#4

The homeworld universe seemed to often rely on great technology that was created by forerunner races (the Bentusi, the Progenator race, the Naggarok). I always wished that this was reflected in the multiplayer. Finding something salvageable would be able to lead to new technologies or units to produce. Salvaged artifacts would be stored in the ship they were brought to and if said ship is destroyed, would reappear in the debris of the ship for the enemy to salvage (retreiving the core from Bentus). Every relic would lend, through study, new leads on the location to the next better artifact and would lead up to one major and likely game changing endgame weapon. Essentially a race to a hidden doomsday machine. This game mode would ideally reward exploration and mobility with large portions of your fleet. Unfortunately it would also require a massive map and I don’t know how the HW2 engine handles that. I had always fantasized that in a game mode like the one I describe, it would be possible to accidentally awaken the Beast as an ai player with technology you salvaged.

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#5

Why neutral flagship? I had the Capture the MS mode in the old R.E.A.R.M. as you describe, but it was about each other’s Motherships. Each MS had 1 000 000 worth of HP and the intended point was that it should have been easier to capture it than to destroy it. But both strategies were valid.
What you describe is a fight (granted, an interesting capture fight) for a single point on map.

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#6

What about ship classes being gradually unlocked thoughout the game, in a set timing (5 minutes, 7 minutes apart), but at a random order. :smile: That sounds rather refreshing.

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#7

Also Mikali used to have that quite amazing game mode in classic, where a group of three players would in some sense act as one (I think they all had shared resources and the same starting position), but each was allowed to build only certain families, his own branch he was responsible for. So one player was in control of Strikecraft, one had Capital ships and the third one Frigates (and platforms?).

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#8

Yes, that is why I was thinking best of 3 or 5 with different or even random spawn points. You will have a massive battle to lock down the first probably, but if your fleet isn’t designed to be also mobile you may miss out on the others.

#9

That is kind of how King an Fools worked. There was no research, so the CS started fully upgraded, siege cannon and everything if Somtaaw. The CC players didn’t have enough support units to build an entire fleet, so they each had to take a different tech. Often one would harvest crystals to feed the pack, one would go fighters, and the other 2 frigates.

The 4 had to work together like that or there was no realistic way to take down a fully upgraded and research unlocked CC that could also build it’s own Carriers.

#10

I admit I’ve never played the Cata MP in my life.
But having it locked out from the start makes the the roles straightforward to follow even without communication. …Yeah I know, comm is the key, but it doesn’t sound like the King and Fools is something you could play with randoms. Not that you’re safe from getting angry with randoms if the roles are clearly defined, but at least you know they’ll be forced to stick with them.

#11

Yea I didn’t play much with randoms past maybe the first month of HW1. Clans were a lot more prevalent and important back then. But you also wouldn’t launch a king and fools game with randoms if they didn’t understand the rules. They would probably just quit when they spawned with only a CC or when they spawned with a MS and no one allied with them.

#12

Whether noob-friendly or not, still a good game mode, no?

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#13

SOASE styled pirates?
There’s a CPU controlled pirate base (usually in the middle, or in HW2 it could be above or below the main plane) and the countdown for attack goes down. Players can give RUs to pirates (or ignore the whole thing). When the count reaches zero, pirates go after the enemy of the player who pledged the highest bounty.
We already have Turanic Raiders, we could have use for them.

#14

How about Tower Defence Mode. Its always an additive mode in any rts. thinking Starcrafts squadTD.

#15

Not familiar, elaborate?

#16

By all means! . At the moment I play 2-3 hours of Squad TD on Sc2.

Well if I envision rules similar to squad TD using Homeworld, its hard to explain but ill try

The game is 4v4 or 3v3 on a stretched out map.
Teams start on either side. In the middle are 2-4 Balcora gates facing towards each team.
On each side of the map there is a space station for each player. That’s all they have to begin with.
From the space station players have options

  • build towers ( ships )
  • build economy
  • upgrade towers
  • increase space station defences.
  • augment enemy waves with extra units

When a player builds a tower - essentially a unit depending on the players choice of towers ,he wil need to position that tower. A basic setup is high hp short range tanking units at the front and dps low hp ranged units behind.

There is a countdown to do all this, and each player has a patch of space to position their ships. Once a ship is in position, it will always inhabit that position unless sold.

Once the countdown hits zero, the wave starts. Wave 1 maybe starts with a flood of fighters. The fighters will fight your towers, and if they destroy your towers will head to the space station to destroy that. Once all enemy units are dead, or you are dead, Wave 2 countdown begins.

You do not control your ships. You just watch to see if your towers can hold the wave. The beauty of this mode is there IS no micro at all. Its all strategy. I sometimes eat and cook whilst playing td games.

You get all your ships back that you have positioned, and you can begin upgrading them or adding more, with extra resources that you have gained from killing the fighters.
In wave 2 , could be a formation of Flak Frigates that come out.

so etc etc. I can elaborate evewn more. The best thing to do is research SquadTD

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#17

That would probably require quite a lot of new engine modification and if it was to be released by GBX, then they would probably have more things to worry about. That game mode is a great idea though! :wink:

#18

That sounds really neat. Almost turn based but I can imagine some really interesting and elaborate setups for both the attacker and defender.

It kind of sounds like it would be more of a real rules based mode as appose to something done in GRs. Probably something like no resourcing and set resource injections to time the waves.

The use of strike groups and guard would be very effective in this game mode also, however 1 huge dimension of this would be unit stance. Given there is no micro, some stances that would normally be flipped by the user in a given point in the battle wouldn’t be usable. I could see getting really frustrated at unit AI over this, but then again, that would probably just have to play into the overall strategy.

#19

I’m not really seeing much in a TD mode that requires engine modification. There’s probably areas that would go more smoothly with supporting engine changes, but nothing that seems to require it.

#20

I’m not entirely sure what you mean by this, could you elaborate?

#21

Meaning players would have to know and follow the rules. Not something that could be MADE to happen in Mod GRs (GameRules)

#22

Can a modder give me insight as to what can work within the limitations of the engine. For a TD to work it will require a lot of triggers, almost like programming in the meta game state.

  • Aswell as RUs, another resource type that shows up in the GUI

  • A trigger caused by death of ALL units of a particular group. Like once your towers kill the enemy units, they trigger the next round.

  • Behaviour of a group can be changed on the fly/ with triggers ie enemy waves are required to attack a group (your towers) until they dead, then is then triggered to attack another group ( your station).

  • Artifical walls, ie defined walls that units aren’t allowed to stray past. Similar to the map boundries but within the map.

  • A trigger the causes a unit to change from one ownership to another. Forexample during countdown you control your ships to position them. When countdown stops you cant control them, so they go from player ownership to AI ownership.

  • Waypathing. When an enemy group is created, they are waypath to hit a waypoint, then another waypoint before heading towards your towers.

  • Can a trigger be set by destroying a particular unit.

probably more things ive not considered, but I think a TD mode is doable with some clever trigger

#23

For the most part that’s all possible in one form or another. Some could be pretty complex to make work perfectly. Having another resource may be the hardest, and might be practically impossible, though Complex’s crew and power systems exist so it could probably be managed with enough work.

Other than that, controlling unit behavior in battle via script can be pretty tricky. I have some code that solves some of the problems with it, but it’s not a simple problem.