Interested in a Homeworld Mod?

[EaX]

funny i love ironies

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Yes, when I first read Sajuuk was a ship it really made me laugh..... Oh dear, those poor Hiigarans, worshipping a derelict ship for millennia.....

But, back to business. Two more ideas for HWM:

-Warp points.
Could be represented by "Hyperspace Gate Complexes". Perhaps when you've received HW2, Rudy, we could start a multiplayer match simply to make some nice screenies without worrying about the possibility of a sudden attack that would ruin your photo session. And, when that is done of course, we can..... well, test our skills against each other..... You, who knows the Hiigarans from HW1 and Cataclysm, and probably uses good tactics, versus me, specialized in HW2 combat, a firm believer in the "tank rush" tactic.....

-Storms.
The Progenitor wreckage in mission 7 emits harmful radiation clouds which damage ships and can be utterly lethal to non-capital ships. Even Frigates can be severely damaged. Also, in at least one skirmish/MP map (Terah, I think it was), there is a large cloud of radiation dividing the map into two sections. Perhaps this could be a plausible explanation for the storms from a HW perspective?

[Akula]

I think there's a fenomenom in Cataclysm called slipgates or something similar, the Cal Stooh (not sure about the spelling) uses one of those for a far jump, those could propably serve as some sort of warppoints, it's not a great explanaition, but it's not entirely away from the HW universe, without having to rely solely on the Eye of Arran
Also about constructed gates, I think a large part of the Bentusi escaped through some sort of massive gate a good way into the cataclysm storyline

Actually radiation fields might be a very good explanaition ofr storms, don't they also affect sensors?

A thing to note though, the Dreadnaught isn't a unique ship, Makaan also has one he uses to open Balcora gate, this raises some questions, are there more than one mothership? Or are/was Dreadnaughts generally used as progenitor warships.
Also one might think that the Vaygr somehow has some sort of compatible matrix, after all Makaan is so bend on getting a hold on Sajuuk I really doubdt that he'd waste the time trying to get things like it's weapons systems operational, also as mentioned before the Taiidan also know the word Sajuuk, if I remember correctly they're the only ones that uses it in HW 1, thus there are also some things that point to the Vaygr having some relations to the progenitor

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

To continue my earlier rant about us being the Progenitors being the Hiigarans:

It could very well be that the colonization fleet found no other (intelligent) life at all in the HW galaxy, and that the splinter factions that destroyed the Mothership (as I said before) completely broke away from each other and became the Hiigarans, Taiidan, Vaygr, Bentusi etc.

[CovertJaguar]

I've been thinking about how you could implement hyperspace in SEIV and I came up with this idea:

While it is not possible to set a time limit on how long a warp point lasts, it is possible to create an environment in which warp points are inherently unstable and would eventually collapse. This can done using events, by making a low severity event that immediately closes a warp point. You could then adjust the "Event Percent Chance" values in the setting.txt file to control how often a event occurs.

I have attached a zip file with a settings.txt and events.txt that demonstrate this effect. After a certain amount of turns after a game starts, in which I believe no events can occur and appears to be hard coded, a warp point will be closed somewhere in the galaxy each turn.

This would allow you to place warp-openers on say your mothership and use it to open a hyperspace gate that will close in a few turns. I think this is as close to the Homeworld system as SEIV will allow.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Yes, however the Vaygr use Hyperspace Gates which can be deployed anywhere. Ships up to Frigate size can warp through them. HS Gates remain active indefinitely, perhaps it'd be a better idea to make the warp points "HS Gate Complexes" since they'd remain active no matter what. It saves a whole lot of fussing about, and Hyperspace never truly remains open in HW, the ships simply jump and the hyperspace "window" disappears. Also, one WP per turn could be a bit..... well, slow, especially in a larger quadrant. And you'd make "first contact" with the same empire over and over again.

However, to increase the speed of WP closing, you could make a lot - and I mean a lot, several pages perhaps - of entries for the same event. However, then the problem still remains that you'd make first contact with another empire over and over again. And Hyperspacing would be too difficult, since you'd have to open a new WP every time, but the HS modules are very expensive to make Hyperspacing more difficult. It's like that in the HW universe too.

[CovertJaguar]

Also, one WP per turn could be a bit..... well, slow, especially in a larger quadrant.

Yes, the limit of of one warp closed per turn bothered me as well.

And you'd make "first contact" with the same empire over and over again.

Didn't even think of that. That would be annoying.

However, to increase the speed of WP closing, you could make a lot - and I mean a lot, several pages perhaps - of entries for the same event.

The problem wasn't the number of events that were warp closers, but that I could only get one event period to trigger a turn. I don't think more copies of the event would help.

[zircher]

Hmmm, don't shoot the messenger, but here's the result of my quest to get something official ruled on concerning the mod. It you don't like the answer, you can always shoot Akula for asking the question about copyrights in the first place. [That's supposed to be humorous, btw.] If you all want to proceed, it would be wise to use sufficently different images and names so as to not raise a conflict.
--
TAZ

--------------------------------------------------------
Response from VUG with a little text formatting added...
--------------------------------------------------------

Hi Todd,

Sorry for the long wait time on a response, but I wanted to take this issue to our legal team to make sure you were protected. We really appreciate the enthusiasm for the product. The response if that this would not be something that we would condone. The mod would take Intellectual Property (IP) that we own and modify it to support IP that we don not own. This would harm our own IP and provide us with no benefit. If you were to proceed with the mod it is possible that our legal team might take action. There have been similar issues in the past. Therefore I can’t grant you the clearance and assurance you are requesting.

I wish I could give you a positive response. I think you did a really good job presenting your case and you were very wish to ask for permission ahead of time.

Best regards,
Gregory Agius

Interactive Marketing
Vivendi Universal Games

--------------------------------------------------------

From: Todd Zircher [mailto:tzircher@yahoo.com]
Sent: Friday, April 15, 2005 12:02 PM
To: Agius, Greg
Subject: RE: Getting permission to make a mod about Homeworld...

Well, the mod group itself is a loose collection of friends and forum dwellers that are fans of Space Empires and the Homeworld series. The idea is to create a fan mod for Space Empires IV (and V when it is released this fall) that is based on Homeworld. SE is a strategic space empire 4x game that is very mod friendly. The project is strictly non-profit with zero intent for commercial distribution. It's something that we want to do as a labor of love for both games.

As you can tell, it's not a very tightly knit organization. People can come and go on the project since it is a fan effort and not done by a game studio or anything like that. I've kind of nominated myself to do some leg work on issues such as permission because I have a knack for 3D graphics. I've shown the other forum members that it is possible to use the ship models in the Homeworld files and render 2D graphics or convert models into a 3D format that SE V should be able to read. [SE IV uses 2D graphics, but SE V should be capable of a combination of 2D graphics and 3D models.]

My general take on it is that it a personal use thing more or less covered under the Homeworld license. And, we're not out to challenge any copyrights or trademarks of the Homeworld series. However some members of the group would like to see some level of permission so that we don't have to worry about a cease-n-desist order two thirds of the way through the mod. Of course, if there are any restrictions, disclaimers, or other such verbiage that we need to post, the group would be glad to comply with that.

Even if that means zero permission and we're asked to stop immediately, it is better to know that up front than months later.
--
Todd A. Zircher

"Agius, Greg" <gregory.agius@vugames.com> wrote:

What we’d need to do for starters is get an exact idea of what you are trying to do. Are you physically altering the source code? Are you selling the game? Etc etc

Gregory Agius

Interactive Marketing
Vivendi Universal Games

--------------------------------------------------------

From: Todd Zircher [mailto:tzircher@yahoo.com]
Sent: Friday, April 15, 2005 8:14 AM
To: forumadmin
Subject: Getting permission to make a mod about Homeworld...

Good morning. Nocturnus, a moderator on the Homeworld forum, suggested that I drop you a line and perhaps you can point me in the right direction.

I have some friends over on the Shrapnel game forum that are interested in making a Space Empires mod using images and models from HW/HW:C/HW2. The idea being to make a mod for strategic gaming. Some of them asked about getting permission to do this, just in case Relic/Sierra/VUG wanted to stomp on a fan mod for some reason.

Given that info, do you have a ideas as to who I can contact so I can get permission to make a Homeworld mod for Space Empires?
--
TAZ

----------------------------------------------------

[zen.]

I'm the one that did the Commonwealth shipset a few years back. I might still have it somewhere despite my HD crash a year or two ago. However, in light of the above letter, maybe I shouldn't go looking for it...

*cough* Anyway, there are no live links left it would seem...any sites that were hosting it are pretty much defunct.

zen

[CovertJaguar]

I just went back and actually beat HW2. I can now see how the Hyperspace gates could fit in. The Age of Sjet is a perfect time setting for a mod. After they find the Progenitor gate network at the end the galaxy would look just like a SEIV galaxy with links running all over the place. They even show such a picture in the final movie.

A pity that the mod was quashed before it even really got off the ground.