Homeworld:@(0.2.4.0) P#840 - June Update

[Ringleader]

when I try to download the patch, it shows sierra.com as the latest download, when I click it, it downloads instantly, and says it is complete when nothing really happens.

I am running on Windows 7

[Siber]

Googling "homeworld 2 1.1 patch" turns up a fair number of download options, you can pick your favorite. It should be around 26 MB in size, if that doesn't work right you may have to run the patch as administrator. I wouldn't expect the in-game update function to work right anymore, if that's what you were trying

[Ringleader]

Sat Dec 26 21:11:52 2009
Loaded Archive: 'Homeworld2.big'
UTIL -- filepath failure, path doesn't exists 'G:\PROGRA~1\Sierra\HOMEWO~1\data\locale\english'
Loaded Archive: 'english.big'
Uing ..profiles\ for profiles folder
Cannot overwrite function RestrictOptions
Cannot overwrite function MPRestrict
Cannot overwrite function waitForEnd
GAME -- Using player profile Ringleader
Changing from a 32 bit colour depth in winNT (5.1 build 2600), Service Pack 2
Using NVIDIA Corporation's 3.2.0 GeForce GTX 260/PCI/SSE2 renderer (Suspected driver is nvoglnt.dll 0)
Loaded Archive: 'englishSpeech.big'
Loaded Archive: 'Music.big'
SOUND -- created destination [ fdaudio ], handle [ 4 ] with [ 48 ] channels created
SOUND -- created destination [ fda streamer ], handle [ 5 ] with [ 8 ] channels created
Build name: The Dust Wars - AutoBuild3569 - Ordered by smmatte
Built by : mrbuild
Data path : G:\PROGRA~1\Sierra\HOMEWO~1\data
Resetting fp control word.
CmdLine: -overridebigfile -luatrace
do not show again has not been hooked up properly for this dialog. you must give your message a name
Starting Level: data:LevelData\Multiplayer\Deathmatch\2P_HOSTILITIES_END.LEVEL
Cannot overwrite function HWAT_UNH_DDSTANDARD_Normal_OnSet
Cannot overwrite function HWAT_UNH_DDSTANDARD_Normal_OnSet
Cannot overwrite function HWAT_UNH_DDSTANDARD_Normal_OnSet
Error: loading research file (data:scripts\Building and Research\WRONG\research.lua) -- FATAL EXIT -- researchmanager/70:! --stack trace-- 0x0048A1EB: GSLobbySessionDesc::operator= (G:\Program Files (x86)\Sierra\Homeworld2\Bin\Release\Homeworld2.exe) 0x005781E0: getLibraryID (G:\Program Files (x86)\Sierra\Homeworld2\Bin\Release\Homeworld2.exe) 0x00579086: getLibraryID (G:\Program Files (x86)\Sierra\Homeworld2\Bin\Release\Homeworld2.exe) 0x0059865E: getLibraryID (G:\Program Files (x86)\Sierra\Homeworld2\Bin\Release\Homeworld2.exe) 0x00599CDD: getLibraryID (G:\Program Files (x86)\Sierra\Homeworld2\Bin\Release\Homeworld2.exe) 0x004952A1: GSLobbySessionDesc::operator= (G:\Program Files (x86)\Sierra\Homeworld2\Bin\Release\Homeworld2.exe) 0x00490C11: GSLobbySessionDesc::operator= (G:\Program Files (x86)\Sierra\Homeworld2\Bin\Release\Homeworld2.exe) 0x004911A5: GSLobbySessionDesc::operator= (G:\Program Files (x86)\Sierra\Homeworld2\Bin\Release\Homeworld2.exe) 0x00491228: GSLobbySessionDesc::operator= (G:\Program Files (x86)\Sierra\Homeworld2\Bin\Release\Homeworld2.exe) 0x006957C8: getLibraryID (G:\Program Files (x86)\Sierra\Homeworld2\Bin\Release\Homeworld2.exe) 0x7C02C54E: feof (G:\Program Files (x86)\Sierra\Homeworld2\Bin\Release\MSVCR70.dll) 0x7C02AE09: fopen (G:\Program Files (x86)\Sierra\Homeworld2\Bin\Release\MSVCR70.dll) 0x7C028360: srand (G:\Program Files (x86)\Sierra\Homeworld2\Bin\Release\MSVCR70.dll) 0x7C007106: strchr (G:\Program Files (x86)\Sierra\Homeworld2\Bin\Release\MSVCR70.dll) 0x7C003CED: swprintf (G:\Program Files (x86)\Sierra\Homeworld2\Bin\Release\MSVCR70.dll) 0x7C00126B: memcpy (G:\Program Files (x86)\Sierra\Homeworld2\Bin\Release\MSVCR70.dll) 0x7C00149A: memcmp (G:\Program Files (x86)\Sierra\Homeworld2\Bin\Release\MSVCR70.dll) 0x7C01C12F: _RTDynamicCast (G:\Program Files (x86)\Sierra\Homeworld2\Bin\Release\MSVCR70.dll) 0x7C0010FD: memset (G:\Program Files (x86)\Sierra\Homeworld2\Bin\Release\MSVCR70.dll)



Now it freezes up when it gets to the "Universe" part of the loading process.

[Siber]

Make sure all player's race settings are "HW:@ Races".

[ajlsunrise]

probably here:

Error: loading research file (data:scripts\Building and Research\WRONG\research.lua)

the fix:

* The framework is in place for as many races as necessary. Set the race to HW:@ Races, then set what starting fleet you want to use in the gameplay options. You may have to hit the More button

I haven't actually played with this version yet, so i'm only guessing.

-- EDIT: ninja'd...

-- EDIT2: Oh, and next time, PLEASE put it in a .big file. (.big file inside the rar is OKay.)

[Siber]

ajlsunrise: as I said, I'm currently unable to compile .big files. I will certainly try to rectify this, but until then I can't help you, unless someone else steps up to compile it.

[ajlsunrise]

Alright, just for you Siber I packed it into a .big file.
Here is the link: hwatv0100.rar

[Orgus_tott]

thanks ajlsunrise

[MelvinVM]

All I can say here is that this is excellent work guys, as expected you surprise me with every release.

[Darknessesbane]

The Vagyr Gunship is a masterful piece of work, good job whoever designed it.

[monolith]

Hey guys,
just downloaded and tried out the mod.
First of all, two questions: How do I get to see Doci's ships, and where did the Recon and the Gunship go?
I really love the designs of the Cruiser, the Heavy Corvette, the Harvester and the Recon, and though I was at first very sceptical about the Mothership it turned out to be okay because it resemled the Corvette in shape and thus, it was not a complete outsider.
But as with most mods, I am expieriencing terrible performance issues when I let the program run on multiple cores. But in the case of HW@, there is some strange anomaly going on:
If I select UNH Finished and UNH Unfinished or the Test Fleet as starting options, the game is unplayable due to really heavy lags.
But if I, on the other hand, choose the UNH exhibitions, the game runs just fine. Is there a connection?
Btw: Usually these performance issues seemed to depend on the map I played. If I used a mod on a standard map it usually worked well.
My Specs:
Win XP
AMD Athlon II x3 435 (3x2.9 Ghz)
2 GB RAM
AMD/ATI Radeon 4650 - 512 MB

[Siber]

Interesting. You say you get better performance on the exhibition fleets? Odd, I would have expected it to be the other way around. You say it varries from map to map, what maps is it best/worst on?

If it is the multi-core causing trouble(I have a AMD Phenom x2 and have no problems, but you never know), you might try bringing up the task manager, finding the HW2 process(it needs to be already open) and using Set Affinity to make it only use one of the cores.

Thank you very much for the report

Amendum: There are several game modes available(Though there should really be only one, that goes on the things-to-be-fixed list), are you 100% certain you are chosing HW:@ deathmatch for all of them?

[monolith]

Yes, I do get better performance on the exhibition fleets. But I don't think that the number of ships or objects visible is the reason for these issues - i'd rather say it's a programming error. I had very similar results for all the maps included in HW@ - usually the standard HW2 maps work best, I have some self-made maps that work too (But aside from the fact that I kind of "lost" them they are not accesible in HW@ anyway), some other mod maps work, some don't.
And in the case of HW@ the performance issues could NOT be solved by assigning HW2 one core only - a very interesting fact in my opinion. I will later try some more skirmishes, maybe I manage to improve performance, but don't expect too much.
Oh, and, by the way: You said you'd have an Phenom II x2 processor - as far as I know the Phenom II x2 (and the x3 and x4) as well as alle the Athlon II processors are derived from the same core, the Phenom x4, and thus very similar in architecture. Does the game run okay on your machine? Would be very interesting to know!

Edit: I forgot to say, these lags usually occur when I zoom in very closely to a ship, when I zoom out it usually gets better. The Taiidan Scout is a real bitch (it looks somehow strange btw, it seems as if there are shadows all over the hulk) in terms of performance. And how many lags I experience also depends on the camera view, sometimes facing the camera inwards removes all the lags, but facing it outwards increases them until unplayableness. For example, if I zoom close to the destroyer the game plays okay when I look at its front, but if I turn the camera it starts lagging.
The sensor manager is usually lag-free.

Edit #2: Okay, I have some bad news. I changed my CPU from an Athlon 64 X2 3800+ to the new Athlon II X3 435 at christmas and haven't played HW2 since then. I just made a really cruel discovery: By now, vanilla HW2 maps are also "infected" - the lags are "small" but noticeable. HW2 was playable with my old CPU after I installed AMDs Dual-Core optimizer - but I don't think that tool works for my new CPU. Also, the system idle process keeps "consuming" more CPU performance (sorry, don't know how to put that in english) than HW2...and as I said before, assigning it to one core is no use anymore...

Any ideas?

[doci7]

Well I'm back at college and eager to take this release for a spin! However, I can't seem to get farther than hearing the opening of a Hyperspace gate and being told that my fleet has been defeated. Any thoughts/ obvious things I'm doing wrong?

[gthompsn]

You need to have a build capable ship in your starting fleet.

[doci7]

Shouldn't there be a construction ship in the starting fleets anyway? I tried changing the starting fleet unit to HWAT_UNH_MS15 but it produced the same result. Needless to say I'm quite confused.

EDIT: Okay, I made an override script error that was causing the starting fleet to be unchanged. Now that I got that to be different, it makes the game crash at the end of the loading screen. *Sigh*, it's probably because I'm on a Mac...

[gthompsn]

please post your HW2 log file. I have never played it on a mac, but would be glad to look.

[ford6]

Mac's dont make a hw2.log file

[Blah]

I think untextured ships can cause crashes, though I can't test this out since I'm on a Mac myself.

[doci7]

I tried changing my starting fleet to the Carrier, which if it is the same Carrier they've been using, it's textured. This did not work either. I can't really understand what's preventing this from working, because the added Tutorial mission will run and everything.

[Siber]

Okay, that sucks, and I'm not really sure where to start... the only thing I can think of is to ask if you can run the HWU mod without crashes.

[doci7]

No, HWU is decidedly anti-mac (ironic considering it's the other mod I've been trying to help). But hey, like I said, at least I can play the Tutorial mission you added. That would seem to suggest that while I may never be able to do a HW@ multimatch, at least I'll probably be able to play the campaign!

[Siber]

There's probably not much I can do then. HW:@ now uses a scripting system similar to HWU for the game start, and if HWU crashes too it seems likely that some part of the scripting isn't supported by the mac version.

[doci7]

No problem; I can just play around with all the ships anyway since you released the data files.

[Vipey]

I think untextured ships can cause crashes, though I can't test this out since I'm on a Mac myself.

I'm like a king of doing stupid things like this, I never finish my mods and always insert models without textures. I'm literally 100% sure as long as the material is set right, a ship without textures will not cause CTDs.

[MatthCoFreak]

I always put a placeholder texture when I do thing like that. And when this texture is quite correct, it help the ship to look less "unfinished".

[Vipey]

That works too. Should definitely auto-UV it first though.

[Siber]

I'll add making sure all the placeholder models are at least minimally UVed to the 0.1.1 to-do list, and hope that helps.

[Siber]

Still working on some cleanup and testing-facilitating things for 0.1.1, but have a look at this

[Wintermute]

Wow. So... SEXY.

[Pegman]

Awesome! Am I right in thinking that's the Penguin that was mentioned a while ago? Looks pretty flawless to be honest.

[Overmind5000]

(hangs bucket on head to keep drool of of floor)

[Djodar]

its awesome. i like it a lot but here is an advice. the parts that open up for harvesting are coliding with each other. looks a little odd. but keep up the great work there

[Whisper2Me]

wowza, looks great

[MatthCoFreak]

It catches up a lot of distinctive elements from the HW1 collector, while still having a totally different look. Amazing job mates

[Ringleader]

Is the container going to be detachable? I remember seeing some blue underlay between the container and the ship.

[Avatar II]

We certainly want it to. The idea is that the container detaches and the blue lights turn on. That may not be ... um, possible, sadly. We might be real clever in our resource dock design and have the current container swap out with a new one. We will certainly have the ability to use the container during cutscenes.

So, what's next? Well, effects and so forth for the penguin. Might work on some animatics, I need to get back into the digital art scene. I think the reticent posting thing has been less than helpful so I'll try to be in touch with WIPs more often. Thank you guys so much for your words. We'll have more screenies and things too.

[Ringleader]

That would be cool, I remember Talros could make some pretty convincing Animatic clips, like game quality.

I would just have the blue glow on all the time, and save the trouble. Oh, are you still accepting concept art? or do you have the rest of your fleet planned out?

[doci7]

That container ROCKS! Looks undeniably like a more-advanced incarnation of the first RU collector.

[Avatar II]

Ringleader: Heh, yes, well if I was as talented as Talros things would be quite different I think. And we'd be up to our eyes in animatics. Even after the entire project is done, I'd love to see concepts. I'm not so attached to my own vision of things to think I know what's best all the time. We loved your drone frigate after all! So please, share. And I can hook you up with the latest concepts we've got.

Doci: Why thank you! The idea was to evoke the resource collector, not necessarily imply that this is an old resource collector repurposed. I may later on do some one off retextures for specific shipping crates, with the idea that military paintjobs are significantly different from civilian paintjobs. Ever figure out what a Czalkir looks like in person?

[Siber]

Myself, I have always had trouble comprehending the scale of things. Distances are elusive numbers for me. So, I do a lot of renders to try to really get a handle on scale. Avatar thought I should share these. In the following shots there is a undetailed grey box. This box represents the size and shape of a standard shipping container, like you would find around the world hauling freight here on earth.

[doci7]

Ever figure out what a Czalkir looks like in person?

Actually I've been working on that. I've been drawing on notepaper though; I've yet to master Photoshop sketching. I do have a few more ships hodded now too; I've been dragging my feet about releasing them since their textures aren't complete, but the Hods and, dare I say, the Mads are.

[gthompsn]

doci: maybe its just me, but I don't mind when people hold off releasing something until all the work on it is done. There are plenty of people who have released only partially completed models and then never went any furthur with it.

[doci7]

Thanks gtompsn, I'll keep that in mind!

EDIT: Really should've said something about those scale renders. It's pretty incredible how big these things are! I wouldn't have supposed them to be that size either.

[Ringleader]

Sorry for the delay, but as I promised, a diagonal view of the Imperial Interceptor, with minor alterations to the original side profile.



The original side view.

[tadamir]

Damn that is impressive Ringleader

[Ringleader]

Thanks, glad someone likes it.

[doci7]

Kinda strikes me more as a Corvette personally. But yes; impressive indeed! I would be more than willing to take this into my GC mod as a Republican Taiidan craft were it modeled.

EDIT: And thank you for bumping this back up!!!!

[Zloyd]

About the last one - looks like acolyte with some ugly boat under.

For me it was better looking when I thought that it's side view is it's upper view.

[Komo'val]

Damn sexy, very nice job.

Is there any progress on the mod btw