Invasion Game Mode Thread - Star Trek: Continuum mod for Homeworld 2

Post anything about your experiences with
the MOD Invasion game mode. Starbase size, Borg weapon stats, wave frequency. Anything pertaining to the MOD Invasion Mode.

when im playing, near the end of round ten. it starts to lag terribly when it has be running smooth thoughout the game, even when the large battles are going on.
dont know if this is just my laptop, i just found it strange that it went from smooth to really laggy when less was going on

Edited by: davo001

I'm thinking this is because of debris buildup. We're going to fix this issue in the next release.

Dunno if you're already implementing this, but for invasion it may be nice to set the number of waves at the skirmish start-up screen. I couldn't help but smile when my fleet was destroyed but also "Victorious." If number of waves aren't that appealing you could, with your already impressive scripting of a black hole, have some kind of trans-warp "beacon" a defender can destroy to stem the invaders.

Another thing to consider would be research to buff ship stats. Granted that would add a tower defense type flavor, which exists already with the station phasers, torpedoes and sensor upgrades, but more could be interesting. For that matter, one cool addition would be civilian ships coming by and helping the defender from time to time. They could just patrol by and go near the existing civilian stations, but traffic would be a nice factor of realism. Using credits you could purchase alliances etc, for buffed back up patrols and maybe a steady flow of resources.

One thing I noted that was kinda fun was being the invader and actully getting a chance to use Borg ships. To be honest I scuttled a few rounds to try them all out but it was nice nonethless. Round 22 has something like 12 Tactical Cubes and 8 Regular Cubes. Still, it might not be ideal to let an invader deliberately scuttle their ships for a better wave of units. Without that time to build-up it'd be impossible to defend.

Defender purchased of reinforcements can be a bit delayed. It's true mostly they are produced instantly, but the launching from Starbase/Shipyard does delay deployment. It might be interesting to have some manner of warped in support for faster reinforcement. For example, you might have a Galaxy leaving the shipyard and a second one still qued, built & paid for, but invisibly waiting for the launching area to be clear. It really only matters if you were repairing docked ships/building new ones and your existing fleet is being crushed.

Borg weapons are a bit overstated. While the beams and tractors are probably ok, their disruptor/torpedo/whatever those are might be more balanced if in smaller bursts. I think the diamond shoots a salvo of 8 or so. Final thing to note is I had a steamrunner being repaired in a shipyard when it came under-attack and tanked 30ish borg fighter craft that seemed to "miss" the shipyard and only hit the steamrunner- unintended?

Hi Andrelius,

Thank you for your suggestions, but since the script for Invasion isn't our own work you'll probably find that we wont end up doing much with it in this next release. Part of the script is that your side starts with all research items completed already, and Invasion has the same tech tree as Deathmatch does!

I was interested in the third paragraph of your comment saying that it was "fun being the invader and actully getting a chance to use Borg ships", since the Invasion script doesn't allow you to be the invader at all I would be interested in any clarification of that paragraph!

We have streamlined deployment further too, so it should be less of a hassle getting your ships out of the yard and into the fray.

Sure, what I did Nathanius was to set myself in the second position.

I believe I also had the starting position settings on "fixed" and not random. I have to admit I hoped it was possible and when it was, I couldn't help but laugh about it. I was quite sure it wasn't intended but- no word of a lie- I changed no codes or anything- just set the computer as position 1 and myself to position 2. Try it, like I said I changed nothing script wise.

IT was a nice "easter egg" for doing game testing though. I love BETAs/ALPHAs because sometimes the bugs are entertaining. After I figured out how improve the wave I got, it became pretty crazy- 12 Tactical Cubes was a sight to behold- regardless of lag.

Well I'll be... it does work, although the AI still wants to drive for you and they don't do much with the "defenders"...

I need to tell Siber about this

Well I'll be a monkey's estranged uncle. I never thought in all my testing of it that you could do that. That would imply some unexpected things about certain scripting functions. I can't wait to get home and try it out myself, though it won't work in the home mod of the mod, Homeworld:@, due to some differences in how they're set up... fascinaing. There might be a way to disable the attacking player's scuttle command, that's pretty unfair given the defender's main source of money is bounties. I'm hesitant to try to disable this, it might be a feature, not a bug. It'd be ideal to at least change how scoring is done and maybe smarten up the defending AI some...

I'm pleased to read all your thoughts on my baby here. At a glance all your suggestions are possible, and the idea of a tower defense game in the HW2 engine is honestly pretty intriguing. For the moment though, Invasion/Survival/Wave Combat/Firefight mode is what I'd set out to make it, and isn't likely to see overhauls of that magnitude any time soon. You're welcome to try it if you want, though!

"I couldn't help but smile when my fleet was destroyed but also "Victorious." " That's one thing I probably wouldn't ever change

And thanks for giving me the heads up, Nathanius