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

[ChrisReid]

How about Kilrathi negotiations?

Yeah, "negotions," "peace treaty," "defense agreement" or something like that sounds less awkward than "Technology Rights Treaty."

 

[czacen]

ships now feature slighly tweaked textures for better look and inbuilt subsytems each with a specific role. shown below are the bridge and engine subs. when bridge is destroyed weapons on the ship deactivate and engine output drops. once engine subsystem is killed ship cant move at all. the third picture is for effect, it shows the blast from the destruction of a concordia class at the hands of 5 wings of thunderbolts and my concordia.

 

[Lt.Death100]

Are you going to replace the hangar textures? They seem kind of weird on WC ships.

 

[czacen]

nope. in fact they look quite nice in game. they have a HW2 feel but it blends quite well with the WC hangars. cant have a thru and thru empty ship, would make fighter spawing look really dumb to just appear and vanish every time they dock. this way it just feels like they are landing in a heavily lit bay. besides its also efficient to polycounts, since if you can see into the bay u'd want to see something other than a empty 4 walled box --> whats the point in seeing that?? i'd rather look at the white bay glow for that matter. it actually adds life to the ship's more or less dead colour. once you play the mod u'll see what i mean. also, i tried windows in the HW2 fashion and WC fashion, and i have decided they will be HW2 fashion. just think of it as part of the new look. trust me it realy does look better than the WC white-wash box windows. anyways these issues (if they are serious enough) will be addressed in beta testing which should take place soon.

 

[BrynS]

A few more reference images, czacen.

Confed HQ only appears in one sequence in the WCP cinematics and these few attached images cover most of the angles. All other applicable HQ images are in the image archive I posted earlier or in the previous attachments.

Cheers,


BrynS

 

[BrynS]

Now some from the Confed communication station featured in the Prophecy cinematics. I'm archiving screenshots of the various WC4 stations from gameplay while I work through the missions for the other reference images and will post a batch of station shots when I'm done.

 

[BrynS]

Two more comm shots and three images of the Hellcat's weapons fire.

 

[BrynS]

The Longbow with weapons free.

czacen, if you haven't already integrated some WC sound effects into the mod, then this audio pack (13MB, originally extracted by AD, I believe) containing weapon and other ambient sound fx should be useful.

I'll keep adding more weapons fire references for the rest of the WC4 fighters during the week.

If anyone has a complete (or fairly thorough) WC4 save game set and index, I would most grateful if you could send it my way, as I can't locate my backup and while replaying WC4 is hardly a chore, it would save a fair bit of time to be able to jump around to the right spots to capture appropriate images for the mod.

Cheers,


BrynS

 

[Dundradal]

Extremely impressive progress and work! I'm amazed with how quickly you are doing this and of how high quality everything looks...the Durangos look simply amazing.

I'm thinking of buying HW2 simply because of this mod. It would be great if the work could continue to cover the other periods in WC. Commanding a task force in the height of the war would be amazing. Either way keep up the good work...going to have to remember to budget for HW2 this month....

 

[Lt.Death100]

Well if czacen is going to do this in another era, it's gonna be WC3. Almost half of the ships are already modelled in!

 

[Mjr. Whoopass]

yeah the BW have their own tallahasse, (i hope this is what you were reffering to) with an alternate paint scheme and weapon layout. i believe there is a post of it on the CIC homepage from a week or so ago. as for just giving the Dralthi to the BW for free, umm... not so sure it would be fair. i think all sides should have an equal oppertunity to enlist them. maybe ill add their build option as a research that is activated at each race's HQ. something like, "Research Kilrathi Technology Rights Treaty" or some such equivalent. still thinking though...

I don't want to pull you off of your rapid pace or anything, so keep it up, what you're doing is great. Just so you know what I was referring to and why I had that suggestion for the Dralthi:

What I was referring to: In the book False Colors, which takes place between WC3 and 4, the Border Worlds finds and repairs a Kilrathi Supercarrier that they use in battle. At the end of the book, the Border Worlds still have this carrier in their posession (although badly damaged), so they may have used this ship again in the event of a war with Confed. I was dreaming of a confrontation between a Vesuvius on the Confed/Black Lance sides facing off vs. a Kilrathi Supercarrier in place of the Homeworlds faceoffs of the Hig BC vs. the Vagr BC.

Why I suggested a Dralthi for the Border Worlds: It could give the BWs an extra fighter since your list on page 1 of the Relic Forums' site lists 5 fighters on the Confed side and only 4 on the Border Worlds' side.
You could justify the Dralthi as a Border Worlds fighter since they fought on the side of the BWs during WC4 (and False Colors) and Confed probably wouldn't bother to build them- though they may have taken some from the Kilrathi during the treaty. Confed seems to stick to the regs as we can deduce from conversations between Blair and Plyers in WC4 and from Forstchen's books. Confed would conceivably shy away from adding Dralthis to their mainstay fighters.

In consideration of these ideas:
I would prefer playing as Confed rather than the Border Worlds with their standard units- but using Dralthis and getting to command a Kilrathi Supercarrier would really make the BW's side fun to command. I would imagine something as simple as "Kilrathi Technology" or "Kilrathi Ships" as being part of the Tech Tree... that would leave it open to being from treaties/recovered technology/etc.

 

[Quarto]

What I was referring to: In the book False Colors, which takes place between WC3 and 4, the Border Worlds finds and repairs a Kilrathi Supercarrier that they use in battle. At the end of the book, the Border Worlds still have this carrier in their posession (although badly damaged), so they may have used this ship again in the event of a war with Confed. I was dreaming of a confrontation between a Vesuvius on the Confed/Black Lance sides facing off vs. a Kilrathi Supercarrier in place of the Homeworlds faceoffs of the Hig BC vs. the Vagr BC.

No, they did not. The people who found and repaired a Kilrathi carrier were the Landreich, which absolutely is not the same as the Border Worlds. You appear to have read the book, so you almost certainly knew this already - please don't confuse people by distorting facts.

I don't see why the Border Worlds would even want to use a Dralthi in any case. It's a very, very, very, very bad idea to make regular use of a fighter for which nobody produces replacement parts any more. The Kilrathi presumably have enough knowledge to jerry-rig their old Dralthis into working for a few more flights... but for the Border Worlders, a Dralthi would be literally a fire-and-forget weapon. Besides, there is a dozen possible ex-Confed ships which the BW could use for an additional fighter if necessary.

 

[ChrisReid]

"Confed would conceivably shy away from adding Dralthis to their mainstay fighters."

How could you conceive a scenario where they use the Dralthi as a "mainstay fighter" to begin with? "Shy away" doesn't begin to cover it. It's one thing to steal a couple and use them for espionage during the war. There's simply no motivation to do this at all on a regular basis though. If there were anything redeeming about some Kilrathi design, the technology would just be assimilated. Creating a production line to recreate a fighter like this would be much more work than incorporating any technological advancements, but there's not even anything you'd want to incorporate here at all.

 

[Mincemeat]

If anyone has a complete (or fairly thorough) WC4 save game set and index, I would most grateful if you could send it my way, as I can't locate my backup and while replaying WC4 is hardly a chore, it would save a fair bit of time to be able to jump around to the right spots to capture appropriate images for the mod.

Savegames attached herewith. Please rename .pdf to .zip.

 

[BrynS]

Thanks very much for the save game archive, Mincemeat. Much appreciated!

Attached are the weapon references for the Banshee and Vindicator.

Cheers,


BrynS

 

[czacen]

ok i guess i should have kept that dralthi image a secret after all JK. don't worry people! when i said i would get them in game i will, if it even means i find a way to script the game to understand a neutral race on every map i will, but the main thing is they wont be left out! i had initally planned that it would add good strategy to the game for players who managed to get dralthi's on their side to use them as an accessory force --> complimentary to each sides already ample fighter collection. thereby you could decide to use them as reinforcement or just plain bait, depending on how much you hate the cats

@mjr. whoopass, well i dont think i will be putting a kilrathi carrier in. i think people will have to wait till i get this mod done and then (if they like what they see and want more) i will move onto a WC3 mod. i do appreciate your concen over the 5 confed ships as opposed to bw 4 but your forgetting that im not letting out details on ship stats and how i plan the game to be played. the game is not a firepower basher. you might just prefer to play as BW once you see how i am building their fleet and tactics. however having said this i urge people not to jump to wild conclusions and post left and right abt what i might be planning. all will be revealed soon and once it is, i will put it up for feedback and discusion and to see what people think. i kindly ask for your patience about this.

thanks,
- aaron

 

[Mjr. Whoopass]

How could you conceive a scenario where they use the Dralthi as a "mainstay fighter" to begin with? "Shy away" doesn't begin to cover it. It's one thing to steal a couple and use them for espionage during the war. There's simply no motivation to do this at all on a regular basis though. If there were anything redeeming about some Kilrathi design, the technology would just be assimilated. Creating a production line to recreate a fighter like this would be much more work than incorporating any technological advancements, but there's not even anything you'd want to incorporate here at all.

It sounds like we're in agreement on this subject... though writing "shy away" was an understatement- "avoid" was probably better.

The people who found and repaired a Kilrathi carrier were the Landreich, which absolutely is not the same as the Border Worlds.

Thanks for catching and correcting that! When I read through the book, I assumed the Landreich would be included in the Border Worlds... I checked the map that's on the www.wcnews.com website and it's pretty clear that it's separate from the BW's.

@mjr. whoopass, well i dont think i will be putting a kilrathi carrier in. i think people will have to wait till i get this mod done and then (if they like what they see and want more) i will move onto a WC3 mod. i do appreciate your concen over the 5 confed ships as opposed to bw 4 but your forgetting that im not letting out details on ship stats and how i plan the game to be played. the game is not a firepower basher. you might just prefer to play as BW once you see how i am building their fleet and tactics. however having said this i urge people not to jump to wild conclusions and post left and right abt what i might be planning. all will be revealed soon and once it is, i will put it up for feedback and discusion and to see what people think. i kindly ask for your patience about this.

Sounds like a nice plan.. Thanks for the updates and keep up the good work!

 

[BrynS]

Further attached WC4 weapon references for the Longbow (rear turret) and Dragon:

 

[BrynS]

Weapon reference images for the Avenger:

Cheers,


BrynS

 

[czacen]

sorry everybody, the silence on this thread is due to the fact that i have been hard at work on an aspect of the mod that i can not post updates about in the usual fashion. as of last night all fighters have full WC sound, and weapon fx and weapon sound fx. it feels so good to hear some familiar audio and i can definitely tell you its taken the feel 'up a notch'! I would like to thank Stefan, my friend over at the HW2 forums, for his valuable time and help on getting the fx started, he was kind enough to donate me a few files to help me understand the process and get the fx overhaul underway. going to spend tonight coding the respective damage capactiy of each specific weapon into the mod. ill try to post a few pics, though gunfire is an effect to be heard and seen in realtime to get the actual feeling.