Homeworld Mod Laid Up For Major Dry Dock Overhaul
L.I.F. has some major news for the Homeworld Remastered Mod. Things have been mostly quiet for the project since winning 2015 Fan Project of the Year, but that's for good reason. The developers behind the full Homeworld Remastered game are on the verge of releasing a significant patch that is likely to completely break the mod in its current form. On the plus side, it will also allow for new features and improvements, but quite a bit of reprogramming will be required to get the Wing Commander game going again. If you'd like to continue playing in the mean time, be sure to block or avoid updating the core game. L.I.F. also notes that the mod recently reached its tenth birthday when traced back to the original project kicked off by czacen. This has given him renewed resolve to stick with it and ride the near term disruption wave to an even more exciting future!
The patch notes for tomorrow's update have been released, and damn, just the high-level info means that everything will be broken but will most likely offer so many new stuff...What does it mean for me in terms of coding? Well, I think it will be simpler and cleaner to pretty much start most of the mod again from scratch, and with paper/pen for several days before typing anything.
Official warning: you have less than a day from this post onwards to block updates on HWRM if you want to use the current version of the mod in any way. From tomorrow onwards, Flag Commander will be offline for at the very least several weeks, more likely months.
In the meantime, I think everyone will enjoy the new patch with the vanilla game, the changes are quite comprehensive and should give a new youth to HWRM. The improvements to the MP stability should make it worth it by themselves and with some luck, we could have before the end of 2016 a stable Wing Commander multiplayer RTS. No promises, though. :)
Ten years. It [has] 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. 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. 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. :)
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