WC4 Mod For Homeworld 2 In The Works (June 5, 2006)

By the way, as a way to procrastinate today, I am working on Level Of Detail implementation for the capital ships, so as you move the camera away from the carrier, the game engine doesn't generate and calculate the effect of the wind on the growth of each whisker of the ship's cat as it licks out its procedurally-generated tail. A big sacrifice, but I hear it would please the peasants without direct access to the CERN during their games.

More seriously, I was told by a Phoenix Interactive dev that there is a hard limit to the shit that can be managed by the engine at one time, causing slow downs afterwards, as Gearbox didn't have the fundings to move all the way to 64-bit. That would be a pretty reasonable explanation to the disconnects I had in multiplayer. In response, the next big update will involve additional low-polygon models for capital ships, possibly for fighters too. Between LOD 0 and LOD 2 or 3, I might divide the total polycount by 5. For things like the Kilrathi Starbase, simply removing the internals of the hangar made the polycount go from 22k to 2k, so more than 90 % reduction when you far enough with the camera. I think it might help a bit. ^^

For the Confed HQ, however, no such luck, I can hardly get it under 30k, from 50k.
 
The other day I actually took the time to fix my HW2 classic (AMD card...requires tricking it with an old driver) and have to say I was blown away by the differences when viewing objects. Now, I never played HW2 originally so I don't have much experience with it. I was trying out the Babylon 5 mod...not the best to try alone (the AI literally does nothing) but it made me think of something I've noticed...maybe it's been discussed or noted before but I'll share it again.

When it comes to the AI in skirmish, am I correct in assuming that the reason the AI only builds some basic ship types is that it can't build the various bays for construction? I ask because I was playing as the Kilrathi against the UBW and Confed and noted that the Confed AI just pumped out Rangers...like a ton of them. But almost nothing else.
 
Dundradal said:
The other day I actually took the time to fix my HW2 classic (AMD card...requires tricking it with an old driver) and have to say I was blown away by the differences when viewing objects. Now, I never played HW2 originally so I don't have much experience with it. I was trying out the Babylon 5 mod...not the best to try alone (the AI literally does nothing) but it made me think of something I've noticed...maybe it's been discussed or noted before but I'll share it again.

When it comes to the AI in skirmish, am I correct in assuming that the reason the AI only builds some basic ship types is that it can't build the various bays for construction? I ask because I was playing as the Kilrathi against the UBW and Confed and noted that the Confed AI just pumped out Rangers...like a ton of them. But almost nothing else.
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Yep, the AI is having issues, and I will work on it to get it functional, but that's going to take me quite some time and I do not want to do it before the game engine patch is released or my PhD is done, whatever comes first.
 
Some more news about the LOD, good and bad:

The bad news is that according to the devs, adding more LOD will not solve the RAM issue and actually make it slightly worse than it is, so that's it for this fix. The good news, however, is that by going LOD1 instead of LOD0 (0 being the absolute best models I have available), it seems I can avoid the multimesh issue that I had until now with the big carriers (not so much with the superweapon ships, though), and that, in turn, means I should be safe for the conversion of the ship files to the new format without the awful bugs present until now. Fingers crossed, though, as I haven't tried the conversion yet.

Edit: well, it doesn't fix all the issues, but at least a number of carriers are no longer in multimesh, including one that annoyed me profusely (aka the Concordia dread').
 
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I remain very impressed by how this has continued to develop over the last *decade*. How is that even possible? Its ten years since I did the first playtesting on this? Good lord.
 
LeHah said:
I remain very impressed by how this has continued to develop over the last *decade*. How is that even possible? Its ten years since I did the first playtesting on this? Good lord.
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Well, TBH, it was in limbo for several years, and it's only with the release of the Remastered version that I got my ass moving again to work on it. Plus, you gotta thank the people from Saga as well as Defiance for the models. It's just that all the stars aligned for the mod. :-)
 
Double post, but...

Ten years. In two days, it will have been ten years since the project was announced. It feels so weird. In mod-related news, well... I'm going to defend my PhD in five days now, and when that will be done, the mod is going back to the top of my to-do list during some well-deserved vacation. The mega-patch from Gearbox hasn't been released yet, so the mod hasn't been broken to smithereens, but it's still going to happen, so I will have quite a lot on my hands anyway. Upgrading the capital ships' files to the new versions will be something I'll have to get done, which means trying to get fully in software like 3DSMax, though some modders are working on dedicated ship editing software that could make my life easier. Plus, I established good relations with a large modding team with some top-level skill for HW modding, so all in all, no long-term issues to expect, it will be done. The tough thing to come will however be the AI, which will most likely have to be coded from scratch. But during these vacations, I'm going to have the best tool an amateur programmer can have: an empty garage just for me! Plus a whiteboard too. If I end up having cool algorithm and tech tree schematics, I'll see if I can take pictures to illustrate the dev work.

What else? Well, there's already in the current version some ammunition and fuel management systems. Good thing is, between the new patch (possibly), some outside help (definitely) and one or two new ideas (probably), I think I should be able to optimize and streamline quite a lot these codes to get a better gameplay experience for everyone. As for the two remaining factions' units, most of them are quite done, between reskins, creative use of other assets and what @DefianceIndustries got, as illustrated by a recent newsflash for his cruiser. The other important feature, and one that will be pretty painful to implement reliably, is going to be the complete revamping of the economical system of the mod. You heard it here first: Flag Commander is going free-to-play with micropayments! You'll be able to accelerate the building of your units with small payments of Pilgrim Crystals, purchaseable on the CIC Store and... nah, and it won't be Dralthi Crush or a Nephele edition of Farmville either, just a gameplay concept I would like to implement, if I can. In short, no more asteroid mining, but randomly-positioned Jump Buoys from which supply convoys will come to bring resources to each player, as long as they don't get ambushed en route, of course. Should bring some more use to frigates and corvettes. Finally, the most complicated but least complex, since it's "just" planning and coding, a full single-player campaign taking place near Wing Commander III.

So, yeah, a lot of work planned and I have no clue what will be done by the time my vacation is over, but I'll try to get you people some fresh releases during the month. :-)

Cheers!
 
L.I.F. said:
In mod-related news, well... I'm going to defend my PhD in five days now, and when that will be done, the mod is going back to the top of my to-do list during some well-deserved vacation.
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I'd congratulate you in advance, but I know that in Europe, the PhD defence is not a mere formality. Still, all the best of luck for the defence, and in the meantime, congratulations on getting to the defence at all. I'm now well beyond the "this is so exciting and new" phase, and stuck somewhere in the "there is an end to this, right?" phase. So, I can definitely appreciate the effort that it took to get past that phase and push on to completion ;).

But on the mod front, I'll honestly be quite surprised if you do any work on the mod during your well-deserved-indeed vacation. I have this sneaky suspicion you may find yourself actually doing less than anticipated :). I don't recall getting much Standoff done way back when I finished my Master's, but I sure do remember playing a lot of Morrowind...
 
Good luck and thanks for the update!

By the way, any ideas on what this mega-patch from Gearbox entails? I hadn't heard about it until now.
 
Quarto said:
I'd congratulate you in advance, but I know that in Europe, the PhD defence is not a mere formality. Still, all the best of luck for the defence, and in the meantime, congratulations on getting to the defence at all. I'm now well beyond the "this is so exciting and new" phase, and stuck somewhere in the "there is an end to this, right?" phase. So, I can definitely appreciate the effort that it took to get past that phase and push on to completion ;).

But on the mod front, I'll honestly be quite surprised if you do any work on the mod during your well-deserved-indeed vacation. I have this sneaky suspicion you may find yourself actually doing less than anticipated :). I don't recall getting much Standoff done way back when I finished my Master's, but I sure do remember playing a lot of Morrowind...
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I'm probably going to do much less than all of that, but I'd really like to get at the very least the AI done, and I think I'll have to do it with paper and pen first instead of trying to make sense of a dozen files opened at once. Thing is, I played thoroughly my copy of Fallout 4 and X-COM 2, so these won't take too much time later on.
Whiplash said:
Good luck and thanks for the update!

By the way, any ideas on what this mega-patch from Gearbox entails? I hadn't heard about it until now.
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They've got a handful of devs working for more than six months now on this, and, well, it's going to be a heavy one, with part of it being highly visible for players and the rest being for the modders. There's a big article on it here: http://www.fistsofheaven.com/gearbox-homeworld-remastered-patch/

In short, though, it will involve the return of HW1-style formations in the new engine, actual balistics for projectiles (right now, everything, including shells, is kind of a missile, which leads to hilarious effects if you do a hyper jump while in combat, as the last enemy shells will suddenly shift course to get to your destination on the other side of the map), big splash damage for ship explosions, graphic updates, balance changes. Then there will be the stuff for the modders, and we will cry of pain and joy at the same time, because it will break a lot of our files while adding a lot of new possibilities. Apparently, some of the modders who are in the Beta will post guides to the new options and features for the rest of the community, and at that point, I will have to see if I can get new gameplay features to be integrated in there and make the game feel even more like the Pacific War IIIIIN SPAAAAACE.

Heh, since there's a crowd here, I'll shamelessly ask for something: if there is anyone who knows a bit about texturing and has some time, there is one optional item that would be quite interesting to do IMO, and that is optimizing the textures. You see, the Saga Team allowed us to use their models in-game, leading to glorious updated graphics and while their ships are nothing short than gorgeous, they cause one specific issue, and that is the RAM consumption. For budget reasons, Gearbox did NOT update the engine to 64 bit, which, according to one of their devs, means that issues start happening when you require more than 2GB to load the ships, textures and the such ingame. They will not make your game crash when you play alone, but the slowdown of the computation makes a desynchronization in multiplayer much more likely, explaining the issues I encountered in my test MP games. The most likely solution for that problem would be to harmonize and optimize the textures and to use as much as possible the same materials for the ships. And, yes, I know that doing it while keeping the ships different-looking enough to still be enjoyable would be a pain in the ***. But, as I said, it does not break the main element of the game, which is the single player part, so this is an option. If it comes to it, I will probably get to it myself in a few years, when the four main factions are done (possibly others from other games) and the gameplay is polished. Though, to be honest, my biggest hope is for Gearbox to make a HW 2.5 or 3 with a proper 64-bit engine, at which point, if a port of the mod is possible, the WC community would have a proper multiplayer game.
 
Just an update from the official boards where some of the patch's devs are posting: they are not going to integrate a fuel or ammunition system in the game itself, so that means the mod will have to rely on its "hacks" to make them work. I just hope I can get those features to work reliably.
 
OK, just learned it on the main boards, the release date for the 2.0 patch of Homeworld Remastered in on June 7th, the day before my defence. Talk about a coincidence. ^^
 
Dundradal said:
I see our bribe arrived to the appropriate offices on time. ;)
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So that's why the deliver trucks are unloading a supercomputer in front of my appartment now...

Edit: TBH, I'm a bit afraid of what will be waiting for me after the release of the patch, one of the devs having said that modding teams can expect three good months of work to get a non-rushed release.
 
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