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

I've seen that the ModDB hotfix has been uploaded. Thank you very much. :)

For all GoG-version users (or non-Steam-version users):

If you wish to play "Flag Commander" with the "Secret Missions" addon, you'll need to change your HWRM/FC-shortcut target line to:
"[your HWRM directory]\HomeworldRM\Bin\Release\HomeworldRM.exe" -mod "WC4FC_Remastered.big WC4FC_SecretMissions1.big"
(And yes, you need to make sure that both .big-files after the -mod parameter are within these quotation marks)

A more detailed report will come in the following days. What I can tell you already is that I have lots of fun with FC:TSM. :)
 
Glad to hear it!

By the way, I am currently working on getting the AI to work with the Secret Missions factions. I got the Kilrathi to do stuff, but the Confederation is stuck building a couple of fighters and carriers without collecting resources at any point whatsoever.
 
Scratch this, got it to work, so I'm uploading the stuff first on Steam, then I'll throw it on ModDB before leaving for Dallas tonight.
 
Mini-update, I finally got the Skipper missile to work just as it should: it will now cloak automatically and periodically on its way to the selected target and will crash on the ship by itself for massive damage.

EDIT: question for the attendance, I'm looking for suggestions towards Confederation gimmicks. The Border Worlds have their spammable shitty bombers as well as their modulable turret system, the Kilrathi have their cruise missiles, some specialist fighters like the Sorthak or Kh'aha'f and now has the Skipper, but the Confederation doesn't really have much more than the Prowler corvette. Sure, there's the Excalibur that kicks all sorts of ass, but it misses that flavour...

Thus a call for ideas. I'll probably hit the Kilrathi with a nerf over the next few weeks, because they are feeling definitely OP now.
 
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-Emergency decree 394: Draft Civilian combat ships (from "Privateer 1") into service, like in "Fleet Action", "Standoff" and "Defiant Few".
-Emergency decree 394 with offer for a full pardon: Draft Pirate (and Retro) combat ships (from "Privateer" and "The Price of Freedom") into service, like in "Defiant Few"
-Unlock spec ops technology: Cloak for the Excalibur and the Prowler, Wraiths with leech missiles (either shield or ship disabling ones),...
-Steltek tech salvaged from derelicts (for any faction if fast enough)

(I didn't have the chance of having a 100% look on FC, so forgive me the question: Does Confed have access to Black Lance tech already, especially Dragons with flash packs or the Arrow Eclipse with a cloaking device?)
 
FekLeyrTarg said:
-Emergency decree 394: Draft Civilian combat ships (from "Privateer 1") into service, like in "Fleet Action", "Standoff" and "Defiant Few".
-Emergency decree 394 with offer for a full pardon: Draft Pirate (and Retro) combat ships (from "Privateer" and "The Price of Freedom") into service, like in "Defiant Few"
-Unlock spec ops technology: Cloak for the Excalibur and the Prowler, Wraiths with leech missiles (either shield or ship disabling ones),...
-Steltek tech salvaged from derelicts (for any faction if fast enough)

(I didn't have the chance of having a 100% look on FC, so forgive me the question: Does Confed have access to Black Lance tech already, especially Dragons with flash packs or the Arrow Eclipse with a cloaking device?)
Click to expand...
I don't think I have civilian ship models, but I guess I could work with pirate stuff, though they would normally be reserved for the upcoming Black Lance faction. As for the cloak, it's standard tech for both Excalibur and Prowler already. For the Steltek... I guess that would be possible to add their ruins in maps, but do you know if anyone has modeled their ships?
 
L.I.F. said:
I don't think I have civilian ship models, but I guess I could work with pirate stuff, though they would normally be reserved for the upcoming Black Lance faction. As for the cloak, it's standard tech for both Excalibur and Prowler already. For the Steltek... I guess that would be possible to add their ruins in maps, but do you know if anyone has modeled their ships?
Click to expand...

For "Privateer Gemini Gold", all ships and stations were rebuilt as 3D-models. Perhabs you guys could take a look at them and see if they still hold up and perhabs contact any of the former developers.
http://privateer.sourceforge.net/

Also, "Standoff" has a few ships from "Privateer" and "Armada", including the Tarsus, the Talon, the Wraith, the Stiletto, the Gladius and the Salthi Mk2/Shok'lar.
IIRC, "Standoff's" policy allows re-use of its meshes if they receive new textures.

(I also need to look whether or not I still have the Paradigm-class corvette/destroyer Deathsnake and I converted for the FS2Open engine many years ago)

Should the need to re-create "Privateer's" ships (and stations) arise after all, we have the ultimate reference to do so: The original production meshes from which the original sprites were rendered back in the 1990s:
https://www.wcnews.com/chatzone/threads/working-with-privateer-3d-model-textures.29029/
https://www.wcnews.com/wcpedia/Privateer_3D_Archive

EDIT:
I've just remembered that Howard Day built some ships and stations from "Privateer" as well, including the Tarsus:
https://www.wcnews.com/news/search?body=WC+Pioneer
 
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I guess I'll have to check this, thanks! Beyond this, any idea for gameplay gimmicks? Ingame stuff that only the Confed could do to piss off the other players? I'm more looking for dirty tricks than ships (so many of them already), plus the whole Privateer/Pirate stuff could come from neutral stations captured by any player, would make kinda more sense.

Kilrathi: asteroid fighters that do not appear on long-range strategic sensors, long range missile spam, Skipper missiles,
Border Worlds: any ship from frigate onwards can upgrade its armament to hilariously experimental shit, minibomber spam that can be upgraded in the end to powerful bomber spam, and I plan to have in the future cloaked capture capability with Special Avenger groups
Black Lance: Dragon cloaked bomber and superfighter, electronic warfare ship that neutralizes the sensors and armament of enemy forces in a huge area, possibly special powers to capture instantly some capital ships with hidden operatives
Confederation: can drop mines with a cloaked supercorvette, and that's it for now...
 
Addendum: I rethought about it on my way to the office, and it's a big no for ED 394. The Battle of Earth was probably the most defining event for the Confederation, one that still sends me shivers thinking about it. It was portrayed and honoured properly in Standoff and I won't cheapen it by making it a regular gameplay mechanic.

Edit: it'd be like making every battle by US troops Iwo Jima or Omaha Beach, or every battle with French troops Camerone or Verdun. These battles and the heroism shown there are honoured because they remain the apex of courage shown by generations. Let's not dilute the sacrifice made by those of the Battle of Earth.
 
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I think you have a very good point regarding ED394 being... too morally questionable.
There may be another more acceptable alternative though: Hiring mercenaries with well armed Centurions and Demons. One could perform space superiority while the other could fill the bomber role.
Which reminds me that "The Darkest Dawn" has the Demon.

I have to think about an actual technical gimmick for Confed which fits within the lore though. If I have an idea, I'll let you know. :)
 
FekLeyrTarg said:
I think you have a very good point regarding ED394 being... too morally questionable.
There may be another more acceptable alternative though: Hiring mercenaries with well armed Centurions and Demons. One could perform space superiority while the other could fill the bomber role.
Which reminds me that "The Darkest Dawn" has the Demon.

I have to think about an actual technical gimmick for Confed which fits within the lore though. If I have an idea, I'll let you know. :)
Click to expand...
I thought earlier this morning of having a "Big Damn Heroes" mechanic to allow the player to "summon" the Concordia with escorts for a cavalry moment before they leave again (with a huge cost and cooldown time), because arriving in the nick of time is a Confed specialty. This could be doable, but overly complex because it would have to be done just right, and by "just right", I mean automated awesome camera angles, hugely scripted arrival, possibly music and everything (a gunship rescue has to be done right). Done right like this:


So, yep, an idea for probably later. Brainstorming mode: one of the things that your "edict" idea made me think about was to have temporary admiral edicts, à la Valkyria Chronicles. For those unaware, it's an excellent tactical game taking place in an alternate World War II and you can spend some of your turn's action points to give officer orders that boost some soldier classes, give general support and so on. So the Confed could have access to a series of tactical orders from its HQ that would last for a limited time, cost resources and boost some stats for some or all units. Though making it just a "spend cash - get bonus" mechanic is too classic IMO. I'm now wondering if I could reconfigure the UI to get some orders that can simply recharge with either time or damage inflicted and get their own buttons. Think things like Command and Conquer Generals support powers.


Oh, by the way, something that might interest people out there: I just discovered that a Chinese modding team went batshit insane in coding a Homeworld 2 mod that basically makes it a Privateer-like game, where you can trade, go from system to system, do some diplomacy and such. Called Fairy Empire, it's in Chinese but has an English patch and they're working on getting this system in Remastered.
 
Never played Homeworld, so I'm more or less building this idea off of other RTS like Star Trek: Armada. Apologies if there's no comparable setup in Homeworld (or if anything like this was covered in the last 92 pages).

Perhaps Confed could have a unit who is basically a Pilgrim scientist. Said scientist could detect and utilize a phenomena to jump across the map instantly (a la the Wormholes in ST:A) - thinking along the lines of Scylla from the movie. In theory, this would allow Confed to launch a surprise attack on the opposition.

If one of the other races stumbles into the phenomena before Confed, they can't do anything with it - it's just a map feature...unless the Pilgrim unit has "jumped" it, at which point it's considered "charted" and becomes available for general use.

Thus, Confed has to run the risk - Yes, they could open this portal and potentially drop a fleet somewhere the enemy doesn't expect, but that would also mean the enemy has a backdoor into Confed space.

Other restrictions:
-The size of the fleet you can send through the jump is limited. Confed is known for pulling off solo-ship runs/small squadron maneuvers no one expected (Tiger's Claw/Concordia going after K'Tithrak Mang, Tarawa to Kilrah, Blair's attack on Kilrah, etc)
-The cost per "charting" would have to be quite large, so Confed player would have to balance the hope of getting a backdoor strike with the need to construct a powerful fleet for standard combat.
-Confed can only build/recruit this unit once - if the Pilgrim gets blown up, no more charting.
-Some sort of percentage based chance that navigating the jump would result in loss of the fleet (chance reduced but not eliminated if the Pilgrim unit accompanies the fleet through).
-When first opening the jump, there'd also be a certain random chance that, Pilgrim abilities or not, the jump is either too difficult to navigate or flat-out just leads to somewhere deadly.

Now that I've typed all that out, I'm picturing the headache associated with coding that (and probably having to edit something into each map used).
 
Well, fixed jump points randomly placed onto the map are part of the planned roadmap for a future update, which would attempt to recreate Wing Commander Armada, AKA a massive map with "islands" of resources so far from each other you'll need to capture jump points.

As for editing this, I... guess it would be possible. If I had to do it, it would actually be a code attached to the Confederation HQ to create the spots randomly at start, kinda like the supply convoy mechanic. The idea is actually not bad and, at first glance, feasible, so I'll keep it in mind.
 
And I'm uploading a small feature for the fighter combat. It was a bit tiring to see fighters getting wrecked on both sides by the first missile salvo, so I added an ECM system (Electronic Counter-Measures). From now on, all fighters and bombers will have a chance of defeating incoming enemy missiles as they arrive at close range. The chance... depends on the fighter or bomber.

Terran Confederation:
Arrow: 40 %
Hellcat: 45 %
Thunderbolt: 50 %
Longbow: 65 %
Bearcat and Excalibur: 75 %
Maniac: 85 % - even missiles hate this guy

Kilrathi Empire:
Darket: 15 %
Dralthi and Vaktoth: 20 %
Ekapshi: 25 %
Gothri: 35 %
Sorthak and Kha'haf: 45 %
Paktahn: 50 %
Bloodfang: 65 %
Strakha: 75 %

Zakhari Jammer: 35 % over 1,000 metres

Union of Border Worlds:
Scimitar: 15 %
Epee and Ferret: 20 %
Vindicator: 35 %
Rapier J: 40 %
Avenger: 45 % (might buff it to 55 % in order to really underline the difference with the Vindicator)
Banshee: 60 %
Blair - Hellcat: 65 %
Morningstar and Blair - Banshee: 75 %
Blair - Dragon: 95 % - because **** you, that's why.

OK, so what do we have: elite fighters and the Strakha have gotten a huge boost to survivability against both the "first salvo" and various capital ships. They are now a lot more dangerous against fighter spam, as they should be. But in addition to this, the Confederation gets a sensible buff: its roster of planes is much more homogeneous and it starts right away with what other factions would consider as their "advanced" roster. Now, this shows with a hard stat: a fighter like the Hellcat or the Arrow will have a really good boost to its fighting chances against its Kilrathi or Border Worlds base equivalent. Fire a missile at a Hellcat with your Dralthi and there's almost one in two chances that it will shrug off the missile while your Cat will be in deep, deep trouble. Sure, you can get better fighters, but you'll still fight at a disadvantage, except with the Strakha, which is twenty percent cooler now because that mosquito will shrug off most missiles headed its way in addition of having a cloaking device.

The Border Worlds, once at Tier 2, will be on a much more equal footing with the Confederation, and their Banshee is really impressive when dodging missiles. The Morningstar gets a top-level ECM because, 1, it is canonically awesome and 2, its current model's real life inspiration has an ECM self-defence suite which is apparently stuff of legends in the aerospace community. The bombers, however, do not follow and are more vulnerable than their counterparts of all kind, particularly the Vindicator, which will have a really good chance of eating the missiles.

Then, we have the special case of the Zakhari Jammer, which has the only available medium-area ECM suite and might be joined sooner or later by the Zartoth once I find a way to balance it without going too far either way (much harder than one would think for this one). This new capability can be a really interesting addition to the fleet defence, as it offers a proximity defence against torpedoes and missiles in addition to the larger area debuff to enemy craft. The 35 % effect is enough to be definitely noticeable and hinder large alpha strikes from the enemy, but not enough that you could easily stack these frigates to block everything. Plus, the volume remains small when everything is said and done. You can get the frigate forward to be a first line of defence, but it can be avoided or destroyed altogether. Otherwise, you can cover a specific ship if you keep close to it.

7906991.jpg
 
Very impressive. :)

By the way: ModDB's "Mod of the Year" awards have started once again. Would you guys like to participate by calling everyone to vote for "Flag Commander" (and anything else WC-related on ModDB and IndieDB?)
 
What about the Phase Transit Canon for Confed? That would be specific only to carriers though and "line of sight" firing?
 
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