Homeworld: Journey to Hiigara
A mod for Freespace Open
Mod OutlineThe purpose of this mod, tentatively titled
Journey to Hiigara, is yet another Homeworld mod for Freespace Open.
This is completely separate from the Apocalypse Project as they have decided to focus on Homeworld 2. Homeworld 2 was an amazing game but it was the weaker of the series story-wise. Seeing as how no projects now exist to incorporate Homeworld 1/Cataclysm style ships into FSO, this project should fill that gap nicely.
I have spoken to many people both on and off of HLP and while we're all spoiled by HTL effects and graphics, there is much interest from the veterans in a Homeworld 1 style mod for FSO, even if lower poly retail models and maps are used. Once the gameplay is balanced, stable, and most of all, fun, models can be redone in various tweaks and patches if the feedback is good from the community.
This would also be a great mod to bring people into who want to mod Freespace but have no idea where to start, as for the most part, the models, textures, and storylines already exist. It's easier to get in on a project like this instead of being overwhelmed by absolutely beautiful projects like Blue Planet, The Babylon Project, and user created campaigns like Derelict.
Why host?There are many people that have helped so far in answering questions and technical details so far, that there needs to be a forum or more than just one thread to bring people into this in a way to consolidate efforts and get a streamlined project going. These modders want to see some Homeworld action and I don't blame them! HLP has the biggest pool of interest and talent!
What/who's needed:
Modelers: Right now, the plan would be to convert and get the retail HW1 models imported into the engine for at least the first campaign. Many people that I've spoken to on HLP would like to see a mod that focuses on gameplay and mechanics to make it seem like Homeworld, and HTL hi-poly models can be added later.
However, not all the models in game are optimized. A lot of the debris and some of the ships have single sided polygons that are overlaid with a texture with an alpha channel (the wreck of the Khar Salem, and the derelict at the Karos Graveyard come to mind, along with a few faces on some of the Kushan strike craft). These would need to be tweaked and optimized.
The larger ships from Frigate class on up would also need to be turreted over their hulls.
Some invisible polygons also need to be put on some models (over hangar bays and inside derelict wrecks for example) and around models that have subobjects outside of their main bounding box.
Texturers: Homeworld and its models are extremely inefficient when it comes to texture usage, at least as far as FSO is concerned. Ships with similar textures or parts of similar design will share textures easily. The problem comes in because these are not scaled tiles. Some ships in game use as many as 20 to 30 texture maps applied to various polygons on their hull, and this can double for Cataclysm ships.
Every model would need to have its maps combined, and be retextured by having a program automatically generate it the map from being baked on, or manually move the UV coordinates of the model faces onto one map that combines all the textures.
Normal maps would go a long way in making the geometry of the lower poly ships stand out, until they can be replaced with HTL models (if they ever get made and greebled.)
The texture format native to HW1 is LIF. This is a layered image format that includes alpha channel support and can easily be converted to PSD format. In PSD format, there will usually be three layers. The base texture is the lowest layer. On top of it may be two other layers, labelled COL 1 and COL 2. COL 1 is an overlay layer that will color parts of the ship whatever color you set it to as part of the team color picker at the beginning of the game. COL 2 is the stripe color. It's easy to colorize these in Photoshop by using a Hue/Saturation command on the layer and colorizing. There are standard values to be applied to all of these values to make them the same across all ships.
It may be easier to take these already-colored maps and combine them to make one large map, or combine them with their layers in photoshop in order to allow players to pick their own colors if they have photoshop. It's not quite my area of expertise, although I am a fast learner
Story and Mission Designers: It takes a lot of creativity to turn a 16 mission RTS into a larger Space Sim game, but as long as the key events are the same, there exists the possibility for new mission types, new miniloops, and new direction in the Homeworld story so this mod is not just a clone of it.
Artists: Everything from interface art to ship icons needs to eventually be done, if not tweaked. Some hi-res renders of the Kushan, Taiidan, and other factions' logos need to be produced for interface art and also the art used for communications chatter. There is no indication of what any of the characters look like throughout the game. Instead of talking heads, it may be a neat visual effect to have each faction have its own communication animation for when they come up on screen with something to say.
We would also need people who were familiar with Homeworld to recreate and visually enhance the look and feel of the backgrounds in Homeworld into skyboxes.
Web person/people: I suck at HTML and website design. I just can't do it. The extent of my HTML knowledge is "Hello, world!" If anyone can help set up and maintain a website with news updates and screenshots, hosted on HLP or Game Warden, etc, it would be greatly appreciated. I would love to see it hosted on HLP as the community here is the most talented when it comes to FSO, and there are many, many fans of the Homeworld games on here.
FREDders: Great storylines and some awesome mechanics just aren't possible without some people who are intimate with the ins and outs of Fred and scripting. Certain things need to be figured out in either FRED or scripting, including turret tracking for multigun corvettes, hyperspacing in and out HW style, using the animation code, cloaking, minelaying/minefields, and the like.
Homeworld and Freespace mechanics and game balanceThere are certain themes and mechanical aspects of the Homeworld universe and in-game technology that are great for a real time strategy game, yet don't work well at all for a fast paced space sim. I'll list a few potential problems and how they may be handled.
Scale: This is a discussion to large to fit here, but it's one of the main points of contention between the TAP team and myself
Strike craft armor/shielding: Strike craft in game are extremely fragile compared to some of the firepower being thrown around. You'd hate to be in the middle of a furball and have a stray shot from a cruiser or a destroyer knock you out with one hit, and wings of 30+ fighters just doesn't seem practical from an FSO standpoint and every battle can't be a BoE. Either the armor on fighters and corvettes needs to be tweaked, or these vessels need to be given shields. We know that shielding exists in the HW1 universe, but it requires a specialty frigate class to hold the generator. For play balance, it may be necessary but would be easy to explain away.
Fighter primaries and secondaries: Each strike craft in Homeworld has a pathetic amount of firepower. Fighters only have one weapon that can be mounted on each of them, described as a mass driver. I believe there needs to be different specialized primary weapons, some ammunition based and some energy based. Each ship also needs more than just one weapon bank and added firing points, especially on Kushan corvettes.
In HW1, there are no strike craft with missiles until Cataclysm and even then, they only hold one volley each. While this may work for a strategy game when you can build and field dozens of these craft, it isn't practical from a space sim gameplay point. There need to be missiles and bombs that can be mounted on different corvettes, fighters, and bombers both aspect seeking and dumbfire. For example, the Kushan scout should have a missile pod somewhere that holds a minimal amount of missiles, like a Pegasus class stealth fighter from Freespace. Some ships need a lot of missiles, like missile destroyers and Turanic missile corvettes. While the plasma bomb is treated like an energy weapon in game, it is mentioned that it's actually a missile, so there could be both primary and secondary versions of this weapon.
Hyperspacing/ships moving from point A to point B: In every mission in Homeworld, you have the mothership. The only ships capable of launching and ferrying strike craft are motherships and carriers. Obviously from a gameplay perspective, you can't have the mothership in every mission and you can't have carriers until later on in the game.
So how can you explain how you get from point A to point B to start and end missions? Three ideas come to mind.
1) You've traveled a very long way away from the mothership or carrier, and the mission “starts” when you've just entered the field of engagement and after the mission is successful or a failure, the mission just ends and you're assumed to have returned to base
2) You can be ferried in by different craft that linger in the area or far back. Until you get carriers in the later campaigns, the resource controller and the support frigate both have the ability to dock and repair/refuel strike craft. It can be explained that you and your wingmates hitched a ride on either one of these vessels which then entered hyperspace and carried you to the mission area. You could also retreat or depart by getting close enough to the ship to trigger docking, if it doesn't take off after dropping you off. These two ships are also the first frigate class vessels you get while in the campaign, having been reverse-engineered from a captured frigate.
3) Strike craft are capable of making short hyperspace jumps. This actually isn't that far fetched. Only the mothership is capable of making a large hyperspace jump (referred to as a long jump) but frigates, destroyers, carriers, and a few other ships can jump as well (short jump). When the fleet moves and the mothership makes one of these jumps, smaller craft get dragged right along with it and don't get left behind. This implies that the mothership's hyperspace drive has some sort of lingering influence or effect on smaller ship's hyperdrives allowing them to be “pulled along” with the mothership. Small craft having the ability to hyperspace could be explained by stating that the mothership has a “sphere of influence” that makes short hyperspace jumps possible when its in the vicinity (which would be as close or as far away as needed)
There is a mission outline for several mini-campaigns but I don't want to reveal it publicly as it has some suprises that would be new to the HW story. Just tell me who to PM the file to
Thanks for the consideration! If there's anything I would need to add to be considered, please let me know.
