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.
A normal simple image you may think, but not quite.
It's a new game mode and it will probably be called "High Command".
It's not really a new idea and it's actually inspired by another mod, but what you see isn't just a bunch of destroyers and bunch of frigates, it's a single destroyer group and a few frigate squadrons. Every ship in this mode will now come in packs and since there can be no subsystem building in squadrons, there'll also be no micromanagement, just fight (BCs will have prebuilt HS module and fire control tower for example). You build a BC and you'll get two of them, you'll build a Destroyer and you'll get four, you'll build a frigate and you'll get... eight.
And It's not unfair, two BCs have damage together around 11000, four DDs around 5000, eight frigates around 2200.
And since you should know me pretty well now, you should also know that this will be optional, it's just one starting fleet you choose to start this mass production High Command mode. It also won't cause you any extra megabytes in the release.
First tests are showing that this is really going to be a pretty nice feature. I would suggest to use low or very low unit caps, but this whole mode is a first step to something I would like to try in the future, so maybe we will have a reasonable battles with high unit caps as well.
For more pictures look into the Screenshots thread here: Moddb.com
1680 x 1050 px
Sounds very fancy and basically means... BIGGER BATTLES, YEAAAAAAH!!!
Less management, more large scale tactics? Awesome.
Yeah, that's how it is, less management, large scale battles.
basically, people have three choices:
1) To keep the unitcaps extra low, you'll get the simplified gameplay with frigates that are not useless.
2) To try the high unitcaps on the small map, which will give you a massive scale battles.
3) Or go for a real large scale strategy with a high unit caps on a large maps. There are an open possibilities I want to explore in the future.
How well does this work with the AI? can it utilize it properly?
Isn't it like just telling the AI that one group in high command mode is exactly the same as one unit in normal mode?
yes, AI has no problem with this.
This seems awesome also before i go on do carriers come in this way to like if you build a squad of fighters in the carrier squad would the fighters group together and be like a fighter and/or bomber squadron from say the world war 2 era were you would have several fighter groups together acting indpendantly but also work together. Any way would the squadron of the ships be able to dock and repair them selves like fighters
Carriers doesn't come in squads, it's not possible. But fighter squadrons will be in groups, that's easy. I just need to make a new formation for them, so they'll look and act like several groups, but actually be just a single squadron.
thanks for the info mate won't be as confusing
which reminds me how many fighter(vanilla) are in the high command versions of the squadrons
Fighters haven't been modified for High Command yet. But it will be at least 8x5 (5 in Hgn Interceptor squadron, 8 because there are 8 frigates), which is 40, but because of the massive scale nature of this mode it can eventually be more.
It will probably go like this:
2BCs
4DDs
8Frigates
8x3 (4 if Vgr) corvettes
8x5 (7 if Vgr) fighters (=40 hgn Interceptors, 56 vgr Assault Crafts)
(This concept means that the growing stops at the level of frigates and every frigate and lower will be 8 times larger than original. I think it's fair, because strikecrafts are already in squadrons, so we don't have to make more. Also I believe the actual squadron limit is somewhere below 100, so we can't go much higher. If I will rise it anyway, it will probably be like 10 corvettes and 12 fighters, but it's a lot already, I can't imagine actually kill the whole squadron.)
No to je výborne Pouk, velmi dobre nápad a vyzera že buďe zaujímavé novy game mode :)
Love that screenshot too ;)
Díky.
Thank you.
i still hate how the fighter squadrons arnt actual squadrons only half squadrons or less. 3 fighters is only a flight group though most flight groups are 4 fighters for the wingman situation
Stupid E3 eating up all my time. I have three comments to this. 1- It's about time a HW2 mod did this. 2- Yay, it's not just any mod, but REARM that is going to have this game mode. 3- How do you plan to make special units work? For example: marine frigates, command corvettes, scouts, and platforms?
My suggestion: special units like scouts, marine frigates, command vessels etc should also come in squadrons, but in lesser numbers than normal combat ships of the same class. Platforms? Hmmm... they do have to be multiplied in some way to make them useful still... you're on your own with the platform problem.
Special units are a problem in most cases.
-Platforms: No there are not that special, they're of course gonna have to come in packs as well, there's no problem about that. But they are not edited yet, right at this moment they are still single. Only little problem is that after they are deployed, they can still change formations (check the probes and you'll se what I mean), now we only have to decide if it really is a problem or feature.
-Resource collectors: Surprisingly, they repair only one ship at the time, they have no troubles with repairing squadron units (they don't affect the whole squadron like the marine frigates).
-Resource controllers: Already in pack of two, works fine.
-Marine frigates: Now they are problem. Last time I said I didn't test it yet, but now I know how does it work. If the marine frigate is capturing a single destroyer for example, all destroyers are affected. So by capturing one ship you're capturing the whole group/squadron. I don't think there's something I can do about it, so we have to decide if we even want capturers in such circumstances or not. If we do, we just have imagine that it's more like boarding a ship and hacking other ships from inside, using the ship's squadron communication channel or something.
-Command corvettes: First I have to find out, if the effect is multiplying with more command ships or fire control towers. It probably is, but it may be limited by the "tuning.lua" file (the one which sets the maximum values of upgrades). After analyzing the situation, I'll probably lower the numbers so the squad of ships do the same effect as a single ship. Also, there'll be less ships in a squad.
-Defense field frigates: Already in game. I've used 6 instead of 8 and used the much wider formation. So when they activate the field, they cover more space with it. It works fine, maybe I'll change it only to 5 ships or less, it's up to testers, I don't have a time to find out which is the best.
-Scouts: Like normal, about the half the number of a normal fighter squadron. There's nothing special about them which would multiply, sensor range is the same no matter how many ships and EMP have to be multiplied.
-Distortion probes: Already in game, in number of three instead of full probe squadron (5 or 7). I don't know if the effect is multiplying, probably not, because it most likely doesn't work like that and it has a solid value. What is the problem is a thick circle overlay of the effect range. There are three units and each is making its own circle.
It does multiply. All multipliers add up until they reach the maximum defined in tuning.lua - or if none is defined they add up to the default max (which is generally set to 10)
OK, thank you. So for example the fire control tower on BCs (two in a squad) should be less effective to be more realistic, it seems logical.
So the sensor distortion probes are multiplying as well, ok, I'll lower their value.
the only fighter id want to see as a full fighter squadron would be interceptors and similar role strike craft. but the 3 for bombers annoyed me because if there was enough enemy fire an entire flight group of multiple squadrons was gone in 30 seconds or less part of that is due to how close they are spaced
We will see how will it work.
Viac videá o tento novy game mode, a všetke tvoj nápady by bolo dobre Pouk! Videá o tento mod su vždy velmi dobre!
Great work Pouk, cant wait to see more on this game mode and other stuff youve got lined up for this mod :)
Unfortunatelly, i don't really have time for videos lately, so if someone makes a video about High Command, it won't be me, at least not soon.
I can make a few screenshots, but that would be it for now.
And thanks. Also, if you want news, look into the Screenshots thread from time to time, it should be thread for everyone, but since I'm practically the only one posting there, I'm using it for showing WIP stuff.
Gorgeous picture Pouk :)
I like this High Command Game Mode idea a lot.
I usually played long drawn out games and the only real tedious part was the beginning where I'm clicking the same Research and Build options in the same order each game.
You've vastly improved that situation by adding new Research options and more choice, now I actually have to have a think about what I want to build, what I want to focus on, and HW2 seems less narrow.
Now with this game mode I can imagine getting into vast large map/large RU battles quicker and easier.
As always nice work.
Hi Tadamir, glad to see you again.
-Yes I do want to make HW2 less narrow. The research tree in HW2 unfortunately seems very flat, because you see only the items you can research at the time, nothing before and nothing after. It's logical given the way the HW2 menu works, but compared to other games which literally have a graphical tree, it looks flat (somewhat one dimensional), simple and after a while it gets of course pretty repetitive.
Now what I'm trying to do is not to see the HW2 research through the concept HW2 uses -"I research this and it unlocks me this", but as a normal wide research tree. You don't have to research everything and you probably wont, but you can go deeper in a branch you choose. (I should probably make a graphical representation of the research trees. Good idea, I will do it.)
...Now what did I want to talk about. Yeah, the High Command. It definitely is faster to get to the larger battle, in this point of view it's pretty satisfying. Right now it's just a tool for those large battles, but in the future I want to do everything for making it a true large scale strategy game mode. To be honest I didn't try it on a large map, in testing I don't have the time to search my enemy, so who knows, maybe it already works on a large maps.
But one thing is for sure, you can in detail pick what gameplay you're looking for. Lot of action? High unit caps, lot of RU, small map and you have it. Large scale strategy? Try if it works on a big map with one or two enemy AI players. No long wars and only fight? Try a multiplayer High Command game with your friend with 50K of RU and turn off the resourcing completely (by selecting resource multiplier to zero). Or for example High Command but only with capital ships or only with large capital ships? No problem, restrict strikecrafts in the unit cap settings.
...Anyway, my point is, that even it may not be finished in a way I imagining it, it already is pretty modular and you can turn it into a quick massacre or large long war game, depending on your game settings.
Now I don't really know why I wrote all of this, it's not even an answer for your post, but somehow I get inspired to describe the game type once again.
Hi Pouk, glad to be back.
A graphical representation of the Research Trees would be interesting to see.
It might help you shuffle things around too if you have it in front of you.
Every game in vanillaHW2 I would usually end up repeating the same build order with the same (lack of) choices.
It would be great to have a Research tree with enough depth and width that at the end of a long game you still haven't purchased all research, because you chose a path that led to a certain specialization or whatever and that choice means you don't get to go down this other path.
Even if it's as simple as a choice of two; like with the Tau in Dawn of War (dunno if you ever played that).
I guess I'm suggesting to try and make the Research tree so that you can't have it all.
You must make real choices between this path or that, which unlocks this tech but bars you from that tech.
Choosing one has real consequences and you can make the wrong choice for that situation.
In vanilla it was like you couldn't really go wrong (except by doing nothing).
REARM has made it far better already, my build orders for the Vaygr are all out of whack and I haven't even started on the Hiigs, which is refreshing.
(Unfortunately without being able to play the mod lately I don't know what state it's in Research-wise so you may well have done something like this already).
I haven't forgotten the Faction game-play though, which goes a long way to achieving this Research limitation.
I'm thinking about including graphic research representations right to the loading screens. Yes, there were only ships so far, but why not to read something useful while waiting for map to be loaded. Maybe it's a bad idea, I'll see.
I think that you very probably won't have everything researched at the end of the game eventually when the mod will be done, but it most likely won't be because of the different paths, not in the basic research level anyway (it's not a best idea to lock half of the frigates because you decided for the second half, it's not the variety I'm looking for). But there's a one nice "but". I've said several times that there will be a third level of research for Hiigaran and second level for Vaygr. You know what I mean, above two Hgn research modules and one Vgr research module. But those things won't be modules, Hiigaran will get the research station, Vaygr the research ship (basically the same thing) and both will have a buildable research subsystem. The ship itself will serve as a third research module (will unlock researches), but that's not all, because there's the last research subsystem. Now you may already imagine what does it mean -I'm planning to restrict the unit caps for research station/ship to a one single unit (at least up to the Default unit cap level). What does it also mean is to have a single ultimate research subsystem at a time. While the ship will be mostly for unlocking third level of armor or something, the subsystems will unlock Dreadnaughts, Battleships or maybe even something else, so you'll have to choose "your path" as you said. But Battleships or dreadnaughts are more game enders than a path, but it's still something. It can be developed further and used in a different way, the research ship can be used as a base for much less powerful research at the beginning of the game for example.
Also I know it probably does sound a lot confusing, but I don't think it really is, you'll see.
And yeah, faction gameplay is the kind of chosing the path already.
I'm glad you wrote the above because re-reading it reminded me of a few things you have planned that I'd forgotten.
I'll keep this in mind with HC.
I Wander if there will be a Combat scout which has squadrons of 5 (20 in High command) and has higher firepower and sensors then standard scouts