Warhammer 40000 TC: Interest Check

[XavionDeos]

Title says it all. Idea is to use the ships from Battlefleet Gothic and the ground units from Warhammer 40K (including Epic). Im thinking of starting with Either Space Marines or Imperial Guard and Eldar, just to see exactly what I can or can't do. Beyond that, Im open to almost anything.

 

Anyone interested?

[Epytron_Omega]

there is already one mod that has begun production, and I do plan on creating a 40k mod myself... already have the basic cruiser done for the Imperials. My sides, at first, will be the Imperial Gaurd and Chaos Space Marines. For the most part all you will have are gunboats and above, as the fighters will be attatched to the various cruisers/battleships... Heroes are Undefined as of yet, and you will have the ability to build custom vessel types, I.E. a double decker cruiser, or double decker battleship sort of thing. If you are willing to help, give me a hollar on MSN.

 

EO

[wolfshadow]

Would love to see a 40k Mod. Especially a Space Marine Fleet with Well armoured Strike Crusiers and Battle Barges, and some of the cool Forge World escorts. The hard point system would work really well for the way weapons work.

[XavionDeos]

The ships would rule, yes, but im more worried about getting the ground combat to work than anything else. The only thing that i havent been able to glean from the demo is how one would make close combat work. That to me is the deal-breaker because of how important close combat is to 40K. I know there is some level of melee framework, given that there are jedi and they use lightsabers. getting an entire squad to properly shift from shooting to melee fighting is the trick. Thats where my first focus is gonna be. But im really excited becuse the entire reinforcement system is PERFECT for 40K. Leaps and bounds better than the way reinforcement was teching was set up in Dawn of War.

 

The only thing about space that I see as potentially tricky to implement will be having skirmishes with more than two sides. The skirmish framework seems designed around 1v1 and TeamVTeam which wouldnt work nearly as well long term in a 40K project for fairly obvious reasons (everybody pretty much hates each other).

 

Epytron: i looked around and couldnt find any refrence to the other 40K project thet you mensioned. Can you link to the post/forum that its on? And yes a colaboration wouldn't be out of the question, but before i commit to anything i need to see the full game to make sure what I want to do with the ground combat is feasable and implementable (above and beyond the above).

[Epytron_Omega]

http://www.onlywar2.gamemod.net/index.php

 

there is the direct link to the site. Only problem that I see with that mod is that the models will be to high in polies. Another thing is having the Carrier Ships have more then one launch point, which shouldnt be to hard, just have to experiement. About melee attacks... from what I can tell, if we copy the attack style of the jedi, or rather the Rancor Creature on Tatoonie, to make this work, I think it would be awsome and potentially easy.

 

EO

[Epytron_Omega]

Here is a picture of my Low Poly Imperial Overlord Class Cruiser

 

 

all she needs now is some poly reduction but over all I am proud of the mesh and its low enough that you can have alot of these ships on screen. Just the first of many Imperial ships off the line, now working on the other varients and then on to the big guns.

 

EO

[XavionDeos]

Nice. Big poly count not needed to look cool. Evidence above.

 

I looked at the "Only War", and tho i like how their models look (tho im not sure in a game of massed combat those high counts on such massed units is that great an idea), im perplexed by the fact that they go SM, IG...and Necrons? WTF? I mean they look cool and all, but Im more concerned with a mod PLAYING like its 40K, and necrons are waaay to niche for my taste. SM, Chaos, IG, Eldar, Orks, and Nids are the factions that matter. Period.

 

Besides: Their original mod had the :swear:ing Tau. Screw the Tau. Right in the ear.

 

The other thing im hoping for is that the scale will work to think about using (for campaign mode only) Titans. In skirmish it would be insane but the scale of the infantry is such that Titans could be used without being silly. Im probably silly for thinking it but...

 

But, in short strokes, my main priorities are as follows:

 

Ground:

Close Combat. I know the code is there, but getting two squads to look like theyre actually fighting hand-to-hand is gonna be tricky. The only question is how tricky. Right now it seems that when an infantryman gets hit by something melee, the rest of the squad freezes (watch what heppens when one gets eaten by the rancor or sarlacc). Im REALLY hoping this is a strictly demo issue, but somehow i doubt it. Getting the damage to work out is relatively easy. Getting it to look right is another matter entirely.

 

The good news is that the rancor demonstrates that dread CC weapons, along with melee attacks from Greater Daemons will be a snap (the models will be the hardest part of that by far).

 

Morale: Either I can define a new meter to display on characters or I bastardize the shields in all ground combat configurations, and put some sort of either accuracy/damage penalty on them. (DoW ish I know, but there is really no other way to quantify Morale in an RTS).

 

Mixed-weapon units: This is the one that im still wondering how im going to handle. My worry is that too few heavy weapons would make the basic squads too bland, and im not sure of the best way to go about implmenting them. Still pondering this one, but its gonna be an issue.

 

As far as space is concerned: The Models and effects will be the worst of it. The existing framework is so well suited to BFG that major changes to the design will be unnessicary. That may change tho once I see how battles near planets work.

[Epytron_Omega]

Mixed-weapon units: This is the one that im still wondering how im going to handle. My worry is that too few heavy weapons would make the basic squads too bland, and im not sure of the best way to go about implmenting them. Still pondering this one, but its gonna be an issue.

 

Only way I see a way of doing this is make several types of ground units, one squad say has a flamer and heavy bolter, then another with a rocket launcher... and so on so forth. This is just another idea of mine.

 

here is my suggestion of ships for the Imperium, and how they should be broken out among tech levels:

 

Tech 1:

Firestorm Gunboat

Sword Gunboat

Station Level 2

 

Tech 2:

Dauntless Frigate

Falchion Frigate

Overlord Cruiser

Station Level 3

 

Tech 3:

Lunar Cruiser

Mars Cruiser

Custom Cruiser 1

Station Level 4

 

Tech 4:

Gothic Cruiser

Custom Cruiser 2

Emperor Battleship

Station Level 5

 

Tech 5:

Retribution Battleship

Apocalypse Battleship

Custom Battleship 1

Custom Battleship 2

 

Mind you this is just what I would like to see, and will probably do, so if you have any suggestions, let me know and I will see if it would work out

 

EO

[Orao]

Nice model however I hope that you are aware of LOD in EAW ?

[Epytron_Omega]

yes I am aware of LOD, STA2 also has LOD, I just refuse to use it. The reason that it looks like that is because I wanted to keep the Poly count down, and to do so I came up with that model, my first attempt had only the forward section of the ship, and it looked horrible and was too high in polies.

 

Also forgot to mention earlier, I am going to look into the secondary stations that you build around planets as I would like to make turrets and mine fields so when the full game comes out Im looking into this. As soon as I am done with the Imperial fleet, I will get started on the ground units. Each cruiser and above with have a small compliment of two types of fighters and a bomber squadron as well. each ship has two squadrons of Thunderbolts (fighter), a squadron of Vultures (fighter), and a sqaudron of Valkyries (bomber). When you build a ship that has the fighter launchers you will get an additional two squardons of Thunderbolts, two squads of Vultures and another squadron of Valkyries.

 

EO

[XavionDeos]

Im really reluctant to do a different squad type for each heavy weapon for the simple reason is that the UI will get clogged really fast. Im looking for a workaround either by reworking elements of the UI (Beyond any thematic elements of course) or finding a way to upgrade individual squads (thru the context menus for example.). This way you can simple (using SM as an example) have your tactical squads and your devestator squads as two seperate selections, and then give them a selection of weapons to add to the squad (e.g. Plasma, flamer, Heavybolter for tac, HB, Rocket, Lascannon for devastator).

 

It all hinges on how flexable the UI framework really is.

[Hammer22]

Just posting to show my interest in such a mod, its such a fantastic idea!

 

Just a small suggestion about how morale might work:

Instead of just having the accuracy and health decrease, why not have it so the player loses control of the units for a short space of time and the computer assigns them a waypoint somewhere in the opposite direction the enemy. Sorta like how morale works in Total War, but without them leaving the map

[XavionDeos]

Good Idea. The only problem is that such a trait would be relatively easily exploitable in multiplayer, which is something i wish to avoid.

 

However, if you make it something that functions as a test w/ modifiers (based on the % of units left in the squad), it could be set up so that you cant simply use flamers/howling banshees, etc and automatically have the opponent lose control of a good chunk of his army. However, if say you force units to pass a morale test (adding a leadership value of each squad to test with), with a rolled chance of breaking, shuch a system would work without being too easy to exploit in MP.

 

Not to sound like a broken record, but im quite concerned about getting CC to work properly. Getting two squads to more-or-less pair-off and fight it out is going to be intresting, since squads seem to all concentrate fire on one unit when you target them to attack, and vader can just walk up on then and cut them down one by one. I have had zero time to start really look into this as i just got the full game today (payday...), and ive only had a couple hours whit which to mess about with it out of the box (all single-player...havent touched the multi yet). But once i get a feel for unit behavious in the full game, im gonna look into it. But CC IS my first priority ATM.

[Epytron_Omega]

Hello all, its been nearly a month and I have some updates, nothin to big but its enough to show. Along with insertiontango I have been producing the Imperium Space Station, based on Port Calibur, and as of now, it is up to Level 2. I have screenshots for you all, so here ya go, with a hint of the rest of the cruisers for the Imperial Navy. Enjoy, and any feedback is appreciated.

 

Imperial Navy Cruisers

 

New Heavy Cruiser

 

Space Station Level 1

 

Space Station Level 2 (not fully complete)

 

EO

[wolfshadow]

Nice.... I like the double decker cruiser... Different. Would like to see your take on Marine Escorts and/or a Strike Cruiser. I see 4 lance batteries, 2 weapons battereis and 2 launch bays.... On the large one abouve, I see 8 weapons batteries.... I miss BFG.

[Adonnay]

The problem I see (so far) is not simulating melee (it's basically an invisbible blaster shot at close range anyway), but switching between melee and ranged.

 

The great thing about the way EAW builds their units is the squad-system. You can build any squad you want using the different weapontypes because every company/squad is built of individual units which are defined seperately.

[Epytron_Omega]

The problem I see (so far) is not simulating melee (it's basically an invisbible blaster shot at close range anyway), but switching between melee and ranged.

 

This might not be as hard as you think... looking at all the heroes for EaW, it might be possible to make it happen, just have to play with it a bit, and then we will see how it turns out... but I sense no problems.

 

EO

[Necroe]

i'd love to help oddly enough none of my books have any stats or similar for the space portion

[MistenTH]

You can give them a close range melee weapon, and it only activates when the enemy is close enough. However, they will fire their ranged weapon once it recharges as well. Not a problem really, take it that they are dealing as much damage as they can.

 

And you CAN simulate morale. All ground units have energy recharge / energy limit. Make weapons deal energy damage. If a unit is fired upon enough, it's energy will drop to low levels. When energy is too low, the unit will not fire until energy recharges.

 

Tada, suppression fire works.

 

But you need to make a lot of changes as it is set at 999/999 default for ground units.

[lordlegendz]

Looks like a few people beat me to this idea. Haha.

 

have you guys gotten anything started anything like the plots and setting? I'm very interested to do a 40k mod, and would have started one mysself had it not been for me stumbling on this thread. EAW is perfect for a 40k due to it being able to handle multi planetary warfare.I would personaly prefer for the races to be IM, SM, Orkz, eldar, tau and tyranids, contesting over a world map. Perhaps if this mod is still going I can help in this. Would like to discuss this possible mod with you guys.

[wuyanxu]

i love the idea, but DoW already done a great job on the land battles, so this mod has to be focused on the space and the galactic conquest mode.

[wolfshadow]

MistenTH: Great idea on how to make Melee/Morale work.

 

I really hope that this mod gets off the ground.

 

Man, we need some mod tools. *G*