Post news Report RSS Half-Life 2: Wars v0.5 Release

Version 0.5 of Half-Life 2: Wars is now available for download. This release features new maps, the addition of basebuilding, improved stability (less crashes), and many tweaks to visuals, sound, and balance.

Posted by on

Half-Life 2: Wars v0.5 now available for download! 0.5 improves just about everything in Half-Life 2: Wars. In addition to new maps, upgraded AI, and basebuilding for both Resistance and Combine, the update features a whole host of upgrades to the game, such as unit sounds, balance and gameplay tweaks, better visuals, and a lot of other small improvements. It now requires the Orange Box to play. This release is still singleplayer, but multiplayer has been in development for some time and is our focus for the next major update. You can play as both Combine and Resistance in 0.5. The following screenshots are from the two new maps (hlw_crashed and a remade hlw_sands)

v0.5 Screens v0.5 Screens v0.5 Screens

Short Changelog:

  • Two new maps
  • Changed to Orange box engine
  • Added basebuilding
  • Improved stability
  • Improved units AI
  • Added support for navigation mesh
  • Improved balance between units
  • Improved various visuals

A full changelog can be found in the readme file. You can download HL2: Wars here on Moddb (links below). Please be sure to let us know what you think, in a comment or on our forum. Stay tuned for the next release (development hasn't slowed a bit since day one) and we hope you enjoy! This is a full installer, please delete any previous installations of HL2:Wars before installing.

Post comment Comments  (0 - 50 of 59)
Gryx
Gryx - - 23 comments

Sweet! Downloading now...

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
Shoelip
Shoelip - - 463 comments

Holy extra sharp cheddar batman! Must download!

Reply Good karma Bad karma+3 votes
Lt_Veron
Lt_Veron - - 209 comments

great update:3 downloading now...

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
lodle
lodle - - 204 comments

Must say as a fellow hl2 modder that is Frickn wikid. Keep up the good work and ill be looking forward to the full release.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
nazfalas
nazfalas - - 541 comments

SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET
No seriously...I have been waitin for this like a little child for a happy meal :D

Reply Good karma Bad karma+2 votes
aldigangster
aldigangster - - 25 comments

do you still need episode1???

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
Sander
Sander - - 260 comments

No, you need episode two now. Episode one is not required anymore. To start the mod, you only need source sdk base - orange box installed (included with any Half-Life 2 game). You will get missing content if you don't have Episode two installed in some maps, but it won't prevent you from playing.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+2 votes
Arxae
Arxae - - 718 comments

cool must ttry it out sometime :)
version 0.1 did not work for me but im gonna try this one somewhere today i hope (or until my bandwith meter gets reset -_-)

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
popsUlfr
popsUlfr - - 102 comments

This is godlike...reminds me how much I love RTS games ;) . That's much of an improvement over v0.1 and it's already so addicting. The units are much more responsive most of the time. And the lag is completely gone, hlw_crashed proves this. Just one not so big problem concerning the selection of units : the cursor has trouble identifying and selecting them if the screen isn't centered on them.
It's so sweet and rewarding to build up a little combine army and send it over to the next rebel base :P
Will you include a synth factory for the combine in the next update ?
Also, Have you plans for a whole Rebel/Combine campaign ? Or will you stick to small missions ?
Really outstanding work so far, keep it up !

Reply Good karma Bad karma+2 votes
Ennui Author
Ennui - - 420 comments

We'll continue fleshing out the buildings/units for each team, and we've talked about a short campaign but haven't got the ball rolling on it yet. The next release will focus primarily on multiplayer.

Reply Good karma+1 vote
FJS
FJS - - 839 comments

Great mod!!

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
tnathan475
tnathan475 - - 395 comments

This mod is alot of fun, looking forward to the multiplayer release!

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
Silverfisk
Silverfisk - - 1,080 comments

It worked well for me, all the problems I had was that the turrets had no model, some kind of headcrab (I think) had no model and the tutorial didn't work, I haven't got ANY ep. 2 game, I've got HL2 and DoD:S. Gonna try mapping for this mod later today.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
$n!p3r
$n!p3r - - 415 comments

THIS MOD ROCKS

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
Kamikazi[Uk]
Kamikazi[Uk] - - 1,412 comments

WOOOOO !! Last release owned hope this has some more maps.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
IceWarrior98
IceWarrior98 - - 49 comments

God damn you all for becoming Orange Box required...I guess I HAVE to get it now that every mod is turning into the OB...Damn money hungry Valve!

Reply Good karma Bad karma0 votes
Jhaxavier
Jhaxavier - - 52 comments

You owe it to yourself to get Orange Box anyway, it just pwns too hard (5 awesome games for $40 USD WTF)

On topic, this mod looks really cool, even though I am a poor RTS player; maybe this'll be my intro to RTS lol...got my DL

Reply Good karma Bad karma+2 votes
IceWarrior98
IceWarrior98 - - 49 comments

I know, I just don't feel like running up to the store. Maybe I'll get it this week when I get out of town.

Reply Good karma Bad karma0 votes
Shoelip
Shoelip - - 463 comments

Buy it on Steam.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+2 votes
Varsity
Varsity - - 1,044 comments

You don't need any OB games to play it.

Edit: oh yeah, the mod uses some Ep2 content. You don't /usually/ need any OB games, then. ;-)

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
Klight
Klight - - 90 comments

Well done guys. I really like it.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
NullSoldier
NullSoldier - - 973 comments

Have you guys got a moddeller yet for the buildings?
I hope you can get one, I'd like to see some awesomly half-life two'ish themed race structures.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
Shoelip
Shoelip - - 463 comments

I've found a problem with the camera. If you lower the camera directly on top of the combine barracks it gets stuck and you can no longer move the it in any way, forcing you to restart the level.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
mckellin
mckellin - - 131 comments

i got it and i dont even have orange box and it works GREAT aside from a few tiny issues with AI :)

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
Zironic
Zironic - - 1 comments

I do not have orange box and it works fine (I did however get a dl on an earlier mod by steam - a guess a free-source orange box materials?)

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
noyart
noyart - - 250 comments

wft, the game started to lagg after some time playing. and the game lagg when you have many ppl in the same group :S

It's not my computer, I can play crysis on hight with out lag, I can play all source games on hight with out lag.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
agyplithy
agyplithy - - 44 comments

dont worry its just the game its not your pc its a mod all mods have bugs give it time for a new release

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
jacksonj04
jacksonj04 - - 631 comments

The lag is less to do with your computer and more to do with things like netcode and efficiency, not to mention that you may be confusing graphical lag with CPU lag.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
agyplithy
agyplithy - - 44 comments

the unit agreement sounds like "yes sir" or ect are to load its hard to hear them over the other sounds like gun fire,explosions ect

Reply Good karma Bad karma+2 votes
Zigelation
Zigelation - - 29 comments

I find the unit sounds very easy to hear actually they are a bit too loud.

And I got this weird bug, my units gets shot by an invisible unit, and sometimes my units just shoot up in the air, for no apparent reason, and there's badly need for a sniper.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
NightSage
NightSage - - 644 comments

A bit buggy (as expected of a beta or wip) but other wise great job!!!

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
Gizmo0105
Gizmo0105 - - 41 comments

Darn its stuck on the loading screen any advice?

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
Ennui Author
Ennui - - 420 comments

Do you have Source SDK Base - Orange Box and Half-Life 2: Episode Two installed and both run at least once?

Reply Good karma+1 vote
RaZor921
RaZor921 - - 42 comments

Wow... just wow. How can you make a FPS into an RTS. You guys own, seriously. I think i like this mod better than the original game. Half-Life 2 should have been an RTS xD

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
Lucífer
Lucífer - - 3,393 comments

Hell F'cking YEAH!

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
NullSoldier
NullSoldier - - 973 comments

Hello, I think this mod is absolutely amazing so I thought I would come up with some suggestions. Over the past update I saw some amazing things polished and redone that I like but theres a few things I think should be changed/fixed to be more like an RTS instead of just an overhead FPS with control. When I was playing it I whipped out my sticky notes and scribbled over about 50 of them. So, I've condensed them into two categories, Errors and Issues, and general suggestions. I've weeded out the bad ones and these are the ones I truly feel have a problem.

[ Errors and Issues ]

- Shift to Select
One of the most annoying things I found was that I could not select one unit, then hold shift and click to append more units onto my currently selected units. This is basic functionality of an RTS and I believe should be in the core game play.

- Arrow keys binded to movement like WASD as well.
Yes, WASD is binded to scroll movement, and I probably could bind the arrow keys myself to screen movement but there are times when my fingers are closer to the arrow keys when I'm trying to micro units so that I don't have to jump back to WASD. Since arrow keys have no functionality I would suggest binding them to scrolling to tailor to multiple styles of play as well.

- One unit from a group of selected units should respond not all of them.
I don't think I was the only one who realized when you had a group of 10 units selected and told them to mmove, you were spammed with a wave of, "YES, RIGHT AWAY, YEAHH!" from every single one of your units you selected. Only one unit from the selected group should respond out of the lot when you tell them to perform an action. Usually its the one thats active in your selection (the ones you can use the skills from).

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
NullSoldier
NullSoldier - - 973 comments

- When enemies or units are traversing a path and see someone they fire, but keep running past them firing. This is bad for a variety of reasons. I would set up one turret on the path to my base in training and the combine would run past it and only start firing at it once the NPC responded. My turret would just kill them as they ran past because they would not fight it. When on an attack path (Attack + move command) if they see any enemy units they should stop running to kill/fight it if they are in aggressive mode, and if they are in normal mode they should do what they normally do.

- Unit selection window is borked
When I selected multiple units and looked in the window that showed the icon for the multiple units you have selected, their icons would be all over the place in an unpredictable way. It seems like they should just be together and not separated.

- AI Unresponsive
One of the major problems I've found is that when telling my units to move, they basically like to tell me to F-OFF because running at an enemy and shooting is more important than feeling responsive and moving to where I tell them to move. My AI would keep trying to run places, or not move at all (mostly when standing on something). AI should ignore everything else they are trying to do and move to where the user tells them to move (Shooting is OK while moving of course). The AI of my units generally just felt unresponsive because they would try to do other things instead of just moving where I told them to go.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
NullSoldier
NullSoldier - - 973 comments

- When I click a friendly skill, I should be able to click on the icon of the unit in my selected units window.
Another annoying issue, is that when I click on a medics heal, I expect to be able to just mouse over the icon in my selected units list that has low health and click on him. Instead I had to find which unit on the ground had low health and then heal him. The second way is OK, but the user should be able to click on his/her units that he has selected in the window for faster and easier friendly skill use.

- Hot Key skills
One thing I saw was a lack of hot keys, all units I can build when selecting a structure should be able to be hotkey built. Also, all skills when selecting units should have hotkeys as well. Hot keys are the most important part of an RTS. Were not console gamers we can utilize more than 4 buttons/keys.

- Remove the acceleration on the camera movement, or at least give an option in the options to disable it.
While the acceleration and deceleration on the camera looks nice, the practicality of it is almost none and became annoying and distractive most of the time. I think it creates a smooth user experience, but shouldn't be there or at least have an option to disable to. To speed-RTS and competitive gamers its just in the way, at least enough that it annoyed me throughout my experience.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
NullSoldier
NullSoldier - - 973 comments

- While I could look into buildings in the first version, that was no longer the case with the second version.
When I told my units to go into the first house on training, the roof did not disappear and I actually had to go FPS move with my camera to see inside just to complete the objective which was really annoying. I hope this gets fixed.

- Engineers build backwards then suicide into enemy fire?
One issue I had on training was near the combine capture point at the end when you destroy their base was that I told my engineers to build and they would start building a turret (which was facing backwards form the way I told them to build it) and then run straight at the enemy base and commit suicide. Not sure if this is a navigation problem or not but it was highly annoying. If you build try to build turrets after the bridge it will happen almost every time.

[Suggestions]

- Another game play mechanic I thought should be changed but is not necessarily a problem, is the right click for using skills, should be left click for using skills.
It was just different to have to right click to use skills, I was wondering why when I left clicked and I had my medic skill nothing was happening. It seems unintuitive to the user to right click to perform an action instead of left click. Right click is reserved for special actions, left click should always be basic functionality, such as selecting units, attacking skills. It's user friendly design.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
NullSoldier
NullSoldier - - 973 comments

- Medics autoheal like Half-life 2 game?
One thing I thought was cool in Half-life 2 is that the medics would automaticaally give me health packs and heal me as I walked by. In HL2 I have to micro the medics myself to heal, and while this does keep the game at a micro-skill based level, it seems more of a pain than anyone would want. By the time I could micro my units to heal by clicking on the units the battle would be over any either they would be dead or i'd lost the units I want to heal. This is true especially referencing my previous bug report about not being able to cast spells on friendly units using the unit icons. Perhaps an auto-cast mode?

- When capturing a point maybe units should kneel and look around as if there checking for units in the area? Would feel more like there actually capturing the point.

- Engineers should perhaps be able to deconstruct turrets for less metal than they built them with so they can move them or do other things with the metal? Same goes for a mine.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
andyfuji
andyfuji - - 89 comments

Uch I hate mods that need Orange Box. I only wish i had it.

Reply Good karma Bad karma0 votes
Shoelip
Shoelip - - 463 comments

Doesn't need orange box, just uses it. You can play without it if you're willing to be missing some models.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
aidas2
aidas2 - - 3,816 comments

in the training map i saw some bugs or glitches
the dropship lands at the bridge and just hoovers there and at the combine base i hear hunters but i cant see them and Yes i hawe episode 2

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
Shoelip
Shoelip - - 463 comments

You need to get your units close enough to see the hunters before you can see them.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
The_6th_Monkey
The_6th_Monkey - - 43 comments

Very nice

I only encountered two major problems:

- Turrets often bugged and spawned facing the wrong way (usually north west :S)

- It was also very easy to accidentally place a barracks so that all your units get stuck behind it.

Apart from these bugs, I had a great time and I feel that you have done a very good job
Congrats!

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
NullSoldier
NullSoldier - - 973 comments

I had the same problem with turrets facing backwards, as for building barracks so your units get stuck behind it I don't call that a glitch but there could be a solution to it. Being able to deconstruct your buildings for money over time, or having your units able to attack your own structures if you command them to.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
Holobalobalo
Holobalobalo - - 47 comments

I hope you add Strider support for the combine side, that would make me extremely happy! XD

Reply Good karma Bad karma+2 votes
foxatphoenixlabs
foxatphoenixlabs - - 469 comments

wow

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
Comb1ner
Comb1ner - - 25 comments

Looks great but whenever I try to load the training mission, 3/4 of the way done loading the mod crashes and a little Engine Error window pops up that says
ED_Alloc: no free edicts

Help!!!

Reply Good karma Bad karma+2 votes
julz127
julz127 - - 48 comments

i get the same thing as Comb1ner!!! help me i wanna play hl2:w :(

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
Sander
Sander - - 260 comments

You need Episode two installed!

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
Post a comment

Your comment will be anonymous unless you join the community. Or sign in with your social account: