Greetings!

Since the release of Homeworld: Remastered the development team has been hard at work supporting the Mod Community and improving the Multiplayer Beta.

Today is a big day. We are opening up the testing of the Balance Mod to the entire community!

This is still VERY MUCH a work in progress. Our small private testing of the mod has gone really well over the past number of months, and we feel like we can now grow our balance community, to you!

The Official GBX Balance Mod is packed full of new and improved ship stats, behaviors, AI, abilities, feedback, and mod support. (See the list below for a sampling of these changes!)

We are not done, but we are getting much much closer.

Below are the notes from our lead designer who has been heading up this effort, Stephen Cole.

We really appreciate everyone who is part of this community and we are excited to take this next step with you.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=505794452

BIG NOTE – DO NOT run this mod with a campaign. This mod will break your campaign save progress and is not intended for SP testing yet.

Thanks,

The Homeworld Team

Special thanks to:

Alpha_1_SLS

BlackBaps

Cloaked

Kadeshi

P3G4SU5

ratamaq

Hideki_jp

A foreword about balance:

The Balance Mod contains edits to about 627 files. The complexity of the interactions the changes have on the game would make itemizing every change lunacy so instead we will speak to some of the general changes that affect the game as a whole and include individual sections on races. It will not and can not be an exhaustive, comprehensive list. You will have to play to really feel it out.

New changes to the game-at-large:

Frigates are a more viable option and are not just exploding armor for your Destroyers/Cruisers. Frigate health has been increased across the board while Destroyer and Battlecruiser health have been lowered to more appropriate levels.

Probe cost/time adjustments. Base probes were never worth their cost compared to the utiltiy of the scout.

Cloak Detection and Cloak technology cost normalized. Previously cloaking tech was expensive while cloaking detection was cheap.

Fire Control Tower/Vaygr Command Corvette weapon accuracy and damage boost lowered from 15% to 7%.

Weapon and Accuracy accrued cap lowered from 40% to 20%

Retaliation ranges increased on all Motherships, Carriers and Shipyards. In Homeworld 2 Classic these ships would frequently perseverate on targets well outside their weapon ranges leading to them not utilizing their defense weapons on attackers.

New defense weapons on capital ships to help counter strikecraft swarms

Cruiser/Battlecruiser unitcap set to 2

New scuttle damage set for most ships

Single tiered upgrades. Yes, there was a definite strategy between the original HW2 races that is lost but now there are two races without upgrades who must remain a viable play option. HW2 base stats for ships are higher than Classic and when upgraded ships usually fall close to where they would have been at the level 2 upgrade. For HW2 races this frees up Resources that can be used elsewhere. Vaygr, with their particularly expensive family-wide upgrades benefit from this.

Race specific changes and improvements (not comprehensive):

Hiigaran

Gunship Corvettes now have less banking to allow their turrets to more properly do their job

DefenseField Frigate duration increased, unit cap lowered to 2 to reflect their effectiveness

DefenseField Frigate can now fire its turret (HW2 Classic bug)

Marine Frigate attack family now set to Frigate instead of Capturer. Utilizes AttackPriorityMultiplier instead of making every weapon have 100% accuracy against it

MineLayer Corvette has increased health

Ion Cannon Frigate now has increased anti-corvette capability to help surgically remove Salvage Corvettes.

Ion Turrets have greater declineation values to minimize a deadspot they had right at the horizon against certain ships

Resource Collector health boost

Destroyer health lowered to reflect its cost

Destroyer damage against resourcers lowered. Hyperspacing a single Hiigaran Destroyer into a Resource patch and wiping out all the collectors should be a lessened threat

Battlecruiser health and damage lowered to reflect its cost. It is still a heavily armored projection of force but does not have 3x the health of a Destroyer

Increased subsystem health on select production modules

Vaygr

Assault Frigate has been updated to provide Vaygr with a more viable anti-strikecraft frigate platform and has been refitted to more closely reflect its high cost

Vaygr Command Corvette health increased and has gained the Sensor “Ping” ability

Lance Fighter damage against resourcers increased to supplement their role

Laser Corvette firing rate normalized. Vaygr Laser Corvettes have always been good at frontloading damage on their first pass but:

upgrading their speed meant that when targets move towards them they occasionally could not realign their weapons after a pass, resulting in a large loss of dps and:

they have an unusual firing cycle that could prevent their weapons from firing until they were passing over their target

Vaygr Missile Corvette effectiveness against fighters slightly upgraded to provide Vaygr with a moderately more viable anti-fighter corvette platform. Their overall loss of DPS due to firing weapons into their wingmen has been erased.

Vaygr Hyperspace Gate is now slightly faster and has a minor built-in sensor distortion ability to incentivize its use

Vaygr Resourcing:

Vaygr Resource Collector load increased from 200 to 208

Vaygr Mothership resourcer exit paths altered to expel resourcers faster (to compensate for Vaygr Resourcers ejecting from the opposite side of Resourcing patches)

Vaygr Mothership resourcing paths altered to allow for faster resourcing.

Vaygr players start matches with 7 resourcers instead of 6

Note: Due to the immense size of the Mothership resourcers have to travel much further than the other races to complete a resourcing cycle. Ejecting from the opposite side of a huge ship and having to navigate either over or under it to begin resourcing can mean that Vaygr fall behind in the number of RU loads. All of these changes allow Vaygr to remain competitive with the other races and provide a larger margin of error in the exact positioning of ship for optimal resourcing cycles.

Infiltrator Frigate attack family now set to Frigate instead of Capturer. Utilizes AttackPriorityMultiplier instead of making every weapon have 100% accuracy against it

Vaygr Heavy Missile Frigate range slightly increased to help it compete at the same level as Ion Cannon Frigates

Increased subsystem health on select production modules

Kushan/Taiidan

Cost/Health/Performance adjustments for almost all ships

Fighters:

Scouts now suitable for harassment and can take down Interceptors with numbers

Interceptor effectiveness now carries through HW2 fighter upgrades

Cloaked Fighter cloaking rate adjusted. They do not cloak while attacking but they do have a cloaking rate that allows for hit and run harassment. Effectiveness vs fighters adjusted to reflect their research cost

DefenseFighters updated with a smaller version of the MagneticField to help block projectile munitions.

Defense Fighter anti-missile laser adjusted downwards to help reduce their overwhelming effectiveness against Vaygr (being the most missile based race)

Defenders are less of a DPS monster but are still effective against fighters and corvettes with their high rate of fire and high health

Corvettes:

Light Corvettes now properly effective against fighters.

New AttackStyles for circle strafing and facing targets

Heavy Corvettes now moderately effective against fighters and have the punch and health to hurt Frigates

Properly utilize frontal attack styles

Multigun Corvettes now very effective against fighters and have the fire rate to hunt Corvettes

Properly face their targets and turrets adjusted to reflect their coverage

Frigates:

Assault Frigates now properly effective against Corvettes and Frigates.

Equipped with the health to properly form the backbone of your strike groups

Ion Cannon Frigates now equipped with the range and damage to attack Frigates/Capitals/Subsystems

Field Frigates now equipped with a fulltime MagneticField

Drone Frigates remain an effective anti-strikecraft frigate platform

Drone duration greatly increased to reduce the need to constantly monitor the deployment of drones

SuperCapitals:

Missile Destroyers are now effective at their anti-strikecraft roles

Carrier/Cruiser engine health matches HW2 numbers

Repairers:

Repair and Support Frigate healing rates adjusted upwards

Healing ranges increased to allow for repairing larger ships like the Taiidan Mothership and increase the overall repair effectiveness

NonCombat:

Gravwell ability range more closely matches the original HW1 radius

Hyperspace Inhibitor range set to 10,500 to help protect Motherships from hyperspacing cruiser attacks

Gravwell now can not be regenerated once activated

Gravwell innate hyperspace ability now self disables upon activation

Resourcing:

Kushan Resource Controller resourcing path altered to compensate for the rotation of resourcers when dropping off their RU loads

Drop-off rates specifically tuned by race to allow HW1 races to remain competitive

Kushan Carrier’s innate resource drop-off altered. Attackers will no longer attempt to attack from the top of the carrier, preventing their weapon fire from striking the drop-off

Kushan/Taiidan resourcers have their innate hyperspacing ability restored

Resource Controllers no longer have pre-requisite research and can now be built at map start

Research:

Research Ship build times adjusted to more smoothly move through research timings. It is now more desirable to build all Research Hubs.

Research time/costs adjusted to allow a HW1 player to choose to start at either fighters, vettes or frigates and not be at such a severe disadvantage when matched against a HW2 opponent

attack bomber research removed to give HW1 races more options upon completion of “FighterChassis” research

Repair Corvettes no longer have a prerequisite research

Light Corvettes are now granted upon completion of “CorvetteDrive”

Salvage Corvettes are now granted upon completion of “CorvetteChassis”

SuperCapitalDrive now grants Carriers instead of Destroyers to give HW1 players more flexibility in choosing their next upgrade path and to help match the HW2 Shipyards/Carriers they are likely facing

Destroyers and Cruisers now require “IonCannons” to be researched first due to their Ion based weaponry

New Multiplayer Gametype Options:

Disallow Cruisers - Enable/Disable

New Player vs CPU AI Improvements:

HW1 race AI now has better logic for calculating the number of resource drop-offs required and Resource Controllers should no longer circle a resourcing patch like sharks

Vaygr AI now better at upgrading its ships

Hiigaran AI now more frequently upgrades

HW1 races now apply separate scalars to fighters and corvettes to make itself more aware that one interceptor is not equal to 5 or 7 interceptors

classdef improvements, ie Vaygr laser corvettes is not an effective anti corvette strategy

HW1 races now more likely to utilize their multiple build production queues

HW1 AI does not understand how to effectively utilize repair ships so they won’t build them just like HW2 won’t make platforms

HW1 AI now knows about CloakedFighters and Defenders

HW1 AI now has a better concept of building mixed units and is less likey to forget about strikecraft when frigates and higher are at play

HW1 races in general should be more challenging and fun to play. The underlying chassis determination system is still in effect.

Effects:

New art for Taiidan MagneticField

New hit FX for Taiidan MagneticField

Fixed missing hit FX for Hiigaran DefenseField

New weapon FX for HW1 bombers

New weapon FX for HW1 Assault Frigate Plasma Bombs

New hit FX for select rapid firing HW1 strikecraft to minorly reduce overdraw

New missile/torpedo trails

Missiles:

Many improvements to lifetime/maneuverability, etc.

Kushan/Taiidan Missile Destroyers are now effective anti-strikecraft platforms

Vaygr frigate concussion missile launchers have had a complete overhaul. Instead of having too short of a lifetime and such poor maneuvering stats to ever hit anything, Vaygr Assault and Heavy Missile Frigates have top mounted concussion launchers with separate stats that complement the role of the ship they are mounted to.

Mine duration increased from 3 minutes to 10 minutes

For Modders

New Systems:

doscanpath

dofilepath

AttackPriorityMultiplier

Dynamic Target Priorities

RequireTag

noCollisionTime

MagneticField

doscanpath & dofilepath

Race research has been broken out into separate files using the new ‘doscanpath’ function

Example:

doscanpath(“data:Scripts/Races/Vaygr/Scripts/Research”, “*.lua”)

The above script reads all the .lua files in the path and internally builds a research index.

This directory looks like:

Ability_Ugrades.lua

CapitalShip_Upgrades.lua

Corvette_Upgrade_Health.lua

Corvette_Upgrade_Speed.lua

etc…

This allows future mods to explicitly pick and choose which base research or upgrades to use and to insert the modders own .lua into the research index

Example:

dofilepath(“data:Scripts/Races/Vaygr/Scripts/Research”, “Ability_Ugrades.lua”)

dofilepath(“data:Scripts/Races/Vaygr/Scripts/Research”, “CapitalShip_Upgrades.lua”)

dofilepath(“data:Scripts/Races/Vaygr/Scripts/MyModsResearch”, “Corvette_Upgrade_Health.lua”)

dofilepath(“data:Scripts/Races/Vaygr/Scripts/MyModsResearch”, “Corvette_Upgrade_Speed.lua”)

etc…

The above example mixes in the mods Corvette Health and Speed upgrade settings so that you don’t have to maintain a single research list.

AttackPriorityMultiplier

This system allows you to specify which ships are more dangerous amongst groups of ships of the same class. As Homeworld 2 Classic shipped, Marine and Infiltrator frigates had their own AttackFamily that was very high on the targeting priority list of almost every ship. AttackPriorityMultiplier allows you to move the ship higher (or lower) in the targeting priority list dynamically. When bandbox attacking a group of enemy ships, ships with an AttackPriorityMultiplier are weighted more towards being attacked.

Usage: NewShipType.AttackPriorityMultiplier=0.93

Many ships in the Balance Mod have been updated with an AttackPriorityMultiplier - capturer frigates, salvage corvettes, defenders, resourcers, etc. AI understands this system and will now attack resourcers. This system is only active during bandbox, AI, and automatic retaliation attacks, explicit player targeting overrides the multiplier.

Dynamic Target Priorities

In conjunction with AttackPriorityMultiplier, the Balance Mod updates many ships with the ability to make smarter choices when attacking ships they are less effective against.

Example of the default targeting priority of an Hiigaran Interceptor:

“Fighter, Fighter_hw1, Corvette, Corvette_hw1, Frigate, Utility, SmallCapitalShip, BigCapitalShip, Mothership”

Example of an updated targeting priority of an Hiigaran Interceptor:

“Fighter, Fighter_hw1, Corvette, Corvette_hw1, Frigate, Utility, SmallCapitalShip, BigCapitalShip, Mothership”

The extra commas create a delineation point in the targeting priority. Homeworld 2 Classic/Remastered prioritizes targets on 0 to 10000 scale (lowest is highest priority) but it’s fixed, linear and weighted by distance. Inserting blank commas into this example means that the Hiigaran Interceptor will be more likely to retarget and attack ships that it is better against (Fighter through Utility) even if they are a little further away then ships that it might be closer to (in this case Destroyers, Cruisers, Motherships). This system is designed to reduce ships from fixating on targets just because they are closer. This system is only active during bandbox, AI, and automatic retaliation attacks, explicit player targeting overrides the priority.

RequireTag

This is a new function in the Research system that works in conjunction with “RequiredSubsystem” and “RequiredResearch”.

Example:

RequireTag = “VaygrCorvette”,

This system allows Homeworld Remastered and mods to explicitly allow or disallow upgrading of specific ships which ships research applies to, even through family class upgrades.

Example:

{

Name = “CorvetteSpeedUpgrade1”,

RequiredResearch = “”,

RequiredSubSystems = “CorvetteProduction & Research”,

RequireTag = “VaygrCorvette”,

Cost = 1000,

Time = 60,

DisplayedName = “$7763”,

DisplayPriority = 201,

Description = “$7764”,

UpgradeType = Modifier,

TargetType = Family,

TargetName = “Corvette”,

UpgradeName = “MAXSPEED”,

UpgradeValue = 1.3,

Icon = Icon_Speed,

ShortDisplayedName = “$7341”,

},

This example allows for upgrading the speed of all corvettes (“Family”) by 30% but only to ships that are tagged as being “VaygrCorvette”. This prevents another race from donating their races corvettes to a Vaygr player and having those corvettes enjoy the same Vaygr benefits of upgrading their entire class. This also allows future mods to apply family upgrades to only certain ships, ie you could upgrade the maximum speed of all fighters except those that are not tagged (Scouts, Interceptors, Bombers but not Cloaked Fighters or Defenders, for instance).

Usage:

// this goes in a research lua

RequireTag = “xxx”,

// inside any given ship’s folder, in a folder called ‘Tags’ (or a sub-folder for that Game Rule), any .lua file can contain tags

Tags = “xxx,yyy,zzz”

RequireTag only supports one tag but a ship can contain multiple tags.

Example:

// this is what the tags of the Vaygr_Carrier look like

Tags = “VaygrCapital,VaygrBuilder”

In this example the Vaygr Carrier can have its health and speed upgraded (via a “VaygrCapital” RequireTag) and also have its build speed improved (via a separate “VaygrBuilder” RequireTag). The Balance Mod updates many ships with preset tags for future use by modders.

noCollisionTime

This system allows for the specificity of the invulnerability and collision of missiles/torpedos for X number of seconds after launch.

Usage:

NewShipType.noCollisionTime=1.5

Any missile/torpedo with a noCollisonTime set will have its invulnerability flag set and collsion disabled for the specified time. Vaygr Missile Corvette wingmen and Taiidan pilots who foolishly fly too close to a Taiidan Missile Destroyer are particularly grateful for this new technology.

MagneticField

Taiidan Field Frigates now utilize this new system which allows for the fulltime projection of a protective magnetic field.

Usage:

// this ability is inserted into a .ship file

addMagneticField(NewShipType,, , , , , , , , )

// weapon penetrations can be defined against this field type

setMagneticFieldPenetration(NewWeaponType, , {,}, …)

Example:

addMagneticField(NewShipType,“MagneticField”,1000,70,“defenseField_generic”,50,“defenseField_generic”,60,“plasma_hit_spray_MagneticField”,“defensefield_sphere_spray_TFF”);

New field art and hit effects have been created for this. I also fixed up the existing hit effect for the Hiigaran DefenseField that shipped with Homeworld 2 Classic/Remastered.

Note: Due to the technical difficulty creating systems capable of targeting ballistic munitions in the Homeworld 2 engine, Taiidan DefenseFighters have been updated with miniaturized versions of the Taiidan MagneticField in order to help them reclaim their original purpose.

Scripts:

New and tweaked AttackStyles for many ships

HW1 scouts/interceptors fly a little crazier than their more measured HW2 counterparts

HW1 corvettes now properly face their targets when needed and should be closer to the behavior of their original intent

AttackRun

This attackstyle has been updated with a few new options

Example:

minBreakDelay = 8, maxBreakDelay = 12,

If set (defaults to inactive) the break distance will be a factor of time instead of the break distance.

Example:

approachAngle = 17, approachFloor = 1700,

These are used to describe how far the unit’s weapons can adjust from ship heading, as well as the ‘min distance’ to stay off-axis. Less than ‘floor’ and the weapons are unlikely on target. Should be some fraction of max Weapon engagement distance.

Parade Data:

New parade data for Vaygr to minimize ships turning into each other and helps prevent the shipyard from hyperspacing in out of the playspace on smaller maps where the mothership spawns close to the edge

New parade data for Taiidan to minimize certain edge cases of the carrier hyperspacing in and becoming stuck

Starting Fleets:

Vaygr now begins a multiplayer game with 7 resourcers to compensate for the Vaygr Mothership’s large collision necessitating resourcing dock paths to extend further from the ship than other motherships. More on Vaygr resourcing later.

Families:

Familylist.lua updated:

- New Attack families added for HW1 fighters and corvettes

- New Armor families added for HW1 fighters, corvettes and gravitywells

- New Unitcap families for:

- Defenders

- DefenseFighters

- CloakedFighters

Before anyone asks:

- No, formation changes are not part of the Balance Mod. Any improvements there will be part of a future patch, which BitVenom has noted could be a major change to the engine. Keeping them apart for right now reduces complexity and helps everyone focus!