Background:
NGCS represents a "TC out of a TC" effort stemming from the PDS mod, which I find to be rather hard to update nowadays due to its huge size and limited scope of in-HW2 gameplay options.
NGCS (or Next Generation Combat Systems) brings to HW2 a fully dynamic and lifelike truescale Newtonian battlespace that allows for an authentic simulation of space warfare in a more believable scale and speed than of HW2 and PDS.
Applications:
To date, three applications for NGCS have been identified.
NGCS is designed to be a generic system of programming for actors (ie, warships) in the Homeworld 2 game engine and can be ported over to all existing HW2 TCs with a minimal level of fuss.
NGCS will be used for a PDSverse singleplayer mini-campaign based around a Praetor class supercarrier, and this campaign will mirror the flow of modern-day naval-air operations. This first version of NGCS will experiment with singleplayer scripting for HW2.
Besides this, the NGCS concept gets its first inspiration from the highly mobile combat action featured in the Gundam TV shows, and will be used for experimentation with the Gundam Mod for HW2. No public releases will be made without permission from the Gundam Mod Team.
Thirdly, from conference with a member of the HW2 community, NGCS will be used to construct an authentic "Rhapsody of the Stars" TC based on a work of fiction by Daniel Hawking.
Thus, in a nutshell, NGCS in testing today has achieved the following:
- a workable "Dynamic Battlespace" system covering fighter, frigate, and cruiser operations, with lifelike ship piloting, where crew quality, ship design, ship reliability and weapon systems performance along with the effects of evasive and offensive maneuvering, play a part in determining the outcome of an engagement
Nothing beats the sight of a cruiser engaging the enemy at standoff range with its main railguns and zigzagging to evade gun and missile fire. The same can be said of frigate dogfights at 5km/s, pulling 20 to 30 Gs with all weapon systems fully automated.
- the simulation of crew quality for warships, from novices to special operators. AI scripts and weapon loadouts are also customised to reflect the various specialisations of combat units and crew capability
Novice attack frigate crews rely mainly on standoff missile attacks and will break under fire, while veteran frigate squadrons prefer energy weapon loadouts to decisively engage the enemy at close range to force a rapid combat resolution
- a realistic scientific base for all weapon systems, based off work done on PDS and now unleashed to operate in a near-truescale space combat environment
- extremely detailed combat resolution and engagement routines optimised for squadron level combat, with minimal necessity of player management besides that of mission planning and reassignment.
Battles now rage over a 200km squared area of space with individual combatants demonstrating true-to-life piloting and weapons performance, and ship design and crew performance plays an important, if not crucial role in the NGCS battlespace.
After all it is a moot point to deploy an advanced warship when the crew doesn't even know how to employ it...
Mod Status:
NGCS beta 1 will be released next Monday, the 28th of November, with the following features:
- Fully operational Newtonian battlespace
- Realistic weapon systems modelling
- Lifelike crew performance rendering and fully dynamic tactical engagement routines
- Operational strike frigate (missile-centric, regular, and beam-centric AIs and specialist loadouts), escort frigate (novice and regular AIs with drastic differences in team performance under fire), and never-seen before modelling of cruiser combat (automatic evasive action, 360 degree employment of weapons aganst multiple targets, detailed fire control routines with separate roles for primary, secondary and two types of missiles)
NGCS will use the PDS website for development and universe related roleplay and discussion. It is located here:
NGCS is a totally separate TC effort while PDS (see link above or browse Homeworld 2 Mod Listing here on moddb) will most likely remain frozen at version 7.0.
Articles
Things had worked out very well in the realm of RL - and PDS somehow, is still rather alive. Why not make further improvements to make? There's a lot of untapped potential... in ship design and gameplay in general. As usual, screw the naysayers :)
V12 was skipped - not a bad thing; it'll be a waste of time doing another semi-Newtonian physics experiment with little gameplay value.
So we'll head for V13. Many things will change including the tried and true shiplist. It's time once again to conduct another phase of natural selection. Lean, mean warships like LiirHra would soldier on to the next era of space warfare. Anything that tries to be a one-man army, or converts a double hull shipyard into a battle station probably gets killed by the PDS equivalent of self-terminally-guided, explosively forged depleted uranium slugs on a transorbital trajectory a million kilometres away.
That's the reality of space warfare. Who sees first, kills first.
And it'll be a challenge indeed to make that happen within the confines of HW2. Without any 3D modelling or scripting. You want to do that, earn real money doing it. It's simply not necessary, given the fact we can simulate the desired effects without much effort. All it takes is the right mind to plan, build, optimise. Rinse and repeat till we have another V7.3 scale effort.
At this point I'm not interested in knowing whether this vision for V13 would succeed. It either goes forward and gains victory, or it doesn't start at all. Things are very simple in the realm of PDS...
We humans with our limited lifespans can't take everything into account. The unimportant, illogical, or unnecessary is simply discarded using the skill of selective listening.
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Link to Next Generation Combat Systems by selecting a button and using the embed code provided more...
DAMN FOO, ORGANIZE YO SITE..I CAN'T FIND CRAP IN THAT MESS..U LOOK LIKE MY OLD XML FILES
Btw this mod is obsolete. NGCS is a chain of experiments designed to push the HW2 engine to its limits. See PDS for the current version...
so can someone who has downloaded this please tell the rest of us and not keep it to yourself. I've been all over Pds.hwaccess.net and it is not very well laid out and hard to find what your looking for
The mod may be good but he needs to work on user aquisition
there is no download link for it off moddb the maker expects you to go to his site and download it(wich btw is a very confusing and very unfriendly interface)
from where can i download this mod????
Why is there no download this stinks man :I
Unzip into HW2 folder and add -overridebigfile to your HW2 desktop shortcut.
NGCS gameplay elements are being incorporated into its sister mod PDS, so check out v7.4 for a much cleaner Newtonian battlespace
guys im new to mods and i downloaded this because it looked cool but now im stuck how do i install and play this great mod?
The game balance is somewhat intimidating. Dogfights get way too long. Simply staring at monitor for five freakin´minutes to see two pairs of interceptors fight and hear all the time "ship under attack" or "we got them napping" frustrates even me, though it is world wide known fact that I have pope´s nerves (OK, I exagerrated a lot but I hope the creators got the drift)
Despite that shortfall and some other minor annoyances, it is a must-have for any (un)seroius HW2 fan.