If we are going to have squadrons, I would prefer AI-managed units of (potentially) mixed types. if I group ships together, then I would love for them to operate like an enhanced HW2 squadron (without auto-replenishment – unless – it does so by drawing from ships in parade ).
Whatever happened to “balance mod for quick iteration”…
Dude. We have a lobby. Shut it.
Being all “keep this civil” etc on the forums, while trolling people, that what they deem important is no where near the top of the priority list, is no way to fill me with confidence.
Even if they somewhat offhandedly update the game now and again, trusting the company is for me part of enjoying the game. And there is no trust, since they troll and have apparently only 1 or 2 people working on the balancing thing (which has fast iterations of 0/2months).
Trolling, Really ?
… We just got a freakin LOBBY !! A feature much desired by the community and BAM we got one, despite the fact that they said they wouldn’t do it. And please remember, this is NOT a triple A game that sold millions of copies, to expect huge teams working on this title is ridiculous to begin with.
Furthermore, they already said that the team doing the current patches is not the one working on balancing/mechanics, so don’t point your finger at them, they are doing their job, and a damn fine one at that too ! Add to that the fact that there are some really awesome devs who go out of their way to help modders and people with problems on the forums and there is no sane way to call this trolling of any sort !
Sure, the balancing is taking its time and people are impatient when it comes to stuff like that, but I for one very much prefer to wait a long time and get a decent update to the mechanics and balancing rather than some rushed thrown together stuff.
Aside from that its also simply illogical to try and balance the current game as the new formation mechanics and all it entails will alter the gameplay quite a bit, making it pointless to try and balance the current, soon to be obsolete, gameplay. And to implement these new mechanics we need the groundwork, which the current patch was part of, as the devs stated themselves, so please refrain from such baseless accusations and be a little more patient.
Looking at the current rate of updates and the fact that balancing is done by another team, I am confident its not gonna be too long until we see the first signs of it ;).
Way to miss the point. Congrats.
Somewhere they stated lobby ain’t high on the priority list and then left everyone to moan about it. It was apparently too hard to say that they are working on it.
Such surprise games like “heh fooled ya, we were working on it all along”, belong in kindergarten and in no way inspire confidence.
I got your point just fine, I just vehemently disagree with your attitude/interpretation of what is going on. And they actually said the won’t do a global lobby at all, not only low on priority, as a dev said it would be quite hard to implement. I never read their implementation of a lobby as some sort of “joke” as you apparently see it, I simply suspect they didn’t say anything because they honestly didn’t know if they could make it work in a satisfactory way and kept silent until they got it working.
Isn’t it far preferable to get a nice suprise such as a lobby then to be told about an attempt to implement one way ahead of release and then maybe being disappointed with the result ? And as for confidence in Gearbox, I gave you plenty of examples why one should have high confidence in the people working on this game but apperently that was “missing the point” …
They didn’t have to announce it right away, just as soon as it was close to being finished. They claim that working with modders and listening to players is their goal. Going by that, this is no place for random surprises, while keeping quiet about the matter, even though people are clearly very upset about it.
And if they released it “as soon as it was made”, that’s a whole another can of worms.
As for confidence. Even if they are working as hard as possible, with limited manpower, all they do reeks of inexperience in either development or just public relations. Not much to be confident about so far.
Of course I understand people want to only see the good side of it and try to forget about the rest. That’s fine.
Well I guess we have to agree to disagree
I usually am on the critical side of such debates and would probably agree with you, but call me naive, I really have a good feeling about this game, or it might just be the fact that I loved playing this game and am not very objective when it comes to it 
See? We are on opposing sides but for the same reason. Happens… 
I love the game, played it as a kid, but that’s just more of a reason to be critical of who gets to work on it and what’s the quality.
Man this thread is getting pretty crazy.
I’m a little late to the party, but just wanted to say a big thank you to Gearbox and each of the dev’s listening and working to make this remaster even better. As someone who casually played the original as a kid, I was amazed by the graphical quality of the remaster. You guys did great on that front. I’m saddened by the issues with formations etc., but understand why given the conversation here and elsewhere. I am quite surprised and encouraged by the effort you guys are putting forth to listen and make iterative improvements. That is rare and much appreciated. Keep up the good work.
I would like to see sob_group functions that :
Sounds really good. I see one issue, though.
This would basically ruin (or rather keep ruined) the sphere formation. The sphere formation is meant to stay together to protect the ship/ships at the center. It’s usually used with interceptors escorting an important ship or non-combat ship (specifically the salvage ships). If they won’t stay in formation (because it’s a multi-ship squadron) when encountering the enemy then the formation is useless. It will leave the center ship open & vulnerable.
Yup he’s since changed this plan to not necessarily adhere to that quoted post, but we don’t know exactly how the new version of it will work until it;s announced that it’s done.
Thanks for the update and your efforts.
2 weeks is certainly a longtime time for a such a thing.
This thinking certainly brings back frustrating memories working on MIX.
you’ve said that even with the code base, it’s quite a nightmare fiddling with it, with that in mind : what about the new graphics extensions. A compute shader should be able to provide a vector overide when ported HW1 ships start behaving like HW2.
A - I’m not going to be able to add any systems of that nature that don’t already exist… Refinements, yes, minimally… but a whole new system and set of assets/etc? No.
B - You’ve got the seed of an idea that in reality is no more possible than a new or updated language interface:
– I’d have to add a way to gather and organize a ton of very distributed data (including hiding in and out of various LUA contexts), structure it for use in a homogeneous way, funnel it to the GPU, and get it back, update the existing objects including very random hacks and hooks of every sort you could imagine.
This engine is so far beyond a cluster-■■■■ that I think anyone speculating about what is possible is either very, very wrong - or absolutely misguided (albeit optimistic) in ways those of us working on it for years has learned not to be. That’s not to say some things aren’t possible with MASSIVE edits (and trust me, we’re doing those in many places now) - but an even vaguely functional object model with support for things like Compute shaders is outside the scope of this codebase.
I see you’re getting into Shaders, a system I built with a ton of power and flexibility - hopefully I can get them connected to in-game state via LUA (and safe for both save&load and MP) - then all hell is going to break loose.
orly? 
- First thought: Borgification
Ofc I have very limited info, as I only know what you guys want us to.
This ofc leads to a hit and miss approach, but we’re trying here.
And yes I realise the codebase is a complete mess (Months of head aching with MIX taught us that one).
I don’t see how a shader system would necessarily require different assets/classes system.
This is why I mentioned shaders: if you can get a LAU I/O (Which I assumed you would allready have set-up considering RM, but no matter - maybe you just bolted it on to the existing?)
In either case, just putting it up there; it’s equally frustrating for modders to work with the engine, and I certainly sympathise.
Could you tell us at least if you did DX or OPENGL extensions - that would at least allow us to come up correct thread processes.
Thanks for your time.
[quote=“BitVenom, post:339, topic:216250”]
This engine is so far beyond a cluster-■■■■ that I think anyone speculating about what is possible is either very, very wrong - or absolutely misguided (albeit optimistic) in ways those of us working on it for years has learned not to be.
[/quote]oh, I don’t know. I bet some of us have both a very good idea of how limited and/or complex the code base is that you have to work with coupled with a healthy respect for what you have done so far.

in fact, it’s b/c of those complexities that I would like to see a a load time dependency checker option for mod debugging that would list all the files and their relative path for each ship.
i see it as listing all ship dependencies within a mod by .big file so that a ship within FXmod.big would would show all the sound, fx, weapon files in that big file, then it would list the files it expects to read from FXEnglish.big, HomeWorld2.big, etc
ok
I was thinking
Enhanced armor and more shield protection to make it feel like a space battle.
better frigates:.
Light Frigates Medium Frigates Heavy Frigates
Light Destroyers Medium Destroyers and Heavy Destroyers
Light Battlecruisers Medium Battlecruisers and Beavy Battlecruisers
and a Battleship class one design probably super class like super star destroyer.
add more units to build from each class type than the already limit,example 25.
tech tree of auto heal for small class fighters is good so I don’t have to scuttle and rebuild.
More larger maps more resources and never ending space conflicts 
maybe more missions and more research and better weaponry and more enhanced everything.