Homeworld 2 Complex 8.4.3

[HX45]

In fact, a ship can crash in a cloaked ship. It happened to me once, I was quite surprised, but not as surprised as my friend when his battlecruiser collided with my cloacked carrier, making both ships to explode and saving my tulwar frigate squadron from a dangerous fight .

For custom maps, you can extract the Complex .big file content, add maps, and recompile it using Archive Tool from the RDN.
Notice all players must download your new .big file to play. 40MB is a bit large so you may want to compile your maps in a distinct .big file, and launch game using
Homeworld2.exe -mod Complex.big,CustomMaps.big
With this you'd only need to send CustomMaps.big, which would be less large, to other players.

[Draconica]

Ssweeeeeeet. Thats awsome. I'll give that a spin
I get a bit bored with maps that don't have some kind of 'space-terrain' to make the game more involved maneuvering wise.

[WGAnubis]

Yeah I have to agree, im kinda hoping some maps like from the campain end up in 6.0 or future releases. Fighting in open space is cool and all, but really it makes using the Z axis pointless.

[Dragonfury]

Heh ships running into each other lol I remember in the orginal homeworld the ships did that... was really a draw back seeing as I had a massive amount of ships. It's interesting to see that once more

[WGAnubis]

Ive started playing as Vager and noticed, that dispite the fact that they seem to have to research more, they tend to get ships sent out faster. Is this intentional or is balance still being worked on?

[Draconica]

Well, the Vagyr even before the complex mod tended to 'appear' more expensive on research upgrades. This was misleading however, as Hiigaran have to research 'individual' ship type upgrades, where as Vagyr upgrades affect an entire category of ship. So the Vagyr are in fact faster to research and cheaper overall. The Hiigaran make up for this in that they get more overall upgrades.

Now introduce 'complex'. The Hiigaran have been the lovechild of this mod, and the focus of the majority of the 'toys'; fun stuff, the most research upgrades and tweaks.
This was done, as in the original game, the Vagyr were by far at an advantage in a players hands do to the speed at which they could race up the technology tree.

The gap has only widened with the advent of additional 'complexing' of the game. Mainly because the Hiigaran have gotten all the tweaking to be more complex. And though the Vagyr have access to the same technologies, they can easily complete 100% of their research tree in a game. I have NEVER completed the research in Hiigaran, or even complete the tree in every type of Hiigaran ship I would use up and through the end game.

This disparity leads to a multiplayer game where both players are equally skilled, the Vagyr will hands down stomp the Hiigaran easily. So generally, in a multiplayer game..either let the least experienced player run Vagyr, OR make sure that all players are picking the same race.

Hopefully in time, Beghins will be able to adjust the Vagyr in such a way that they don't lose their trademark 'style' of play/advancement, but still 'complex' them the way the Hiigaran are, so that they progress slower than they do now, and share some of the inhibitive weaknesses of the Hiigaran fleet (Namely a dependance on seperate ships to house Crew module.) - Losing a research ship hurts, but losing a Crew Station mid/late in the game can be crippling. That, and 'crew' pods, give away the location of your fleet, or Crew Station in the event of maneuvering to stay out of your enemies sights.

I love the Vagyr myself, but find I only play Hiigaran these days to keep things challanging. Try playing Vagyr versus Hiigarn CPUs.... Then Try Hiigaran vs Vagyr CPUs... you'll see what I'm talking about. You can regularly take 1-2 more expert CPUs playing Vagyr vs Hiigaran. When playing Hiigaran vs Vagyr however, you'll get a very rude beat down playing the same numbers.

I'm very much looking forward to seeing the Vagyr complexified to bring them into even standing with the Hiigaran. Which can be done without weakening their fleet. Just need to put a few technology roadblocks/complexities into the research tree.

Well, my thoughts anyway

[WGAnubis]

Definitely looking forward to seeing what the vayger get when the Hargains are done.

One thing that I thought of that might be an interesting technology to be added is the ability to reverse engineer your oppoents technology.

Say the Haragains want a hyperspace gate, they dispatch a resource collector to drag one to the mothership, in it goes, and after the amount of resources being taken out that it would have cost to get that technology in all its current upgrades, you get to build your own. I always thought it odd that in the homeworld 2 campain, you were never given the option to reverse enginneer your own hyperspace gates when they can only send destroyers and below threw them.

[WGAnubis]

A dud cruise missle:
Started playing as Vayger to see what their tech tree is like. I see destroyer group coming to me so I build a few cruise missiles aim and fire. I think to myself 'Man these things are huge, bet they are going to make a dent' missile hits, and the health goes down the slightest amount! I fire the rest, thinking it was a mistake, same outcome. Whats more, one of them missed its mark and spent its time flying around its target being taken out. Did I miss a step or is the cruise missile bugged?

Hyperspace gate a bigger target then mother ship:
The AI seems to class hyperspace gates as a larger threat then the mothership. I found this out when I had moved my refineries to the roof of the map and put a gate next to it and linked it to my shipyard site, in the off hand I had to move my fighters. Anyway about 10 minutes later the AI comes over with alot of firepower, I move my refinieriest threw the gate and they destroy the gate. I build another one and move it to the other side of the map. Ten minutes later the AI is at the second gate and the process repeats. All this time not a single ship is sent to the mothership to attack it.

Promotion handycap?
There seems to be a natural handycap in rank promotion when playing as Vayger, is this on purpose? The AI tends to get to the higher rank then I dispite the fact that I have more RU and research going on and that I win every engagement. In the end this prevents me from ever becoming the last rank.


Question:
Does the AI track where my mothership is? I had devised an idea of having the mothership and fleet constantly moving around the map in parade. My thinking was that it would make it infinitly harder on the AI to come after me as I figured sence im not in the same place twice. The plan met with limited success. The AI kept finding me (I had peppered my side of the map with probes and could watch the enemy fleet movements), however ussually by the time they were in firing range my mothership and fleet were passed them and managed to avoid being pulled into a dogfight, leaving that to the more combat inclined ships and fighers. This seemed to work for keeping my carriars (which dont seem to have any firepower) and mothership just out of harms way.

Does the sensor destortion probe work on the AI? How exactly does it work?

Finally the defense sheild. I was attacking the haragin mothership and it put up its sheild, I had already taken out its ion cannon (which had taken out one of my battle cruisers) but when it deployed the sheild, I guess one of the ships was in the bubble and instantly blew up. Is this by accident or design?

[shadow51689]

Cruise missiles have always been that way, big, make lots of noise... and that's about it... Tango mines also miss their target as often, although I haven't used them in recent versions.

The higher level AI definitely seem to spontaneously generate honor, I guess to give them an edge over players.

As for the AI, you forget that they pretty much ARE the game. They know where all of your stuff is at all times, even if they are programmed not to act as so. Really, sensor distorting and cloaking is for use by the Ai against you, or by other players.

And for the defense field, I've never noticed it causing damage. Are you sure it wasn't a collision? (I learned the hard way to fear collisions the other day, when a group of my BC's were flying backwards to get away from a Juggernaught explosion, and backed straight into my Flagship... Insta-death for my Flagship, yet the BC was hardly scratched lol)

[DJ Die]

true yeah it was surely collision
because for example bombers can enter def field and fry your subsystems damned buggers...

[Draconica]

Perhaps the cruise missiles are set to only do their appropriate damage against ships larger than destroyers?
Destroyers are 'capital' class, but still on the smaller side.
Cruisers could be more of an anti BC/Jugg utility. I guess we'll need to test that.

The way the computer 'knows' where to find you does piss me off on occasion. But none the less it doesn't save them. And besides, you can pull tricks like using small scouts to 'lure' enemy strike forces into chasing them to where you have your strongest force situated. (particularly good when they are heading for an unprotected resourcing op) Not a tactic I use often, as its a blatant abuse of AI...but good to keep in mind.

Lastly...when using Vagyr, have you tried rushing your mothership against the Hiigaran after you pop your first carrier out? ... then build your Shipyard midway to the enemy. The idea is to engage the enemy with your improved mothership defenses, and power disrupter. And Destroyers from your mothership, Battle cruisers from your shipyard, and frigates from your carrier.

One on One, this seems to net a very very hard to stop strat. At least vs a computer. (though I probably ought to re-test the viability of this, as I've been playing Hiigaran pretty exclusively being the harder side to win with)

Lemme know if any of that works out for you

[shadow51689]

I've tried them on BC's with pretty much the same results. Don't think I've used them on MS\Flagships, or the Juggernaught yet however.

Yep, and another thing I like to do is slaughter an AI's resource op, leaving one poor collector to limp back to his main base\carrier. :devil: Who needs scouts when I have collectors I can pick on?

[WGAnubis]

If anything the Cruise missles should be vastly surpior to the other races missiles, 4 viper missiles should equal 1 cruise missile to be exact. 4 viper missiles can take out a destroyer, 6 for a juggernaught, and considering the cruise missile is 4 times as big as the viper missiles it only makes further sence.

[XR3]

Howdy folks, was wondering if anyone could tell me why my game keeps crashing, actually it doesn't really crash. The game just freezes and my mouse pointer reverts to the desktop pointer. At this point I am unable to do anything. The lock keys still work and if I press any button, I can hear the desktop beep but the game is completely frozen on my screen. Ctrl+alt+ delete doesn’t work nor any combination of other keys. So I’m forced to hardboot which pretty much sucks considering that I invest several hours into each game. Any help would be really appreciated since I haven't been able to actually finish a single game so far. Thanks in advance.

[Homdax]

Does your HW2 game work normally without Complex?
If not, please review the Support threads located here
http://forums.relicnews.com/forumdisplay.php?f=14

[XR3]

My original homworld 2 works just fine, it has never crashed/frozen on me since I got the game. This problem only seems to be with the mod so far, I'd appreciate any help.

[cozza2053]

hey i downloaded the 5.5 mod how do i install it?

[WGAnubis]

I think I found a bug with the core. My mother ship was destroyed but before that had happened I had moved the core to another area of the map. When it blew up and I clicked on rebuild mother ship however I did not have enough funds. Didnt get the mother ship and the option to build it again dissapeared. When I manged to get enough funds I tried again, and luckly the option came back. However the core dissapeared and the mother ship did not return, however I did get the mother ship window and it told me it was in the center of the map and had build options. clicking on them didnt do anything. Seeing as I had been defeated I just quit that game.

[Draconica]

WGAnubis:
Hmm.. I know my friends have gotten the core to work in the older versions of the game. I haven't tried in in the new revisions however, so afraid I don't have any advice for that particular bug.

Cozza2053:
Try unzipping the files, then open and follow the instructions in the readme file.

XR3:
Maybe try setting the HW2.log file to read only, then apply it. Rerun the game after that, may fix it. If not, you'll probably need to post the error log (via debug mode if I remember correctly) to the forums for the real admins to look at

[WGAnubis]

Thought id update the situation with the cruise and viper missiles. I tried useing a few viper missiles one at a time on an ion destroyer, get the feel for it to see how many it takes to kill one. Well a problem arised where the viper missiles werent doing any damage by themselves. After a few minutes though of not firing them one at a time they worked again.

[Gotcha]

Mebbe it's just my comp but I think I've spotted a problem with the Remote Monitor. This doesn't happen (doesn't seem to happen) with every game, but I get different issues:

- last game I've played the Remote Monitor (after loading a saved game) displayed 3 "CP3" opponents. Not CpU1, CPU2, CPU3, but CPU3, CPU3, CPU3, all with the same name (default user's name on my comp).

- every now and then, at the end of a game, the Remote Monitor displays opponents that have been destroyed, just as if it had forgotten to remove them from the list. So you think there's still at least one opponent to fight, but there's none left in reality. After a few moments you get the "Your fleet is victorious" message, but only after you've wasted time looking for opponents that don't exist anymore.

Uh? :hmm:

[shadow51689]

Was testing some stuff so I'd re-enabled the Hw2.log file and forgot to put it back to read-only, and started a game of Complex. I got the following fatal error an hour or so into the game.

   1:  function `sobgroups' at line 193 [string ""] 
 Ship Hgn_CrewStation has no parade formation! Make sure it has one. -- FATAL EXIT -- paradecommand/295:! --stack trace-- 0x00647317: getLibraryID                                () 0x0064761C: getLibraryID                                () 0x0045F919: GSLobbySessionDesc::operator=               () 0x0045136D: GSLobbySessionDesc::operator=               () 0x0060ADDF: getLibraryID                                ()

Hopefully it'll help iron out one of the few remaining crash bugs.

[beghins]

Ciao,

Complex is on ModDB for the mod of the year, so if you want vote for it follow this link, thanks, Beghins.

http://mods.moddb.com/7857/homeworld-2-complex/

[Homdax]

Voted. Twice...but what is that c**p about guest voters...
Did they ever heard of IP-based polls?

[Shooter_1_]

this mod being played online to any extent?

I mean, when I hop on the online I hardly see people playing hw2 in the first place...

[surfinsofaspud]

Well I solved my own problem... nm... (I re-aquainted myself with the search function )


The mod is AWESOME!! (sorry 'bout yelling)

it's true...

I got owned... easily...quickly... but it's a great mod!!


---thanx

[shadow51689]

Ciao,

Complex is on ModDB for the mod of the year, so if you want vote for it follow this link, thanks, Beghins.

http://mods.moddb.com/7857/homeworld-2-complex/

Done.

Voted. Twice...but what is that c**p about guest voters...
Did they ever heard of IP-based polls?

Hmm... I could only vote once?

[Homdax]

I have two conns...which means two IP's.

[Sobani Exile]

can u add more mega ships like sajuuk or the dreadnaught plz or maybe a palnet killer plus wen will v6.5 be out



i a fan of complex do not die i salute u!

[heuristic13]

Howdy folks, was wondering if anyone could tell me why my game keeps crashing, actually it doesn't really crash. The game just freezes and my mouse pointer reverts to the desktop pointer. At this point I am unable to do anything. The lock keys still work and if I press any button, I can hear the desktop beep but the game is completely frozen on my screen. Ctrl+alt+ delete doesn’t work nor any combination of other keys. So I’m forced to hardboot which pretty much sucks considering that I invest several hours into each game.

I am encountering the exact same problem with a save game using Complex 5.5. This never happened with Complex 3.0 nor HW2. I'm about 1.5 hours into the game with this save game. It's either because I had to save the game and it never loads properly, or because of something Im doing in the game.

I've been able to reproduce the problem 3 times (this situation occurs seemingly based on my actions - not the amount of time after loading the save game): load 3 small groups of fighters/corvettes onto a carrier ("stay docked" activated) bringing the total number of small craft up to 19 in the carrier's hangar bay. Direct the carrier having an Anti-Radiation subsystem into a radioactive nebulae with a Destroyer and group of Frigates escorting/guarding. Construct a Capital Ship Facility on my shipyard, and the Manufacturing and Repair System subsystems on the shipyard. Once the Carrier arrives, press the 'L' key to view the launch panel. Pressing L causes the crash. I know that if I hit 'L' immediately after loading up the carrier to 19 ships works fine. Based on my stats, Im being promoted to Captain (or whatever is at 126 honor) during this sequence. There are no battles in progress.

This all occurs within the first 5 minutes of gameplay.

Instead of doing a hardboot, I do a Windows Restart using the keyboard equivalents - Start Menu key, up arrow, enter, 'R' key.

Heuristic

Ok, I narrowed the cause of the problem down to 1 action I am doing to cause the crash: flying my Carrier into the radioactive nebulae and pressing the 'L' key. If I don't do that, I can continue playing the game for another 0.5 hours or more. It isn't the center nebulae, it one of the ones on the outside.

Im playing the Bentus Flat Nebula map. Anyone able to debug this map?

Heuristic

[XR3]

Glad to know that it's not my puter that's messing up. Hopefully there's gonna be a fix one of these days.

[heuristic13]

I also noticed that my fighters and corvettes received damage while held in the hangar bay of my carrier while they were inside of the radioactive nebulae. The only way I was able to notice this was by clicking on the Launch button - instead of pressing the 'L' key. I could watch the health bars deplete from each and once empty the ship would disappear, never launching from the carrier.

So to continue with my original strategy, I launched all ships (& enabled auto-launch) prior to entering the nebulae and kept all 19 ships close to the carrier as she made her way across. Even resource collectors built from that carrier would receive a fraction of damage when launching after being constructed - enough for the verbal announcement "collector taking damage" or something like that.

Heuristic

[Iguana]

I have a Question: is complex only a multiplayer game or it habe a single player too????
^^

[Kendrick]

Has any one tried running complex on 2k3 server? I can play other mods just fine complex CTD's and leaves a minidump

hw2 patched, no-cd programs not in use. updated drivers.

[heuristic13]

I have a Question: is complex only a multiplayer game or it habe a single player too????

Yes, Complex runs very well at multiplayer. I've usually played Complex 3.0 multiplayer. Haven't tried 5.

Heuristic

[Iguana]

O S**t I have seen a lot of pics and it looks realy cool... If it only have a single player mode...
Well thanks for all!! ^^

[Kendrick]

I just found if I go in to the audio panel it crashes the game gona try some different audio drivers etc.

[Carl]

I tried this last night, only got a couple of games so bear that in mind. Also I DID enjoy the mod, so my next set of complaints are best taken in light of that.

1. Flak Frigates and Gunship Corvettes are HORIFFICLY overpowered ATM, they just do far too much damage to Frigate and Capital Class vessels despite supposedly being weak against them. I had 6 Squadrons of Gunship Corvettes strip a 1/3 of the health off both my Research Ship and my Mothership, as well as kill half my Recourses before the MS guns could kill them, (it was my first game and I wasn't expecting such an aggressive attack). What bothers me the most about that is the speed at which they did all that damage, most of my frigate battles lasted longer than that battle did.

Likewise, in Frigate vs. Frigate battles I found forces of 10 Flak Frigates giving me all kinds of headaches because they could so easily rip apart vast numbers of my frigates before i could kill them. This wouldn't have been a problem if all I’d been using where Flak and Torpedo Frigates, but when mixed forces of 5 Flak Frigates, 5 Ion Frigates, and 5 Sniper Frigates are suffering 5 dead to 10 Flak Frigates and a couple of Bomber squadrons it's a bit much, (no one had any upgrades as far as i could tell BTW).

2. The Honour system needs a serious look at IMHO. Right now the amount of Honour Battle can give you (compared to other sources), is FAR too high. It basically forces you to rush hard or be rushed in turn and lose as they out rank you. I'm something of a cautious player, I won't start a major battle until I’ve got a decent balanced force, something I can't achieve until I’ve got the second research module up. Thus I’m pushed into a turtling Hard Tech strategy to compete. I'm not a turtler by nature, but I don't rush either. The units available initially are, IMHO, nothing more than raider units. Since the MS hull guns are so strong I see no point in trying to raid with any of them except against isolated recourse operations, but in the time it would take me to build a raiding fleet and get it to my enemy I could hard tech to Ion and Sniper Frigates.

Finally my inability to build a decent balanced navy causes problems because it makes it nearly suicidal to try and claim any recourse patch your MS isn't sat on top of as I can't possibly defend both it and my MS.

3. The odd poor explanation: Both the Juggernaught and Trade container are terribly explained. I had 12 trade container running round and was getting NOTHING for them. I don't even know what I was doing wrong either. Likewise, the Juggernaught isn't labelled as a suicide unit. I built one thinking I was getting a Long Range Nuke Missile launching platform and it basically sat their doing nothing, so I scuttled it in frustration. Bam my entire fleet gets wiped out.

4. The Syrio, Khopesh, Tulwar and the BC Rapid Sweepers all need to be gotten rid of. I've played enough different RTS games to know that Super ships that do everything wreck things utterly. They're fun initially, but soon the formulae of research best tech, spam best ships becomes extremely boring. Stuff like that just shouldn't be in there IMHO.

I think that’s it for now.

It’s a good mod, but you need to look hard at a lot of littlie details IMO.

[shadow51689]

I'm assuming you hadn't researched Mothership improved defenses? If you had, you would have saved yourself quite a lot of trouble... The Mothership's torpedos split into multiple smaller torpedos, which absolutely obliterate Corvettes, especially the slow, tightly packed Hiigaran corvettes. The torpedos would have also done a number on the flak frigates. A couple Missile Frigates quickly renders Gunships into space dust as well.

Honestly I don't see how you could have lost a frigate fleet that sized to a couple of flak frigates... You did place your snipers as far back as they could be right? Firing at different targets (if upgraded with long range torpedoes)?

The whole point of the honor system was to get players to go out and engage the enemy. Simply sitting at your base and building your fleet will almost garuntee you a loss. I do admit that the mothership guns are a bit over-effective on fighters however... But I think you'd be surprised by the results of an attack on the enemy's resource operations. Stay on the far side of their Mothership, and pick at any workers on the edge of the operation. The AI often will keep building replacements in favor of fighters or other combat ships.

I do notice that the harder AI tends to gain honor out of the blue... Maybe try a few games with some human opponents.

Honestly I find the Khopesh and Shiry tech to arrive too late in the game to be of much use... (Do the Shiry Callistoes even work as of 5.5? There were some errors referenced to them in the hw.log to them I noticed) The Tulwar isn't really a 'super' ship. It's more of a counter to the Vaygr Warfare frig. I think the Hiigaran side really needed more of a backbone to it's frigate fleet than simple flak frigates. I never really did like the Rapid Sweepers though...

[Carl]

All right a lot of points to answer:

1. The whole fight happened a short distance from the Mothership, they weren’t in range of it's guns and I hadn't twigged at that point that you could build the Torps without taking up a module slot. Most of the losses where from my own 5 Flak Frigates. The problem is the way they do so much damage to frigates in my experience when they concentrate their fire they can kill another frigate in just a few volleys, I’m killing them quick, but their kill rate and the burst fire means they are easily hurting multiple frigates at once, (Flak Frigates tend to group up when firing BTW). I didn't do much separate targeting, I just Ctrl+Drag-Right-Click around the whole lot normally, I only concentrate when I’m dealing with specific situations that require it.

2. That the problem here, if I go out and attack I’m grunted a loss too because not only will I get my Mothership torn to bits as soon as an enemy shows up with a decent fleet, (because I’m losing all my forces on raids). But also, because I’m likely losing more than I’m killing, (because the enemy has the support of his MS guns whilst I don't), that means he's getting as much if not more honour than I am from the encounter. I only launch raids when I know I’m going to get more out of it than I’m going to lose, and only when I have a large enough force to both raid and defend my Mothership. The reality is that it takes so long to get such a force, (because it has to be composed of frigates to avoid unacceptable losses), that I can have the science division under construction by the time I’m ready, and by that point the enemy is attacking me and I don't need to raid to get honour. Your idea about laying hide and seek with the MS guns is a good one, I just don’t think I can pull a force together that quickly.

To give you an idea of how I’m playing things ATM: Generally the first thing I build is the Harvest module followed by advanced sensors, fire control, defence control and 1 other, (drives ATM, but it varies). I also start a research ship going. I might then start a capital class facility for a carrier depending on what I intend to do, usually I’ll get my frigate facility down though. I'm still usually churning out refineries and resourcers at this point though. once I’ve got my resourcing up and running I start on my frigates with a carrier following on, usually 10 frigates. 5 to stop home and 5 to go raiding. Exact composition varies as often by the time the 5th frigate is done I’ve got science division on the way. AT which point I’ll keep the frigates on hold and wait for sniper frigates as their range and firepower make great raiders in theory and not bad defence ships too.

Research tends to focus on harvesting and fusion to get me a decent number of RU's coming in, then on Mothership weapons and then any other combat ship upgrades to start diversifying my fleet composition and increase class combat firepower/speed/HP.

Generally I find that by the time I have a decent force up and running I have no need to go raid and that I’ve effectively teched up a fair bit in any case. Part of it is down to my limited building ability early on, (recourses only seem to be an issue when researching the Fusion upgrades, once I have 4 refineries and a decent number of upgraded collectors out i tend to be okay). However, a lot of it is simply down to the fact that I have to rely on Frigates early on. This means it takes a lot of recourses and time to build a useful fleet.

3. Further play has shown many of my worries about the Uber ships are not as bad as they might have been. the UI description make them sound like they really can do everything when in reality they are merely good at everything, not exceptional as I feared. Nonetheless their are a fair number of ships that, (IMHO), don't have a place in this mod purely because they replicate an already fulfilled role.

These are, (the bits in brackets are what they are duplicating from earlier in the Tech Tree):

Spy (Scout)
XBomber (Bomber with Anti-Subsystem Bombs)
Shiry (Bomber & Interceptor)
Minigun (Pulsar)
Khopesh (Pulsar & Gunship)
Tulwar (Flak & Torpedo & Ion)
Defender (Assault Craft & Lance Fighter)
Multi-Lance Corvette (Laser Corvette)
Warfare Frigate (Assault Frigate & Heavy Missile Frigate & Artillery Frigate)

Despite the above massive list, I think some ships could in fact be saved in terms of models, they just need adjustments in role and armament IMHO.

Lets see:

XBomber: Make the EMP attack a built in normal attack, rather than an upgrade, (although I’ve never seen the upgrade option come up), with a rapid reload time and firing as a normal weapon. this transforms the X Bomber into an anti-subsystem + ECM bomber helping to make it useful in combination with ordinary bomber as ATM theirs no use for it. More often than not destroying my opponent outright is a lot higher on my list of priorities than destroying his subsystems. Add to this the Anti-Subsystem Bombs of Bombers and the ability of any decent force to focus fire a Subsystem into oblivion in short order and you have issues. With Built in EMP on top however it would have considerable utility since it could act to disable other enemy ships for destruction by the rest of the strike force, a useful ability to bring along, especially vs. frigates and other Strike Craft.

Minigun: I'd swap the Anti-Fighter Mines for Anti-Ship Mines and down power the Gun turrets, (same stats each as a Gunship turret except for 1 quarter the damage), and use it in squadrons as a replacement for the Minelayer.

Sniper Frigate: Whilst this doesn’t outright Duplicate roles I thought I’d best mention it as it's a littlie oddball. Right Now I’m not so fond of this ship, the Pulsar having such a Long range really seems at odds with the way ion Weaponry Works, (p.s. Pulsars are Low Power, short firing Ion Cannon in case you don't know). In addition it doesn’t do anything an Ion Frig can’t do nearly as well, the range isn’t that special ATM as theirs no reason not to close to medium range, It’s only at short ranges that grouping, (and hence Flak frigs), become a problem. I'd recommend reducing the Range on the Torpedoes and turning the Ion Frigate into the long range Model. Dump the Pulsar altogether. The Missiles could be short range, (2000), Cluster Missiles with large AoE Blasts that are 0 accuracy against fighters and Corvettes but very accurate and damaging against Frigates. In effect a good way of blowing up large numbers of closely grouped frigates at short ranges. Such a system wouldn't be too good against Long Range Ion frigs or Torpedo frigs, (they don't tend to Group Up). But very effective against Assault Frigates, Flack frigates and Generally anything that comes too near. Just vulnerable to Long range units that can inflict heavy losses before it can get serious firepower off. Shorter Ranged Frigates will suffer however as they tend to group up and need to get into range of it to do any good. A Good general purpose Frigate killer with the ion Frigate being the long Range counter to it.

Tulwar: Replace the Prow Bomb Launchers with EMP cannon, (basically 3 Cannon without burst that act to disable the target, Use the "Dread_Bomb" FX too BTW), these would be much more powerful than those used on the XBomber and thus suitable for disabling Capital Ships, MS, e.t.c. The Turrets should just use the exact same stats as the Pulsar Corvettes Pulsar turrets, (rotation/elevation/depression angles aside which will need to be customised to the appropriate turret). They should act to provide Point Defence only. The EMP cannons really should have Long Range, (read BC Main Gun Ranges). Also give it a Module Subsystem slot.

Overall it now has a support purpose, in combination with lesser frigates they can now take on and defeat BC and DD class vessels without the support of their own BC and DD class units.

Defender: I would drop it's speed by half and adjust the HP's to match that of an Assault Craft, (same armour class too, represent the ease of targeting, but tough nature of the ship), Give each of it's "arms" a Kinetic Cannon that fires one shot with the same stats as a shot from a Hiigaran Gunship Corvette. Since it only fire 3 shots to the Corvettes 4 it is weaker though. Also add a Normal Fire mode EMP system, (copy the scout one but adjust the fire rate). The resultant fighter is a slow moving heavily armed ship, perfect for MS defence and heavy engagement, but unsuited to the raiding style of the Vaygr, making the more numerous and much cheaper Assaults Craft a much better all round fighter in most distant engagements. On the other hand, the defender is a much better escort fighter since the frigates and capital ships it will be escorting will naturally be no faster than it making it excellent for keeping Strike Craft at bay.

Warfare Frigate: I don't honestly know what to do with this thing, the name and model look okay, but without copying my Tulwar I can't see a way to fit this in. All the roles are covered. The best I can think of is some kind of high speed low durability raiding frigate equipped with weaponry mostly effective vs. recourcours and Fighters/Corvettes. If you will, a faster and less well armoured Assault Frigate.

Another point I'd like to raise: Their are several ships that are honestly out of character for the faction they are with, the research trees also have some similar things.

The Ships are:

Intruder
Ion Destroyer
Storm Corvette

The Basic problem is the way ships work for Hiigarans and Vaygr.

Higaran Ships are almost always mostly effective against ships of either the same or Lower Classes, (the Bomber is the only total exception), The ion Frig and Torpedo Frig are partial exceptions, but neither is brilliant at attacking Higher Classes due to their low firepower. Thus the Intruder and Ion Destroyer are totally out of character in this regard as they are meant to engage Higher Classes.

The opposite is true of the Vaygr, all their Ships are meant to engage equal or higher classes. In this regards the Artillery Frigate is great as it's not a brilliant anti-frigate weapon and is only on par with the H.Missile Frig against destroyers, it's against MS and BC classes that it really shines. The Storm Corvette however is a specific anti-Fighter corvette and isn't very fitting.

Of course like Hiigarans the Vaygr do have an exception in the Assault Frigate.

The research is also heavily out from the original styles. For Hiigarans they never ad to research individual ship classes, (except DD/BC). However they do have to get multiple modules to get every ship class, the also tend to have to research a lot of upgrades for each ship class to get them fully up to par, this takes a lot of time. In addition a number of Hiigaran ships have features that need research to unlock.

Vaygr on the other hand have to research each Class before they can research each ship type, (they don't get them automatically like Hiigarans do). On the Flip side they don't need to research Upgrades individually, (saves time if not RU's), and don't have as many individual ship upgrades. They also don't need more than on research Module meaning they can specialise in one area very quickly. Hiigarans on the other hand have to spend resources getting access to everything at once.

Currently the Hiigarans have to research everything AND build lots of research modules.

I'd remove the research requierments from all Hiigaran Fighter, Corvette and Frigate Class Vessels, make them available as soon as the appropriate research module is up. I'd also remove the Shipyard Chassis Research. (I'd also Drop the Improved Missile effects from Torpedo Frigates).

On the Flip Side I’d remove all the ship specific Upgrades, (like fusion missiles on Warfare Frigates/DD/BC and Coordinated Fire on Artillery Frigates), I'd also Lump all the Fusion/Harvesting Upgrades under 1 very expensive research.

Finally two pieces of advise, 1. Increase the base number of officers by 5 and add a carrier back in to the starting fleet to help get fleets off the ground. 2. Add a difficulty level marked Training. The current easy level is a bit harsh when your trying to learn how to play and what does what and how effective something is.

As noted this is a good mod, but I find half the ships make the other half obsolete. This is a big problem that needs addressing IMHO. Something also needs to be done to make raiding more profitable and useful as ATM the raiding is nearly pointless because of the poor cost benefit ratio.

[MisterURL]

When I try to run the mod, I get an error "Sync out of range" and the mod runs (I can hear the front-end music) but I have no display. This error is generated by my monitor, an LCD. I have the latest drivers for the graphics card. I don't have a problem with any other programs. I have done the shortcut target line change to add -mod complex55.big but it doesn't help. Has anyone else reported this? I did a search in the forum but did not find any messages with "sync" in them. Maybe there is a workaround?

Thanks. MisterURL

[Carl]

I means the defualt reseloution is too high.

[MisterURL]

So if I change my monitor resolution (currently 1280 X 1024) to say, 800 X 600, it will load up? I tried putting /1280 in the target line of the shortcut but that didn't work. I will try changing it before I start the game.

Thanks.

[Sajuuk hear my]

ok ive got the mod and ive got it in the data area in my HW2 folder the only problem is that i cant get my HW2 shortcut (which is on the desktop) to accept the filepath. i followed the instructions in the readme and on the website and it always puts the command path is not found and the path im using is C:\Program Files\Sierra\Homeworld2\Bin\Release\Homeworld2.exe -mod Complex55.big i have tried moving the complex file to the release folder and when that didnt work i put it all in 1 folder in the data section and ill wait 4 a reply b4 i start tinkering. any help will be gratefully appreactied

sincerly Sajuuk hear my
P.S sajuuk hear my plea was my intentioned full name but it was too long and b4 i could correct it i accepted it.
P.S.S if u need to contact me im at nicehunter41@hotmail i live in perth which is 1 hour ahead of the site time.
P.S.S.S (last one) i also use the pirates mod could they be conflicting?

[Carl]

@Sajuuk Hear My: Sounds like a conflict. You'll have to take the pirates Mod stuff out. Also the filepath you gave is EXACTLY the same as the one I use, (with the Complex Files installed in the loactaion your told to put them in), so it should work.

@MisterURL: yeah, put the set resolution thingy in the Command line. What that error means is the input resolution to your montier is too high for it to display, (at least thats what I get on mine when it's too high). Other things to try would maybe to lower your refresh rate, (your moniter MIGHT use diffrent eror messages to mine), and to try the tech support forums for more expert help as that sounds like somthing the game is causing, but not a result of anything actually wrong with the game.

[Sajuuk hear my]

are u sure u havent put the Complex55.big file somewhere else cause i still got the error msg the target is not valid and ive gotten rid of the pirate stuff

[Sajuuk hear my]

actually never mind i figured it out oput the -mod Complex55.big after the quoates, i thank the http://warlords.swrebellion.com/wp/?p=9 for the idea

[shadow51689]

I can definitely agree with some of your points, I never said Complex was perfect, and I do agree on some things. Currently fighters and corvettes do seem a bit lacking... I mean the MS's improved guns have a accuracy of 90% against fighters! Multiply that by every gun on the Mothership, and you've got an instant strike craft swarm shredder. And the unimproved version (70% accuracy) is on every resource controller, research station, crew station and carrier in their fleet. It doesn't help any that the fighters tend to clump together and hurt each other. The latter, infact, is easily fixed by making the strike craft form mini formations. (And easy to implement, I mean I figured it out lol.)

One thing to note, the MS's Torpedo launchers don't actually take up any other module slots... they're the only thing you can build on that particular 'slot'. Heck, you can even build them before the Improved Defense research item... I don't think that was intended?

I agree with the the Spy being redundant - Turn it into a Defender, slow and cheap. (It already has 3 gun slots) The XBomber is currently targeted as a bomber, but much weaker, resulting in a ship that gets obliterated first by enemy forces, while doing little damage in return. I've actually added an upgradable cloak to these ships to make them of atleast some use...

The Minelayer and the Minegun corvettes are actually very similar (identical?) models... what would be gained from replacing the Minelayer?

The Sniper frigate is really a gem among the Hiigaran frigates... If used right with support, these little frigates can take out waves upon waves of much larger ships. I think the intended effect with using the 'pulsar' effect was to make it look as if they were infact focused ion beams, fired long range in short bursts, hence the duller appearance and lower damage.

The Warfare frigate's emp and pulsar beams allow it to disable and destroy corvettes, and also disable enemy bombers. It also offers fire support with it's researchable fusion missile.

But the Ion Destroyer does seem a bit odd... When I first build one, I assumed to have maybe it's foward torpdo slots replaced with ions... but 4 ion beams (Double barrels, so 8!). Could such a small ship really sustain such firepower?

I'd think that Behgins clumped up the Vaygr's research tree to get it done for now until he can turn his attention from the Hiigarans.

Putting a Carrier back into the starting fleet would be very costly on the crew count. You need all the crew you can use for your initial fleet.

Anyway that's just my ... Either way, Behgins has renewed many people's interest in Homeworld 2, and put together quite a great mod.

[Sajuuk hear my]

what do the trade containers do; do they just shuttle RU's to cap ships or just put them in a out-of-the-way spot and use the Ru's in them for emergincies?

i personally prefer unit caps put i do like the new system of complex.
anyway a very good mod i'd love to ci 6.0
sujuuk

[Carl]

@Shadow: I think the best trick with the MS guns would be to down-power them initially and add a second upgrade research so that initial fighter attacks actually do something.

The Idea with using the Minigun model as a New Minelayer is that it's guns and armament positions allow it to be better defended than the current one whilst not being so heavily armed as to replace the Gunship Corvette (as the current Minigun does). One of the issues I have with minelayers is the way in which even interceptors can destroy them with ease, it really should take dedicated anti-corvette weaponry to do the job.

Your right about the Warfare frigate, but that is my complaint with it. It's combination of Missiles, Lasers, and EMP mean that it can do the jobs of both the Assault frigate and Heavy Missile Frigate. Other than a few artillery Frigates to help against destroyers, theirs no reason to take any other frigate type IMHO. Add some Missile Corvettes to help kill Strike Craft quicker and you got your entire non-capital class fleet right there.

I agree on the carrier, hence why I suggested increasing the base officer/crew limit slightly to compensate.

My point with the research wasn't that the Vaygr are too clumped, but that the Hiigaran and Vaygr tech trees have lost the uniqueness they had in vanilla.

The defining points where that the Hiigarans had to get multiple different research modules, and had to research ship upgrades individually, (as well as having a few things they had to research to unlock individual weapons on specific ships). The Vaygr on the other hand only had to Buy one module and never had to research individual weapons on available ship classes, they also researched upgrades to ship classes as a group rather than on a ship by ship basis. On the flip side they DID have to research the basic form of every ship class they wanted to build.


My biggest problem with this mod is the way a number of early tech tree units are made totally obsolete by the ships available in the later portion of the tech tree. This problem is particularly bad with the Vaygr where I can outright skip the earlier stuff if I want to. Why have the early units if they are going to be made obsolete??? (Although admittedly their aren’t any do everything ships as I feared, but there are a number of overly effective ones IMHO).