StarDestroyer.Net BBS

I apologize for any confusion. I only used homeworld as a reference point as it is a generally well known and well done space based RTS, it need not have technicallities of Homeworld's gameplay such as resource Gathering and such.

The Basic idea is simple, could a Space Based Warhammer 40,000 RTS game work?

Zor

It would work, but it wouldn't sell. The allure of 40k is big manly men killing people with chainsaw swords while giant robots stomp on infantry and green, fungal British football hooligans are the greatest threat humanity has ever faced. A space RTS wouldn't sell for the same reason Battlefleet Gothic doesn't sell: there's no effective difference between running around the galaxy in flying cathedral battleships and running around the galaxy in flying wedge-shaped battleships and running around the galaxy in flying asymmetrical amalgam-of-prisms battleships.

If it helps, there was a HW2 BFG mod in the works, but I think it's on hold for the time being.

I imagine the main difficulty with it would be the fact that in a 3D game, an Imperial broadside isn't really horribly effective, because of, you know, up.

Of course it's effective! If you get your weapons pointed in the same plane as the enemy, then there is no "up" and "down" to speak of. Or do you think that ships can't roll?

Build a Hiigaran destroyer, and have it attack an enemy straight above it. Observe the resulting broadside.

There was a BFG mod for homeworld, (the first one i think), but it was canned as the ships couldn't handle having most of their weapons firing broadsides and would act retardedly. HW2 might be able to handle that better, so when the mod is done in 2015 we can all have fun playing it. I've seen BFG ship models for various homeworld and other game mods that all got binned for the last 5 years.

On the topic of the roll, if the enemy ships arent in a plane, then the most effective part of the imperial broadside (being able to hit 2 ships at once) isnt going to be usable to maximum effect, as once the first 2 are destroyed you need to do a lot of repositioning and rolling to bring more into firing planes than in the tabletop version.

You could just give the broadside batteries a wider vertical arc than horizontal, to compensate. Say, 150 or 160degrees, compared to 80degrees horizontal.

I'd be tempted by such a game, certainly. A wall of Emperor and Retribution-class battleships, flanked by cruisers, with Cobras and Swords curving round on the flanks. a torpedo barrage streaks ahead as the bombers emerge from the launch bays. Oh, yes, please!

That's what I'd like; huge fleets (bigger than Homeworld), easily squadronned (perhaps by default). Not sure that the usual "gather resources, build stuff" model would work. Perhaps a system like Mark of Chaos.

For what it's worth, there is a Battlefleet Gothic mod in the works for Sins of a Solar Empire, and it's still quite extant. Granted, it will lack the elegant, fluid-like ballet of the Homeworld engine, but the fact that it has already progressed to the alpha stage is encouraging, as I for one would very much like to play Battlefleet Gothic in a video game setting.

As for the subject of broadsides in a 3D environment, I've always thought that the ships in the Chaos fleet list, which tend to favor a somewhat wedge-shaped design like that of the Star Destroyer, might fare better in this sense than most Imperial vessels. So far as I am aware, there is no reason why most of the Chaos capital ships (what would be 'obsolete' or mothballed designs from the IoM's point of view), such as those seen here, shouldn't be able to fire their broadside batteries in a wide horizontal and vertical arc, regardless of what the BFG game rules say.