Ultramarines Courage and Honour MOD (were back in bussiness)

[thudmeizer]

If I garnish enough interest I'll get an AE coder to do this all more properly. I loved doing the 2d work although if MDcertainty isn't so busy I might ask him as well. All of his building icons are part of the UM project.

Hardest part is do keep faithful to the UM codex while offering something new and refreshing to the game.

[Kresjah]

perhaps having branches to represent different tactics? so while not as divergant as say blood angels, you could say they shift the emphasis of their forces to combat different foes, taking them as different codex doctrines

I was thinking about just that a while ago, but found out it doesn't seem appropriate. A major part of the SM training in general as well as Codex Astartes statements go along the lines "adjust and adept"... branching tactics means that once you've selected a tactic, you can no longer "adjust and adapt" to the situation should you need to change tactics.

[mdcertainty]

I loved doing the 2d work although if MDcertainty isn't so busy I might ask him as well. All of his building icons are part of the UM project.

Feel free to contact me thudo and I'll do what I can. My progress of help might be slow but sign me in Sir.
Courage and Honor Brothers!

[Silanoliel]

Is there not a way to allow you to change branch after you have upgraded to one? That'd fit nicely.

[thudmeizer]

Is there not a way to allow you to change branch after you have upgraded to one? That'd fit nicely.

Well then whats the point of having branches when you can conveniently go over to another one? Not much challenge there.

[wereturnip]

I just got done reading the UM compendium (again) and was just thinking of this mod the other day. Glad to see it's coming along.

[Silanoliel]

Well then whats the point of having branches when you can conveniently go over to another one? Not much challenge there.

Because Space Marines adapt to face the situation required. Meaning they would use one set of equipment against one kind of foe (i.e. one branch), then if a new situation arises would adapt to another more fitting set of equipment (i.e. another branch). It would fit them lorewise, and gameplay wise you can always have a slightly hefty cost for re-branching. As not to make things too easy, possibly could find a way of increasing the cost each time you re-branch.

[Starfox444]

The rebranching idea doesnt work for me. Whats the point of choosing say, anti-infantry to take on your enemy. After you've gone through their infantry you're up against vehicles. So now time to rebranch, more time, more resources all for your opponent to switch back to infantry? Unless you have some decent levels of both within a branch neither of the approaches to branching would work (that is sigular and rebranching).On that note, if you have decent levels of both within a branch, why bother rebranching? Best way to implement the branching would be fluff based since certain chapters have certain specialised companies or whatever it may be.

[Silanoliel]

The point is, that Space Marines (especially the Ultramarines), follow a set of guidelines and rules for warfare. What is best to use/do in what situation against which opponents. Thats why I said about rebranching, allowing you to completely adjust tactics to fit new situations (As Space Marines are trained to do). Plus, I suggested it to allow the UI to be far cleaner than the way it was sounding if there was to be no branching (as people have mentioned disliking). It was an even ground suggestion, thats the point of the re-branching suggestion.

[thudmeizer]

I was thinking something similar to what other faction mods have done: build X type of unit in X quantity will unlock X unit type for construction. I am open to suggestions for cool gameplay ideas but lets try to be original -- I'd like to offer something original.

[Starfox444]

how about that space where normally heavy weapons goes when you select a squad, why not when selecting a building extend a couple of icons into there? but hey, i dont know if thats possible, just an idea. As for originality....the taskbar can be purple..?

[Silanoliel]

Considering no mod I know of has re-branching, it does make it rather original. But, I know what you are getting at, you want something different, which is fair enough. I merely offered a suggestion to bridge the gap between the two differing views people have. *Smiles*

You could always open up other units depending upon primary and secondary command units chosen.

[thudmeizer]

Thats.. vague.. U mean have squads spawn other squads? I'm thinking more prerequisites right now. Please be clear and concise what you mean.

[Silanoliel]

Sorry, I had to rush out to do something, meaning I only posted that one sentence to do with my idea.

My idea pretty much follows along the idea of these branches, but opens them up for abit more variation. Lets put it into the most easily understandable terms.

For example, lets say the branches are Siege, Anti-Infantry, Anti-Vehicle and Speed (for the purposes of explaining). To choose your branch, you select the Primary Commander unit (i.e. Force Commander) which then opens up the units for that branch (all units for that branch). These remain trainable even after that Primary Commander dies. It would be your staple branch chosen.

On the other hand, after you have your Primary Commander trained, and thus the primary branch chosen. You can train the Secondary Commander (i.e. Librarian) of any of the other branches (or of the same branch). This would open up half the units from the branch of commander chosen, and not the relic unit associated with it. Once that Secondary Commander dies, you lose the ability to train any units from that half-branch, BUT, you can train him again or choose another secondary commander from another branch. Opening up those instead.


Might not be the best explaination, but I could probably explain better with examples:

Lets say you train the Anti-Infantry Commander to be your Primary Commander. This would open up units such as the Land Raider Crusader, Heavy Flamer Sponsors on vehicles, etc etc. The whole Anti-Infantry branch of units is open to the player. This cannot be changed.

Once you hit Tier 2, you end up choosing your Secondary Commander, and you end up choosing the Speed Secondary Commander. This opens up Attack Bikes and Assault Marines, but no relic unit associated with the Speed branch.

Then lets say that your Speed Secondary Commander dies in battle, you can no longer produce the units to do with the Speed branch unless you rebuild him. However, you could choose to produce the Siege Secondary Commander instead (or any other, including Speed again). What would this do? Well, you would get access to tanks like Whirlwinds and Vindictors in place of the attack bikes and assault marines.



This would essentially combine the unchangeable branch idea with having a re-branching idea. Meaning you can follow the lore that Space Marines are highly adaptive to the situations presented. And all done using the Commanders open to the players.

Apologises if it was presented poorly, explanation is not my strong point.

[thudmeizer]

Ah.. so essentially I can summarize all your paragraphs as:

- Build X commander unit then unlocks other units/researches/buildings while he is alive/in-play? Thats been done already btw but not against it of course. Incredibly easy to script.

[Storm913]

Aye its interesting but, UM is by Codex not by commander, So it wouldn't make really much sense to set it up that way. Not a bad idea though ^_^

[thudmeizer]

But thats how you explained it to which I simply summarized. Branches based on a specific commander unit in the field at one time. Only ONE kind of commander at one time buildable. Thats quite a dynamic branch system -- actually, that hasn't been done before. Hmmm.. Problem is: the player would just hide the commander away to "tech up" UNLESS to keep the commander alive it must be in combat. Hmm.. interesting..

[Storm913]

Ah well the branches yes, Commander to get tech and units no. But yes I am all for the branches/doctrines.

[thudmeizer]

Well that makes no sense. What do you expect the Commanders to provide that makes a branch dynamic? I need some specific and coherent ideas like when X Commander is build X,Y,Z occur. I kinda like that if X Commander is built there are advantage to this BUT the commander must be present and if you loose him, it costs much to re-build or take a long time to build. Anyway.. more to discuss on the UM forums.

[Storm913]

Aye Im on em, added some stuff and as for the above comment, Not commanders but doctrines that allow diffrent units that you select from the HQ at the start of the game.

[potemkis]

Doctrines sound cool, BUT what if you could attach the doctrine to a commander? Example: The Force Commander has doctrine A, while the Librarian has doctrine B. Or use different Force Commander models (or just renamed files with different textures) that have a limit of 1 (can't have 2 force commanders). Just arm each Force Commander differently and don't allow upgrades on them (like in TT- you can't change the weapons a model carries during a battle).

Commander A: Extensive use of say Scouts. Limits the amount of Space Marine Tactical squads and Assault Squads.

Commander B: Extensive use of Terminators.

Commander C: Fast Assault expert- more Assault Marines and Land Speeders. Is also equipped with a jump pack.

Just a thought. That's how I adjust my army for TT according to who I'm up against.

[Starfox444]

Well my opinion on the whole commander based branching is that it wouldn't work. In the middle of a fight losing your commander would cripple your army, with your best units becoming suddenly unavailable.

Gameplay wise this makes the commander seem more like a nuisance where the player is better off to choose to leave the commander in their base. In regards to making the commander lose health while out of combat means that he will inevitably die. Either in combat from damage or out of combat from the drain meaning at some point your best units will inevitably become unavailable.

Also the branching advantages paints a huge target on the commander whose death deprives you of the units you need.

[Skullhammer]

My 2 cent on this topic would be to choose your branch at the beginning i.e. "1ST COMPANY"

I especially like potemkis suggestions, i actually thought into the same direction. (And it even fits the Ultra Marines pretty well).

A: Extensive use of say Scouts. Limits the amount of Space Marine Tactical squads and Assault Squads.

That'll be the Ultra Marines 10th COMPANY which consists entirely of Scout Squads.
Highly Experienced Veteran training Officers are in charge there too.
Great opportunity to utilize Codex-Scouts as well

Commander B: Extensive use of Terminators.

The best of the best. Ultra Marines 1ST COMAPNY.
Consist entirely of Veteran Marines and Terminator Squads.
(Terminators can ONLY be found in the 1ST COMPANY)

Commander C: Fast Assault expert- more Assault Marines and Land Speeders. Is also equipped with a jump pack.

And another winner. The entire 7TH RESERVE COMPANY is trained to fight with Landspeeders.


Ok, the actual balancing and caps are left to be seen, but it's a step into the right direction imho.

Of course we can still link Certain Commanders to each branch, i don't see a problem there

And now excuse me i'm back on studying the UM Codex.
I have some more 'unlockables' for the commanders in mind but i have to take a closer look at 4th and 5th Edition Codex first

[wxyz]

Commander C: Fast Assault expert- more Assault Marines and Land Speeders. Is also equipped with a jump pack.

And another winner. The entire 7TH RESERVE COMPANY is trained to fight with Landspeeders.

The 8th Company is a Fast Attack Company, fight with Assault Marines, Bikes, Land Speeders. In my opinion this is the best choice.

[Storm913]

Well as for doctrines I had pointed out on the UM forum that they would be more UMish would be the doctrines that unlocked a diffrent commander as there is so many. So yes the idea that the doctrine includes the unlocking of certain commanders is something plausble considering how many of them their are.

[Skullhammer]

The 8th Company is a Fast Attack Company, fight with Assault Marines, Bikes, Land Speeders. In my opinion this is the best choice.

The 8th Company is trained in hand-to-hand combat and entirlely consists of Fast Attack choices, true.
The difference to the 7th Company is, that it's still tactical but everyone in there is trained to fly a Land Speeder
That does not mean they ONLY use Land Speeders, they're just trained to use one.
...and as we have plenty of Land Speeder choices...

Same goes for 5th Company where every marine is trained to ride a bike, but we don't have those


PS : Plus i don't like the cannonfodder reputation of the 8th, as it was almost entirely wiped out once

[Storm913]

Skull useth the UM forum for your ideas =D

[Skullhammer]

Skull useth the UM forum for your ideas =D

Been there, done that

[Lleman]

Hmm, i'll play the party-breaker there, but while there's lots of "Should we use branching (and what for? do we even know what we want?)? // Branches are fun! // Yay! we love branches." activity, are we even sure if QuebecDug and DarknessKnight are really wanting to work on such an idea?

It seems to me people are (most likely with good will) trying to put the cart before the horse there. What do QD & DK say about their own mod these days? Do we even know if they are currently pushing to restart progress on this mod? Or is it a case of some very enthusiastic but uninformed persons trying to move things they can't move themselves...pseudo taking over?

I warned you, i play the mood-breaker on this one, but before this thread starts being flooded with babble in the wind the opinion of the original modders themselves (and no one else's) is what we, who aren't privy to the mod team core decisions, should be looking/waiting for.

[thudmeizer]

Well if both DK and QD answered my email inquiries like Alf and other team leads also have not there would be no lapse in any project actions.

[Lleman]

So, basically all that discussion about branches is moot, eh?

(and PS: Alf you can contact anytime if you really want to, i told you where to meet him... end of the thread-derailing )

[Skullhammer]

Hmmmm i'm honest, i don't see anything in this mod that some ppl could complain about being made wrong.

And also i won't get my mood spoiled by harsh critism, i still promote branching.

And here's a lil' something just because i think the forum is too empty



Now move on! For our presence remakes the past!

[thudmeizer]

So, basically all that discussion about branches is moot, eh?

(and PS: Alf you can contact anytime if you really want to, i told you where to meet him... end of the thread-derailing )

I'm just being "proactive" rather than stagnant as I got a solid 1st beta build of UM out in early June and waited for those two to even try it to which I got nothing. Regardless, I'll get the wheels moving on this.

I cannot use IRC @ work nor should I be chasing him after him like a school teacher when he left my artist high and dry waiting for the Tau assets to arrive. However, Alf can use meebo.com anywhere he wants to.

[potemkis]

In the middle of a fight losing your commander would cripple your army, with your best units becoming suddenly unavailable

Would it be possible to make it so that this wouldn't happen?

[Skullhammer]

Would it be possible to make it so that this wouldn't happen?

I'd say yes, link the Commander and his units to a branchchoice instead of making the Commander the choice and link the units to him.

Imho no prbo but i'm not the master of teching here

[thudmeizer]

Yes but if you make it that the specific commanders are based on choosing only one branch research then we're back to what other mods do: base their branching on building researches like the NEcron Forbidden Archive. Sure thats fine if you want to do this btw -- I'd need to reserve a single building to be like the Forbidden Archive OR do branch addons (buggy but we have a surprise coming up for the community in this regard).

[potemkis]

Ahh.. gotcha.

[thudmeizer]

We're pretty much REAL close to being able for the very first time allowing the DoW Skirmish AI to properly use building addons without screwing up. Willl inform once we're ready.

I still like the dynamically pick 1 of 4 Tier3+ UM Heroes and while they are "in play" they unlock a slew of unique units ONLY available if this commander is alive. Thats original actually because then we have tech/build branches based on a Hero. The Hero would be quite expensive and take a while to build so going through each one once would be quite costly and time-consuming. Should flesh this idea out actually.

[wolf]

hey guys im new so pls tell me if i make any mistakes!
was just wnadering if there is any news on a release for the ultrmarines??

also has anyone heard any news on the spacewolves mod??
keep up the fantastic work guys

[thudmeizer]

WE're still working on the UM project. DarknessKnight is now registered to the UM private forums now. Last full and complete build was on early June, 2008.

As for Spacewolves/13th.. yes there are 2-3 of them in progress. Griminar42 had a 13th company done and completely coded (I did AI for it in Summer '07) but it never got finished. Another SW and another 13thcompany are currently in-progress.

[wolf]

ah htanks for the info,any idea if there will be an ultramarines public beta?

[thudmeizer]

We'll see..

[wolf]

oh man the suspense is killing me,on the one hand i hope for a beta so we can have a sneak preview of the mod.on the other hand i want to wait for the full mod so that i can play it in it's perfected state.

[Chaplain261]

I'm with you on that one wolf, since I used to play ultramarines as my first table top army.

[wolf]

unfortunately i havent had much chance to play the warhammer tabletop,as i found it too expensive,although i do love the game and its universe and factions,but i love the ultramarines! so cant wait fot this mod!

[thudmeizer]

Yep.. we're putting something together which is quite nice.

[wolf]

its good to hear!! from reading this thread i am expecting something very very good

[Chaplain261]

Yeah I can't wait to use the Ultramarines to their full potential. Yeah wolf I don't play table top anymore maybe once a year. All the modeling stores around me went out of business and I ran out of money and time. This mod is going to be awesome.

[wolf]

same here,iv played a few games and enjoyed it,but just couldnt afford it but hell thats why i play the pc game,may not be an exact replica(well,ok quite far from the tabletop game) but its still good fun,and cheaper since you get all the main armys for the price of the game and then all the free mods.and then the amazing mods like this one

[Chaplain261]

Exactly I like it a lot more not having to take turns moving or shooting. Good luck with the mod guys, can't wait to use the son's of Guilliman.