Inquisition Daemonhunt for DOW Pro (Attributes Available!)

**archivist** · 18th Dec 11 5:56 AM

Important Notice

To clarify the title of this thread: This is a presentation of an (almost finished) private project that implements the famous Inquisition Daemonhunt mod into Dow Pro 3.59. Obviously this mod is not downloadable since I'm not the owner of the IDH assets. I made this thread because I'm curious what you people think about it. If this project is received well some more interesting steps may or may not be taken:

1. Releasing only the attributes with install instructions to make it work with the assets of IDH Soulstorm beta release (in line with Compilers statement in Dawn of Coalescense thread)
2. Looking for help to further improve the mod.

Me and DowPro

I'm not affiliated to the DowPro or IDH mod teams and I'am also not affiliated to the unofficial inquisition addon for DowPro. I'm just a hobbyist, forum lurker and 3d artwork admirer. I'm not competitive by nature and not very interested in multiplayer gaming. My interest in DowPro seems therefore rather strange because its main purpose is to turn DOW in a more advanced and balanced multiplayer game. However to me Dowpro feels much better than vanilla DOW in singleplayer too and over the years I have become so adjusted to its mechanics that I simply cannot enjoy any new race if it is not 'dowproified'. Consequently I wanted to have this mod so badly I decided to do it myself. Especially since it was already clear to me years ago that otherwise this was not going to happen.

State of the project

The project is finished except that I can't get the AI working and it needs further playtesting/balancing. It could also use a few icon improvements but nothing major. All Dowpro gamemechanics are implemented.

Overall Vision

I wanted to make a very pure conversion so the race is completely built from the IDH assets only, there is no remixing with assets from other races or FOK assets. I wanted the mod to respect both the visions of the original IDH mod and the DOWPro mod so that it can appeal to fans of both. For that purpose I needed to combine two visions:

1. The vision that IDH is a turtling race that needs to survive with a great lack of vehicles until the later tiers to unleash its true power
2. The vision that in DowPRo the early tiers are also very important and a great variation in squads with different roles is needed within them.

These two visions seem contradictory but I think I still managed. In IDH Pro GK and Gk dreadnoughts are still only available after inquisition tribunal and temporal power. Since the SM get dreads earlier the IDH dreads are considered 'venerable' dreads and therefore stronger. The most significant changes are done in the earlier tiers to create the variation in different roles DOWPro requires. Thanks to the enormous wealth in unit variation in the command squads of the IDH mod this didn't prove to be very difficult. These are the most important changes in the early tiers:

1. Scholars are seperated from the command squad and recruitable in tier 1 as eary harassment close combat squads
2. Scholars can be upgraded with an acolyte leader to remain useful in tier 2
3. The command squad will be recruitable in tier 2 with 5 leader types
4. Bodyguards can infiltrate after researches
5. Maintenance servitors are more potent combat units in tier 2
4. Weapon Servitors (Ranged) are added as new squad type in tier 2

Wargear

There are 8 upgrades equivalent to DOwPro wargear upgrades, but 6 of them are actually psychic power upgrades that also boost the stats of the inquisitor and the GK commander. Obviously this is done because the IDH assets did not allow visible wargear upgrades with the exception of a plasma pistol and Daemon hammer for the inquisitor. If the current system proves unsatisfactory another option would be to replace some wargear upgrades with litany researches that have equivalent effects. For the tech tree i was able to use as much as possible IDH icons, there is a very small amount of SM placeholder icons currently in use (since DOwPro really has a huge amount of researches). The techtree is significantly changed to match the tech trees of Dow pro races. The icons may represent something else than they did in the original IDH mod but they are still appropriate.

Detailed Overview with Screenshots

tier 1

Tier 2

Tier 3 & 4

Download and Install Instructions

Link (attributes only!)
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?1ua9m89m8j0et4a

Quite simple to install really:

1. Install Dowpro for SS 3.59
2. Install inquisition daemonhunt for SS beta2
3. Extract the module file and folder in your Soulstorm folder
4. Activate the module IDH Pro Beta 090

Known Issues

-His sacred word isn't working properly, I'm evaluating the whole wargear
system so this will be solved later.
-Hotkeys aren't optimized.
-AI isn't entirely stable (no problems when playing vs other races).
-English is the only available UCS language

Credits

I only did lua coding for this mod, all graphical materials shown in the screenshots are made by Compiler and his team
The AI code is based on a framework set up by Thudmeizer and Arkhan.

**Hollow** · 18th Dec 11 7:37 AM

Hello archivist; I apreciate all your effort, however I do not understand the reasons of this mod for several reasons:

1 - There will be an official Inquisition race for the next release, which includes the full potential and fully adapted to the metagame of the mod.

2 - The "unnoficial" feeling, which it hasn´t been endorsed neither from the IDH team leader (compiler) and from the DoWPro mod (Korbah), which will make to raise problems in terms of utilisation.

3 - The already problems of balance there will be as including this "race" to the whole roster. Keep in mind that this mod is built all around 9/10 races maximum; from these races all of them have to play differently, and in the case of the Inquisition race I designed, it really plays different without beign a Marine Equivalent race or similar.

I understand that you are a hardcore fan of this race (so do I), but I don´t see any sense in making this, no offense; as there is already something finished, and almost prepared to launch in.

**Jaimas** · 18th Dec 11 7:57 AM

I likewise have to question the purpose of this additional mod, especially given, as Hollow said, that the Inquisition faction (the official version for DOWPRO) is almost completed. I do appreciate the additional effort, and this is a noble attempt, good archivist, but other than maybe testing and playing around with content that isn't quite here yet, I don't see much of a purpose behind this mod.

Still, I think you did a reasonable job, but I second Hollow's concerns on this one.

**Jaguar-Lord** · 18th Dec 11 8:28 AM

reasons for this mod?......since when do we welcome PRIVATE modding project in this way?

because he feels like doing it! there's no other reason and there's no need for another reason.
it is his legitimate right to do whatever he pleased and as he said it : Obviously this mod is not downloadable

so since it is not downloadable and only resides in the guy hdd there's no

The "unnoficial" feeling, which it hasn´t been endorsed neither from the IDH team leader (compiler) and from the DoWPro mod (Korbah), which will make to raise problems in terms of utilisation.

theres no problem with the IDH modding as far as the mod IDH is called upon by the new mod, an AE only mod is not a problem. but since it is not downloadable yet..;well ....end of argument.

why getting that hard on Archivist? he is not stepin' on anyone's toes .

seriously guys i'm amazed by your reaction. this is not "kind".

**Hollow** · 18th Dec 11 8:34 AM

Ah, no; don´t take me wrong JL. I didn´t say these things out of beign furious or pissed - quite the contrary, I am pleased with these things; yet...it´s hard to explain, when you spent a lot of time modding into something unique and although theres noble people´s work behind this, it just feels like your original work is not worth at all.

It is not a problem when its a private mod, of course not, but having an official work which will be released in time, it just makes things not just harder, but makes questions.

Overall I repeat, I welcome these things.

**thudmeizer** · 18th Dec 11 9:50 AM

You do of course realize if Compiler sees this? He will shut you down real fast, bro.

But.. if this is PRIVATE endeavour not for public use then thats fine.

Anyway, I am committed to getting IDH out this week to coincide with the 4 year anniversary for the original DC launch of IDH.

**Cylarne_04** · 18th Dec 11 10:01 AM

Anyway, I am committed to getting IDH out this week to coincide with the 4 year anniversary for the original DC launch of IDH.

Congrats.

**archivist** · 18th Dec 11 10:29 AM

Thank you for your responses. I don't mind some strong arguments because it helps a good discussion. I have presented this clearly as a private project because I realize I am a newcomer to the Dow modding scene and I didn't want to create any doubts about permissions. I know that sometimes these things can evolve in useless pagelong discussions and forum drama. This won't happen here. I also found it a good idea to show some patience releasing only attributes to get an idea about peoples minds toward this first. If people are really not interested I might just as well go my own way. This mod is btw compatible with your addon and also easy to install without the assets.

1 - There will be an official Inquisition race for the next release, which includes the full potential and fully adapted to the metagame of the mod.

I know and I thank you for creating it, because I have been using a self modified version of it for a while that has the ordo malleus branch switched off. In the end I kept working on this mod because I simply like the IDH more than the SOB from Ironlore.

2 - The "unnofficial" feeling, which it hasn´t been endorsed neither from the IDH team leader (compiler) and from the DoWPro mod (Korbah), which will make to raise problems in terms of utilisation.

People can impossibly endorse something they don't know exists, now they soon know it exists they can choose to endorse it, simply accept it, rate it 'mediocre' or reject it. From the perspective of a player I don't think it matter much whether something is called unofficial or official. They just like what they have or don't.

3 - The already problems of balance there will be as including this "race" to the whole roster. Keep in mind that this mod is built all around 9/10 races maximum; from these races all of them have to play differently, and in the case of the Inquisition race I designed, it really plays different without beign a Marine Equivalent race or similar.

I am aware of Korbahs standpoint on the uniqueness of races. At least I can say this mod is not less different from the SM as Chaos is different from the SM. For myself I don't care much about how different races are, I just try to make them as different as possible nonetheless. I fail to see how your mod is so much different: You gave the sisters heavy armor so they are just a bunch of space marines, the penitent engine is a dreadnought, the exorcist is a basilisk, the immolater is a predator with a gun missing and the rhino is a rhino. (To make clear: all these arguments are problematic from your perspective not mine, I find them different enough).

**Hollow** · 18th Dec 11 10:38 AM

I fail to see how your mod is so much different: You gave the sisters heavy armor so they are just a bunch of space marines, the penitent engine is a dreadnought, the exorcist is a basilisk, the immolater is a predator with a gun missing and the rhino is a rhino. (To make clear: all these arguments are problematic from your perspective not mine, I find them different enough)

I have no clue which version you played, but so far, the actual Sisters play a bit different from Space Marines: Armor-wise, they are heavy infantry indeed (they use power armor), they do however, have less hitpoints and two different abilities which sets them appart from the standard marines (the flamer and the heavy bolter are obviously there).

- Phosphor grenades, you know them already.
- Divine Retribution which grants a little advantage in range combat for a short time.

Not to mention that they use a special weapon, a blessed bolter which is good against vehicles, setting again another line from the Space Marines. And also these abilties require Faith/Zeal points in order to use them, which is yet another different line.

**archivist** · 18th Dec 11 11:08 AM

I have no clue which version you played, but so far, the actual Sisters play a bit different from Space Marines: Armor-wise, they are heavy infantry indeed (they use power armor), they do however, have less hitpoints and two different abilities which sets them appart from the standard marines (the flamer and the heavy bolter are obviously there).

- Phosphor grenades, you know them already.
- Divine Retribution which grants a little advantage in range combat for a short time.

Not to mention that they use a special weapon, a blessed bolter which is good against vehicles, setting again another line from the Space Marines. And also these abilties require Faith/Zeal points in order to use them, which is yet another different line.

I played your final beta. To clarify my point: I would rate all the differences you mention here as 'small differences'. I am sure you could mention hundreds of them comparing your SOB with SM, but I can also mention hundreds of 'small differences' between my IDH build and the SM. A 'big difference' is for me is how the necrons work in DowPro for example. In my opinion faith doesn't really produce that big a difference and the SOB race as a whole is not more different from the SM as Chaos is different from the SM. I would only rate the necrons more different to the SM, but in my opinion not all races need to be that special!. I personally consider DOWpro a much better strategy game than DOW Vanilla and therefore I want to adapt new races to it so I can really enjoy playing them! For that purpose they don't need to be so special as necrons.

**Hollow** · 18th Dec 11 11:10 AM

I get your points :P. In any case I would be very please if you kindly would help to further give the final touches of the mod before even Korbah sees this (considering he is not of course). I will also have something between hands from which I will need more than just a couple of hands, PM if you would be interested by any chance

.

**Gorb** · 18th Dec 11 12:05 PM

Originally Posted by thudmeizer

You do of course realize if Compiler sees this? He will shut you down real fast, bro.

But.. if this is PRIVATE endeavour not for public use then thats fine.

Anyway, I am committed to getting IDH out this week to coincide with the 4 year anniversary for the original DC launch of IDH.

He states that it is a private endeavour; this is incredibly clear. I'm not sure why you bother saying compiler will shut him down, then say if it's private it's fine . . . you should already know that it's private

**archivist** · 18th Dec 11 12:22 PM

I get your points :P. In any case I would be very please if you kindly would help to further give the final touches of the mod before even Korbah sees this (considering he is not of course).

Regarding final touches I think I should mention a small problem I'm having in case a more experienced AI coder passes by to give me a hint, this is basically the only thing I'm still trying to fix before I would call the mod finished (except for balance/playtesting):

After 'dowproifying' the techtree and unit stats I noticed to my surprise the IDH ai was still basically working. My plan was to optimize it by adjusting all the tables in the unitstats and defaultbasebuilding ai files. But before even doing that I noticed that when I moved the whole inquisiton_race ai folder from the IDH mod into the dowpro ai/races folder the AI stopped working (becoming completely inactive) and I don't understand why?

**ArkhanTheBlack** · 18th Dec 11 1:43 PM

DowPro has a more advanced AI version than DOS AI 3.2.
It's kind of a 3.4 version now and requires changes in the race AI's too.

**archivist** · 18th Dec 11 2:38 PM

DowPro has a more advanced AI version than DOS AI 3.2.
It's kind of a 3.4 version now and requires changes in the race AI's too.

I understand significant improvements need to be made in the races folder, but I cannot find the missing link that causes
the AI going from 'suboptimally active' to 'completely inactive' when it is moved from the DOS3.2 Ai folder to the Dowpro ai folder. I was thinking it should be related to the loaders but I can't find anything missing in the IDH loader. My idea is if I can make it active again I can slowly adapt the inquisition_daemonhunt_race folder to make the AI function more optimally. Do you have an idea which file I should take a look at to make this happen?

**ArkhanTheBlack** · 18th Dec 11 2:49 PM

The main changes are in the strategyinfo.ai files. Check out the BuildOrderStrategyInfo section.
In the DowPro AI each build program has it's own fixed build order.
Before, the build orders were independent from the build programs, which wasn't as efficient as it is now.

**archivist** · 18th Dec 11 3:24 PM

I compared daemonhuntstrategyinfo.ai with marinestrategyinfo.ai (from dowpro) but both files seem to have exactly the same structure. daemonhuntstrategyinfo.ai also defines buildorders starting with 3 flag captures under 'BuildOrderStrategyInfo'. It doesn't look like the cause of the problem. Perhaps I should mention the game doesn't crash or give an execution error, the architect builder is just standing still.

**Ogra_Chief** · 18th Dec 11 5:55 PM

Congrats. I salute you, as most mods; even rebalance ones are rarely completed. Good job.

**ArkhanTheBlack** · 19th Dec 11 11:58 AM

Old BuildOrderStrategyInfo blocks start with Basic, QuickStart and LargeMap - the new ones have just one block for each build program without a signature.
If it does't crash, you can activate the AI logs and check out why the AI isn't doing anything.

**archivist** · 19th Dec 11 12:45 PM

If it does't crash, you can activate the AI logs and check out why the AI isn't doing anything.

OMG, that's an incredibly good idea, I didn't know these logs existed

Thanks!

EDIT: You were right by the way, thanks to the log I finally noticed the difference between -- and =. The AI seems to do a very nice job already, it could really play for equal to hours of human playtime with the SM before they were finally crushed.

**archivist** · 24th Dec 11 4:50 AM

I have got the AI working to the extent that it uses all units and upgrades the pop cap properly, it doesn't seem entirely stable however. Sometimes it gets through a whole game and sometimes it crashes for unclear reasons. Nonetheless I feel I should not let you people wait much longer to try this out, after all the AI isn't really needed for that purpose. I was hoping the final IDH would be released before christmas so I can make my attribs compatible with it from the start. If it gets delayed I think I should release the attributes closely after christmas, it would be a pity to miss the holiday season.

**archivist** · 27th Dec 11 7:00 AM

Allright I have released the attributes in the first post, a few things you should know about playing the race:

-Aside from regular researches, building heavy duty teleporters also increase support cap.
-like the necrons, wargear upgrades are not in the HQ building.
-Since the IDH don't really have an armory building researches are divided between librarium and inquisition watch (placed where they seem most appropriate).
-Inq henchmen and stormtroopers/servitors have seperated HP and Targeter upgrades (overall the race needs to do a similar research effort as other races)

-Space marines have the grey knights replaced by deathwatch veterans with same stats

Inquisition Daemonhunt for DOW Pro (Attributes Available!)

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