the theme of the mod?, important decision #1 Options

[Team Black]

OK we've had several ideas, the most popular one being "What CNC3 should've been" - or "Scrinvasion", as others have called it. We'll decide on a better name later OK

It can be based off of things talked about on the Petroglyph forums.
If you didn't know, most of the ex-Westwood staff are now working in Petroglyph, including the ones who made Tiberian Sun.
There is awesome info here on the intentions of TS, before EA butted in, including some plans for CABAL and the Scrin. There were planned something like 2-3 expansion packs planned, that were cast aside for the crappy RA2 folly...
The information they gave is enough for a guideline, but there's more than enough gaps in to fill in with our own creativity.

Or it might be good have something entirely new and unique, but it'll be a lot more tedious to plan since there's no real guidelines, and anything is open game.
Not only that, but most 'unique' ideas are sometimes more cliche than ones that are borrowed from elsewhere - If our story is going to have an evil dictator plot world domination, we may as well use the Tiberian Universe anywho

Another idea is to have a star wars mod, but ehhh....

When I get a clear idea on what the theme should be, we'll proceed with the more detailed planning, like campaigns and unit concepts and stuff -
Right now there's a great deal of ideas already planned for the "scrinvasion" theme, so that's what I'm leaning toward.

But I want to hear what everyone else thinks. It is, after all, a community project

This post has been edited by Team Black: Jun 15 2007, 05:55 PM

[jadems]

My input:
Seeing as though I don't have CnC3, as of yet, I want something I have to emulate, or even imitate, it!
And the inclusion of Scrin is too good to miss.

[Lightstorm]

agreed do the scrin.

[ChielScape]

Scrinvasion (fend them off in mission 1) -> GDI+Nod alliance (like FS) (missions 2-5/6) -> kane reappears with CABAL -> Nod tries to reunite with them, breaking the alliance with GDI (6/7-10/11) -> GDI wants CABALs tech for itself. (6/7-10/11) -> the faction played succeeds in securing CABALs tech and beats scrin. (11/12-14/15)
thats my 2 ct.

EDIT: mutants... err... forming temporary alliances with mutants is possible in many missions, for both GDI and NOD. If left alone they will attack both the scrin and the player. forming the aliance is done by completing their objective(s). their building and/or units will then be added to the players arsenal.
civillians are to be protected at all costs, for both GDI and Nod. they are both GDIs mission and Nods source of followers. protecting cities for a given period of time will add the civilian's building to your arsenal, from which you can buy infantry, some of which otherwise not available, for a relatively low price.

This post has been edited by ChielScape: May 21 2007, 02:50 PM

[Bittah Commander]

If you want to make this really unique while keeping this based on C&C, try this:

Show the story from a different perspective; the Scrin's.

The Scrin and the Scrin rebels (maybe also another alien race) would be involved and this would mostly happen on the Scrin planet (and possibly planets nearby as well).
So this would happen around the time of RA1, TD and TS. My idea for the story would be that around the time of RA1 (probably a little before) Tesla manages to contact the Scrin (which is how the Scrin/Scrin rebels learn about earth) through his technology (note I'm using as much information Adam Isgreen released about C&C for ideas as possible). Who Tesla contacts (the Scrin or the Rebels or both) has to be seen...
Eventually a bunch of Scrin rebels flee to earth with the Tacitus and crash (this happens somewhere during TD) and what happens with the Rebels still has to be seen as well (maybe they died in the crash or they're still alive somewhere on earth).
The mod won't focus on this last event however, because there's still a lot going on at the Scrin planet, but eventually the story ends with the Scrin heading for earth.

Tell me what you think

[Team Black]

A totally scrin mod Scrin vs. Scrin rebels.

that might be pretty interesting. It would allow for some really cool terrain editing, since it would all take place on another planet (right? )
It would allow for a totally different look on the Tiberian universe, and still not be another one of the 100,000,000,000 "TS sequel" type mods.

maybe the "What CNC3 should've been" could then be planned as a follow-up, in the long and distant future when this mod is released -
it would be something of a sequel, where the Scrin come to earth and fight GDI, Nod, Cabal, whatever...

Or it could be just a separate campaign in this mod - since we have about ten bazillion good mappers here, we can release number of different campaigns, maybe:
-Scrin vs. Rebels (both with same technology), and later vs. GDI and Nod
-Nod vs. GDI, and later the scrin
-GDI vs. Nod, and later the scrin
(Cabal vs. Scrin? - this was one of WW's orininal plans)

[Bittah Commander]

I'd say finish the Scrin part first (with the story on the Scrin planet and everythin) and maybe later in an expansion to the mod or a new mod the Scrin arrive on Earth.
This mod and Tiberian Sun would basicly share the same sequel

All terrain will have to be replaced by the way (we should also see a lot of very developed tiberium life-forms and plants).

I was wondering though... Do we have a very skilled terrain artist on these forums? The only only person that comes to mind for me is only registered at PPM.
Lin Kuei Ominae and Machine are both very skilled graphic artist, so maybe they could give it a try (if Machine feels like contributing that is).

[Blacksilence]

Good idea bittah i like it, Scrin arrive on Earth good title for a tibwebmod.

This post has been edited by Black hawk: May 21 2007, 06:10 PM

[Team Black]

Harv is pretty good with terrain, as is the Veeb14 guy...it's too bad Gangster and IVI aren't part of tibweb.

But from what I understand, it's not too difficult to learn, for anyone decent with graphic arts. I haven't looked into it too much though...

[Lin Kuei Ominae]

Scrin vs Scrin? hmm, could be interesting.
But i see 2 major problems.
1. The Player could lose the typical C&C feeling if some of the units/buildings he/she knows, doesn't exist anymore. Since this is a C&C mod this should support a quite good C&C feeling.
2. We have to watch out that this doesn't become a second Starcraft.

So my contribution to this topic would be making a mixture of Scrin vs Scrin and Scrinvasion.
Scrin:
-the first missions start on the scrin planet. You receive the signal from Tesla (old radio waves take long time to get to Scrin home planet) and have to prepare your Troops for the upcoming Invasion on Earth.
The Scrin rebels interfere this goal. The Scrin Rebels are a group of native Scrin and former Slaves from many different Worlds. So a colourful mixture of Aliens (giving some free space for unit ideas).

GDI and Nod:
They start right in the moment of the Scrinvasion. Maybe some time before, with missions where you have to analyse some received alien signals.
Nod (who knows about the scrin) could already start to prepare for the Scrinvasion and for their attack on GDI. But after they've recognized that the Scrin are also hostile against them, they ally with GDI against the Scrin.

All terrain will have to be replaced by the way (we should also see a lot of very developed tiberium life-forms and plants).

I was wondering though... Do we have a very skilled terrain artist on these forums? The only only person that comes to mind for me is only registered at PPM.
Lin Kuei Ominae and Machine are both very skilled graphic artist, so maybe they could give it a try (if Machine feels like contributing that is).

wow, this could be very much work. I don't see any problem with making plants and lifeforms, but the work necessary for this is by far to much for me.
Isn't there already something done, we can use?

Since i use 3dsmax for all shps and grafics i make, i think it's like shooting a sparrow with a cannon. As long as they dont have to be animated, these can be done by some picture artists as well. It's just 1 frame. just my opinion.
Those can be scanned as well, and then i think on Corsair or Tetnis shot Ninja. Both can draw awesome pieces of art, and some plants shouldn't be any problem to them.

This post has been edited by Lin Kuei Ominae: May 21 2007, 07:21 PM

[Lightstorm]

I'd say finish the Scrin part first (with the story on the Scrin planet and everythin) and maybe later in an expansion to the mod or a new mod the Scrin arrive on Earth.
This mod and Tiberian Sun would basicly share the same sequel

All terrain will have to be replaced by the way (we should also see a lot of very developed tiberium life-forms and plants).

I was wondering though... Do we have a very skilled terrain artist on these forums? The only only person that comes to mind for me is only registered at PPM.
Lin Kuei Ominae and Machine are both very skilled graphic artist, so maybe they could give it a try (if Machine feels like contributing that is).

that sounds a lot like UAW.

heres my campaign idea:
GDI
mission 1: you have a big base, then the scrin attack, you manage to hold them off while the Kodiak escapes then the mission ends and the base is overrun

mission 2: your forces have to evacuate settlement T-3 (making up name off the top of my head) you have two objectives, first you need to rescue some imporant scientists whose transport was shot down in the city then you need to punch through a Nod blockade and help both your forces and the civilains in the city escape before the scrin overrun the area. to make matters worse there is a huge ion storm over the entire area and you need to evacuate on ground.

Mission 3: Your outside the city, you must escape with as many of your forces as you can being sure to protect the scientists and the civilians, you have 7 civilian transports and 2 scientist transports. you can loose up to three civilian transports before you loose but if any of the scientists die you lose. (Ion storm goes on until you reach the end of the level where it ends and a transport comes.

mission 4 pt 1: the scientists go to a lab and you have to protect from both scrin and Nod them while they figure out a way to stop the scrin.

mission 5 (same map different objective): you have to sneak into a scrin base with a small team, steal a ship (pick one I don't care) and escape with it. the scin/nod are still attacking you but not as much, get the scrin ship back to the scientists, if either the lab or the ship dies you loose.

mission 6: The information reveals that the best way to stop scrin is to infect their computer systems with a virus (ID4) unfortunately the only computer system capable of the is you guessed it CABAL) so you must gather the pieces of CABAL (at the site of last firestorm mission) and repair it, then once its repaired it tries to reactivate the Core Defender and you have to destroy it (its mostly dead already so it won't be as hard as in FS) and get a special engineer to the Cabal Core to take control of it.

mission 7: with Cabal infecting the scrin computer their main outer defenses (the ones impossible to kill) go offline (but only for a limited amount of time say 30 minutes) you have to build an army then activate the Cabal Virus and take out the scrin mothership. (the big one not the one you start the scrin mission with the one where all the ships come from) it would have to be a BIG!!! unit.

Scrin Campaign:
Mission 1: scrin attack (INSERT MAJOR CITY NAME HERE) and destroy the downtown with a superweapon. then you land your forces and set up a base. your objective is to secure the area around a GDI lab (destroy the base save for the lab)

Mission 2: defend the base from GDI counterattack and secure the tacitus from the lab(say it was collecting information on Humanity)

Mission 3: pick up Kane. Of course Kane was working for scrin, you get Kane from a Nod base (the Nod don't fight but GDI has the base under siege) you get out and destroy GDI but an Ion strom strikes and Kane's transport crashes.

Mission 4: token 'run the gauntlet' mission. Nod thinks you betrayed them and are out to get you, you must brave the Ion strom and find Kane and get him back to a friendly Nod base. with your most powerful units unavailable you have to get to Kane and take him out of the area fighting off attacks from both GDI and hostile NoD.

Mission 5: Some Nod still don't trust you and begin an insurgency (like always) you have to destroy them for Kane.

Mission 6: GDI is planning on attacking you mothership (the big one) with their Ion Cannons from space. unfortunatly your forces are out of fuel and cannot attack them directly in orbit. you have to destroy the Ion cannon uplink (along with the rest of the GDI base) before GDI can fire all their Ion cannons at your mothership and destroy it

Mission 7: attack main GDI base. Nod helps you but are quickly overrun. (GDI is Brutal here) you need to take out the firestorm generators (like three of them) and destroy the GDI base, its tough though, hard as the last FS mission.


NOTE: I also asked on the Petroglyph forum what exactly they were planning. this should make it easier to fulfill their original goals.

[Team Black]

Holy goodness those ideas are amazing!

I'm thinking the scrin vs. scrin could be a special prologue - and it could be a separate campaign entirely.
Since it'll be taking place in a large span of time, from the end of RA1 till the end of TS, it might not be good to involve GDI and Nod just yet~
(or as a bonus, we could try and get permission to incorporate some cameo appearances of ROTD stuff in that one or something XD )

Then will come the actual invasion, which will be a parallel story involving three campaigns: GDI, Nod, and Scrin

It'll start with the GDI and Nod fighting each other >>> the scrin invade...story unfolds
The Scrin will begin the Campaign finishing off the Rebels, then >>> begin the invasion...story unfolds

Or we could have another campaign, a CABAL campaign, where Cabal takes on the Scrin (As suggested in the Petroglyph forums)

(Wow, I am going to be up ALL NIGHT now thinking of all kinds of ideas XD )

This post has been edited by Team Black: May 21 2007, 07:26 PM

[Blacksilence]

oke one problem for new lifeforms how to code the damm things, i think we have a heavy time coding these units.

[Lightstorm]

i still say Scrin vs. scrin sounds like UAW, although i suppose a scrin rebellion could replace the token Nod rebellion.

[Bittah Commander]

Actually... I think that petroglyph is using ideas Westwood originally had for the Scrin for UaW.

@ Lin Kuei Ominae:
In my opinion the C&C feeling shouldn't be an issue as long as the gameplay is enjoyable enough. The lack of C&C feeling (though I don't think it's absence of it will be too noticeable) doesn't necessarily have to be bad either... Since this mod is for TS, I think having the C&C feeling is inevitable (we wouldn't be able to get rid of it if we wanted to).

The reason I didn't want anything to happen on Earth just yet was actually because I think it'll be a lot more unique and interesting when the story is only focused on the Scrin for now (like I said, in a sequel to this mod, we'd see GDI and Nod again anyway).
Mods that have new terrain (especially the tiles) usually look a lot more impressive, so even for the part that occurs on Earth it would be best if a lot of terrain was replaced. If that would be done, it would mean there'd have to a terrain set for on Earth and one for on the Scrin planet, which I think would be too much work. When having the mod occur both on the Scrin planet and on Earth I think there 'd be way too much work and might never be released because of it.
My vote is for saving the Scrinvasion for a future mod. Besides, there more than enough people that are already using this idea for their mods.

To elaborate on the idea I had for the story a bit more...
My idea was for the Scrin to be a dominant species within their solar system and that there 'd be life on multiple planets within their solar system. The reachable resources on the Scrin planet are about all exhausted (which is really something that is inevitable to happen when intelligent species occupy a planet long enough; it will eventually happen here on earth as well) when twhen simple weeds (similar to the pesky weeds that kill plants in peoples gardens by absorbing all the minerals the plants need here on Earth) evolved so that they could "live" from different kinds of minerals and could reach for them deeper in the soil (this is obviously the tiberium).
When the first sign of this evolution was discovered by the Scrin, they examined it and at first they just improved their means of exterminating it (they could already easily exterminate the weeds the tiberium evolved from). Eventually they saw the tiberium as a perfect way to extract minerals from the soil that were too hard to reach.

The Tiberium kept the Scrin wealthy for a while again (and also really seeded up their development), but after a while there were hardly any resources left. To Scrin exterminated the tiberium on their planet to keep it from getting sucked completely dry and started harvesting (using the tiberium again) on other planets. The the surprise of the Scrin, the tiberium eventually started to change all plant life on the planets to that similar of their own planet. If there were animals present on the planets, they eventually also started to mutate and even endanger the harvesting operations when the Scrin returned to the planet to harvest the tiberium. For this, the Scrin developed a very effective weapon against the tiberium lifeforms.

At first only on planets with no intelligent life were harvested on (which was approved by the majority of the population on their planet), but eventually the Scrin also started harvesting operations on a planet with a bit primitive but intelligent inhabitants (call it planet X).

Because of this there was an uprising and a Rebelion faction is formed. When the rebels are close to defeat, they retreat and head for planet X to possibly make allies with the inhabitants. When the rebels arrive on the planet, their welcome isn't exactly warm; not only the tiberium lifeforms are hostile ones, but also the few (now mutated) intelligent inhabitants of the planet that survived.

With casualties, the Scrin rebels evacuate from the planet and flee out of the solar system. The Scrin send a fleed of their own after that of the rebels and during a battle, both the Scrin and the rebels receive the transmission from Tesla.
The rebels lose the battle... Most ships are destroyed when a small number of rebels manage to escape from the battle in a small ship and head towards the location they received the transmission from (Earth).
Very shortly after that, the Scrin used a device to sent tiberium meteors to Earth (with a much greater speed than regular meteors).

[jadems]

Okay, Bittah...

Doing the Scrin vs Scrin rebels is a must first, because then we can fine tune that faction, so that when we add the GDI and Nod it won't be a drastic change. Safety first.

[Team Black]

Doing the Scrin vs Scrin rebels is a must first, because then we can fine tune that faction, so that when we add the GDI and Nod it won't be a drastic change. Safety first.

I'm afraid I don't follow, dude.

[Lin Kuei Ominae]

@bittah
what kind of missions do you have in mind?

I can see only boring missions, because the Scrin (you, the player) are strong powerful technologically very advanced,
collecting tiberium and sometimes fighting against poor primitive rebels.
sorry that i've describe it so drastically.

[Bittah Commander]

Neither do I... But like I said before, I think it's better to save GDI and Nod for a sequel or expansion to the mod, otherwise it'll be too much work and the mod itself will never be released (so in matter of fact the actual mod will be separated into 2 parts, which could eventually be merged).

[Lightstorm]

the thing with that is if we do scrinvasion we're making one side and expanding the two others.
if we make scrin vs scrin rebels then we'd be making like three sides, along with at least two planets and then we'd still have to expand GDI/Nod, we should keep the first Community mod simple, I like the idea so here's a plan:

first we do scrinvasion, but we revamp it to include scrin rebels fighting on the side of Nod we use Nod as the main other side and add the normal scrin if we feel up to it. that way the scrin kane was in contact with could be the rebels and Nod is fighting the main scrin, the rebels could be similar but not quite identical to the rest of the scrin. then if scrinvasion works we could tackle the more ambitious goal of the scrin vs scrin. it could be a prequel to Scrinvasion, then if that works we could even do a sequel

[Bittah Commander]

Wasn't the plan to base the mod on Westwood's original intentions as much as possible? In that case the Scrin rebels will definitely not side with Nod...
The Scrin rebels also have to have arived somewhere shortly before or after the tiberium meteor(s) arrive on earth. Nod recovered the tacitus from the crashed rebel Scrinship (which is not the one in TS) and since Nod already had the tacitus in TS, Kane must have gotten it somewhere before, during or shortly after TD.
Following Westwood's intentions, I don't think that if the Scrin rebels that came to Earth are still alive, they'd be in a big number.
Adam Isgreen already stated which factions were going to be in Tiberian Incursion: GDI, Nod, The Forgotten, CABAL and the Scrin.
The fact the Scrin rebels weren't mentioned there has to be either because they didn't survive when they crashed to Earth or that they're too few to be significant as a faction.

Aside from this, I think we should make this community mod unique and like Team Black said, a Scrinvasion isn't exactly the most unique idea for a mod.

Something you should know for the story by the way, is that CABAL obviously doesn't appear to be human technology. The most logical explanation would be for CABAL to be created from technology obtained from the tacitus (funny how the spell checker in Firefox corrects me to write tacitus with a capital T by the way). This means that the Scrin most likely also must have an intelligent AI, but unlike Kane/Nod, they know the risks and what it's capable of, so they most likely took precautions.

[Team Black]

I think the Scrin vs Rebels should be the same technology, like Nod and Hassan. This might be best as a special prologue - type of campaign, that won't be a part in the story of the GDI-Nod-Scrin campaign
If it's campaigns we're planning though, It should be in a different thread..
But before we do that, we need to make sure this question is answered:

Have we come to a basic agreement on the THEME?
We will base it off of what Petroglyph can tell us about WW's original intentions for the TS/FS, specifically regarding the Scrin.
Is everyone OK with that?

Me I'd kind of like to involve CABAL a little more, since that was a big part of WW's plan

[Bittah Commander]

Now that I think of it, it actually would make sence for the Scrin and the rebels to share the same technology. If you haven't noticed yet, I agree on following Westwood's original intentions as much as possible.

My idea is to first finish the Scrin part first -which on second thought is probably less work than the GDI/Nod part-, release the mod (which only features the Scrin and Scrin rebels, but could have a fairly long campaign). This first version of the mod would only have Scrin planet terrain too...
Once the first part of the mod is released, the mod can be continued to work on; the Story of the mod will continue with the Scrin rebels crashing to earth with the tacitus, etc. The second part of the mod will obviously be much bigger than the first part (you could possibly see the first part as a demo; something to keep the fans occupied while waiting for the full thing to come out) and will feature GDI, Nod, the Forgotten, CABAL and the Scrin.

Like I said before, it isn't clear whether the Scrin rebels actually survived the crash to earth... Seeming the Forgotten will be advanced enough to be a significant faction on their own, it's possible the Scrin rebels are working together with the Forgotten and are sharing their technology.

[Team Black]

Woops I guess I missed your post, sorry about that..

One thing I'm worried about though is that 2 factions fighting with the same technology can get boring, like in the Nod vs Hassan thing, which is why I think it might be best as a short prologue-type of thing.

Having it be a two-part project is also a good thing to do. That way all we'd need to focus on is the scrin side, and not have to worry about GDI and nod just yet..
it will also build up anticipation: when we get a rockin scrin faction together, people will be interested to see how it would look when battling against GDI and nod.

Now, should we release it as two separate mods? or would we just be able to flawlessly add the second section on top of it like an expansion pack?
OR
should they just be combined, so that the second part will already have the first part inside of it, and replace the old one completely?

I'm thinking the last idea might be best, having both be combined in the second release would probably be easier

[Bittah Commander]

The last option is also what I had in mind

[Lightstorm]

that sounds good, one thing we could do with scrin vs. rebels is do as SW did and divide the tech between the factions. so when the scrin rebelled. so that in the prologue/demo/prequel the scrin only have half the tech and when the rebels are defeated at the end the scrin get their tech so in the 'full mod' the scrin have a full tech tree. (this could also help us since we wouldn't have to develop a full tech tree then.
i still think the biggest problem will be the terrain. why design a complete terrain set for only a few levels? (unless we want to pull a RA2 and have GDI/Nod fighting in space or on the scrin planet.)

[Team Black]

why design a complete terrain set for only a few levels?

Actually, the terrain might be more compatible than you'd think - If Earth is increasingly influenced by tiberium, then its surface (in red zones, at least) should greatly resemble the one on the Scrin planet as well, with likely few differences - Just have different looking cities and maybe a different LAT, and it might be enough. Different lighing, like the Ion Storm yellow, perhaps, might add to the effect...

>Is it solid enough to carve in granite yet: "What CNC3 Should've been" is the theme, released in 2 packs: Scrin vs. Rebels <> Scrin invade Earth.

(Wow, I totally underestimated tibweb's ability to cooperate and kick this into gear so fast!
not even a week old, and we're already got the theme together! Thumbs up to you guys XD )

We're practically ready to start planning the unit list & campaign

This post has been edited by Team Black: May 22 2007, 04:13 AM

Reason for edit: Team Black smells like sausage

[jadems]

yup, yup, totally.

If the theme of the mod is based around CnC3 and we had to make the different zones, we'd have to cough up those kinds of maps. We'd have to do it anyway.

And about the Scrin vs Scrin thing, that's what i tried to say before ::
Making only the Scrin part first, we can find bugs and finetune the Scrin side before we add the Nod and GDI and do their side.
But I don't think we should include the Forgotten. They aren't that vital anymore.

[Lin Kuei Ominae]

>Is it solid enough to carve in granite yet: "What CNC3 Should've been" is the theme, released in 2 packs: Scrin vs. Rebels <> Scrin invade Earth.

that is a good idea. we start small and can become bigger.

and Lightstorms idea , of having only the half tech on both sides Scrin/Rebels is good too.
for that we can maybe take up my idea of the Scrin, using on one side mutation based lifeforms like bugs, and on the other side technological advanced tanks/mechs/aircrafts.

This way we can give the Rebels nearly all mutated based units.
And the Scrin would get all technological units.

My idea of the sides units/buildings
Rebels: use cheap, numerous and weak units
Infantry: Mutated Human shaped aliens (2 feet, 2 arms and a gun; or 4 feet; worm like etc)
big Units: Mutated crazy alien shaped units (insect/bug like; worms etc)
Base: use fixed placed buildings, almost bunker like. so the most of the buildings are subterranean.

Scrin: use expensive, few and strong units
Infantry: normal Scrin infantry and armor suits with a scrin trooper
big Units: Tanks and Mechs
air Units: big interplanetary Ships for Basebuilding (deployable ships) and smaller battleships.
Base: use deployable ships and upgrades.

This post has been edited by Lin Kuei Ominae: May 22 2007, 12:16 PM

[Bittah Commander]

Actually, I was more thinking about the opposite... The rebels are in a smaller number than the Scrin themselves, so I think it would make more sense for the Scrin to have the Scrin to use the numerous and weak units.

Thinking about it, the Scrin would quite a few airborne units, while this might prove to be quite an issue for the TS engine... Deployable aircraft for instance.
I see doing this mod for RA2 instead as an option, but I'm assuming most of you will hate this idea...

Anyway... @ Lin Kuei Ominae:
If you didn't read or completely understand what I already wrote for the story... My idea was that the Scrin never noticed any mutation caused by the tiberium until they started to use it to harvest from other planets than their own. The tiberium sort of acted just like we humans do; it started to change the properties of the environment to suit itself. So, if there would be missions on any of the other planets than the Scrin planet, you would only encounter tiberium life-forms on those planets. In that case, I'd say that the planets without intelligent inhabitants would only have had a small population and thus when you go there, only few tiberium life-forms. Since they were already infected by tiberium a long time ago, the tiberium life-forms should be very far evolved and very strong (and possibly also big) compared to the ones you see on "Planet X" (the planet where the Scrin first infected a planet that had intelligent inhabitants) and Earth (the ones on Earth are even less evolved than the ones on Planet X of course).

So is your idea to for the Scrin/Scrin rebels to actually find a way to control these tiberium life-forms? In my opinion this actually doesn't sound that far-fetched for the rebels, since they're in small numbers and in need of firepower... The Scrin themselves on the other hand, only see the tiberium life-forms as an obstacle for their harvesting operations and thus just exterminates them.
I also think that to control the tiberium life-forms, the rebels would be using the same technology Nod is using in TS for their cyborgs (meaning Nod must also have obtained that technology from the tacitus).

I just thought about something by the way... Maybe CABAL was the Scrin rebel's AI and Nod also took CABAL from the crashed Scrinship. Since Kane had no knowledge about the danger CABAL could possibly pose, he (unlike the Scrin rebels) took no safety precautions and gave CABAL no restrictions whatsoever.