Hearts of Fusion - A Battletech Total Conversion

[Mirehn]

I have been formulating a plan to convert HOI3 into a Battletech Total Conversion since HOI3's release. I already had the general idea and template ready to go. I could edit the back-end to create the nations and mod the tech tree, etc. I could do almost everything example UI, AI, and Map-making. But I neither had the skill nor time to learn to do those things.

However, with the recent release of the modding interface into the game, I think that even with a full-time job, a conversion for HoI4 is possible. With the adjustments into the nature of the AI coding, I think that these plans can come to fruition. Therefore, I am pleased to announce:

Hearts of Fusion - A Battletech Total Conversion​

I must stress that everything is in the planning stage, as I don't have access to HoI4. Therefore, everything below is subject to change. But, if you know anything about the raging, interstellar wars that took place in Classic Battletech (Mechwarrior for those who have only played the computer game), this game will try to represent the war on a macro-scale.

Timeframe: Game will be set right after the 3rd Succession War (3025). Game will go as long as it is possible to code it. If possible, I'd say the eventual end date is 3067, otherwise we'd have to code in the Jihad.

Another reason I chose this timeframe is to make sure I don't need to code Justin Allard. I'm sorry FedRats . But that would just be silly for a game about interstellar warfare. Placing the nations on semi-equal footing is better for fun.

If we set this after the Fourth Succession War, the Confederation would be a rump state, and the Federated Commonwealth could run ramshod over the Inner Sphere.

Map: Map shall be setup in accordance with the look and feel of the Inner Sphere in 3025. Every planet shall be classified as an "island". This way, naval combat can take place.

Gameplay Changes: The game will follow CBT Rules where possible. But since we're doing a massive, strategic version of a game that is essentially tactical, things will need to be changed to fit the engine, etc.

Because armies are essentially landlocked on "planets", a navy will be necessary. This will be the single, largest change. Therefore it will require the most effort. There need to be coders for AI control, because everything will need to be transported between planets.

I have yet to decide, because I haven't seen the code, if DropShips need to be "ships" so they can use the transport code for Transport Ships, or if they can replace Bombers and use the parachute transport combat of "transport planes".

My hope is that army units can be transported on DropShips (Transport Planes), which can then be coded to be carried by JumpShips (Either Transport Ships or Aircraft Carrier code).

Nations: There will be five playable nations in the Alpha Build: the five Successor States. The periphery nations will be added next. As the Total Conversion matures, the Clans will be added.

Each nation, using the original "Objectives" books, will have a factory structure and location based on that data. That data will probably have to be adjusted to maintain balance.

Unit Representation: Units will be represented only by counters until a modder comes along who can make nice models.

Tech Tree:

• Infantry - Will use the infantry tab
• Tanks - Will use the tank tab
• BattleMechs - Will require a new UI interface
• Aerospace - Will use the Airplane Tab
• DropShips - Will use the Bomber Tab
• JumpShips, WarShips - Will use the Naval Tabs

I will update more as I solidify plans for this. If you have any interest in helping with coding or map-making, please message me.

Thanks!

 

[Mirehn]

This post is reserved for future updates.

Also, Hi @podcat .

 

[panzerzombie]

Nice, good luck

oh btw. why not fighting for a single planet, why do you intend to pretend the oceans are space ?
anyway your call, still nice...^^

 

[Mirehn]

Nice, good luck

oh btw. why not fighting for a single planet, why do you intend to pretend the oceans are space ?
anyway your call, still nice...^^

Thanks. And the reason I hope to pretend the oceans are space is so you don't have to fight over one planet. You get to take over all of:

 

[panzerzombie]

What are your plans regarding different mechs ?

 

[Numahr]

Why not split each planet into, say, 4 provinces ("quadrants") to allow mini tactical situations on each planet? While keeping the principle space = ocean. This way in-planet conflict could be modeled in a slightly more detailed way, with even terrain variations, etc.

To go further, I would even suggest to have 3 provinces making a circle, and the fourth province modeling the planet's "capital", in the middle of the 3-province circle (thus not directly accessible from the ocean/space). This means that you will need to first secure a landing in the "countryside", before being able to attack the main base/capital in a second stage. Defensers will also have the option to split units in the 3 outter circles to prevent all invasion, or to concentrate troops in the capital... Interesting but difficult choice!

 

[Mirehn]

Why not split each planet into, say, 4 provinces ("quadrants") to allow mini tactical situations on each planet? While keeping the principle space = ocean. This way in-planet conflict could be modeled in a slightly more detailed way, with even terrain variations, etc.

To go further, I would even suggest to have 3 provinces making a circle, and the fourth province modeling the planet's "capital", in the middle of the 3-province circle (thus not directly accessible from the ocean/space). This means that you will need to first secure a landing in the "countryside", before being able to attack the main base/capital in a second stage. Defensers will also have the option to split units in the 3 outter circles to prevent all invasion, or to concentrate troops in the capital... Interesting but difficult choice!

That was my plan, and is my hope as the Total Conversion matures. My doc is at home with more of my ideas.

But the idea was to use hexagons. With each planet seven hexagons (with a capital in the center). If the map is just hexagons, it actually makes it easier to map (since the provinces are so similar). It also has a nice symmetry to the tabletop game. The planets, and the map, can be expanded as necessary.

My current concern is more of the modelling of "supply". This is currently my biggest hang-up.

 

[marcusrendorr]

I think if the supply system were still modeled like it was in HOI3, there would be larger issues than the way it is modeled in HOI4. From what I can tell, as long as you have the necessary supplies available, it seems like they are automatically given to units in order of priority if they are not cut off from supplies, which, as far as I can tell, means an uninterrupted string of land provinces to your capital and/or land province with functioning supply convoys between it and another supplied province. If that is correct, then the only thing you need to work out for supply is if you need to mod in new types of usable materials (base game examples: support equipment, artillery, etc.) that your factories can churn out or that you can capture from enemies. I could be wrong though.


As an aside, I would be extremely interested in aiding you with this if you're interested in some help.

 

[Slyvena]

...the idea was to use hexagons. With each planet seven hexagons (with a capital in the center). If the map is just hexagons, it actually makes it easier to map (since the provinces are so similar). It also has a nice symmetry to the tabletop game.

Have you considered having 3/4 layers to the hexagon planets, so a total of 20/+ provinces rather than 7? Making each planet the size of some of the smaller minors like Hungary in terms of provinces.
This would open up some minor maneuvering and tactical choices to what would otherwise seem to be a very naval leaning mod. (If you don't have room to maneuver, the only thing that matters is having more soldiers)

 

[GundamMerc]

Have you considered having 3/4 layers to the hexagon planets, so a total of 20/+ provinces rather than 7? Making each planet the size of some of the smaller minors like Hungary in terms of provinces.
This would open up some minor maneuvering and tactical choices to what would otherwise seem to be a very naval leaning mod. (If you don't have room to maneuver, the only thing that matters is having more soldiers)

This would also help to better represent how the conflicts between the major houses were mostly raids or small conflicts over single worlds rather than massive offensives.

 

[GundamMerc]

-snip-

Would you have any need for someone willing to do some research of lore, like corporations, commanders, and political leaders? I love doing that kind of stuff in my off-time.

Also, have you thought about how you're going to implement battlemechs in the tech tree? The sheer variety of mechs and their mostly ubiquitous use among all Inner Sphere nations for most designs means that the design tree for a battletech mod has a possibility of becoming too large and becoming unwieldy for players to use. Taking the opposite approach of making it light/medium/heavy/assault, with just generic levels for each doesn't work either.

We could, of course, instead of having an extensively deep research tree, make it broad in width to fit a wide variety of mechs, with the variants being generic energy/missile/ballistic (lower supply/soft attack/hard attack, with various other stat effects), but only one or two research steps (so start at succession war levels, then helm core, then clan tech). I don't know if you can lock techs like you can in Darkest Hour, but if so, I would highly suggest locking each level of tech until the specific event kicks off that introduces it (at least for inner sphere nations, clans always have clan tech). So that would be Gray Death Legion sending out copies of the Helm Core throughout the Inner Sphere, and the Clan Invasion/Operation Revival respectively.

 

[Fee.Xato]

I think that will be great. I don't know anything about battletech but it would be cool if you added moons.

 

[GundamMerc]

I think that will be great. I don't know anything about battletech but it would be cool if you added moons.

Honestly that would probably be only worth the effort for a few world that are specifically mentioned as having moons worth fighting for, and for the Terran (Earth) system. Reason being that there are literally thousands of systems that would be on the map.

 

[Fee.Xato]

Honestly that would probably be only worth the effort for a few world that are specifically mentioned as having moons worth fighting for, and for the Terran (Earth) system. Reason being that there are literally thousands of systems that would be on the map.

Yes that would be better as I presume the Terran system is pretty important that would make it even better

 

[GundamMerc]

Yes that would be better as I presume the Terran system is pretty important that would make it even better

The Terran system would probably be extensively detailed, with not only Earth and the Moon, but also Venus and Mars, along with the Titan yards around Jupiter. However, as it is controlled by Comstar, who control all communications in the Inner Sphere, attacking it would pretty much put you under a "communications interdiction", which would result in a major hit to supply and also lower organization recovery, slowing down any offensives by a huge amount, or even making them impossible.

That might also be a way to limit the effectiveness of the FedCom when it initially forms if through an event/national focus.

 

[sunnyboy310]

What about different Mech types?
I would assume that there wille be light, medium, heavy and assault ones, similar to tanks.
Mechs like the Catapult for example could fill the "Mech artillery" or "Mech rocket artillery" gap.
Scout Mechs will be used instead of the recon companies.
Heavy enineering Mechs instead of engineering batallions.
Anti-Air Mechs like the Rifleman for AA purpose.
etc.

Oh damn im getting moist by thinking about the possibilities of this mod

 

[Kovax]

Having a map with the sheer number of individual provinces of HOI3 would at least give some sense of scale, rather than cutting it down into a relatively small number of strategic "regions". Major planets could constitute a "province", and minor worlds or moons would just be considered parts of the "province". I don't see HOI4 as being the ideal platform, since "regions" are more important than provinces in HOI4, where a more BT feel should break it down to the individual planet/province. The exact province or regional boundaries wouldn't be important, only the location within it representing the primary planet or planetary system in the area. The only place where it probably isn't adequate is Terra, where you have several major worlds and moons in the same system.

The transport bottleneck (dropship and jumpship limitations) might be the hardest thing to adequately represent.

The absolute ultimate would be the ability to spit out and read .mul files to work with MegaMek, so you could play out a few of the more interesting engagements in that program, rather than have the game auto-resolve all combats.

The idea is certainly interesting, and the scale of the task daunting. Good luck.

 

[GundamMerc]

Having a map with the sheer number of individual provinces of HOI3 would at least give some sense of scale, rather than cutting it down into a relatively small number of strategic "regions". Major planets could constitute a "province", and minor worlds or moons would just be considered parts of the "province". I don't see HOI4 as being the ideal platform, since "regions" are more important than provinces in HOI4, where a more BT feel should break it down to the individual planet/province. The exact province or regional boundaries wouldn't be important, only the location within it representing the primary planet or planetary system in the area. The only place where it probably isn't adequate is Terra, where you have several major worlds and moons in the same system.

I feel this is a bit misleading. Every planet IS going to be its own thing. He states that in the first post. They may even be the size of Hungary to allow some room to maneuver. I would suggest that major systems like Hesperus II and Terra be even larger, probably the size of France to match there significance.

Matching the Hexagonal nature of the maps, perhaps the planetary maps should be surrounded by six space slots so that you can't just blockade a planet with a single ship/fleet.

 

[Kovax]

That would either make for an insanely large map, a main map and individual planetary maps, or a rather limited section of the in-game universe (perhaps just the immediate Terra vicinity). Doing even a modest selection of major worlds in that manner would require 10K-20K "provinces", or else limit the game to nothing but the regional capitals. Ambition is a wonderful thing, as long as it doesn't conflict with the realm of possibility. I wish the OP the best of luck in implementing this.

 

[GundamMerc]

That would either make for an insanely large map, a main map and individual planetary maps, or a rather limited section of the in-game universe (perhaps just the immediate Terra vicinity). Doing even a modest selection of major worlds in that manner would require 10K-20K "provinces", or else limit the game to nothing but the regional capitals. Ambition is a wonderful thing, as long as it doesn't conflict with the realm of possibility. I wish the OP the best of luck in implementing this.

Well to be fair, the OP hasn't gone with that yet, currently it's six hexes surrounding a central hex.