R.E.A.R.M. - "Rearmament Expansion And Redesign Mod" is an unofficial Homeworld 2 expansion and it adds number of new interesting and various units.
Drones are around both Battlecruisers, but are clearly visible as a ball of dots (nav. lights and muzzle flares) around the one in the background.
We have a Drone Frigate and Drones and he have a Research Station with a research module for heavy capital ships defences upgrades. Put it together and you'll get a Battlecruiser with Drone protection. The prerequisities will be numerous and probably expensive, so it should turn out to be rare and late-game, but why not to have this nice possibility.
I like to make such combinations and you can find some of them in game already. Like Defence Frigate + adv. Light Cap. ship reseach = Defence field for Modular Destroyers. Or Artillery Frigate + Missile Battlecruiser = salvo mags for MBC special attacks. Expect some more combinations in the future.
Defence drones, if you don't know yet, are in a ball formation of 42 units and are designed to shoot down incoming long range missiles and mines and repel enemy fighters.
This also means I have finally set up the system for the Drone Frigate. Just to finish its model and it's gonna be done relatively soon.
And this is just a by-product of that Drone Frigate, it's basically the Drone part of the frigate put on a Battlecruiser.
1680 x 1050 px
This is awesome.
Repair Drones? Those things were awesome!
I dont know why they scraped em after the beast war.
Ehm, I said nothing about repair drones, those are the HW1 Drone Frigate sphere formation drones.
Cool xD curious how you got this working ;)
Well you remember how nothing worked out and I wanted them to be primary the HW1 style, so I did it as we talked about it. In case of the Drone Frigate, there's a codeRed launch animation and 84 turrets with just joints but no mesh in one innate subsystem. The subsystem's there so the drones can be disabled by attacking at the controlling "dome" atop of the antenna on the nose of the frigate. (at first it was meant to be buildable, but no, I decided for the Drones to be a standard equipment of the frigate, less micro and less required controll. There will be one module slot for some extra drone related things though.)
In the case of the BC it's just a subsystem again, this time with all the mesh for all those 42 Drones. It's all included, because I don't think I want to make them animated as well. Technically there's nothing preventing me to do it, it's just there's load of them. And well the BC is not the primary carrier of the drones, I give my attention to the Drone frigate, but I'm not spending that amount of time in the place no-one will even notice.
Oh okay, makes sense. Seems like the most elegant solution. I really like how it turned out!
with how quick he works he probably did this in like 10 seconds, keep up the good work man
This thing is really very simple in principle, but quite time consuming in execution.
But anyway, I'm wondering what observation made you think I work fast? I mean I give it a great deal of time and I'm trying to be perfectionist, but that isn't all that compatible with being fast.
Wow! Nice job, but I was wondering if the drone frigate would function like the HW1 counterpart?
It looks similar (the ship's shape, the spherical drone formation) and it does the exact same thing -shoot at fighters and clean up minefields (and more with modules). But its probably most important role in REARM is being a direct protection system against the Vaygr artillery and Vaygr special artillery attacks.
...protection from missiles will be _very_ useful on the Hiig BC.
At what point in a game do you expect a player to unlock the Drone Frigate? Do you intend it to be a primary method of defending against missiles, while drones on other ships are more like a secondary defense?
The Drone Frigate will be unlocked after the adv. research module (as other frigates) and after a Drone Frigate Systems research (or whatever the name). The drones themselves will be buildable only in the Drone Frigate, so the indipendent drone squadrons are secondary after the frigate. (That's why they were buildable by the Reseach Station so far, the Station sometimes serve as a spawn point for things that can't be built by their originaly intended way yet).
Reseach Station won't build Drone squadrons, but there's a small change it might have a drone sphere protection as the BC someday.
The point is that after you have the Drone Frigate, you can unlock the drone spheres for BCs and maybe DDs (?) with research and with the appropriate third level research module. So maybe the Heavy cap. ship defences reseach module will unlock drone spheres for Carriers as well (?), or other ships (?). We'll probably discuss this, so far I'm fine with BCs and maybe those DDs (it would be third DD module type -engines, def. field and drone transmitter).
Now the Drone Frigate itself also has limitations. Drones may be a problem (which I'll talk about later), so the frigates have a single module slot. That slot might be occupied by a module for Attack Drones (thinking about the Cata swarm style thing), Repair Drones or the build module that can give you the actual independent drones that aren't tied to its frigate, those Defence Drones formations. So the Drones will be there only with Drone Frigates with build module.
But anyway I have a lot of drone-related ideas with different tasks that the Drone Frigate could do with special modules.
Now about the problems. The thing is that I don't want to overdo it. I don't want too many drones around. Firstly I'm generally against things with a lot of guns, but more importantly, the Drones block strikecraft raids and long range missiles. In small numbers it's a nice ballance, natural defence and a revive of an old HW1 game element, binding HW1 and HW2 together. And if the Hiigaran enemy won't build drones, it's also a beautiful exploitable gap in his defence.
But in large numbers, if it would really block the strikecrafts and artillery effectivelly, the Vaygr player could rely only on brute force. And Vaygr, although he has powerfull Battlecruisers, should never be forced to skip strikecraft, that would be against the whole nature of Homeworld 2. That's why I said we should discuss this, will we give drone spheres to carriers? Even to Motherships? Or we'll better leave it?
Also I'm making it expensive, that should help, the BC drone sphere costs 1500 currently.
On the completelly oposite side, what about the Vaygr defence to Hiigaran artillery? I'm thinking the armor plates that the Vaygr Carrier can build might somehow drop the efficiency of the Hiigaran HE Artillery.
Also I don't think I ever get to making them to slow the ship down, I should do that at least.
And the last thing defense/defence. I'm using it wrong in half of the cases, just tell me where I'm using it wrong in game.
the ecosystem is growing :)
You want to use HE ammo? Every modern armor takes almost no damge of it. Only kinetic energy can damage (and penetrate) a good armor. HE shells would only make some damage if they penetrate the armor and explode inside.
Sorry for my bad english.
No, in REARM those are capital ship's flak shells. Keep aside that they would be even less effective in real life (they do need some nerfing against capships), they are not the HE, HEAT or sabot rounds made of depleted uranium of the modern MBTs.
So Hiigaran HE Artillery fights strikecrafts...in long range? xD
Absolutely not. Have you played it?
to be honest, only a few houres.But I love it! keep up the good work!
That's actually pretty cool. Do the drones come out of the subsystem tower (if there is a tower) or do they come out of the hanger?
The Hiigaran battlecruiser really is the best sci-fi design for a space battlecruiser in the history of the world ever.
I disagree, but it is the most aesthetically pleasing battlecruiser design I've seen
Drones? Well, I never actually used the Drone Frigate from Homeworld 1; I actually played Cataclysm, first.
Consequently, I can't identify the drone tactic with any other known ship other than the Somtaaw Hive Frigate, now.