Oh you know, a little of this, a little of that.

Dawn of Victory (DoV) is a modification currently under development by Slipstream Productions for the RTS Sins of a Solar Empire. Dawn of Victory is a total conversion, replacing the game's original assets with completely new and diverse ships, structures, and gameplay elements. Dawn of Victory pits players as one of 3 intergalactic superpowers: the Democratic Federation, Greater German Reich, and the Soviet Union. These three factions wage war amongst themselves even as a greater threat, the Scinfaxi, threaten them all.

Story

While Dawn of Victory started out loosely based on Harry Turtledove’s “Worldwar” and “Colonization” book series, since then, the backstory has expanded to the point where it has taken on a life of its own.

For centuries an alien race known as the Scinfaxi had been the dominant power in the Orion region of space, their slow but steady expansion brought them into contact with dozens of other races, each one conquered and exterminated to provide the resources and material necessary to support the continually expanding empire.

 

In the 14th century, the first Scinfaxi probes reached Earth: it was surveyed, catalogued, and the plans were meticulously laid for its capture and assimilation. However, the Scinfaxi concept of time was very different from humanity's, and so when the first ships of the conquest fleet arrived in 1943, they were stunned to see Terran society had progressed to an industrial state in an unimaginable sliver of time. The initial landings took humanity by surprise, as the Scinfaxi advanced upon every continent.

It was in this darkest hour that what once divided humanity now brought it together, as the old prejudices were put aside and every free nation on Earth united against the alien aggressors. The tide turned in 1945 when the Soviet Union detonated an atomic bomb on its own soil, destroying a Scinfaxi landing site.

 

With the total conquest of Earth impossible without destroying everything of value, the Scinfaxi retreated to the Southern hemisphere, content with half the planet. Decades went by with no contact from the Scinfaxi, but as humanity grew bolder, the aliens' plans accelerated. As spacecraft from the last free nations made landfall, and eventually colonized new worlds, the Scinfaxi slowly began to advance. City after city was lost until, in a final act of desperation, the various Terran factions agreed to pursue a literal "scorched earth" policy, sacrificing their remaining positions to nuclear bombardment and quarantining the planet.

 

Humanity has expanded to the stars, and dozens of planets and moons now belong to the remaining Terran nations. There has been almost no contact with the Scinfaxi, and the former nations of Earth have become so complacent with their apparent safety that the old prejudices have returned and they once again war amongst themselves. The Scinfaxi are still expanding however, and it is only a matter of time before they decide to stamp out the potential usurpers; if humanity is allowed to advance another hundred years, it may be human soldiers landing on Scinfaxi worlds. The dawn of victory is approaching: the only question is which side will claim it.


Features

 

  • 3 unique sides: The Soviet Union, Greater German Reich, and Democratic Federation.
  • Completely reworked combat model, with each ship possessing dozens of weapons and defenses.
  • Military Based Expansion, with research and economic aspects reshaped to support combat.
  • New particle effects, skyboxes, and planets.
  • Diverse environments ranging from open space to clouded nebulae.
  • Several unique ship classes like corvettes and interceptors
  • New planetary defenses like minefields, missile arrays, and defense bases
  • Nine new levels, ranging from two player deathmatch to heated ten player battles
  • New invasion mechanics, with troopships that can invade and colonize planets simultaneously
  • Customizable cruisers and capital ships

Past Updates



 

 


Comments (Page 4)
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on Apr 15, 2007

If that is not possible, we will focus it on border skirmishes and smaller-scale attacks at a time with only a few solar systems visible at the min zoom.

^this is what SOASE is basically designed for. It's theoretically possible to do maybe 100 solar systems, but it will crush the game. 4-5 is most likely.

Nice art BTW. The middle poster is 404.



on May 01, 2007
Just some more screenshots from Empire at War. Hope to see these ships in SoSE soon.



on Jul 02, 2007
Sorry for the bump, but we would like to get as many people to read this (especially now that Beta 2 is out) as possible. Slipstream Productions, and DoV in particular, is actively recruiting for a couple positions, specifically those of skinners and modelers. If you have any experience in either of those two fields (or any type of experience in modding at all!) please register at our forums or post here so we can contact you and gain your assistance in helping to finish this total conversion!

In addition, for those of you who may be interested in the 'backstory' of the modification, the full story can be found on the Autonomicon, Slipstream Production's recently launched Wikipedia. You can also find information on two of the other modifications that Slipstream is either working on, or completed.

The Autonomicon Link

If you think that you've got the goods and would like to join the Dawn of Victory team, feel free to register at this forum over here, place a reply on this page, or even contact one of the mod team! You can catch me at stumpster93720[at]gmail[dot]com.
on Jul 02, 2007
I forgot about this... Should be interesting...
on Jul 02, 2007
I like it, nice models, nice graphics, original idea, you have my support.
on Jul 02, 2007
Forgive me but, im still distraught over the loss of ground combat... I wont be waiting for this, SSP has quite honestly preety much gone under with the loss of theyre Halo project and the "icing" of Asylum...
on Jul 02, 2007

Forgive me but, im still distraught over the loss of ground combat... I wont be waiting for this, SSP has quite honestly preety much gone under with the loss of theyre Halo project and the "icing" of Asylum...


I can understand your misgivings about Halogen (believe me, I had waited since pre-Derelict Studios days for it) but it was not because of a lack of support from Slipstream Productions. Indeed, it is arguable that the only reason we were C&D'd by Microsoft/Bungie was because we were making such an excellent modification. And yes, the morale of some of the SSP crew took a hit after that, but we are going to continue with Asylum. Right now, it's under review as to whether or not it should stick with the ages old ZH SAGE engine or move on. (I know a couple different engines have been looked at. I'm not sure what has been chosen.)

As to the loss of ground combat, I'm not sure whether or not you've played EaW, but the ground combat is lackluster at best and the modding capabilities really weren't enough to make the complete and total suckage of ground combat go away. In addition, the space combat (while much better than the ground combat) really couldn't be modded to a large extent. If DoV was continued and made on EaW the game would feel like a new skin for EaW, instead of an entirely different game (which is what we are really aiming for.) Naturally, some things will stay the same, but the tradeoff of EaW for SoaSE was not a difficult choice from a modding perspective.

Believe me, as someone who has gone from "complete fan" to staff member, what is ticking under SSP's lid is easily enough for me to say that they have far from 'gone under.'
on Jul 02, 2007
EAW has perhaps some of the worst ground combat EVER....
on Jul 02, 2007
Good mod idea. I liked the series. The last book left things in an interesting place.
on Jul 03, 2007
Comrade Stumpster has it right, I think sacrificing lackluster ground combat, for much more satisfying space battles is an easy trade to make.
on Jul 04, 2007
well, could we at least get some kind of in-game pre-rendered cinematic pop up when we nuke or invade a world *Massive_attack is desperate for at least a sign of conflict planet-side*.


Oh and yeah EaW's GC was utter sh*t. I can understand you moving over to a new game but, am shocked and saddened that you chose a space-only one..

I am soory, but really couldn't you think of any better engines for this ?
on Jul 05, 2007
Well since DoV is focused a lot on the space side of combat, that throws out 90% of RTS games out there. Then, the game has to be friendly to the modding community, and (preferably) have a released SDK or a fairly moddable engine. That throws out 99% of RTS games on the market. On top of that, a good mod will take at least a year to a year and a half to finish, usually more. Because of this, mods have to be started before or very close to the launchdate of the game so that people that aren't fanboys of the mod will give it a shot. That is one of the reasons that a couple games (namely Homeworld 2) weren't looked at very closely. They've already been out for three to four years, once the mod is complete, the game will be six to seven years old! That doesn't sound like a lot, but in the world of computer gaming very few people will keep a game installed for that long. Basically, it comes down to one of these:

Homeworld 2 - Fairly old game. Still one of the greats, but there is no ground combat anyways.

Empire at War - The only one with ground combat, but it is terrible, and the XML that is actually editable leaves a lot to be desired.

Nexus: The Jupiter Incident - Not quite as old as HW2, but still pushing it. It's not as 'epic' as we would like.

Sword of the Stars - Epic and new, but the RTS battles were 'meh'. While the 4X part is a big role in DoV, we would also like to have the RTS battles really feel like you're in command. With SotS, it did the 4X part wonderfully, but the RTS didn't feel quite right.

SoSE - New, epic, easily modded. Excellent 4X control with RTS battles that looked good as well. The clear winner.

Simply put, trying to find a game that not only had good 4X control, space combat, and ground combat was simply an impossibility. Other than EaW there isn't a whole lot out there that really has a grand strategy campaign with space and ground RTS combat. Something had to be sacrificed, and ground combat was it in this case.
on Jul 08, 2007
I realize that, really i do, but honestly, the loss of ground combat will hurt your fanbase, I was one of the first, in fact. I have been silently observing this in secret, reading your forums, watching the videos collecting concepts, and then this. I am deeply saddened, ground combat was a huge part of your universe, and i feel that the loss of it was like a deep stab to the chest. Not only that, but your great pictures and concepts of ground combat was like pouring alcohol on the fresh wound. Its kind of like: Oh SWEET were invading a world ! *colony ship launches 2 pods, pods go to planet and in a few seconds its captured* Well, thats it ? no epic battle? no nothing ? those 3 pods contained enough men to wipe out a military fortress ? Im just supposed to imagine all the shit in the pictures ? wtf is this ?!

Space combat is great n all but im disturbed you decided to FOCUS on it. Who knows though, maybe someday you'll make a ground combat mod for Command and Conquer 3 or something, but untill then, all that time and waiting for your damn mod just turns out to be alot of BS, goodbye concept pictures, hours of my time reading your posts, excitement and anticipating, All gone, just like my interest for this.

Good bye, forever.
on Jul 09, 2007
Well I apologize that you're so focused on the ground combat and that you're disappointed. Apparently, nothing I can say will convince you otherwise that we are more than capable of making a modification that should be fun no matter in what form that it takes place.
on Jul 09, 2007
ive tried modeling and skinning, i even took classes, It Didn't End Well
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