That’s an awesome map! I’ve been waiting to see that ever since the tease with the HC!
Calling it a gimmick is way too harsh, terrain that directly affects the gameplay, flanking, attack vectors is anything but a gimmick. Dustwars concept had megaliths as the base for the core gameplay. (And yeah, I know they were dropped from the practical reasons. But not because they would not be a great thing to have.)
It obviously is ‘way’ over 10K. So I’m wondering whether it’ll even render after the patch?
(Wait, what about the Derelict at Tanis or the Balcora Gate?)
I’m sure it kills some amount of the processing power. Flying in a straight line would from the principle obviously be less demanding than finding a way around an object.
But the map is tested and for the most part plays fine. And if there are occasional glitches, they are broken formations. But most of the critical places were eliminated.
But I understand that you need to inform us that it’s a really a bad idea from the technical standpoint.
Which is too bad, because since the first Dustwars concepts it was really a good idea from the gameplay standpoint.
Yeah I’ve never shown it, I know. Some people noticed something exists, but there were never anything more than hints.
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I’m all about the Dustwars stuff - but actually doing it requires a way, way more capable physics/pathing engine… I don’t think in that context that it is a gimmick - I think people that put planets/stars and ‘huge’ objects in the scene are trying too hard. Stuff that is nearly ship-sized (derelicts, etc) - that makes sense, absolutely!
Honestly, in your case, I’d have placed that in the background sphere, and used some camera shift values to make it parallax as if it is actually in the scene (very easy to do) - it won’t waste CPU lighting any longer (you just bake it in), and it always sorts correctly - but still has great motion/weight/presence. I’d be happy to help you create an example of that if you don’t know how that’d be done…
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I think you missed the point. The purpose of putting them in the scene is to alter the gameplay and make it more varied, not to add decorative objects.
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I would love to know how to have great megastructures in the background. But I’ll be frank, not for this particullar map. I’m one of these trying too hard stubborn morons who go with it for the better or worse. Especially when the whole point of this map was having a great structure to fly around, not an atmospheric background piece. But it would certainly be useful elsewhere.
Is it the same thing as the planet? I would presume it is.
I have not yet looked at the planet example. All I know is there are way more source files in that folder. I’ll get to it eventually though, maybe I should set myself to make a map with a planet background.
Actually, I just remembered one of my old ideas. I will absolutely have a map with a giant thing in the background.
No, I didn’t miss that point - I am simply noting that the HW2/HWRM engine isn’t really built for lots of stuff that isn’t movable/temporary in the playfield. With formations it becomes a MUCH bigger issue than it was before, when the only stuff trying to stay together were very small groups of units (Squadrons). The old ‘StrikeGroup’ logic was really just a bunch of relative move/station orders. The new stuff is (by design) more rigid. That rigidity means that large obstacles and difficult pathing will run a very high chance of absolutely nuking your CPU should you attempt to leverage large formations (both in size and unit count).
That said, go crazy if that’s your thing - but it’s not really meant for it, and won’t perform great when pushed hard.
Well if it’s that much worse now that’ll kill the map really…
That has been my experience as well.
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I had the same experience when I tried to work with trenches and combined objects.
I tried latch dockig stuff together (like it’s done with the current research ship … ) but it’s pain and not working good enough.
using empty, not rotating asteroid class Objects for several small hulks close to each other worked acceptable but still no perfect solution.
Having several medium to mothership sized structues with reasonable space between while keeping space for at least mothership class ships should be the best way I think. Maybe make them empty asteroids because they create those combined collision boxes if grouped (not sure).
Now talking about megaliths and collision meshes,etc… how did Relic manage to get it right with the collision meshes as seen in the following examples:
HW2 Production Screen Shots
and
HW2 Megastation
and
Homeworld 2 - E3 2001 Trailer - Full Version-Reddit?
Afaik that is impossible in HW2 classic and HW2RM but yet as seen in the vid the 15th fleet Hiigaran carrier moves very close to the megastation and the interceptors fly at right angles in the trench of the megastation,etc… and pictures of the megastation have gaps in it implying that ships could fly through?
I might be miss-reading it but this thread got me thinking about it and I would like to see other people’s input about it.Sure it must have been heavy on the resources but impressive to watch!
Thanks
[edit]@Pouk Would love to try that megalith map in HW2 Classic!
While the ships were supposed to do that, I think the trailer is heavily staged.
It looks like the patch will completelly break this map, so it’s likely I’ll release it in this form for Classic, as soon as I’ll find out it doesn’t work anymore.
Not just that, but hey, they didn’t ship HW2 with any of that working or even remotely possible. I don’t know the inside story (or than a TON of groups with different code/styles working on the codebase and making it a huge clusterf**k)… but I imagine issues with these huge systems and effective pathing were part of why they don’t exist in HW2.
Codethulhu must not be awaken ! 
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Would have been exiting to see in HW2 though even if it was extremely heavy on the system resources … Just curious but was there any hint\code regarding the pathing\collision as seen in those screenshots from the HW2 production version,etc… found in the source code for HW2 when Gearbox acquired the ip?
Thanks
I suppose you could optimize such a large structure for one ship (e.g. the old space sim Descent), but not for a fleet of ships.
So according to the discussion above, this should be impossible…
…it has happened a few times that I have noticed.
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http://www.supergrove.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/good-news-everyone-9-good-news-everyone.jpg
So, what did you do? @Dom2
There are three platforms forming a ring, and the taiidan scout has made an attack run against one of them. It has got into the ring and then turned away through the centre of the ring. I suspect this is only a quirk of the attack style and that ships would not plot a path through the ring when moving…
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Yeah, probably might as well bumped into another segment.
Actually, ships can navigate through the ring fine when moving (not attacking)…
