Kadesh: A Requiem War Minimod (0.1.b)

[DeathWish]

REQUIEM WAR END USER LISCENSE AGREEMENT: No Requiem War materials, including the Kadesh mini-mod, may be redistributed in any way whatsoever. Users may do whatever they wish with the mod on their own hard drive but may not make the files contained in this mod, or files derived from these files, available to other users without express permission from ALL Requiem War team members. Please stop asking if you may use our work in your mod. The answer will eternally be no. By downloading this or any other Requiem War release you agree to these conditions.

It's not quite finished yet, but it is for all intents and purposes complete. There will be patches as bug reports come in, but it will not be under active development (new features, etc) until the main Requiem War mod is completed.

Please enjoy this public Beta, and give us your feedback so we can continue to improve it!

http://www.requiemwar.net/dls/releas...eshi.0.1.b.zip

Please report bugs here. The shortcut included already has the -luatrace flag enabled, so please include relevant portions of the HW2.log if you are experiencing errors, especially crash bugs. If in doubt, post the whole log.

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Kadesh: A Requiem War Minimod
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Introduction:
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This is the Kadeshi test race for the Requiem War TC mod for Homeworld 2. The goal of this project is to provide quick multiplayer gameplay for fans eagerly awaiting a full release of Requiem War while at the same time clearing some of the workload from our backlogs. It is being released as a mini-mod seperately from the main Requiem War mod but will be incorporated into the larger mod once the remaining races are completed.

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Version history:
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0.1.a
Date: 16-Apr-2005 01:15
Initial public alpha. Rebalanced swarmer and Multi-Beam Frigate weapons. Fixed selection and TO distances. Increased the size of swarmer trails to make them more visible Increased Needleship mass.

0.0.a.dev.200504151900
Date: 15-Apr-2005 19:00
Re-balanced Needleship weapons. Added Salvager, removed resourcing and salvage abilities from swarmers. Giving commands to resourcing ships no longer produces a crash bug.

0.0.a
Date: 14-Apr-2005 14:24
Initial closed pre-alpha test release

0.0
Date: 13-Apr-2005 18:56
Not an actual version, but being retained for archival purposes.

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Downloads:
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Latest Production Release: Beta 0.1.b.zip
Download here: http://www.requiemwar.net/dls/releas...eshi.0.1.b.zip

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Installation Instructions
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Copy RW_Kadeshi.big to your homeworld\data\ directory. Edit the included shortcut to point to your copy of homeworld2.exe and start the game using that shortcut.

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Credits
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Kadesh: A Requiem War Minimod was produced almost entirely by myself, Kris Wood. The following people either contributed directly, or were at least involved indirectly in the mod process.

Team Leaders (in no particular order)
Enterprise-E / Deimos / Kris "DeathWish" Wood

Project Lead
Kris "DeathWish" Wood

Modelers
Kris "DeathWish" Wood
Evillejedi (Needleship collision mesh and engine glows)

Riggers
Kris "DeathWish" Wood
Starfleet (Fuelpod latch paths)

Scripters
Kris "DeathWish" Wood
Alex Drake (Multi-Beam Frigate attack style)

Testers:
Deimos
Gthompsn
Evillejedi
Tyreal Mathias
Scottismo

If I left anyone out, let me know and I'll squeeze you in.

The original Kadeshi race was seen in the first Homeworld game, developed by Relic Entertainment and published by Sierra. Requiem War operates with permission from Relic to reproduce all Homeworld content for release in a Homeworld2 mod. All models and textures are derived from ones seen in Homeworld, and credit for the original designs belongs to Relic entertainment.

Special thanks to:
Everyone on the Requiem War team for sticking together over the last year or so.

Evillejedi, Starfleet, and Alex Drake for contributing to this project even though they've got a lot of their own projects to attend to.

Tyreal Mathias for coming up with the name Requiem War in the first place.

My family for putting up with all the extra time I spent making this mod over the last two weeks

And last but not least, Relic Entertainment for creating the original Homeworld game, and inspiring us all!

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Known Bugs in current build (0.1.a):
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Multi-Beam Frigate does not always break from attack, but rather keeps rolling clockwise indefinitely while moving forward in a straight line until a new command is given. If the new command is an attack, the MBF will resume rolling and moving forward making no attempt to change course to hit the target.

When MBF does break from an attack run, it acts like a fighter doing a flyby, then smoothly banks around to make another pass, resulting in a poor angle of approach for the second run. Because of the ship's size and slow speed it should instead do a 180 degree vertical flip, fly out of attack range, then another 180 degree vertical flip to approach again from an optimal vector. I do not however know how to script this.

Needleship's laser cannons are a little overpowered.

Only 6 swarmers can remain docked with the needleship at any given time even though the shiphold is set to 80.

While all 12 needleship paths are functional, they do not seem to be using the pivots from maya, but rather only show up on the rotation and translations that they were given. In effect it looks like 4 paths when in reality there are 12.

Needleship HS gate is akward.

Needleship has difficulty attacking ships with a narrow profile.

Fuelpod anims do not function properly and have been temporarily disabled.

Fuelpod latch and exit paths are backward.

Kadeshi AI does not build (yet)

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To Do List
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Change voice to Vaygr

Change MBF's engine glow colour to red

Further balance needleship weapon accuracy / damage vs capital ships

Redo needleship and fuelpod paths

Fix fuelpod anims

Teach Kadeshi AI to build and attack

Add goblins to, re-UV and re-texture parts of Multi-beam frigate

Design an actual salvager model / texture

[Unk]

OMG Kadesh!!!!1111one111

Downloading now, will post opinion soon.

[DryCockleMartyr]

Cool

[Elukka]

Finally, some kind of a test mod of Requiem War! Also, i think this one is the first Kadeshi mod for HW2 ever released.

[Unk]

Very nice. One or 2 things aren't perfect though (funny hyperspacing for the needleship, multi beam frigate won't fire its guns but I've only tried using it against motherships so far).

[DeathWish]

see the release notes in the first post about the Mothership's HS. The MBF not firing is a new one to me, unless you mean it doesn't fire again after the first attack run. That is being dealt with and will likely be fixed and patched in the next couple days. The temporary solution is to move it a good distance away from the target and tell it to start the attack over. A bit of a pain but it works.

[Iostream]

wicked! this'll get a good testing!"

to be fair though, this shouldn't be in completed, as it is far from it but a very very good start.

[Solarmech]

COOL! sm

[GhostPsalm]

Awesome! I like it already. Gee it is good to see those needleships again, and to know that all of their legions are fighting for me is a huge bonus. These probably are not classed as bugs, more my preference on suggestion. For your consideration:

- I noticed only Bay A/B can stay docked in the needleship, I have not yet looked at how you have the bays set-up etc, but it would be cool to store all of the swarmers in there at once, from all of the bays.
- Also, the dockpaths on the needleship are slightly longwinded I think. When there is a *huge* force launching you notice it a lot, there is a traffic jam in mid space.
- It may have been diliberate, but the needleships max hold is only 20, out of a possible (normal unitcap) of 50. Probably good for game balance, but I like it full...
- I would like the root joint of the needleship to be further toward the front, in the bulky part of the ship, just for visuals basically.

Quality is A+. I cannot wait to play Requiem War.

[OutriderVS9]

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OMG *has a heart attack* the kadeshi have returned WOOT!

[Talien]

I noticed this apparent graphics glitch when I zoom in toward the front of the Needleship, dunno if it's just me or not.

[DeathWish]

YAY! Feedback! I love you guys lol.

The docking / shiphold / launching issues for the needleship are explained in the known bugs in the first post. The needleships are intended to hold 80 swarmers in this mod (an arbitrary number) which will go up and down a few times through the course of play testing. I think what I'll do is get the total amount of each type of ship in the kadesh missions of hw1, divide by the number of needleships in the missions, and round up to the nearest ten. This should give a fair idea of what they could have supported in HW1's unit caps.

I can try moving the Root joint but I think that may require re-rigging the entire thing, and that'll be a pain, we'll see.

The graphic artifacts are due to the shadows in Homeworl2. I get them too, and not just on the needleship. I think they're merely more apparent there because there are a lot of polies at very similar orientations (within a degree or two, in places) which I think confuses HW2's shadow mapping. I have yet to try it without shadows to see if it goes away. There is also an odd chance that there could be duplicate polygons in the mesh, which would suck. I'll look into it when I get home from work.

[Iostream]

i got that too, just turn advanced shadows off and it's fine

[OutriderVS9]

I've noticed a problem with the barel roll the MBF does... it does roll, but when it does it's not a very "smooth" roll: it is a very jerky roll (rolls 90 stops rolls 90 stops etc...) but i like it otherwise and the swarmers kick ass

[GhostPsalm]

I can try moving the Root joint but I think that may require re-rigging the entire thing, and that'll be a pain, we'll see.

Just Shift+P everything under the Root joint in Maya, move the root joint by itself, then P everything back into it. Works a treat, save either side to avoid badness.

[OutriderVS9]

DeathWish, I was playing around with the Swarmer squad sizes and noticed that when I ask a squad to dock with a fuel pod, they all dock in the same location on the fuel pod. Is there any possible way to make each fighter in the squadron dock at different points?

[DeathWish]

Ghostplasm: Sweet! I'll try that tomorrow.

Outrider: No, that's why external docking for strikecraft was nixed, along with support frigates early on in the HW2 alpha. All Requiem War releases will operate in squadrons of 1 to remain true to Homeworld1.

Edit: I find it kind of amusing on my first public release, what's the first thing people do? Post pretty screenshots? No! Extract the big file and mod my mod! lol. I'm just glad you like it, it's all for fun after all.

[Unk]

Alls I need now is to find a nebula map and the sweetness can really begin.

EDIT - Yeah I'm certain that the MBF isn't firing even once against mothership targets, tried it against the Vaygr one and the Pride of Hiigara. It flys like its going to go over the mothership then faces straight toward it, sometimes does a roll and breaks off.

[Iostream]

i unbigged your mod and added a few slightly different ships, only swarmers and advanced swarmers with plasma bomb launchers instead of kinetic burst cannons, but it worked really well

great mod Deathwish, keep it up!

[Mineteaser]

I can`t download it... :weep: it says the page is not found for all of the links...

[Talien]

Unknown: There's a very nice Nebula map in the SW:Warlords mod, it's named "Kadeshi Gardens". Only a 2 player map though, but damn does it look good.

[OutriderVS9]

I have a suggestion, I've noticed that the Swarmers' weapon muzzle flashes are a bit oversized. when you look at an individual ship firing, the whole ship gets covered up by the muzzle flash. I think the PDS team might now how to scale muzzle flash effects, and I tried it myself but I'm not exactly sure how to change the size of it.

[Mineteaser]

cmon I really want to download it. can someone post an alternative link. PLLLEEEAAAASSSSEEEEE :boohoo:
Edit: I got it! sry. I guess i just needed patience

[DeathWish]

It works fine for me, and I'm trying from a lan party at the moment, so I know it works from outside my local network. If someone would like to mirror this release that'd be great.

I'll try to get some space on fileplanet or sourceforge or something eventually.

[Talien]

Deathwish: You could have people who want the mod e-mail you, then upload it to yousendit.com and let them know so they can DL it from there. You'd have to upload it each time you want to send it to people but it's free anyway.

[DeathWish]

meh, I'm not really interested in spending that much time distributing it. I'll be patching it in the next couple days anyway. We'll see what we can do about a mirror.

[Void]

the mod is so kewl... well worth the wait ;P!
Heh, i use a trainer that turns unit caps off....imagine 250+ swarmer preying on a defenceless bc......laggs like hell but it make your heart grow :P

[Elmanon]

TEFEARI was working on a kadeshi mod. Is this the same mod, only converted in to the requiem mod???

[Iostream]

no, this is the requiem war kadeshi side made into a playable race. it has nothing to do with tefeari's mod, which is an extention of the kushan side and adding it into hw2. please do not confuse the two.

[DeathWish]

This has absolutely nothing to do with Tefeari's mod. It is a mini-mod that is part of the larger Requiem War TC mod. It is just something I whipped up real quick to satasfy hungry fans while we take our time making the larger mod. It also gives us a chance to start balancing stats on HW1 ships in relation to HW2 ships.

[Elmanon]

will there be more kadeshi unit´s, when the mod is complete???

[DeathWish]

No, there will not be more ships until after the complete RW mod is finished. Our primary task is to create an exact replica as close as possible of the original HW1. As such no extra ships will be added until all original ships are in. That said, even the salvager is stretching it, so hang in there we'll get there eventually.

[Tefeari]

Nah, this isn't my mod, rather the Req war team's take on the original ships.

Nice to see you put time to get this race out first, though I was personally looking forward to a Taiidan mini-mod.

I haven’t played it yet but I suppose I have a obligation to at least look at it, so I'll check it out sometime soon. I would have prefered if we had worked together to make a combined effort kadeshi mini-mod (with just the original ships) but... If you still dont want to with us (again), I'll not offer our experience in manners...

I'm pretty sure the "Kadeshi Nebula" level in the Star Wars mod is mine, I talk to EJ a lot and have sent him a variety of my levels (one if which had that title). However, I had no idea it was included in his mod release, I'll ask.

Io: We are making a complete and separate Kadeshi race, it is not replacing the Kushans nor supplementing the Kushans.

Seeing that people are looking for more levels, perhaps I'll release the one featured in that nebula trailer.

If anyone has any further questions regarding my mod, lets not spam Deathwish's with them, instead please direct them to the proper thread.

[Iostream]

i meant kadeshi there, not kushan, my bad

[Norsehound]

So then it is not possible to have squadrons dock with one squadron per fuel pod?

I like the fact that you're making a complete translation of HW1 ships to HW2, but I have to ask- once this mod is complete, will you 'Modernize" it?

That is to say- add subsystems to the Needleships, make swarmers into squadrons, and targatable parts of the ships? I think alone this mod is an excellent idea, but I'm not a big fan of the single-fighter idea (Much easier to manage in squadrons).

In all, caint' wait to see in person.

[OutriderVS9]

Ceade, as mentioned before this is a mini-mod for the Requiem War mod and is supposed to have all of the origional ships and features that HW1 did. Tefeari's mod will most likely have a more modernized version of the Kadeshi race in it. And the one squadron docking with a fuel pod isn't possible because of hard codeing issues. I tried it myself, but had no luck

[Iostream]

i imagine the team will try and create the hw1 gaming experience first, then add in a few hw2 ideas later. disabling engines was a good idea in my opinion, but squadrons was not. they got killed far to easily. you can't have squad surface docking as they all merge and dock on the same point, which is, needless to say, totally unrealistic. having facilities on the outside of ships was another bad idea. it makes no sense. why build a massive ship, make it aerodynamic, and whatever, only to stick massive great chunks on it?

meh.

[Norsehound]

Yeah I read about the swamers. It's a pity that they can't squad-dock as desired (At least until HW2's code is released...sometime on the 12th of never... > )

As to why this mod over Tefari's- isn't Tefari adding more ships? Mods like this, which add more (unreasonable) ships, is quite silly IMO. Doing wonders with the origional ships is what I'd like to see- not adding XYZ capital ships and 'super advanced ultrashiny multibeam frigates with soda despensers and a four-way radio!'


And has anyone tried utilizing internal subsystems before? Just because it's built doesn't mean you have to see it on the outside...

[DeathWish]

Regarding cooperation or competition between this mod and Tefeari's one; No, there isn't any chance that these two mods will be made in collaboration (long story, we've had a bit of a falling out in the past, let's leave it at that) and the mods have completely different design objectives. As Kinjiss said in Tefeari's mod earlier today; RW is converting the HW1 races (including the kadeshi) to the HW2 engine. Tefeari's mod is recreating the kadeshi race as they might exist in the homeworld2 era.

That aside:

Subystems are already in-to an extent. The innate hyperspace inhibitor is a destroyable, and targetable subsystem though it isn't showing up properly at the moment. We are also planning on having destroyable engines as an addon after singleplayer mod is finished (far down the road).

Multi-ship squadrons are impossible with external docking unless you don't mind seeing the entire squadron stack on top of eachother. Beyond that, they are outside the scope of our design objectives and will not be adding them.

We are not releasing a Taiidan mini mod because that will be part of the full release, and will not be made public until the kushan are finished. As it is the Taiidan are almost entirely complete and we could probably have a commercial quality release within a matter of days but there's no point without the Kushan. I expect it will be a few more months. A Turanic minimod however may be a possibility, we'll see how much time I can find in the coming months, and how much time and desire Ent-E has to finish the Turanic motherhship.

Enterprise-E and I have begun work on the patch, hopefully it'll be out soon. After the patch this minimod will more closely resemble the rest of the existing RW mod.

[Brockoly]

you gotta make a converted heavy crusier from hw classic tidan? have like big white pod like things fuze on to it like the carrier in the ex mod I'll post a bad pic later

[Norsehound]

Not only is Tefari making the Kadeshi as they would (hypotheticly) appear in HW2, but he's adding many, many new ships to the MOd that I just don't see as being close to HW canon (Even though some of the select vessels are interesting).

It's still worth a look, as is this mod.

A turanic mod with pure turanic raiders ships from HW1 would also be interesting to impliment and play against the current HW races (As is the Kadeshi...) and unlike the Kadeshi Raider ships do not rely on external docking to refuel (Ala fuel pods). Thus conceivably they could operate in squadrons. Could this be a side option if you decide to mod them?

And in reguards to the single-fighter concept maybe it's better to have the powerful Kadeshi swarmers as individual fighters rather than squadrons- as they are weapons-wise one of the most powerful fighters ingame (HW1)

[Elmanon]

Deathwish you´re making a mod, that will convert hw1 to hw2. I do not hope, that you will, only re-create the existing ships, from hw1. If you dont add some new ships, then Req war will suck! The Turanic raider´s will only have about 6 ship´s and the kadeshi will have 5.
Or maybe, im getting this, the wrong way. Are you going to convert the Single-player missinon´s? Then you don´t need to add new ship´s "of course". but if you´re making a MP, then it would be cool, to play with all the races from hw1. With more ship´s!

Anyway, so far this mod is Exellent

[DeathWish]

The eventual goal is to reproduce the entirety of the original HW1 game for the HW2 engine, specificly the SP campaign. Originally we had not planned on MP releases. Over time though we have come to realize that it'll literally be years before a SP campaign can be finished on a professional quality level that we are aiming for, so in the meanwhile we've decided to release MP versions of the races beforehand.

This Kadeshi mod is only a teaser. As it is right now the Taiidan are far more balanced and more fun to play, imo. Also the Taiidan models and textures are more complete and visually appealing at the moment.

We are not planning on adding more ships except as necessary. Squadrons may be a possibility for the Turanics, perhaps we can add it as a menu option when creating the game. The swarmers really do not need squads. They are more efficient than HW2 corvettes and rip apart HW2 strike craft, and aren't too shabby against cap ships either (not as good as bombers but still pretty decent).

[Norsehound]

Indeed.

And El- I think most mods that add new ships to canon races are silly quite frankly. The only Homeworld Mod I've been satisfied about that added new ships to an existing race is the PDS mod. All the other HW1 mods on this subject (This includes the popular turanic and kadeshi mods) Don't impress me in the slightest. While some of the concept designs for the Kadeshi are cool in Tefari's mod I feel the Kadeshi are a race that put tremenodous value in fighter use and would never have a 'Kadeshi Battlecruiser' for example. It's a nice idea, but I wouldn't want to consider it serious canon.

And besides, playing with a limited fleet is a nice touch and a good challenge for veteran players! I wouldn't mind trying to use a pure Kadeshi fleet against one of the modern races in HW2, just to see how they would stack up, Even if they didn't have squadrons.

[Elmanon]

I think it, it fits the Kadeshi 100%, to have a bc.
Like in hw1, when you encounter the kadeshi the first time, those forces would only be some unit´s defending a forward outpost or something like that! And the main army would of course have a battle cruiser, and some Destroyer´s. you cant make an army out of figther´s, even if you had a 1000 figther´s. you would lose against 5 battle cruiser´s and a nice escort!

[Norsehound]

If this is going to be an arguement about the Canonicity of the Protectors...

First it's not assumed in any other Homeworld game that the Protectors survived. I know of fiction and mods tha exist of the Protectors still running around infected by the beast, but to my eyes it's only a fan's dream. If the Protectors did survive and if the beast got to them then Barking Dog would have featured the kadeshi swarmer or at least the multibeam frigate as a beast-infected option.

So, based on the absence of the kadeshi in Cataclysm (Which is laughably anyway for the sole purpose of introducing the beast and smashing all believability of HW), we can assume that the Kadeshi did not survive the passage of the exiles through the nebula.

With this established, realize that the Kadeshi were described even by Alex Garden to be 'some kind of crazy religeious cult'. If they are so, then they're that fanatical to devote their entire existance to defending the garden from invaders.

So, to destroy the unclean the Kadeshi would have to unleash everything they had at the Exiles to destroy them. This would explain the multibeam frigates and why they didn't appear in the first mission because, in a sense, they were the Kadeshi BCs- the things they knew would slaughter their enemies and thus have no need for a Battlecruiser. And since 'everything' consisted of a swarm of Multibeam frigates, thousands of pods, and three needleships, I doubt the Kadeshi had anything outside of these ships available to them to defend the nebula.

On the other side of the table it could be argued that the first encountered neeldeship and the next three are all different vessels, in which case one needleship might have survived, but I imagine with the confidence that knowing the exiles passed through the nebula I think raiders, Imperialists, pirates, and privateers probably scoured the neubula to wipe out a weakened Kadeshi threat.

Or, in the very least, the Kadeshi were driven from the nebula by their failure to defend the garden and disintegrated among other stellar empires.

Taken another way, if the Kadeshi were powerful enough to have battlecruisers and powerhouse warships strong enough to stand up against the Kushans, Taiidans, Vaygr, what have you, why haven't they made a significant contribution in the last 100 years of HW? They are never mentioned again after their defeat at the cathedral save the design inspiration for the hive frigate.

So from a canon point of view, as rosy as it is to see the Kadeshi alive and well and kicking arse across space, logically it doesn't add up in my view.

[Tefeari]

Ceade, if you have any comments on my mod please direct them to the proper thread, do not rave about problems you may have with it here.

[Norsehound]

Noted for future reference.

But I was asked here, so I felt I should reply here. And it's not that I have a problem with it, I just don't like everyone making their unthinking assumptions that the kadeshi survived and had these gargantuan warships they would have most certainly used against the Exiles (if they had them at the time...)

[Iostream]

besides, the kadeshi do have a rounded fleet; who started that first mission with a destroyer before that got shot by the needleship and then rammed? that absolutly kicked ass with 5 types of ship, until you got round their swarmers with multigun corvettes, but even then, you couldn't oppose the rest of their fleet directly.

and yes, they destroyed the kadeshi at the end of the last mission with them in. they were all decended from the khar-toba, which they'd have all protected. thus, everything they threw at you was all they had.

and from a storyline perspective it makes sense too. it was such an irony that in order to return to their homeworld they had to kill other people who had as much right to hiigara as them, but they wee blinded by fear, and as such, died.

on the other hand, it's niuce to see what people put about with additional fleets for the kadeshi (charvell has done some brilliant work with his kadeshi void mod) and there are a few good turanic raiders mods out there that i think are great.

anyway, i wish to end this hijacking of the thread
and back to more important matters (here): Requiem War!

Deathwish, if you wsh to speak on msn, i'll be on all day

[Elmanon]

OOOHHH. i remember now. all that stuff about them dying. SAD . it´s been along time since i played hw1. and now that "iostream", came up with that, i remember reading it somewhere, i think it was a webpage for hw1. STORYLINE

but it would be very cool, if they did survive and would have an army, now that´s a real "fan dream", as caede, did put it!