> Home > Posts > Ground skirmish open beta!

Ground skirmish open beta!

Hello dear community,

It’s finally time! Today we’re releasing the first version of the ground skirmish to our open beta!

 

This is a huge step for our project and we sure did take our time to improve on the experience you had in the original mod for Empire at War. What content of the ground skirmish can you expect in the open beta? This first version of the ground skirmish contains 7 skirmish maps on which you can battle the AI or friends as Tau’ri, Goa’uld or Wraith. The first two factions are completely done while the Wraith still require some tweaking. But that’s what a Beta is for after all, isn’t it?

Here’s a list of the main features you can expect in the Ground Skirmish Beta:

  • We got 40 unique ground units over all three factions - all of which are based on units featured in the series. (In case of the Wraith we had to invent some units though) 
  • 15 additional hero units: 6 heroes for Tau’ri, 5 for the Goa’uld and 4 for the Wraith
  • 30 new base building models: Around10 for each faction, each with neat construction animations and damage models
  • Completely new set of offensive and defensive turrets for all three factions
  • Amazing new animations for each unit and many buildings
  • Special Jaffa units with retractable helmets – just like in the movie
  • Unique features such as shield MALPs, Thor’s chariot, the Tacluchnatagamuntoron (congrats if you know what we are talking about without googling it:)), or Transportation Rings which allow you to instantly travel to distant locations on many maps
  • Brand new walker vehicles for the Wraith that should catch the spirit of overall Wraith style very well
  • Many new “made from scratch” special abilities that are faithful to the series
  • Sound effects and music taken directly from the series for the most immersive experience
  • Stargate-based ground maps that were made with care to faithfully re-create iconic locations from the show. For Tagrea alone we created around 50 individual building types, including a fully animated train and the Gun Balloons that surrounded Prometheus.
  • 7 ground skirmish maps total and more on the way, which will be added later  
  • Exceptionally stable performance especially in multiplayer – say goodbye to synchronization errors!

 

Everything on the above list was created from scratch for Pegasus Chronicles and next to nothing is ported from the original mod. This means no more re-skinned Shadow Troopers as Kulls or the Imperator as Anubis substitute!

What can you expect next?

  • A close monitoring of your feedback on the initial release and hotfixes (if needed)

  • The completion of all missing elements for the Wraith to make them 100% complete

  • Addition the last few missing special abilities and fine-tuned balancing

  • Release to the stable version once the points above have been addressed

  • Continuation with neutral units. Right now, we have few of them ready, but of course we want even more!

But what about new Galactic Conquest (GC) maps?

Most of our planned GCs require all three main factions (Tau’ri, Goa’uld and Wraith) to have fully working ground forces. As such, we need to have a code basis first before expanding work on them.
When the point is reached that we’re happy with the overall performance and balancing of the ground part we will fully focus on delivering new GC maps as well.

General info about Open Beta

Hearing about the Open Beta for the first time? Basically, the open beta is our way to present new and experimental features to you before releasing them to the stable version of our mod. It potentially comes with bugs and stuff that still requires fine-tuning but that is by design as the open beta is the place where you can help us to hunt down those bugs and provide your feedback on our ideas.
It is available both via our launcher and on Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1145741406

All members of our community are free to share images and videos of the open beta in all places of the World Wide Web! The only thing we would like to ask for is to be always clear that you’re sharing content of a beta version of our mod.
The full changelog is available here: Changelog

That would essentially wrap up today´s news. We are confident that you will enjoy this first piece of the ground skirmish and have at least as much fun with it as we had!
We would like to wish Marry Christmas to all of you and a happy and successful new year 2020!

Yours,
SGMG