Hiig Destroyer Q's Thread - R.E.A.R.M. - The Unofficial Classic HW 2 Expansion mod for Homeworld 2

Note, I origionally wrote this as a comment to one of your modular destroyer photos. So if anything seems worded strangely, that's why.

I'm loving what I've seen so far with the destroyers. Few of Q's:

-Do the pulsars track their targets like the BC pulsars do?

-Do you plan on making new destroyer chassis types, or we still just have this one chassis, with customizable turrets? After all, Hiigs are the capital ship happy race.

-What are the type of missiles launched with the missile turrets? Are they clusters that can be upgraded to be anti-capship, or are they anti-capship that can be upgraded with multi-warheads for taking out corvettes? What is their range (compared to the other weapons)

-Are you taking into account the fact that one must build their own turrets on the modular chassis into its cost and production time? Technically, the modular chassis should be cheaper and faster to build than the standard dessie, but after building the special turrets and foreword slot, the modular dessie should cost more money, and more time.

-I love the maroon coloration on the second to bottom dessie. Could you do a quick pic of the color selection panel for that color, or describe the general location of the darkness slider and color picker please? I've tried to create that color before, but never succeeded (well, before my game computer went kaput anyway, and now I can't run any 3D games. Flash is it for me right now.)

-I have an idea for rearranging the turret specialties. Since Ion Cannons have higher damage than the standard turrets, and about the same range, tracking capabilities, and generally have the same effectiveness vs. the same targets, there is no reason for a player to buy normal turrets other than the fact that they (I assume) are cheaper. So I propose that you make it so that the normal turrets are completely changed (except in appearance) to as follows:
__Range halved
__Damage doubled
__And each turret adds 5% to speed and acceleration (or is it agility, I forget) cumulatively (perhaps health too, but that may be overkill). So four turrets add 20% to speed, and accel.
____And these are just generalizations, obviously the values would need to be tweaked for balancing. Anyway, the point is, an all out assault turret frigate would be used as a sort of space equivalent of a shotgun. Massive damage, but very short range, and quite noticeably higher speed/agility.
____So this would make it such that the standard destroyer is the destroyer one would build if he had few resources, or was in an emergency (as you don't have to wait for your special turrets to be built), and the modular destroyer would be used for the more expensive variants.

Thanks for responding (should you choose to do so anyway, I hope you do Pouk), and don't you slow down at all! Keep pushing 'till you've done all you intended to do, and continue further as long as you can. REARM is looking to be the most promising mod so far, if nothing else for the quick updates, and your great ideas. -armor plating modules, hint hint-

-those are actually the pulsars of BC, I didn't change them.

-absolutely. The plan is to make at least the light chassis and also maybe heavy chassis. (which is 6 destroyers, because all of this will be in the normal and modular variation). Plus one ion destroyer and one cloaked (or just stealth) destroyer. The only problem is that it will be 8 destroyers in total, which is maybe way too much.

-again, it's the same torpedo as in the front torpedo launchers of the regular destroyers. They can't be upgraded, but they may be. They are very powerfull now, so the question is if it's a good idea to upgrade them.

-yes. It's cheaper (1500RU instead of 2K) and it's faster to build. But at the end it will cost you more RU, because the weapons are expensive. Sometimes the total cost of the destroyers may be 3K or even more.

-I like the color too. I'm not at my computer now, but when I'll get there (later today), I'll give you the RGB values and the screenshot of the color picker.

-there is a slight difference between the default kinetic and Ion cannons already. Ions can't target fighters and corvettes (I know the kinetic turrets don't do much against strikecrafts, but still...) and they are more expensive. But I like the shotgun idea, the shorter range and double damage. But I would make it as another turret type, not the replacement. I don't want to do the speed boost, nor the health boost. It would mean that the empty destroyer is slower than kinetic destroyer.

-I always do respond, but now the moddb haven't noticed me about the new thread.
I will continue, don't worry about that, but I will have to slow down a little in next few months unfortunatelly. Some much bigger school projects are comming.

PS: How would you call the "shotgun" type kinetic cannon? I don't know how to cal it.

EDIT: The RGB values of the color are 124 65 69, the color picker looks like this:

-Glad to see you intend to make new chassis types for destroyers. I have a few intersting ideas for Vaygr destroyer modularity, and light/heavy versions, which I may soon have the time to draw up. I might have a couple quickie ideas for Hiigaran destroyers too, and if I actually get them done (I'm a bit of a procrastinator), I'll gladly donate the ideas to REARM.

-It's all right if you don't find the time to get the color information. I can try to get the right color again when I finally get my hands on the game again.

-I think you have to check the "watch this thread and receive notification of replies" box for each individual thread. Which is a pain.

-Aah, school, the bane of many a HW2 mod... well, see if you can put together and realease the next version of the mod before you get too busy with schoolwork. And keep the mod in the back of your mind so you pick it up again after the slowdown is over. I would hate to see you loose interest in continuing REARM.

-Lets see, shotgun really isn't the right term since that implies a spread pattern. Hmmm. "Heavy/Assault/Attack Kinetic Cannon", "High Yield, Close Range Cannon", or maybe call it by what field officers might nicname it: "Slammer/Smasher/Slugger/Hammer Kinetic Cannon", "Badger Kinetic Turret". Or maybe call it by some unrecognizable designation, like "Y25G.03H Kinetic Turret", or by it's experimental codename: "Yellow Dragon", "Strike Lightning" etc. Maybe call it by the company who designed/produced the cannon: "Sobani Defense Kinetic Cannon", "Cheif Dalton Assault Turret", "Arumaku Productions Tigress Cannon Z159". Might have to create a new name though, like the "Firelance Ion Cannon".

-Looks like the blue is a little annoying on the eyes, I think I'll try dark turquoise this time, see how that works.

-As I said many times before, I really don't lack the design ideas and designing things is what I like about the mod the most, but if you have something interresting, show me, why not, I'm curious.

-Hey I already did, didn't you see? At the end of the post.

-Ok

-Next release with the modular destroyers will be soon, no longer than one week I believe. And don't worry, I'll always find some time for this mod and I have too many plans to just give it up. There's no chance for me to stop before I'll get to my Battleships.

-No no. I have a naming rule and practically none of what you said fits into this rule (except the first ones). I'll tell you what I'll never do in REARM:
1. No codenames (just never). TFS did it and it's way too complicated to remember or orientate in bunch of names as vgDD25Mk.3, FF16mk.2 etc. I won't do the same mistake.
2. No nicknames (at least for anything smaller than really BIG). Nicknames can be in the descriptions, why not, but the names must clearly tell you what the ship is. Harphy class Corvette doesn't tell you a thing (Harphy or Volture should have be the name of the Vaygr Assault corvette).

I'll keep the unoriginal but very clear names as "assault carrier", "cloaked bomber" etc. And actually I've named the turret as the "Large Caliber Kinetic Cannon". It's not that good, but I didn't find any better. I also had the "High Velocity Kinetic Cannon", but it didn't work, because High Velocity gun would have much longer, not shorter range.

-Sorry, what blue are you talking about?

-Huh, when I wrote my post, you hadn't edited in the picture yet. Oh well. Thank you, I had been trying to put the color picker between the red and the violet, and it just wasn't coming out with the right coloration. Now I see the area I should have been trying. BTW, how the heck did you get the word "unoriginal" highlighted in white in you post?

-Yeah, TFS actually annoyed the heck out of me by having all those code names for nearly every ship and module. I would have to pause the game, and check the descriptions for every bomber just to figure out which one I should research first, and even the desciptions sometimes failed to help me. And PDS suffered similarly with it's ship nicknames, and useless desciptions that would only tell me the ship design backstory. Plus I kind of thought you didn't want nicknames or codenames, but I put them in there just in case, since I didn't have too many ideas for what I thought, and it turned out you really had, wanted.

-For some reason, "short bore" sounds like it should be part of the name for the turret. "Short Bore Heavy Kinetic Cannon"?... I can't put my finger on it. Just go with what you have.

-Ah, I'm talking about the blue and green text that I used in my first post. Those colors worked much better in the Complex forum which had grey backgrounds. But they seem a little harsh on the eyes with the white background of the ModDB forum.

-New Q: Do you think you may add more new unit classes? Obviously, you have now added a drone class (Which I love, because they follow more what I think drones should be like, and Slipstream completely failed at delivering that). But many mods add a Dreadnought, and a Cruiser class. I am 100% pro cruiser myself, but not many mods have gone over battlecruiser, and kept their large units properly balanced. I also always thought there should be a Gunboat class in HW2. Gunboats are units that are between corvette and frigate. It would probable be the grey zone between the Hiigarans and the Vaygr, as Hiigs are into capitalships, and Vay is into strikecraft. Anyway, the closest units to gunboats in the HW iniverse would have to be the Kaseshi "frigates" which many have noted to be small, have engine trails, and have corvette movement scripting, instead of frigate movement scripting. Anyway, other than drones, any new classes?

Edited by: Hell_Diguner

-The "unoriginal" highlight wasn't a purpose. I had to check if I'm having it gramatically correct and I've copied it from somewhere (I'm lazy to type it again). If I remember right, it was bold before, that's probably the cause why it has the white highlight.

-Yes.

-I've translated the Short Bore and I think I know what's that mean. I'll have to think about it.

-That blue and green. I can see only green.

-Classes: Sure. I'll tell you what is already designed:
1. Light Cruisers. (you know, bigger than destroyers, smaller than BCs)
2. Battleships -note that I'm not saing battleship but buttleshipS . Big things, next step after BC. I'm thinking about some kind of weakness for them, such as core or reactor, which can be damageable. But don't worry, they won't be ultimate invincible killers of everything alive. They'll be very strong though.
3. Megastations. Big structures, something like a battle shipyard, only thing which can build BS (battleships) and with weapons. (I have the Vaygr one, which I'm looking forward to make, but the Hiigaran isn't drawn yet. I guess it will look little like the Lazarus ship.
4. Battlestations. Just few defence structures in the size of destroyer.
5. Your gunships? I don't know if I'll call them gunships, i guess not, they won't even have it's own unitcap category, but there will be at least one smaller frigate with turrets and "flyaround" attack style.

But I'm trying to work systematically, so you won't see those ships very soon. I'm trying to fill the lower classes first. But Light cruisers shoud be in 0.0.4. Dreadnoughts may come eventually, I guess it would be bigger than BC and smaller than BS, I never fully understood what dreadnought means, so I'm not sure what it should be, be according to the HW2 reference it's bigger and stronger than BC. Yeah and all the new ship classes will of course get the new tactical overlay, like the Supercarriers and Drones did.

Had the Idea for a Shipclass between Corvette and Frigate meself, but don't have the Skills to implement them.
However In the 19th Century when Steam Engines where Introduced many Navys called this Ship size Sloop of War, or just Sloop, althou in the time of Sail the Sloop had been the British Name for Corvettes, or Ships Smaller than Frigates and Corvettes.
It would be marvellous if this Shipclass would look like the missing link between Corvette and Frigate, for example by using the White Cockpit of the Corvettes but placing them on the Ships side like the Frigate and Capship's Bridge.
Anyway I have confidence that you're ship design for the Sloops will be awesome, and am really looking forward to use the modular destroyer.

Edited by: HenryKing

You know I really (really) love to make hybrids, or as you call them missing links. I really enjoyed making Supercarrier (BC+carrier) and Cloaked fighter (it wasn't easy to make the missing link between the old cloaked fighter and new interceptor) or the Drone frigate for example. I would really enjoy making those Corvette/Frigate things.

But questions:
- so you want it to be the whole new class. No problem, new overlay, new icons, new unitcap, it's all pretty easy. But where do you think it should be build? In the frigate facility? In it's own facility? In any case It can't have its own display family, because you just don't have a place where to put the new button between the corvettes and frigates in the carrier or MS build menu. It would have to be under corvettes or frigates anyway (probably frigates i think).
- How many of them? If you have, let's say 14 fighters, 12 corvettes and 21 frigates. How many of those ships would be there? 6? 12? 16? How big number? They have to have its own unitcap if you want them to be separate, but won't the gameplay change if you add a big number of strikecraft/frigate hybrids? That's a question.
- Name. It's a problem, it can't really be the gunship, because Hiigaran Corvettes are called the gunships (pulsar gunship etc.). And Sloop, well, for me, the guy who isn't the native english speaker, is pretty hard to accept the name he never knew before and he doesn't know even after translation. Isn't there something better than that?

Well no Worries there, I ain't no Native Speaker meself, even if my English could really be worse. The Problem is I'm something like a freak for Ships, reading the Aubrey-Maturin Books and so on. I thought quite some Time for a Name for such an Hybrid ship and however do not really manage to come up with a satisfing one, Sloop realy is quite the best if you ask me but perhaps I'm just to attached to the Age of Sail, Fast Attack Craft could be a modern Name, for the German "Schnellboote" Are quite similar to what I have in mind here, but even here it doesn't really satisfy me...what a sad thing to dismiss a project just because there is no good Name for it....If we get no better Ideas we'll have to make do with "Light Frigate" or "Patrol Ship/Boat" or so.
Anyways, my Idea would be to let them have an own unitcap but put them in the menu with Frigates as you said. I wanted them to be build onboard of an Assault Carrier, which would not have the ability to build frigates at all, cause it's main-hangar would be too small. They sbhould require an own technology which requires the same techs as Frigates plus...some Technology like "Downscaled Frigate Drive" .
If Normal Carrier and so on should be able to build them in that case I agree ..they could belong in the Frigate Menu.

Because they require more Technology than the Frigates they are more like a method in Late Game to have light Support Ships perhaps to fill Gaps in the Fleet I don't think it would totaly ruin the gameplay but broaden the Possibilities but on the otherhand I'm really not the best Homeworld Ace .

I didn't say I'm rejecting the idea to make the whole class out of it, just because of the name or because of anything else. You people seem to want to see those ships, so I'll try to make it, don't worry. I'm just saying I have a problem with the name.

Gunboats: Sorry, I had it wrong, the things in HW2 are gunships not gunboats, which is even worse. If those were gunboats, it wouldn't be a problem to call the new class Gunships. Call it gunboats while there are smaller gunships is odd.
Or maybe we can just ignore it, why not. Call them Gunboat, gunships, whatever, no matter there are another gunships, because the gunships are basically corvettes. These new Gunships may be Gunships as well... Or Gunboats. ...What's better? Let's call them one of those, no?
Sloops: OK, I believe you this is the regular ship class name and it sounds perfectly fine to you. It sounds weird to me, but you people say it's perfect name, I get it. The question is, how would react someone like me, who don't know the name as well, but I guess that english speakers would probably know this word, that it's a part of common knowledge.

Opinions? Sloops are the best? Gunships/Gunboats? Something else?

Edited by: Pouk

I'm afraid Sloop would strike most people as Odd and it clearly is not common knowledge so we can rule that out. (The Civil Sloop hat always been a way smaller ship than the Military Sloop-of-War this old Sailship names can be very confusing at Times) Why not call it Patrolship or Assaultship something along this lines? If I had the skills to do so I would realy try to help, I've got some basic knowledge in blender and am quite good with 2D Graphics so have potential for Texturing, the only thing i did so far was to take the Idea from the Basecode for an Production Module (A Module which exellerates the Building of Ships on a Carrier) I used the model of the Research Module for it and created a nice new yellow Texture...I also modelled a new Model but didn't Manage to import it. Well I think I'm Digressing so I'll give the Others the Oppertunity for Oppinions on the Names

I'm making all the models myself, but thanks.

I know where's the problem. The current corvette should be a Gunboat and the hybrid should be the Corvette. It would work that way. I'm not going to do it, but it would work.

I was searching and I must say that Patrolships and Assaultships make more sense than I originally thought. But I still think it's a little complicated. You know, the Gunship is a word that everyone know, people have gunships in their minds already. The problem is, that gunships are probably mostly the combat helicopters (am I right?), but for example the AC-130 is also called the Gunship, and this thing is big enough. I don't know why I'm always returning to Gunships and I don't want to sound like I'm not listening, but those Gunships and Gunboats just work for me. Because the name is short, simple, known. But I may have the different oppinion just because the level of my english.

You know Strikeship is short, it could work. It's almost the same. How do you like this?

Edited by: Pouk

Quite a lot, it blends well with the existing Names.

Warning: Wall of Text

When I first thought of the unit myself, I was stuck on their name. I'm a native english speaker (well, some would call it american, but it's the closest "accent" to the way english is technically meant to be pronounced), and I spent a good two months looking around for names. For the last three years, I have been calling them gunboats, after seeing some destroyers in a different game named "picket ---, gunboat ---, escort ---, and line ---". Technically, navy "patrol" craft are frigates and gunboats, and sometimes also yachts (originating from converting civilian yachts into warships). Oddly, the navy also uses the term "frigate" for some destroyer class vessels. Looking at all of the above, gunboat, lineship, and escort ship all seem worthy of looking at. I also aknowledge the fact that sloop is a military name once used as recently as WWII, but (and my viewpoint being from america), I always think of slender oriental, or middle eastern wooden boat with an abnormal, but prominent sail. So, I, personally, don't like sloop.

Then, looking at everything, I personally think all the noteworthy options are: Gunboat, Gunship, Patrolboat, Patrolship, Assaultship, Picket Ship, Escort Ship, Lineboat, Lineship, and Strikeship. Since Gunship is already used for a Corvette, I think it would be better to use Gunboat. Patrolship and Lineboat roll off the tounge better than their counterparts I think. Between Picket Ship, Escort Ship, and Lineboat, I personally prefer Escort Ship, as Picket Ship calls to mind a unit more like a destroyer, and Lineboat looks and sounds strange if someone were to look at the name without seeing all the previous ideas and options and reasons for naming it like that. So that narrows it down to Gunboat, Patrolship, Assaultship, Strikeship, and Escort Ship. Finally, to me, Assaultship seems too generic, and would be better as an individual units name rather than an entire classes name, and Strikeship is too close to Strikecraft, and makes one think of fighters, not almost frigates/giant corvettes.

Gunboat, Patrolship, and Escort Ship.

My vote still has to be Gunboat, as Patrolship is too vague (a cruiser could be a Patrolship in my mind), and I'm probably being influenced by the fact that I've been using the term for three years now.

Moving on, since you aren't willing to rename Corvettes to Gunship/boats, I propose just naming the new class one of the three finalist names, and renaming the Gunship Corvette to Standard Corvette, or Multi-gun (though that may be the name for another corvette), or Anti-Fighter Corvette, or Strike ---, or Assault ---, or (get the idea?).

I should think that [insert unit class name here] should have a larger unit cap than frigates, though I also think the same for corvettes, fighters, drones. To me, if you plan to implenent such low unit caps (as HW2 originally used), I would have 100 drones, 60 fighters, 45 corvettes, 35 [iucnh], and 25 frigates. (and 20 destroyers, 15 cruisers, 10 battlecruisers, 5 battleships, 5 dreadnoughts, 10 shipyards, 5 motherships, 5 stations, 20 carriers). But I personally =HATE= the restricted unit caps. I personally would rather play with all those values doubled, at a minimum, and no unit caps as being preferred. But, that means that one can't be lazy and use unit caps as a method of making ships bananced.

I rather like what Complex did. They got rid of all unit caps, and added crew/officer caps. So one could build any number of ships of any class, so long as you had enough people to crew those ships, and you wouldn't be able to build any other ships if you used all your crew for six dreadnoughts. Crew was needed for all ships other than drones, and officers were needed (in less quantity) for destroyers and larger ships.

What I would do is eliminate all unit caps, make a crew module, and an officer module, and a few special purpose ships. One ship type that was about destroyer sized, and could build only crew/officer modules (six slots maybe?). Besides adding more to your set max for crew/officers, these modules would also subtract speed and manuberability from the ship that they are built on (maybe 5%). Then I would design several other ships which might be able to build crew/officer modules, but was not entirely devoted to this.

For example: all production ships might have the option to build these modules (perhaps on both normal module slots, and on some weapons slots)(So the Supercarrier would be able to use all of it's non combat module slots for crew/officer modules, and maybe the player could build either the lower ion cannon, or another two to four crew/officer modules)(or the mothership might be able to build defensive weapons, or crew/officer modules). Future stations might have eight designated crew/officer module slots. Cruisers and battlecruisers might be able to build these two modules, and would have the option to build more defensive modules as well, so the unit would be kept next to your main production fleet, or resouce fleet, instead of on the front lines. Example, say a battlecruiser has two heavy turret slots (the ion cannons turret modules), six other non-standard weapon slots (flak turrets, missile bays, kinetic turrets, etc. and any of these slots could have any destroyer or smaller sized weapon. I'm trying to say that there would not be specifically designated missile bays, and designated turret slots, but anything could be interchanged with anything), and the normal two non-combat module slots, and addon fixed foreward weapon module slots on the sides of the BC. Well, instead of going all out attack weapons, one could have the two normal ion cannons, the six non-standard weapon slots replaced with crew/officer modules, the two non-combat module slots with either non-combat modules, or crew/officer modules, and the fixed foreward weapon module slots on the sides might have a module extension module instead of a fixed foreward superweapon, and on this module extension "module", you have another two non-combat module slots on each side, which could also potentially be filled with crew/officer modules. So in the end, this battlecruiser could potentially have it's speed downgraded 75%, and have only two ion cannons, four kinetic turrets, and four pulsar defenses for defense, and twelve crew/officer modules. A bad deal? Not if the Battlecruiser has more total armor than two of those specialized destroyer sized units, plus the BC has some noteworth defenses, even if it is slow.

Ugh, enough of that. Back to the Gunboats [iucnh] (insert unit class name here, if you didn't pick that up). You are right about having to find a place in the build/resreach menu's. Ideally (especially for a finished project), they would have their own unit tab. In fact, the tabs would be as follows: Drones, Fighters, Corvettes, [iucnh], Frigates, Destroyers, Cruisers, Warships (BC through Dreads), Production Ships, Stations (platforms would be placed in here too), and Utilities/Resource Ships. I know new tabs can be added, several mods have done so. But if you insist on not adding new tabs, I would put them into Frigates (though I view them more like large Corvettes that just had been designed by trying to put too may systems on a corvette chassis, or too large of systems on a corvette chassis).

There's really two types of [iucnh], those that were corvettes that got too big, and those that were frigates that tried to be too small to outmanuver heavier weapons that the supersized warships becan to use. Depending on what time frame you plan to set you mod in (in terms of how many giant warships have come into production), there will either be more giant corvettes, or equal giant corvettes, and tiny frigates. Another thing to note is that going corvette up is lower (maybe much lower) in the tech tree than going from frigates down. As frigate down won't be necesary until the super warships begin to come around.

I once figured out this really complicated way of having infinately large, and infinately small units still be perfectly balanced. Essentially, any unit of any size would be effective versus their own class slightly less than the class directly above/below them (this is the average of all the unit specialities, that is), and then effectiveness goes down either direction (smaller or larger unit classes), and reverses into complete ineffectiveness eventually. But just before that complete ineffectiveness, is this special zone where depending on the unit specialities, it is either extremely vulnerable, or extremely effective. So a Gunboat [iucnh] that is especially designed to take out larger units would be extremely effective against units that begin to lack the defenses to take a unit of that manuverability out (maybe battleships, for instance), yet at the same time, that [iucnh] would be extremely vulnerable to drones that have specialized specifically in taking out larger units. Yet that same [iucnh] could specialize in taking out smaller units, in which case, drones are completely screwed, but a battleship that specializes in taking out smaller ships would cream a gunboat.

In this way, a player could go ahead and make ships big enough to make debris as large as the debris in the background of a lot of HW2 maps (I freaking love those backgrounds too, they make you really respect how large space really is), but at the same time, those super megaliths could be bested by smaller ships (skipping a good 4-8 classes), and those units could be bested by other smaller ships (again, skipping a good 4-8 classes), until you reach HW2 standard units. But also it could work the other way around, as long as you specialize. It's a sort of gamble that a player must make. They can either generalize, and have units that are good against units of similar size, or make a gamble, and specialize, and try to kill off others much larger or much smaller units, but be vulnerable themselves. And of course, the Hiigarans would be slightly tuned slightly more for the generalizers, and the Vaygr tunes slightly more to the specializers. Not too much though, otherwise people who like to play Hiigs would be unable to try their hand at specializing, and visa versa for the Vaygr.

Back to Gunboats [iucnh] being either frigate down, or corvette up, theoretically, all units would be first ----- up, when the human players are are trying to get larger and larger units to build up a more varied fleet, and then ------ down when players decide to try to kill off their enemies large units with excessively small units. But, the ------ up would be much lower on the resreach tree than the ------ down. Frigate up to basic Destroyers will be expensive, but when you are at Dreadnoughts in the resreach tree, Cruisers down to Destroyers will be cheaper, but much later in game time (like, 45 minutes to over an hour after reasearching your first destroyers). At the same time though, you will have more advanced systems and technology used in the larger and more complex unit classes that you've completed, so it's almost like you are upgrading from outdated smaller units to better smaller units (instead of having three tiers of armor/accuracy/firepower, whole new and better weapons/engines/armor types will be unlocked at a much later time. Then again, you have to build quite a few frigates to get enough firepower to take out a dreadnought in an effective amount of time, as your frigates might be same from casualties, but the rest of your fleet isn't.

The more options you give the players, the more complex, entertaining, and substantial the gameplay becomes. Isn't that what strategy games are really all about, and how strategy games seperate themselves from all other games?

Rolling back to my last post, I discovered on someone elses computer (while using firefox) that only the first paragraph appeared in color, and the rest was the normal black. Back on my computer (and on internet explorer), my posts are all colored again. So... yeah.

Short Bore. Yeah, that's a contradictory statement acutally. It would be more correct to say Short Barrel. The bore of the gun is the inside diameter of the tube of a gun. Essentially, it's the size of the hole for the bullet, and therefore the size of the bullet itself. The bore of a gun can be small (like a .22 riffle), or large, like a howitzer cannon. But it can't really be "long" or "short". What I meant physically what Short Barrel. But I also meant to say Short Bore. Why? Because I've heard that before, and I associated that with sawed off guns, or guns that were never long in the first place. I also think it sound better than Short Barrel Turret, and much better than Sawed-off Kinetic Turret. :-) Don't you think?

Out of curiosity, what is your native language Pouk? HenryKing?... Oh, and reading all of your posts so far, your English is pretty darn good. Your only problem is clumsy grammar (it's technically fine grammar, but sometimes what you want to say could be said shorter, in more detail, and more clearly if the sentences themselves were changed around). In fact, your individual sentence grammar is pretty spotless for the both of you really, it's the sentence layout in their paragraphs. And yes, I suffer from that exact same thing myself. Sometimes I'll spend twenty minutes trying to say what I want to say as consicely as possible, but also as clearly and with the best flow possible. And I still reread my own posts from years ago, and think I could have done better, though I usually can't figure out in what way.

Finally, sorry for grammar/spelling errors on my part for this post as well. I'm not running it through any spellcheck. My hands ache. And sorry for the wall of text. For all my opinions, I actually don't get too excited if others disagree. I'm more of an observer in life. It's only the things that I'm truly passionant about that I will put my opinions out on the table for. I've been thinking about HW and HW2 before I even was able to play them. I only regret that I wasn't born a few years earlier to catch the release of HW1 with everyone else. I was rather... young then. Too young to be thinking about video/computer games. So instead, I'm the "new eyes" in the community. I've though much about the games without sharing my thoughs with those online, so "new eyes" isn't accurate either. Okay, I'm shutting up now.

Well problem is: I tend to do this complicated and unnecessary long sentences in my mother language too, at least when I write. Thing bout my English is: I'm a darn good reader having read for example throu all Discworld Novels, but I have so far never been to Brittain and only once 2 weeks to Florida (Where you can get throu with German(my motherlanguage) just as well, If you ask me) so it's just a matter of practise...perhaps I should find people to voice chat with*shrug*

So back to the point:
My picture of our Gunboat [iucnh] is clearly that of an downscales Frigate, for the following reason: The First Part of Homeworld I played had been Homeworld 1...so I still would like Strike Craft to have Fuel Burn...the explanation for this would be that Fusionreeactors can only miniaturized to a certain amount so Strike Craft would have to use other means of propulsion. The Gunboat [iucnh] would be result to a breakthrou in Reactor engineering allowing a smaller Craft without Fuelburn, You could see it as an more Independent Corvette, or so.

To the Turret... this just makes me think of Mortars.

Ok, I finally had some time to answer:

-Firstly: Gunboats. I believe Gunboats are perfect, so you'll get your gunboats.

-Secondly: I don't want to get to the same amount of management as in the Complex. I know that the unitcaps aren't perfect solution and I would be willing to let player to choose between two crew management methods -classic unitcaps or crew ships/subsystems. But I think that what you've proposed is a little too much. For example I wouldn't place those subsystems on BC. And I guess I shouldn't have shown you people the modular destroyer, because now everyone thinks that bigger ships will have more and more subsystems. But I want to keep it clear. Did anyone try to imagine how would it work with 50+ ships and all of it modular? Maybe I should stop creating anything with buildable subsystems for a while to get to normal... You don't want to sacrifice all the combat and tactics for just building
Yeah, I know I'm reacting to something a bit different.

-The button issue:
This is not the problem of making new tabs at all. I've recently learned how to make them: Forums.relicnews.com
Problem is the placement. There's just no room where to place new tab in the carrier or mothership building menu. There are 8 buttons in a row, I can't make it 12 or more no matter how much I wish to. I can do it in another ship menu, which haven't that many things to build, but not in MS, SY or carrier, there's no room for new icons.
Or you're telling me that you have seen 10 icons in a row? They maybe can be rescaled, but there can't fit more than 8 standard icons.

-my native laguage is czech

-I'm sorry, that's all from me for now, I'm pretty tired and I can't really concentrate.

Edited by: Pouk

Perhaps we just need one good Scripter, to Add a new Menupoint (like Dock, Research,Building) specialy for Modular Weapons or something along this Lines.

-I rather dislike the lack of fuel in HW2 as well. But no mod has ever managed to make fuel work properly, and not in a way that just wasn't fun. Actually, I don't think any mod has been able to do fuel at all. And in HW1, I would always turn off fuel burn in multiplayer because it detracted from the gameplay I thought. So, because of those two things (the first being more important), I often just ignore or forget all about the fuel that strikecraft had in HW1. More to the point though, I get the feeling that Pouk is looking to make a "missing link" unit that looks more like a hybrid corvette/frigate than anything else. More hybrid than an upscale corvette, or a downscaled frigate.

-Yeah, I'm talking about some pretty comlex things that are relying on some pre-existing things that you don't necessarily intend to do Pouk. I just wanted to mention that I really disliked having unit caps, or more specifically, such low unit caps. I just expect any good mod to have several unit caps options (low, normal, high, very high, and infinate seem to be standard). Making a whole new and different method of limiting a players units will take a lot of time and effort.

-I still like how complex ended up with tiers of unit caps though, so in the early game you were restricted, and late game you were free to do just about anything within decent processing speed for you computer.

-Would I place those subsystems on a BC? Probably not. Not unless battlecruisers are no where near the largest unit anyway. And I get the feeling that you don't intend to add that many larger than BC units. But I might build those modules on carriers, supercarriers, and shipyards. In which case, I would say that should you choose to go ahead and do unit caps by crew, then those modules could be built on standard non-combat module slots. And then have one new unit for Hiigs and Vay that have a whole bunch of non-combat module slots.

-Slipstream, FX, and Complex all have more build/resrearch tabs than standard HW2, but not that many more (1-3), and they indeed have slightly smaller icons. Personally, I'd add a new tab for Gunboats, merge all lower capitalships together into one tab, all upper capships into another tab, and place drones in either utilities, or fighters. So, just have: Fighters, Corvettes, Gunboats, Frigates, Capships (destroyers + cruisers + battlecruisers(?)), Super Capships (battlecruisers(?) and all larger combat ships, and also all production ships), Platforms (an larger stationary/semi-stationary units), Utilities, and Modules. Or maybe even merge capships and super capships, but you may find that the list will be a little cluttered. Or, you could just make as many tabs as you want, and begin to add a second row to the tabs. Just take the space away from the list screen.

Horribly cheap Photoshoped example:
-oops. I made a horribly cheap photoshoped example, but then I discovered that I couldn't upload images from my comp. And I don't own any external image account like flickr or anything. Um... who hosts images for free?

-Well, I already have more unitcaps, as very low, very high, unlimited (which is actually 999, but it's pretty big number anyaway).

-So more icon, ha? Ok, I'll do some testing. I would actally prefer to have more rows, but on the other hand, the build menu is already too small...

-You don't have to worry about the drone tab, because the drones won't be buildable in any of big ships, only in choosen special units.

- Imageshack.us for example.

Edited by: Pouk

-Yeah, you posted the color selection picture from imageshack I recall. Is it simply impossible to find a particular imageshack user and browse their photos, or is it that you only have one picture? Because I tried to see if you had any more pictures there, and I couldn't figure out any way to do so.

Photoshopped image previously described:
Flickr.com

Edited by: Hell_Diguner

-I'm not registered there, I have no account, I'm just uploading a separate pictures there, nothing else.

-You really didn't have to do this image, I perfectly understand what does it mean to have two rows, one under the other. I was actually talking about this before, what made you think I'm not getting it?

I had made the image before you had posted that you would rather do two rows, but weren't sure about being able to do it. So I decided to go ahead and spend another five minutes making a flickr profile, and upload the image. It was more like "I have this picture, so I might as well finish doing what I intended to do", than anything else.

Ok, but I still don't know if it's possible.