Comments - Runty

Download link was removed.

So with Homeworld Remastered now out, are you planning to move this project toward working with it? It'd be awesome to see your ships in HD and with the updates.

Coming back with some new stuff to recommend for changes. I just wonder if any of this is getting to the mod creators.

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1. Turanic Raiders. Where are they? You can't expect us to believe that only the Vagyr are the ones raiding trade convoys, right?

2. Buying fighter and corvette squadrons does not feel good at all in Trade Mode. They don't do much, die quickly, and simply are a waste of RU's and supply. I'd like to recommend a big mechanics change for them in Trade Mode.

When you buy certain hero ships from the Alos in Trade Mode, they automatically launch Ace-class fighters for free whenever you enter a new map. This should be applied to ALL carriers you get. For example, a Hiigaran Carrier should launch/spawn some Interceptors and Pulsar Gunships every time you enter a new map. The exception would be super-fighters and super-bombers, of course, which you need to manually purchase and which would require supply.

Now you can concentrate your supply and RU's on capital ships rather than waste it on weak strike craft.

3. Shields. Simply put, certain ships in Trade Mode should come equipped with shields for protection rather than just having different armor types (which is resulting in difficult balance issues).

4. I've said it before, but I'll say it again: BALANCE. Super Capital ships like Battleships are too good, while Frigates and Destroyers are useless in Trade Mode once you get past early-game. Bombers are overpowered in damage output, anti-fighter Frigates don't do their job right (i.e. "White Sheep" Multi-Turret Frigates), etc. I do not enjoy having to constantly tweak balance by myself for my own playthroughs, as it forces me to restart a lot.

5. The 1000 Population cap in Trade Mode is too low. You should be limited to at least a 1500 cap or more. After all, those Dreadnoughts take up a lot of supply.

6. Please add more routes between certain locations. Reaching Niflheim is already a chore since there's only one route to it.

Skirmish mode is not meant to be played 1v1 in this mod. Try adding some computer allies to your side and let them take the brunt of the punishment for your forces while you build up.

Same. The computer simply won't use Alos.

Yeah, they look really snazzy, but unfortunately the Corvettes suck. No damage, only modest durability, etc. Frigates aren't much better, but then again this mod makes Frigates really wimpy if you don't have them in LARGE numbers.

Really wish the mod makers would go through and balance this with a fine-toothed comb.

Figured it out: You have to go into unknown reaches or Vaygr space, and find a particular Black Market seller. The ship costs nearly a billion RUs, though, which is just unfair.

I've found that the all-in-one package doesn't work because it contains files meant for a Star Wars HW mod, not the New Decisions mod.

To install this correctly, grab the 1.0 file and all its patches individually, and install them in order (including the etg patch).

Looked at the files, and this appears to be an old Star Wars mod for HW, not the New Decisions mod.

Maybe you got your uploads mixed up?

Same problem.

Appears to be defective. You try to start a Single Player campaign, instantly CTD's.

Agreed. You can't use the door trick like with the Butcher (she can open doors), and her permastunning means unless you have "fastest hit recovery", you're screwed.

Yes, but you would also need the utility program UnfBIG to extract the files you need.

Searching around on Google should provide you with more guidance.

Add-on due to character limit.

4. Some bugs.

- One of the ALOS's Ace-type fighters (specifically, the ADF-01) has the wrong Attack Family (this is used for calculating accuracy when a weapon shoots at it). As a result, they die instantly to Ion weapons and the like which hit with 100% accuracy (when they should NEVER hit).

- The Maid Class Carrier has a bug when Resourcers try to bring salvage to it: they end up getting stuck to the carrier and thus unable to move or do anything.

- Big bug: I've found that if you Scuttle any of your ships, it can corrupt your Trade Mode's "MissionData" file (found in your Profile folder).

5.
I've said this before, but I'll say it again: When enemy ships spawn (like in an ambush), they should enter the map by exiting hyperspace, not by simply spawning in a huge cluster. This actually screws them over by making them have to separate first before properly attacking you, and if you attack them while they are orienting themselves, you gain an unfair advantage.

Sadly, I've tried editing this one myself, but the edit failed. Dunno how I'd go about it.

More stuff to say. Kinda wish I could edit old posts, but the site doesn't allow that. :(

1.
A lot of warships in this mod have insane health regeneration rates which makes them last a lot longer than they should. I think what the mod maker was looking to do was make them regenerate more quickly out of combat, but did it in a bad way.

The proper way to go about this would be to use the following line in each ship file:

AddShipMultiplier(NewShipType, "ShipHoldRepairSpeed", "ThisShipOnly", "Linear", X, X, 0)

X would be an appropriate value depending on the ship. This would let each unit regenerate more effectively when its not fighting, but has no effect in combat. Adjustments to each ship's regeneration rate would need to be made as necessary.

The issue is that some ships in the game take too freaking long to kill, and oftentimes can out-regenerate your damage output. As such, you can't kill something like a Vaygr Super Battleship without Battleships of your own, and Bombers will not even do any damage to it (when they really should).

2.
Many weapons in the game are imbalanced or not properly calibrated, IMO. Various hull defense weapons have long reload times (i.e. 20 seconds between bursts), certain weapons that should blow a Light Cruiser to pieces actually do no damage to them, etc. Though I can understand that the mod maker might have been trying to go for longer-lasting fights, that isn't the healthiest of choices on combat gameplay. Making battles quicker and more decisive, IMO, would be much more fun.

3.
When you start running into Vaygr flagship fleets, they have very little in the way of Fighter/Corvette/Frigate support, which just doesn't feel right. No matter how powerful a Dreadnaught is, it can be overwhelmed by numbers, so they should have more in the way of support ships.

More stuff.

1. Is there any "main questline" in Trade Mode? Or is it just a "do what you want" environment? A main questline would help the experience, IMO, by giving the player a goal.

2. I find it disappointing that Trade Mode has no Bentusi in it. They are, like, the bigwigs of trading in the HW universe, right? So why is there not a single Bentusi ship around? Sure, Bentus was destroyed in HW2, but there should still be at least a couple of Bentusi ships left in hiding (or something).

3. Occasionally you run into "SOS Signal" areas where your fleet comes across a set of damaged ships and gets rewarded if you repair them. That's good and all, but what would be really neat is if occasionally you ran into a fleet that is under attack and had to save them (if possible). Unfortunately, that doesn't happen in the game.

4. Selling merchandise really stinks and gets you next to no income unless you're selling Humanoid Computers (which can sell for about 350k RUs, but are hard to produce). Selling stuff should get you a greater profit overall.

5. I've discovered something interesting: Pressing the 'T' key brings up a map of the galaxy, though it's all in Chinese and you apparently can't do anything with it. It would be awesome if you could use this to perform long Hyperspace jumps to essentially "Town Portal" to certain locations (at, say, a large cost of Anti-Matter Fuel).

Agreed. I can't type Chinese, so I can't use their forums to suggest anything.

Dang, just tried to post up suggestions to the Yaodumod website, but it only accepts Chinese. Can't give the creator any suggestions for changes that way.

Anybody know any other means?

Found another bug: The Flagship Shipyard at the Fairy Gate (where you begin) is supposed to be able to sell the Fairy Queen Super Battleship, but it's coded incorrectly.

You'd need to modify the files. I did that for my VS CPU games, and it makes the Survival and Defense modes much more playable.

Just to ask, does the translation team plan to make any of these suggested changes, or are they just translating?

If they're just translating, can you send some of these suggestions to the mod creator?

Thought of something else that could actually be used to solve problems 1 and 3.

Research into upgrades and such should be enabled in Trade Mode, provided that isn't impossible to manage. This would allow you to make your ships tougher to destroy and such.

More to say about Trading Mode.

1. Getting anything below a Battlecruiser-level ship for combat feels like a waste of money. Frigates die so damn easily against Bombers or other ships since you can't research upgrades (when fully upgraded, Frigates actually do acceptably well in modes like Survival or Defense). I'd like to recommend to the creator that he/she use alternate versions of said Frigates (and Destroyers) in Trade Mode that are fully upgraded (or at least have equal stats to them). Either that or nerf bombers so they don't instagib Frigates so easily.

2. When I've come across Black Market platforms, sometimes my ships end up shooting at it and destroying it. That has to be a glitch, so it needs fixing. (In the meantime, you can avoid destroying it by setting your units to Passive Tactics.)

3. The Cargo ships you get are WAY too weak, and get sniped instantly if you are caught by a Vaygr ambush. This causes you to lose cargo and even manufacturing facilities, which is REALLY frustrating. They should definitely be more durable to avoid dying so quickly.

That's all I can think of at the moment.

I've been modding some of the files for personal use and experimentation, and I've discovered a few things.

First and foremost, there are hidden "Stargates" you can find in some areas that take you to secret locations, usually in Vagyr-held space. You should only try to tackle those areas with a large fleet, otherwise you're likely to get slaughtered.

One of these hidden jump points is in the Imperial Minery, but it won't show up on Sensors unless you get close to it. I'll leave it to you to try and locate it. Unfortunately, these jump points are kinda easy to miss with Fighters, which is why I really think you should be able to buy Scouts (sadly, you can't).

Second, I've figured out how to get a Fairy Queen Super Battleship, but it is the most expensive ship in the game (nearly a BILLION RU's). You need to go through that hidden jump in the Imperial Minery, and in the area you end up in, you'll come across a Black Market platform that can sell you "Hero" ships. The type of platform is randomly generated, but one of them will sell you the Fairy Queen. Hope you saved up.

That actually exists with a number of ships. It seems only Carriers are allowed to dock resource collectors; any military ships like Battleships can only dock Fighters (and sometimes Corvettes).

Most of the Corvettes, however, are hyperspace-capable (although they take FOREVER to do jumps), and if you load those ones onto your ships before leaving, you'll get stuck and have to restart the stage. Very annoying.

Trying out Survival mode, and it seems like the Alos Empire just CANNOT survive that since it has absolutely no anti-Corvette solutions. Their own corvettes suck, their torpedo frigates blow up too easily and don't do enough damage, and turrets don't deal any damage either. Also, and this is probably a bug, you can't send bombers after the random turrets sprawled around; for some reason, they can't attack the turrets.

Am I missing something really crucial?

A few more nitpicks.

- Some craft in the game take an assload of time to complete their hyperspace sequence, such as the Sky Hunter Assault Frigate (I think that's its name). Takes about 10 seconds AFTER coming out of hyperspace before it can do anything.

- A bug I've found: If you dock a HS-capable craft (like the aforementioned ship) inside something like a Carrier and then use a Stargate, you can get stuck because those craft didn't use the Stargate. Either make them incapable of docking or incapable of hyperspace.

- Along with the Turanic Raiders, why are there no Bentusi or Kadeshi? And why no areas with Progenitor wrecks? Adding in the Karos Graveyard would be a nice addition.

- Is it even possible to get a Super Battleship-class vessel in Trade Mode? Or are those Fairy Queen Battleships not allowed for the player?

- There's really nothing for the player to do in the Hiigara zone. Nothing really unique is sold there (IIRC), and you can't buy ships or get into any missions. Please expand upon the actual Homeworld zone.

After doing more experimenting, there's a few things I need to ask and suggest. First my questions:

1. I've noticed entries of "Undetected Trading Post" in various parts of the Cargo menu. Does that just mean that you haven't visited a particular Trade location or does that mean there are some hidden ones out there that don't appear on Sensors unless you manually find them? If it's the latter, that just furthers the requirement for scout craft.

2. There seem to be a few goods that you just can't create on your own. In particular, you can't seem to construct Hulls (or I haven't found where you buy the production facilities). Is this something that will be added in future versions?

3. Why is it that Frigates and Light Cruisers have to suck so freaking much, but Corvettes are insane? Aren't Frigates supposed to be ARMORED?

Now for suggestions:

1. As I've said before: SCOUTS! Fighters can't see jack, and I absolutely hate moving around blind. Scout fighters should be added for purchase, or some ships should be equipped with the Sensor Ping ability so you can sweep for enemies in Fog of War.

2. There needs to be more pathways to reach places like Niflheim. You need to go through about 8 different Stargates just to reach that place, and it's kind of annoying.

3. Something I've noticed is that when enemies spawn (i.e. in ambushes) they all spawn in the same location, causing them to have bugginess with collisions. To both remedy this and make the enemy arrivals look better, they should hyperspace in.

4. TURANIC RAIDERS. Where the heck are they?!
If the T-Raiders are added, I suggest that they be made as an enemy who likes to capture your fleet instead of straight-up destroying it. Give them Frigates that can board your ships and stuff like that.

I'll post up more thoughts if I think of them.

Something I discovered by using Cheat Engine to increase my population cap (apparently you can do that): If you go over 1000 supply with cheats, a lot of triggers start screwing up in events like Vaygr ambushes or combat missions.

Probably the better option between the two will be to reduce the supply requirements of Super Capital ships and such.

Here's something someone needs to do for Trade Mode: make a catalog of all the things you can buy/sell/create/etc., what makes them, where you can sell them for good prices, etc.

This would help out a lot in terms of planning.