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 6)
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on Jan 11, 2008

(click for big)

Finally getting some our capital ships in-game here, of course, recon has been a little sketchy as Soviet counter-measures are improving but you can make out the distinct profile of a Soviet Slavny Class Light Cruiser.

Many thanks to Code Herder for his work on the mesh editor.

on Jan 11, 2008
This Mod, is fantastic, I've been waiting forever for this to come out. Nothing in the world would please me as much as taking of the fictional future as the Greater German Reich. I will enjoy dominating the Soviets especailly with my enormous Dreadnoughts and vast carriers, against their numerous swarms of light ships.
Here's hoping we're close to some kind of release (i.e. 2-4 monthes).
on Jan 11, 2008
lookin good guys just yell if you need any help im wanting to see as many high quality mods as possible so anything i could provide il try (keep in mind it would be between jobs) i specialise in code and figuring things out

anyway great work so far looking forward to this stuff

prezo out
on Jan 20, 2008
One of the major gameplay elements in Dawn of Victory is the customizable weapons system. Having played a lot of Empires lately, I've been drawn to the idea of custom vehicles in games. Not just picking some colors or researching some armor, but actually building something to your own specifications. This approach has two real advantages: first, it offers a player both freedom to play his own way, eliminating frustration as the game attempts to bottleneck him into a specific strategy. Second, it adds an exponential amount of depth to a game, where players can not only share macro-scale tips but ship setups.

One of the key mantras of DoV's development has been: maintain depth, shift focus. We want to make Sins into more of a military simulation, focusing on fleet management and tactics rather than economic empire-building. Then again, we want to keep the depth of the original game; whereas it's easy to make boring "ubermicro" gameplay, it's substantially more interesting if you mix it with a big-picture approach. Everything is worth more in Dawn of Victory: while we won't give you too many stars and planets to make micromanagement extremely difficult, you will need to handle where they're going.

So, what we've essentially done is hijack the special abilities element of Sins and expanded it to let players customize their own guns. With the extremely flexible buff type system, as well as the very thin line between abilities and weapon blocks and the intelligent Autocast, we're now looking at some very drastic changes. Feel like negotiating a cease-fire in a system, without disrupting battles elsewhere? You can do that. Want to let the regular guns passively fire at a target while you pound on a cap with your heavies? You can do that. This also expands fleet diversity by adding a role of supply ships that can boost your ships' fire rate or recharge them when they have fired too much.

While there are still a few bugs to work out, like damage and bone locations, the system is firmly in place and implemented on our dummy test carrier. Without further ado, here is the video, narrated in the early hours of the morning by yours truly.

Low Res (6.6MB)
High(er) Res (12.8MB)
Youtube (good luck even making out anything)
on Jan 20, 2008
Mmm video
on Jan 22, 2008
I'd just like to add that we've added a Dev Journal section to the forums, so you can get a greater insight into some of the new features we're bringing to DoV that are different from vanilla SoSE (or at least that's the plan). To get to it, click the link below:

Dev Journals
on Jan 31, 2008
Pardon if this has already been answered, but I've not the time to read this entire post at this point, and I'm curious:

Having read the entire series of source material, is it safe to presume that the events of Homeward Bound never occured during this version, or did something horrible happen to upset the balance after the visit to the seat of the Empire?
on Jan 31, 2008
Been drooling over the possibilty of USSR in space since you guys were operating back on EaW (good move switching by the way!), and just wanted to show my support.

Also: Dev Journal link doesn't seem to work, and don't see the section on the SSP forums either.
on Jan 31, 2008

Pardon if this has already been answered, but I've not the time to read this entire post at this point, and I'm curious:

Having read the entire series of source material, is it safe to presume that the events of Homeward Bound never occured during this version, or did something horrible happen to upset the balance after the visit to the seat of the Empire?


Dawn of Victory only uses rough inspiration from Turtledove, not the events of the books themselves.

I'm sure Swiss Knight can explain more, but essentially while the events beginning the Scinfaxi Wars are similar to Worldwar, there are small skirmishes but no actual wars for a long time after the Scinfaxi retreat. The first wave of the Scinfaxi are a military fleet in advance of the colonization fleet in the 1940s, and the first colonization fleet arriving in the 1960s does not attempt to capture much more new territory.

The human nations abandon Earth in 2153, orbitally bombarding it to prevent the Scinfaxi from taking over the whole thing and having a base in the system.

The Third Scinfaxi War is what is covered in Dawn of Victory: a second colonization fleet not in the 1960s but in the 2280s and 90s.


Been drooling over the possibilty of USSR in space since you guys were operating back on EaW (good move switching by the way!), and just wanted to show my support.

Also: Dev Journal link doesn't seem to work, and don't see the section on the SSP forums either.


Odd, it may be only working for registered forum members. I'll talk to Swiss about unlocking it to guests too.

EDIT: And done.
on Feb 01, 2008
So the same basic story with a few differences, after the Colonization series. Got it! Thank you.
on Feb 05, 2008
For those of you who still have no idea what Dawn of Victory is all about, and even if you do, we have just launched a new site to coincide with the release of SoSE.

Dawn of Victory: The Website!
on Feb 16, 2008
space nazis
on Feb 17, 2008
Comrades, a Soviet patrol deep in German space was intercepted by an unknown German ship design. While all recon equipment was jammed by German interference, we do have an artists impression of the nature of this new vessel.

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on Feb 17, 2008
Awesome Love the ship designs.
on Feb 17, 2008
It aint too hard to own the pinkish advent bomber/fighter

Good job looks good.
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