Angels Fall First - HW2 Mod Release!
Angels Fall First is a universe created by a volunteer team of modders who decided to build a custom game engine for MMO gaming. Some of the members of this team (Sargoth and company) have also been leading members of the Nexus gaming community and other gaming projects. The first release of an AFF project is the new complete conversion for Homeworld 2. For the time being, this mod is available on the SWAT downloads section under the Nexus mods, until a new AFF section is created. The next project the AFF team is scheduled to complete is a conversion for Nexus itself, which will soon be found in the SWAT/Nexus mods section. Check the AFF homepage for more details: www.affuniverse.com/home/I personally find that AFF is very similar in look & feel to Infinity (another SWAT-supported game), though the designers may disagree! 
*More coming soon (hopefully an installer package from Sargoth)
Yes ladies and gents, hell has indeed frozen over! AFF: NCO Alpha version 0.8 has finally arrived! Oh, did I mention a name change? AFF: Total Conversion is now AFF: Naval Combat Operations! There are a bevy of changes in store for those brave enough to kick this puppy into the nearest PC!
AFF: NCO Features over 15 new craft, a new resource system, [semi] working AI, new fx, and music, 0.8 is a whole different kettle of fish from the last release. As always, this is an alpha release. This means that there are alot of things that are potentially broken, crashy, unoptimized and unfinished. I decided to release this build primarily to get the testing under way for the beta, as most of the main art assets have been created. Now on to scripting and fx creation, yar!
Playing this new version is not particularly stable for online play lotsa desych errors when combat gets heavy). Hopefully we'll be able to squash a lot of these as the mod progresses. Also, new ships, fx and updates will trickle in as they get finished from now on, no more year long waits for content (lord willing). I've included some info on the new systems as long as a critical primer for players to get a handle on whats changed below. Enjoy!
What's new in 0.8?
- 15 new ships including one "Hero" vessel (INS Morningstar)
- An uncountable number of new/tweaked weapons and fx
- New building/resourcing system
- And a couple themed battle missions (coming soon)
New Ships:
Generic
Fuel Depot
Shipyard
USN
Olympiad [Defense "Wall"]
Gemini II [Defense Platform]
Light Platform Controller [Station]
Viper [Fighter]
Heimdall [Destroyer]
Alfazard [Frigate]
Muninn [Light Cruiser]
Tyr [Pocket BB]
Ragnarok [Dreadnought]
AISN
Horus [Fighter]
Ti [Corvette]
Vladimir [Frigate]
Khamun [Frigate]
Shu [Frigate]
Everstar [Light Cruiser]
Pride-C [Battlecruiser]
Osiris [Battleship]
Morningstar [Experimental Command]
Naqada [Battle Station]
New Maps:
Deep Space (online Now!)
*Greater Tricholid Wastes (coming Soon!)
*Battle of the Empyrean (Coming Soon!)
RESOURCING SYSTEM
New to 0.8 is a new resourcing system than stock hw2's asteroid harvesting. Players may build certain resource generating vessels (infrastructure) that net a certain # of rus per second. As of right now, these are limited to logistics transports, fuel depots, and repair yards. Later updates will include more base building infrastrucutre that will play off the theme of ru generators and sinks.
AI ISSUES
When I say the AI is semi-working, I mean the following, while the AI WILL build ships with some semblence of strategy, it is fairly dumb and also refuses to build additional resource generators (like fuel depots) for some reason. This is an ongoing problem, and I've tried to remedy this by giving the Ai a decent # of starting fuel depots. Obviously this was a major hangup in getting the release out and I only decided to let it slide in the interest of time, further updates will explore ways of addressing this.
KNOWN BUGS
Besides the above mentioned AI issues, the following bugs are known to me and are on my plate to deal with;
* Stations spaz out when trying to deploy mines
* Fighters not properly launching/docking from USN Light Plat Controller and Naqada
* USN Defense-wall improperly allowed a build menu (will be fixed soon)
* Mesh errors on AISN Naqada platform
* Destroyer/frigate attack style sometimes sends them flying endlessly off the map
* Missile spam results in lag (will be addressed in next mini-update)
* Sometimes ships ignore torpedo-defense
* Sometimes a single fighter becomes stuck to a point in space
* Error when displaying projectile miss effect
* CTDs when extreme # of effects go off at once (might be linked to explosions effects
* shields sometimes activate when craft is disabled
* Desynch errors during multiplayer matches (may be related to turret code, may be related to effects
* Irritating blue effect played when subsystem is disabled
INSTALLATION/USE
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To use this, make a shortcut to your homeworld2 executable (C:\Program Files\Sierra\Homeworld2\Bin\Release\Homeworld2.exe ) and include the following command line options in the "target" box;
-hardwarecursor -ATI -noMovies -luatrace -mod AFFv8_full.big
The full path should look like this;
"C:\Program Files\Sierra\Homeworld2\Bin\Release\Homeworld2.exe " -hardwarecursor -ATI -noMovies -luatrace -mod AFFv8_full.big
Make sure to choose "AFF Deathmatch" as your gametype in order to utilize the new resourcing system.
*APPLYING PATCHES
Patch files should be applied on top of base version with the following commandline options:
-hardwarecursor -ATI -noMovies -luatrace -mod AFFv8_full.big AFFv8_patchx.big
