, ASCAP (50%), John Loeffler, BMI (25%), Scott P. Schreer, BMI (25%)

Published by: Habes Music Publishing, ASCAP (50%), Music of Paradise, BMI (25%), Freeplaymusic, BMI (25%)

SOUTHSEA - rENAMED BATTLE 4 fOR pLANETARY mOD

Composed by:Pierre Langer, SESAC (50%), Scott P. Schreer, BMI (50%)

Published by: Dynamedion Publishing, SESAC (50%), Freeplaymusic, BMI (50%)

SANDSTORM - rENAMED BATTLE 5 fOR pLANETARY mOD

Composed by:Pierre Langer, SESAC (50%), Scott P. Schreer, BMI (50%)

Published by: Dynamedion Publishing, SESAC (50%), Freeplaymusic, BMI (50%)

DARKORB - rENAMED MENUDARK fOR pLANETARY mOD

Composed by aDAMSTRANGE

DARKORB MINIMAL BEAT MIX

Composed by aDAMSTRANGE

ORB STRANGE AMBIENCE - rENAMED MENUAMBIENCE fOR pLANETARY mOD

Composed by aDAMSTRANGE

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****ENABLED CAMPAIGN SOUNDTRACKS

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The game has a nice amount of music but normally you will here 1 or 2 of the same Ambient music tracks after a battle.

I've enabled the new Scenarios to play through at random all of the Campaign tracks.

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WHAT I FOUND

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I was able to skin the entire interface of the game but for some reason I could never compile it.

Even though the ingame_ui.res is a Res file and I could compile all the other Res files,the game would always crash when trying to read the newly compiled ingame_ui.res file.

The most disappointing part was that I figured out how I would be able to mod the weapons and other things in the game.

The DBF.Res file controls what appears to be almost every aspect of the game.

I was able to increase the Fighter Missile's attack range by 5 times the normal range.

Normally a Fighter will fire when an enemy is in the "1" or "2" mark but I got them to fire when targets were in the "6" to "8" mark but this would always crash the game.

Even when I lowered the range it would still crash so I had to leave it alone...WHAT A DAMN SHAME.

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MOD INSTALLATION

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Create a temporary folder on your desktop.

Unzip the contents of the Planetary Mod zip into this folder.

Backup your LOGO.RES,ORB.INI and NETCOLORS.INI files.

Copy the ORB.INI and NETCOLORS.INI files from this mod into your main Orb folder [It should overwrite them].

Copy the TEXTURES,SOUND,SCENARIO and MUSIC folders into your ORBDATA folder [It should and needs to overwrite a lot of stuff in there].

Unzip the OrbLogoPack into your main Orb folder [It won't overwrite anything in there] and set your main Orb folder's view to "THUMBNAILS".

Set each of these OrbLogo folder's view to "THUMBNAILS".

When you want to use a new Logo set,just copy the LOGO.RES file and overwrite the old one.

The game's ship logos are in orbdata\textures\logos

Sometimes you can just copy the BMP files into this folder and it will either work or it won't.

Email me if you run into any problems or just want to talk about the game.

[email protected]