Star Trek Homeworld 2 mod Beta RELEASED

[Nathanius]

G'day everybody!

From the ashes of PhatBoyGeo's "The Borg Returns" mod has risen a new, more canon, more detailed and actually half complete Star Trek mod!

The beta was posted to Moddb today on the 10/10/10 (it doesn't matter if you write that in the US or in the normal way with that date! Isn't it great? )

First and foremost, a small demonstration of some of what we have acheived to date:

Impressive weapon loadouts:


Maps for the whole family:


Moody vistas:


Firey doom:


(Some) Moving parts:

(please note a light source has been added to the pulses since this image was taken)

Self illumination:


More potential for beauty shots than you can shake a stick at:


It wont confuse it if you run away further!


Our page on Moddb has all the latest news and the 0.5 public beta of our mod. Tell us what you think! Suggestions and help are always happily appreciated! If anyone can help us in ironing out the AI that would be super!

Regards,

The STHW2 Modding Team

[hzjd]

Loads 1/3 of the way before crashing, for me. = (

[Sastrei]

You can upload files to moddb why are you sending me to mediafire.

Looking forward to testing it out!

[MelvinVM]

the AI trying to hyperspace his station away is hilarious.

[Nathanius]

@ hzjd: For some reason I need to have "-windowed" in the shortcut to make any mod work on my computer (ATI card probably), but triple check that the shortcut included is pathed correctly in regards to your computer.

@ Sastrei: The link's been swapped to Moddb's, we had the mediafire one up there in the event that the Moddb upload hadn't cleared when the news article went up. It'd be silly announcing a release without anything to D/L :P

@ MelvinVM: We were going to cut that but we didn't know what the community reaction would be, you might still want to move your base after all. It's a shame the AI abuses the privelage, everyone might lose it then :P

[Sastrei]

Ah, good call Nathanius!

[TON_Viper]

Come to think of it, I've practically never seen that tactic save an AI mothership, since it just hyperspaces it a few hundred meters. At best, it buys 10-15 seconds of time to eliminate the attackers, but I've never been in the situation that that has made a difference against an AI. Is it possible to change AI behaviour so that it moves the MS further through hyperspace or not at all? The current behavior just seems illogical.

That said: live long, and prosper.

[Sastrei]

I totally geeked out playing this. Thank you and awesome-sauce!!!

I have a few nitpicks, all just my opinion, and of course this is just the first release.
-Where are the Hornet fighters from? Of course they're not canon, but they just don't seem very Star Trek in design. Maybe replace them with Runabouts?
- No offence to the creator of that model, but the Cerberus class just seems so god-awful fanboyish. If you really want a dreadnought, how about the alt-future Ent-D design?

I like that you kept the strikecraft trails for the small craft.
Love the use of light-casting effects for warp nacelle and deflector glows, and the torpedoes. Looks so cool.
Love being able to choose my Nebula-class aux module, great idea!
Love the new explosion effects when ships go down!

I second Ton_viper's request - remove the hyperspacing starbases.

[MelvinVM]

I usually equip battlecruisers with grav wells anyway

[LeviathansWrath]

drools over the mod dude this rocks thou do you have any more tracks to go with your maps?

[Nathanius]

@ TON_Viper & MelvinVM:
You're right really, I think that we will be changing that 1 to a 0 before our next release

@ Sastrei:
- The Hornet Fighter is from Starfleet Command II, it also made an appearance in Shattered Universe. I've loved it since I first saw it though, distinctly different to your reaction I see! I don't think we'd use the Runabout as a replacement, mainly because it wouldn't do very well as a fighter craft as the Homeworld 2 game mechanics dictate. However we are of course open to models! Ideas on their own less so, as I can't model at all and need to ask for permission for everything before we use it :P

- The Cerberus class was the dreadnought from my first mod, the one for Star Trek: Armada on Moddb, I kept an eye out for a better model that I liked but I hadn't seen one up to now. The Future Ent-D~ hrm, is not really one that took my eye, and I was looking for something *new* anyway. Suggestions wouldn't go awry

I love that you love those things :P

@ LevianthansWrath:
Thanks! More tracks are on the to-do list, at the very least i'll use more than just the one stock HW2 song :P

How did you get your own Relic forum avatar instead of one of the provided ones?

[LeviathansWrath]

That thing below my name isnt an avatar its a forum siggy. You just add it in your profile section.

[Nathanius]

Sorry, I should have had that in with the reply to MelvinVm, I have the Bungie Halo 3 thing in my signature too! Looking forward to them doing a Reach version

[Nathanius]

Any bug reports? Suggestions? We're moving towards a decision regarding our next release, setting up all the various checkboxes to accomplish before that next big red shiny button is pushed. Input is appreciated

Anyone good with the AI too? I would appreciate someone who actually knows what they're doing having a look at the AI, we've been unable to make the AI do the following:

- Research
- Build Collectors
- Build Subsystems
- Use Warp with the ships

They would all be things i'd like to see...

[MelvinVM]

Perhaps the torpedoes be a fit faster, they are going oddly slow.
Also the defiant's pulse lasers aren't easily visible on my laptop, of course my PC shows it clearly but, smaller screens seem to have trouble showing them.

[Nathanius]

Torpedo speed, hmm, i'll put that on the "to tweak" list.

As far as the pulses are concerned they probably are vanishing on your laptop because it has a widescreen resolution that's not strictly catered for in the HW2 engine, it's probably been squashed out of existence :P

[Nathanius]

What do people think of:

1. The SuQ'Jagh capture attack?
2. The Shipyards?
3. The warp flash?

[LeviathansWrath]

Well i think the shipyards need to be able to build and also the klingon SY needs its repair dock paths for caps. Nice work on the warp thing, one last thing for now you might wanna fix the unit cap for the fed. They can build more than 10 soverigns while the klingons can only build 10 destroyer class ships on normal unit capping.

[Ragnarokx]

greeeeeat stuff !

[Nathanius]

We wont be using the shipyards to build anything, only to repair ships, because of how the Homeworld 2 engine likes to "poof" things into existence. It would be an unattractive option i'm afraid.

I will add Unit Caps onto the "to tweak" list too, thanks for your feedback LeviathansWrath and Ragnarokx

[Zephyr]

you can get quite impressive build animations; e.g. you could customise a hyperspace gate to look like it's slowly being built

[Nathanius]

Unfortunately we're already using the Hyperspace effect...

[Zephyr]

To build ships? can't you have multiple ones? and I just meant something like a hyperspace window. The keeper team in moulou's PTV mod have something like that.

[Nathanius]

Possibly, but as far as I know there's only one Hyperspace effect and that's the one defined in the race file.

There may (repeat *may*) be something we could do in the same basic theme as the B5 wormhole construction animation, but we would need people we don't have. The shipyards will remain repair yards sorry!

[Nathanius]

G'day ladies and gentlepeople!

Our creation has been out in the wild for just two weeks now and we've gotten feedback from the entire range of the spectrum. Thank you to those who put more than just "it wont wurk" in their requests for assistance! If you're still having trouble with the 0.5 Beta please note that the shortcut included with it is for a guide only, barring a fluke you shouldn't be able to use it.

If you haven't partaken just yet please take a moment and tell us what you think!

Download>> ST: HW2 0.5 Beta

Our talented Stargazer has tackled a portion of the problems afflicting the AI, a serious issue that hadn't permitted research items to be included in the 0.5 beta. The problem was that the AI wouldn't use the research items! Limiting them to just the fighter craft. To date Stargazer has succeeded in making the Federation AI utilise it's research! This has also solved the problem of them not building resource collectors, however the issue of subsystems remains to be solved.

Research Aplenty:


You may notice the graphical errors on Earth in the background, that seems to be a symptom of my ATI card and doesn't occur on the other mod team member's PCs, hopefully no one in the community suffers from this!

Progress in other areas is being made too, some models that were placeholders have been replaced with models from the community. The following are by Aad Moerman, who has selflessly put his excellent work into the community, stating that all may use as long as due credit is given. It's thanks to skilled individuals like him and Atolm and many others that this mod exists at all!

Out with the old:


In with the new!



It might not be very clear in these images how much better these models are, but come time for the next release you'll be able to see for yourself! There is of course no way we can commit to a release date for our next installment, especially considering alot of what we're dealing with is the stuff like the AI that got delegated to the "too hard for now" basket prior to the 0.5 beta. However there is one promise we can make... that there will be another debut in the next release!

Debutante... (sure, that's a word right?)


Have fun folks!

The ST:HW2 team.

[herbyguitar]

You're using my B.O.P. model. I'm Charvell. I made that ship.

You can use it. I just wanted to tell you and maybe there's something I can do to help with this mod?

link to pic

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y11/Charvell/brel.jpg

[TON_Viper]

Man, I remember back when you made the original for Sacrifice of Angels, back in the Homeworld days. At least, I recognize the textures. It's still a great model.

[herbyguitar]

I have a much better version here if the team wants it? Original model.

It was modified for HW to keep the face count down and textures were only 256 max.

P.S.
Viper, didn't you help me with the texture dirt?

[Nathanius]

Charvell! I am so glad that you popped up! I was unable to figure out who made what in the SOA mod and, as you said, the textures from alot of the ships were down graded for the HW 1 engine so we didn't end up using any but your beautiful BOP. I can put a proper name in the ReadMe too Thank you for allowing us to continue to use it!

If you do have the original textures for it that would be an amazing contribution! Stargazer has had to edit the mesh in ways I don't understand so that the wings would move into and out of attack mode, and the mesh is already of a high quality, but the textures are as you said :P

Are there other models that you would like to contrubute? Do you know much about the AI? Send me a PM with your MSN details and if you're on between 16:00 and 21:00 AEST (GMT +10) then you'll be able to catch me online and we can chat.

[SpardaSon21]

Nathanius, there's a Sacrifice of Angels 2 mod being made for the Entrenchment expansion of Sins of a Solar Empire. I'm not sure how useful any of the models there would be, but you could always head over to their thread on the SoaSE forums and ask about them. Their models have been pretty heavily optimized in terms of polygons and textures since Sins has a crapload and a half of vessels on-screen at once.

[Nathanius]

We're pretty much right for the Federation, Klingon and Romulan sides. For the ships we've already implemented we wont say no to an improved model or texture of course!

The SOA2 mod is looking pretty awesome, I am yet to get Sins though... I should look into that!

Thanks for the idea though! Right now we're really in need of Romulan turrets! The ones from the old Armada game wouldn't convert to OBJ cleanly and are serving as a guide for Stargazer to model new ones, but anything that we don't have to model gives us more time to do things like make the AI work for more than just the Federation :P

[TON_Viper]

Viper, didn't you help me with the texture dirt?

Nah, wasn't me. I didn't have texture experience back then.

[CMDBob]

Nathanius, I've managed to cleanly extract the Star Trek Armada 2 Romulan Turrets and fix them up (as they had some holes on the underside). If you want, I can send you an archive with the models in OBJ format.

[Nathanius]

That would be fantastic! Are the MTL files intact as well? I have to admit that someone who is "bad" at texturing is still lightyears ahead of me, so I need those too.

Can you send it through this forum? Or a link in Mediafire or some similar site? That's extremely helpful thank you!

[CMDBob]

I can send em ya with the MTL files, no problem. I'm glad I can help, I'm a massive Trek fan myself.

The turrets are in there, with the MTL file. I'm gonna assume you have Star Trek Armada.
http://www.mediafire.com/?bqf9d7omi8fbt8q

[herbyguitar]

I can help with textures after My present project is updated. I just need to touch up a few maps and re-do a couple of others. I don't have a lot of time to devote but it shouldn't take more than a few days to get caught up.

[CMDBob]

Huh, my post hasn't appeared. Hmm, I'll PM you the link Nathanius.

[Nathanius]

Thank you Charvell! Take your time, we're not running to any particular deadline.

CMDBob, turrets received! Thank you! They're just the ticket

[CMDBob]

Always happy to help. If you need any more models extracting or anything like that, just ask me.

[herbyguitar]

Nathanius, Can we use bump maps?

[Nathanius]

We're using Shader 2 so yes, we can and we do! There are only a couple of ships with bump maps at the moment though, the Klingon Starbase being the biggest and most easily seen example.

[Ragnarokx]

Looks awesome, keep up the GREEEEAT work.

[Nathanius]

Here is a little progress from the Thruster department, including Charvell's B'rel as it already had a nice and easy already seperate thruster material group and texture!

[yokozuna]

Do you guys plan on making the backgrounds more bright? They are predominantly black and it`s difficult to see ship details. And yeah I know space is black and not every system is in a nebula

[Nathanius]

Background are notoriously difficult to get right, while I would like to do more maps there isn't really a huge chance of it. However we're of course more than happy to accept well made, trek themed community maps if anyone wants to donate one or more

[TON_Viper]

Feel free to include the backgrounds I've made for the Babylon 5 mod. Stuff like the Orion Nebula and Eagle Nebula are just as valid for Star Trek as they are for Babylon 5. That said, I should really get around to adding stars to that Eagle Nebula background. Let me know if you want to use it, I can finish it up quickly if you want it.

[Nathanius]

If I had my way I would replace the planets we have with the ones in the B5 mod too

Unfortunately since we've already made our beta release even if that was shared it would mess up the "feel" of the mod that we've got going now! But yes, those backgrounds! That's incredibly generous of you TON_Viper! I think the Deep Space map could benefit from the Orion Nebula even though it's specifically there to show off the glows of the ships and the specific deepness and darkness of space

Please do finish up the Eagle Nebula background... it's an amazing one!

Should the need arise any of the maps in the Star Trek mod are available to you as well, and all of the backgrounds are free use from the OpenCore mod! I'm 99.9% certain you know how to write a ReadMe

[yokozuna]

Well even a noob (me) can initiate something good in this forum

[TON_Viper]

As long as we're throwing credit around, CnlPepper did the sun flares in the Babylon 5 mod, so he should be credited too for the backgrounds that include a sun like star.

----------

The Eagle Nebula background has now been updated on the Babylon 5 mod SVN. I added the stars and tweaked the lighting. Let me know what you think. I'm considering adding a local star like in many of the other backgrounds to justify making the light more white, as I fear the main light may be too yellow as it is now.

Let me know if you want it tweaked, and I'll get it done.

[Nathanius]

I'll update and have a look now, I've just credited you for the Orion Nebula so far, is that correct?

Thanks for this mate

And thank you Yokozuna for starting this trail of conversation :P

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APPENDED NOTES:

I just swapped out the Eagle Nebula on the Deep Space map and it's looking pretty awesome! The map was far too empty of course, but that wasn't to do with the background :P

I like how you've got the blue and the gold light sources, but if you're worried it's a bit much you're wrong! I would acutally add a green light source, in that patch of nebula at the top of the background's sphere, to make it even more colourful! It's supposed to be a thing of beauty and the different colours on the ships would help to immerse them further into that environment, that and a few hundred well coloured and placed dust clouds