#1

Homeworld Splendor MOD

I am pleased to present you an amateur modification of this legendary space strategy, that’s main objective is supplement the game by couple of small features, that, author believes, the developers did not have time to do. Further you can find a list of changes, and time will show how they were appropriate.

##INSTALL##

To install the mod just unpack the archive with it into the game folder (C:\Sierra\Homeworld for CD-version by default, for Steam-version - X:\Steam\steamapps\common\Homeworld\Homeworld1Classic\exe, which X:\Steam is Steam library folder). To launch the mod, use file HomeworldSPL.exe, because much of the features described below implemented by carefully editing this exe-file.

Keep in mind that in addition to the command line itself mod will pick up the command line options from a commandLineSPL.txt file if exists. By default, it contains options, which activated new graphical features.

To install musical addition unpack an archive with it into the game folder too (note, that for Steam version it’s need to use Homeworld1Classic\Data rather that Homeworld1Classic\exe).

To uninstall the mod just delete all its files.

##FEATURES LIST##

GRAPHICS

  • Added support for widescreen video modes (in general, all available) via OpenGL (recommended) and DirectX renderers.

  • OpenGL now can be select without tweaks with NT4.0 compatibility.

  • Main menu displays renderer name and OpenGL version [1.02].

  • Added support for trilinear texture filtering (OpenGL only). This feature activated via /glTrilinearFilter «method» command-line switch, where parameter «method» specifies mipmap generation method and can have the following values:
    soft - software
    hardsgi - hardware (standard for OpenGL 1.4, deprecated since 3.x)
    hardfbo - hardware (standard for OpenGL 3.x)
    auto - autodetect (hardfbo -» hardsgi -» soft)

  • Added support for anisotropic texture filtering (OpenGL only). This feature activated via /glAnisotropicFilter «n» command-line switch, where parameter «n» specifies anisotropic ratio and must be power of two (1,2,4,8…), 1 - autodetect maximum supported value (usually 16 on modern video cards).

  • Added support for antialiasing for 3D-models (OpenGL only). This feature activated via /glAntiAliasing «n» command-line switch, where parameter «n» specifies antialiasing ratio and must be power of two (1,2,4,8…), 1 - autodetect maximum supported value (usually 16 on modern video cards).

  • Added 16-bit texture support for OpenGL in order to save memory in the corresponding video modes [1.03].

  • Improved look of ships due to the partial rejection of low-poly models and significant increase the acceptable polygons amount limit per frame.

  • Raised upper memory limit for un-paletted textures from 32 to 128 Mb, thereby eliminated a situation where the game continuously distributes large amounts of textures (over 48 Mb in the last missions) in 32 Mb pool.

  • Optimized algorithm for converting paletted textures to unpaletted than achieved a 3x increase its speed.

MUSIC

  • Some tracks are replaced by same ones, taken from the audio CD. During compression was specified maximum supported bitrate for relic codec (352Kbps).

  • Mothership launch track changed to more appropriate for this grandiose event and stylistically closer to ambient of first mission (yes, this is ”Mining facility” with launch sfx :)).

  • Final battle track changed to more epic. It’s not a Homeworld track, but it also stylistically closer to Empire battle theme, and its composer, like Vangelis, well acquainted with the singer of the final song, so I hope you will forgive me this whim :slight_smile:

  • Final song from Credits also get from audio CD [1.02].

Please note that these changes will be available only when musical addition is installed!

GAMEPLAY

  • Added ability to capture the pirate carrier and garden needleship – with construction facilities and roomy hangars. At the same time capture became harder and more complicated, and in the missions of first meeting at all locked for plot/balance considerations.

  • Added technological dependencies for pirate/garden ships – they can’t be built without the relevant research of engines and chassis.

  • Captured enemy carriers now build its own ships the same color scheme. They also use their race icons in Construction and Launch Managers.

  • Guns now tracking target immediately, not just when it was in range. Also after ship stopped attack they are rotated to the initial position [1.03].

  • Unlocked time compression mode, previously available only when viewing replays. Now, by pressing the backslash “”, the game accelerates 8 times.

  • Removed the restriction of minimum brightness for color of ship hulls (58.6%) with the corresponding brightness correction of engine trails. Also increased the power of base color setting by one third – hull colors become more deep and saturated [1.01, 1.03].

  • Part of the trail immediately after the engine is painted in the color of the engine [1.01].

  • Silhouettes of invisible ships are now translucent rather than wireframes [1.04].

  • Parade formation before hyperjump became more compact.

  • Added the button to cancel hyperjump in case you make a hasty decision.

  • Kushan and Taiidan hyperspace effects now have a different color. In addition, hyperscreens of raider and protector ships are now painted in the colors of Exiles and the Imperialists, respectively [1.01].

  • Ship scales became more realistic.

  • Changed retreat path of enemy carrier at Supernova Station – now she really escapes from us [1.01].

  • Now you can save the Captain Elson in a final battle, if you’re promptly enough :wink: [1.01].

  • Mod bundled with two maps from Homeworld: Armada Meltdown CD.

SHIP STATS BALANCING

  • Changed limits for the number of ships in the fleet:
    Fighters – from 80 to 100.
    Corvettes – from 50 to 70.
    Frigates – from 18 to 25.
    Destroyers – from 6 to 8.
    Cruisers – from 3 to 4.

  • Defender
    Guns damage increased from 3-4 to 6-9
    Projectiles speed decreased from 20000 to 10000 m/s

  • Attack Bomber
    Durability increased from 110 to 210

  • Light Corvette
    Gun damage of Kushan corvette increased from 20-31 to 30-42
    Guns damage of Taiidan corvette increased from 10-15.5 to 15-21
    Guns recharge time decreased from 2.7 to 2.0 s
    Max.speed increased from 575 to m/s

  • Heavy Corvette
    Guns damage of Kushan corvette increased from 28-36 to 36-48
    Guns damage of Taiidan corvette increased from 14-18 to 18-24

  • Repair Corvette
    Gun damage increased from 7-8 to 10-14

  • Multigun Corvette
    Guns damage increased from 6-7 to 8-10

  • Assault Frigate
    Plasma launchers damage increased from 55-65 to 75-110
    Projectile speed of rail guns increased from 4300 to 7300 m/s

  • Support Frigate
    Gun damage of Kushan frigate increased from 12-16 to 15-21 to match Taiidan frigate

  • Destroyer
    Projectile speed of rail guns increased from 4300 to 6300 m/s

  • Carrier
    Guns damage increased from 10-16 to 16-20
    Projectile speed increased from 2100 to 4100 m/s
    Guns range increased from 3000 to 5000 m

  • P1 Fighter
    Build time increased from 1 to 25 s
    Gun damage increased from 3-5 to 8-12
    Fire rate decreased from 6.6 to 3.3 shots per second to match Kushan and Taiidan fighters

  • P1 Standard Corvette
    Build time increased from 1 to 40 s
    Guns damage increased from 18-25 to 32-42

  • P1 Missile Corvette
    Build time increased from 1 to 50 s
    Missiles damage increased from 15-35 to 30-50
    Missile speed increased from 200 to 500 m/s
    Missiles capacity decreased to 4 per launcher to avoid cheating :slight_smile:

  • P1 Ion Array Frigate
    Build cost increased from 500 to 600 RU
    Build time increased from 60 to 80 s
    Self-repair ratio increased from 0/90 to 50/10 hp/s

  • P1 Mothership
    Ship salvageable now
    Ship became more aggressive to enemy units nearby :slight_smile:
    Ship can take other ships for retirement
    Hangar for 60/30 fighters/corvettes
    Self-repair ratio increased from 25/10 to 250/10 hp/s

  • P2 Swarmer
    Build cost increased from 25 to 120 RU
    Build time increased from 6 to 14 s
    Fuel capacity increased from 4000 to 6000 to the delight of all guests :slight_smile:

  • P2 Advanced Swarmer
    Build cost increased from 25 to 190 RU
    Build time increased from 6 to 18 s
    Fuel capacity increased from 4000 to 8000
    Guns damage increased from 14-16 to 25-30

  • P2 Fuelpod
    Durability increased from 7000 to 9000
    Gun damage increased 30-40 to 40-50

  • P2 Multi-beam Frigate
    Build cost increased from 500 to 1100 RU

  • P2 Mothership
    Ship salvageable now
    Hangar for 90 fighters
    Projectile speed of rail guns increased from 3000 to 10000 m/s
    Range of rail guns increased from 3000 to 8000 m

INTERFACE

  • Added ”Launch one” button to Launch Manager [1.01].

  • «F12» key now brings ingame menu – there is no need to press «Esc» several times, so inappropriately sometimes removing selection from ships.

  • Taskbar now displays mission time and counter of ships under your command. He’ll surely be delighted enthusiasts, which like going through the game without losses [1.00, 1.03].

  • Added player name text field in ”Skirmish vs CPU” menu settings.

  • Enhanced clarity of fonts [1.00, 1.03].

BUGS FIXED

  • Fixed a bug when «Alt» + «Tab» switching leads to disable texture filtering under Direct3D.

  • Fixed a bug with wrong visualization in windowed Software-mode, if Desktop color depth differs from 16 bit (typical vertically-flattened picture in violet tones) [1.03].

  • Split memory consumption counter for paletted textures and their RGBA-copies – loading screen no longer going into infinite loop, if total size of RGBA-textures exceeds 2/3 texture pool.

  • Added aspect ratio recalculation when changing video mode – otherwise, the image may be stretched / squashed [1.01].

  • Fixed ”scratched” interface bug, if you enable anti-aliasing in video card driver settings.

  • Fixed minor bug with blurry logo in right bottom corner.

  • Fixed incomplete background shutdown in Construction, Research and Trade Managers in two last missions [1.01].

  • Fixed crash while loading saved games, created on levels with custom background, if user not have it [1.03].

  • Fixed minor bugs with ship autolaunch switches [1.01].

  • Fixed Movement disk bug, which did not allow specify the exact destination point, if screen aspect ratio different from the 4/3 [1.01].

  • Fixed bug with sometimes appears ”close button” for context menu, click on that could cause a crash [1.03].

  • Fixed ship counter bug, which is not account the ships given by scripts [1.01].

  • Name of enemy race in one of the speeches of the 4th mission now pronounced correctly.

  • Fixed the situation where ships before hyperjump could line up in parade formation not around Mothership [1.02].

MISCELLANEOUS

  • Ship lists for Construction Manager moved to script files, that allows customization of build menu (example) [1.02].

  • The command line switches are now also loaded from a file commandLineSPL.txt – in case they can’t be specified directly (i.e. launch from GameRanger). Also added ability to disable switch, preceding it by the symbol “#” [1.02, 1.03].

  • Optimized unpacking algorithm for data from big-file, than achieved significant increase of performance (almost 8x for entire Homeworld.big) [1.02].

  • Musical addition moved to its own file – now there is no need to append it to original HW_Music.wxd [1.02].

  • Integrated Russian translation [1.02].

  • Saved games now stored in SavedGamesSPL folder – due to the fact that the saves of the original game are not compatible with this mod. Backward compatibility still present, but you lose ability to use pirate and garden Motherships.

  • Game now can snap definitively more screenshots without overwrite – from 200 to over 9000 [1.01].

  • Game log file renamed to debugMessagesSPL.txt, and overwrite every time if you not used /debugToFile command-line switch, which restore append mode.

##IN ACTION##

Those, who want to see the mod in action, can watch several videos on YouTube:

All thanks goes to comrade SpanishArmadaProd – videos looks really great :slight_smile:

62eafd3a8ea64420d9015b58737f72ca *Homeworld_Splendor_MOD_v1.00.rar
638ecf26f69859a39826756c30d33555 *Homeworld_Splendor_MOD_v1.01.rar
bff5ba06f9b51ac7b5c23075e912ca2d *Homeworld_Splendor_MOD_v1.02.rar
0131daca348321885ffae20ff18ae763 *Homeworld_Splendor_MOD_v1.03.rar
78c4382885c2973beccc89ee2400c6d8 *Homeworld_Splendor_MOD_v1.04.rar
ecbdf9d699d1d1fb94a701a1049b500d *Homeworld_Splendor_MOD_Music_v1.00.rar
b4133c2ef16d4e9caa7478c7c86d37b0 *Homeworld_Splendor_MOD_Music_v1.02.rar

Finally I want to express the hope that the mod will appeal to all fans and inspire veterans of past battles to new feats. Enjoy!

3 Likes
Gearbox Community Badass: EatThePath
#2

Hm. Any chance of putting full graphics mode/resolution selection options in the command line? I’m having trouble on my system, every time I select a different graphics setting the game vanishes from view, but still consumes large amounts of CPU in the background. Setting resolution via command line flags works but is limited, and I can’t get out of 16 bit color.

#3

This mod has awful installation instructions. Which “game folder”? Where? Putting it in the base Homeworld Remastered Collection folder doesn’t work at all, and neither does putting it in any of the subdirectories, apparently.

#4

The Splendor mod predates the collection, and is set up to work with an original Homeworld 1 install directory. That’s not set up the same as the HW1C directory in the collection. I’m not sure if it’s possible to get it to start with the files in the collection, I dropped it into my old original install directory instead.

#5

@EatThePath – Ok, I will try to implement the ability to change the video mode from the command line. In turn, please show contents of file debugMessagesSPL.txt – probably, it would be helpful.

@Troika, game folder is “C:\Sierra\Homeworld” by default – this mod for CD-version of the game and (currently) not compatible with classic version from Gearbox due to changes in standard C library (timestamp now 8 bytes long instead 4).

1 Like
#6

@p2ambassador Here you go: http://pastebin.com/AXeMFcaS

I opened the game, changed resolution, and then had to kill the process with task manager. That’s the log output that results.

#7

@EatThePath, you even can’t initialize OpenGL at all… You have ATI videocard? :slight_smile:

As workaround - try to run mod without new command line switches for antialiasing/trilinear/anisotropic (just disable it preceding by the symbol “#” in commandLineSPL.txt) and set appropriate OpenGL mode. Then step-by-step enable new switches and see results. Maybe this helps.

#8

I have an Nvidia card, but I’m playing on a laptop that also has intelHD graphics and sometimes runs stuff on the wrong chips. I’ll try to force it to run on the card first, and then follow your tips.

Edit: Yep, forcing it to start on the nvidia did it. Thanks for the help.

#9

This is a pretty awesome mod! Having a decent widescreen aspect ratio is a godsend.

I just have one question/complaint though… Did you change the name of salvage corvettes to “polite corvette”?
If so, why? Is there any way I can change that ? It really bugs me… :- (

I know that’s a terribly minor complaint, but it’s just so weird. :- /

#10

It’s very nice to have more graphic options like that. The gameplay changes you made make me avoid your mod like the teutonic plague though.

A pity that you don’t have more versions of your mod. :frowning:

#11

Someone remaster this please, I wanna be able to cap the Turanic and Kadeshi flagships. For science.

1 Like
#12

@p2ambassador Do you plan to make it work on Homeworld Classic steam version?

#13

Give me time (and mod tools…) and you’ll see something like this in remastered, with even more pirate ships! For science, of course!

@Hawk_v90 I’m not sure it would work that easily: it’s pretty much a rebuild of the entire exe and changed so many things that it’s definitely not running any time soon in the remastered classics.
Hey you don’t even know if they changed something in the big files or fixed some bugs that this program doesn’t recognize…

That said I still love to play this mod from time to time just to get the feeling of old Homeworld back, you know formations, balance and all that running even in fullhd.

#14

@thewhitecrane, @Gotcha_nl

I suppose that polite corvettes disappear as imperceptibly as they had come :wink:

Teutonic? I think, no :slight_smile: I know, these very impolite people came to us from time to time. We all know how it ended… but that thread not about this.

@Hawk_v90, @SAAA

Of course, I plan to add support for HW1 Steam version. Ability to load new big files already implemented – fortunately, the developers haven’t changed anything, just use new compiler. Currently I trying to address issues, that mentioned by @EatThePath – Mod runs perfectly on nVidia hardware, but on ATI/Intel videocards it sometimes can’t create OpenGL context, especially after anti-aliasing initialization. Of course, I can turn off anti-aliasing by default, but it doesn’t always work, so still I would like to solve this problem. For science, also :smiley:

#15

In honor of 70th VICTORY Anniversary I released a new version of Mod - 1.04. Now it’s fully compatible with the Steam-version of the classic game and allows multiplayer battles for it. And as a little bonus invisible ships are now translucent rather than wireframes.

Enjoy!

2 Likes
#16

Actually enjoying this. :wink:

Also who’s up for a match? Post here if you are going to play!

Small notice to everyone: if you are trying to play this mod or classic I highly suggest to set the affinity of the program to two cores at most, it runs the same but with less noise and load on the cpu. This helps a lot on laptops to save battery too.

#17

@p2ambassador

This mod is looking awesome, thank you very much for such a wonderful job! :smiley: As a long-time Homeworld classic fan, I’m very pleased to see that many things got improved in a much welcomed way. For example the changes to graphics, ships, the 8x time compression, the increase fleet capacity and many more features, awesome!

During my capture-all playthroughs, I used to mod the game for myself to enable capturing the 2 Turanic Carrier and I’m very happy to see that it has been made official within this mod. Not only that, but now we can dock into such carriers/motherships (including Kadeshi Needleships), and build the corresponding race’s ships from such as well! ^^

Also, before I would start a new playthrough with this mod, I have 3 questions to ask if you don’t mind:

  1. Parade formation before hyperjump became more compact.

Does this mean that now in missions, captured ships that reached the boundaries of certain maps won’t bug out while trying to hyperspace in ‘Parade’ formation?

  • You see, I used to edit the size of maps past mission 7, in order to let me hyperspace without the need to retire the mass amount of captured ships. This only happened during ‘capture-all’ playthroughs of course.

  1. Fixed ship counter bug, which is not account the ships given by scripts

I’m not sure what this accounts for, but just in case: does this mean that the bug where you completed building processes during cutscenes, and the newly built ships did not count towards the fleet capacity is gone? I don’t mind either way, I’m used to that exploit, but I wanted to ask either way :stuck_out_tongue:

  1. http://homeworld.wikia.com/wiki/Homeworld:_Raider_Retreat
    Download link: http://www.moddb.com/games/homeworld/downloads/homeworld-raider-retreat

About this, have you considered inserting the last mission ‘Deep Space - Turanic Raider Planetoid’ from the Raider Retreat / Homeworld OEM standalone pack in between Mission 4 and Mission 5? Because that would be truly awesome, I always wanted that mission to be part of the Homeworld campaign (with 17 missions in total this way). Although I’m unsure if that’s doable, and if it would pose any kind of copyright issues…

  • Anyways, if that would be possible, then the original mission 4 ‘Great Wastelands’ should be overwritten by mission 4 from the Raider Retreat pack, as the content is slightly changed there, to accommodate the additional mission, ‘Deep Space - Turanic Raider Planetoid’.
  • And then, mission 5 could be this extra one, mission 6 could be the original mission 5, mission 7 the original mission 6, etc. What do you say, is it doable?

Thank you very much for your replies in advance! (I hope you are still around) :smiley:

1 Like
#18

hey, trying to use it on an amd r9 290, i can use software rendering, but trying to use opengl fails to initialize, d3d works amazingly enough, until i get to the main menu where the mouse curser leaves a trail on the screen and has trouble clicking on buttons. i tried the /triple command to see if that would help, since people say it helps with flickering.

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#19

In case @p2ambassador is still around, some observations: if you’re making the needleship capturable, fix the thing’s collision box. When the thing starts turning, its “tail” suddenly gains a disproportionately huge collision box that destroys any salvagers who approach anywhere near about a hundred meters within the end of the ship. The middle of the ship is fine, it’s the last third that suddenly gains a collision box the size of the front of the ship that instakills anything it touches, including salvagers approaching from the opposite direction the tail is turning in (ie. the tail is turning away from them, yet they still explode).

That and I noticed that the single-shot guns on the bottom of the head’s rim impart enough kinetic force to keep a salvager from latching on to the attachment point in the middle of the ship. Specifically, the first salvager to be ordered to latch on to the ship does so at a point that’s in range of two of these guns (one of which fires through the needleship to hit the salvager!) and the successive hits keep knocking the salvager out of position, causing it to endlessly try reaching the exact position it needs and endlessly get knocked away from it. The only solution as of now is to use another ship to draw fire away from the salvager. Possible solution is to either remove the knockback from this particular gun or reduce the firing arc so that it cannot hit salvagers already latched on.

Another bug I noticed with the needleship and the salvagers is that if the salvagers are approaching from the front, the entire group plows into the ship and explodes one by one, even if the ship is perfectly still. I observed this on mission 8: the upper needleship descended at one point and started shooting the Mothership. I sent in the salvagers milling around the mothership to grab it; about two-thirds of them suicide-dived into the needleship’s front unless I moved them to the side of the needleship first, then told them to go grab it.

Hell, the best solution would be to just turn off collision detection for salvagers while they’re latched on or in the middle of latching on. Even in the unmodded game, I lost dozens of salvagers on this mission to fuel pods being so tightly packed that salvagers can’t fit between them and multibeam frigates slapping salvagers off of each other with their spinning alone.

I had much less frustration grabbing the raider carrier. Still lost a bunch of salvagers to collisions and at one point, the damn thing was so focused on ion cannoning the Mothership that it nicked the MS and went kaboom, killing all five salvagers latched on to it and bringing the Mothership down to just a sliver of health. Speaking of which, the raider carrier doesn’t seem willing to assume military parade formation with the MS: I give the order, the carrier acknowledges, but nothing happens. If other ships are selected as well, they go to military parade around the carrier, not the MS.

2 Likes
#20

This is awesome. I unpacked the mod and am modding in all the candy I used to put in the original and also changing things that would crash the original. Loving this. I’ve made some definite visual improvements that the original designers and the recent author overlooked.

Still prefer this over HW2 and HWRM… especially after my tweaks.

3 Likes