Warlords and WEG

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-03-02 09:52pm

I recently (due to EaW) pulled down the current test v0.5 of Warlords, the polished HW2 mod. It's really quite an improvement over v0.45 - EJ has managed to reduce the overhead on the insane number of projectiles while simultaneously making them seem much more 'real'. Watching large battles is less CPU-crushing and much cooler. Of course, the Clone Wars stuff is radically cooler than the old WEG clone wars stuff, which helps.

So why the fuck does he use WEG stats? The game features the most poorly-armed large ships ever. Due to the ridiculous philosophy of including everything, we go from Corellian Gunships at 230m with literally dozens of guns to 1.6km ISDs with maybe 100 total guns to 17.6km ships with maybe one thousand guns. WTF? Where's the scaling? The smaller ships (particularly that fucking gunship) are literally covered in guns: you couldn't attach more guns with superglue. They stick out of engine cowlings, docking rings, and any random flat surface. On the larger ships, a square kilometer of hull might have one turret. It shits me to fucking TEARS. The Lucrehulk doesn't have the near-thousand guns it should: it's pretty piss-poor for the best ship the CIS has. Fricking EJ and his appalling research.

fuzzymillipede · Post by **fuzzymillipede** » 2006-03-02 10:01pm

Ask yourself, could the game handle that many guns?

Also, have you ever added weapon hardpoints onto a ship? I have, and it's not very pleasant.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2006-03-02 10:18pm

Perhaps the guns mounted on a star destroyer are... slightly larger than those on a Corellian gunship? Perhaps a star destroyer is capable of hitting targets with it's gun at ranges far beyond that of a corellian corvettte? More isn't always better. Quality over quantity.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-03-02 10:55pm

InnocentBystander wrote:Perhaps the guns mounted on a star destroyer are... slightly larger than those on a Corellian gunship? Perhaps a star destroyer is capable of hitting targets with it's gun at ranges far beyond that of a corellian corvettte? More isn't always better. Quality over quantity.

You sicken me. The Lucrehulk has more than 800 guns, in various mounts from quad point defence to single heavy guns. Oh noes, they are teh mark 10!!!!11 I'm not even going to mention that many large (1 mile+) ships have only slightly more point defence guns than say a Lancer or the more horribly wanked lowend ships, that clock in at 200m. Oh yeah, that's sensible.

But hey, simply accepting how things are must be a hobby. It's deeply irritating that it's such a neat mod, but EJs obsessive desire to never do any research but at the same time include all the retarded ship designs from the RPG leads us tosuch ridiculous firepower disparities: even for game-balance freaks like yourself, ships like... erm, that large orange ship... having less weapons than an Acclamator is retarded. That Alderaanian ship (the red one) has a similar weapon density to the gunship (ie, retarded). I'm glad he's suppressing the hp/damage/speed stats now, because most of the ships he's so proud of have no role at all. You think the Executor having 250 weapons slightly more powerful than the 60 ISD guns? Yeah, that's worth 2 million bucks.

Crossroads Inc. · Post by **Crossroads Inc.** » 2006-03-02 11:02pm

You want to change it? Mod it yourself, shoot why not just E-mail EvilJedi and ask him to change it, I'm sure he's NEVER thought about your concerns before

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-03-02 11:13pm

Crossroads Inc. wrote:You want to change it? Mod it yourself, shoot why not just E-mail EvilJedi and ask him to change it, I'm sure he's NEVER thought about your concerns before

It's the attack of the constructive input! EJ is in fact *not* open to using new sources: I would have thought his fixation on RPG stats was obvious from merely the ship list. It's clear he *doesn't* have any intention of changing it, since in between versions there's been a great deal of work done on the crazy-large ships (5 miles plus) - even adding new ones - but they're still not really worth it. Which is very strange, since I don't think many people download Warlords to play with Corellian Picket Ships and System Patrol Craft.

The point is his primary source is the RPG, and due to it's focus the RPG features mainly small ships, and they got wanked out quite a bit. By the same token, the RPG features many famous underestimations of anything ISD or higher. These errors - corrected for a decade - are still present in Warlords. As far as 'lolz the guns r biggA!', I'd be fine with that if they were commeasurately more powerful, but they aren't. Try comparing DPS of a 200m ship over volume to the DPS of Giels flagship over volume.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2006-03-03 02:31am

I honestly haven't tried the latest build, so I don't know the state of things, but in .45 things worked out pretty well. Despite actual weapon numbers destroyers are generally untouchable to frigates. In fact, I'd say that to destroy an ISD with frigates you need several times it's value in frigates(more if you can afford to hyperspace).
Supercapital ships and fighters are indeed poorly done. I definatly feel that frigates and destroyers are the meat of the game; be that because anything bigger is poorly executed, or because they're just more fun to watch.

Regarding Point Defense, the mod handles PD versus missiles poorly and fighters are virtually worthless; massed bombers launching their full salvos can work to destory or heavily damage a single destroyer, but for the resources, it's a complete waste. Fighters are not terribly durable, they don't auto return to hanger, and really, the only fighter worth buying is the A-Wing because it's got turreted blasters.

So really, it pretty much doesn't matter that large ships lack it, since fighters can do so little to begin with.

Vanas · Post by **Vanas** » 2006-03-03 01:38pm

Out of interest, where is the latest version of .5? I can't find it anywhere.

More on-topic, the idea of each ISD brsitling whith hundreds of turrets is cool, but I think my Computer would commit hara-kiri rather than render it.

fuzzymillipede · Post by **fuzzymillipede** » 2006-03-03 04:42pm

Indeed, it is a simple fact that the game cannot handle the thousands of guns on a star destroyer. Many battles in the game can have multiple destroyer class vessels and above, and just imagine the lag that would make if they all had that many guns on them.

I just don't think it is feasible to have that many guns, and you are just whining on about it for no real reason.

In any case, here's a nice little experiment for you to try; you say the ISD for example has 100 guns, while it should have 1,000. Go into the game files and make the guns shoot 10x faster, and see how well the game runs. This is very easy to do, you only need a basic grasp of HW2 modding to do it.