Half Scale 1.20 for DoW: Dark Crusade file

Half Scale 1.20 DC

Author... zurn
Homepage Halfscale.moddb.com

For Dawn of War: Dark Crusade.

Weird Installation note: due to a dependancy in the mod manager (for all mods, the thing in the main menu), make sure you have Adobe Acrobat Reader 7 installed. Weird but true.

Smaller units, Grander Battles

This mod scales down everything in Dawn of War by half, including all units, speeds, and weapon/ability ranges; unit caps, however are increased. This lets you fight massive battles, with larger armies, on effectively huge maps!

Features:

* nearly everything is scaled down by half
* choice of doubled or tripled caps (for unit hardcaps as well as squad/support/pop)
* compatible with the Dawn of Skirmish AI Mod
* Necron Warrior build penalties reduced, initial cost is the same

Exceptions to the scaling:

* buildings remain full size
* hero personality hardcaps are not changed (eg. Necron Lord, Command Squad)
* most area effect ability radii are not changed
* mines are regular size, but have twice as many charges and cost twice as much

You can choose between the various options in the Game Manager in the Main Menu, or from the Start Menu. The AI has been tweaked to let it take full advantage of cap increases.

Half Scale can also easily be played with the Dawn of Skirmish AI mod. Simply choose the option from the Game Manager or Start Menu. You'll need to install Dawn of Skirmish separately, available at the Dawn of War Complete Mods forum: Forums.relicnews.com

I also recommend the Camera Zoom mod, which lets you zoom out more for a commander's perspective: Dawnofwar.gamefront.com

Installation

Run the installer and choose your Dawn of War: Dark Crusade directory. Once you're done, run Dark Crusade normally and select the Game Manager from the Main Menu. Choose the version of Half Scale you'd like to play: Half Scale with double or triple unit caps, and with or without the Dawn of Skirmish AI Mod. You can also use the Start Menu shortcuts.

You can remove the mod by running the uninstaller from the Start Menu, from the half_scale\uninstall directory, or from the Windows Add/Remove Program utility.

Feature Details

Things that were rescaled (all races):

* unit sizes
* unit shadows
* unit sight/identification ranges
* unit speeds
* weapon range
* projectile speeds / artillery error offsets
* ability ranges
* building and unit effects with a radius value (eg. explosions)
* squad formation spacing (set to 2/3 size to prevent excessive collisions)
* multiple squad formation spacing
* response ranges relating to melee/range combat and stances
* weapon hardpoints
* unit melee_sizes
* selection circles/boxes and volumes

Other changes:

* Individual and general unit caps doubled / tripled
* Squad/Support Cap upgrades/buildings adjusted for cap increase
* AI tweaked to take advantage of larger unit caps

Things that were deliberately not rescaled:

* building sight ranges
* building control ranges
* building size
* Ork pop tech requirements
* The following ability radii of effect (but activation ranges are still halved)
- Chaos Bloodthirster roar, Corruption, Doombolt, Tainted Auspex
- Eldar Eldritch Storm, Psychic Storm, Warshout
- Guard Detection Field, Earthshaker round, Let It Burn, Psyker Lightning, Strafing Run
- Marine Battlecry, Chaplain Healing Aura, Demoralize, Inquisition, Orbital bombardment, Smite, Weaken Resolve, Word of the Emperor
- Necron Chronometron, Lightning Field, Listening Post weapon, Pariah fear effect, Resurrection Orb, Solar Pulse, Veil of Darkness
- Ork Power of Waagh
- Tau Air Caste Strike, Skyray Missile Barrage, Snare Trap

Known Issues

- Beam weapon effects (such as lasgun beams) will seem to stop half-way towards the target; they are in fact hitting, but the problem is they are scaled both with the base unit model and proportional to the target's distance as a fraction of the max range. So they in effect get scaled twice, with the unit and with the max range fraction.

- Undeployed Heavy Weapons Teams (Imperial Guard) look full size; couldn't seem to change their visual size. The Deployed version scaled properly, though.

Modding info

I used Cucc's handy RGDEdit tool extensively. I included the script files I used for making mass changes to the attribute files. The SGA archives were created with Relic's Mod Packager.

Standard Disclaimer

I take no personal responsibility for any hardware damage or data corruption resulting from the use or installation of this DoW modification.

Feel free to post your comments and feedback on the homepage or the Relic forums (the Half Scale thread at Forums.relicnews.com). Thanks for playing Half Scale!

zurn