Rebalancing WZ: A Modest Proposal

[Arcalane]

Your proposal doesn't seem to have any obviouls balance issue as its target, so I can neither approve nor disapprove it. A single new weapon - double minipod - is ok, but if you want to add even more weapons, I have to ask you to start a new thread for this where it can be discussed.

At the moment, surely it is impossible to further expand the Anti-Tank line without adding new weapons? You ask that the line be expanded up past the Scourge, yet that requires more upgrade techs, or new weapons. If I had to pick one of the two, I would take the latter. If you want more choices there will have to be more weapons.

Edit: Discussion of new AT-tree weaponry

So if the anti heavy propulsion AT line is going to be viable all the way through to the end then the anti light propulsion Pod line should be in parody to fill its other half of the skirmisher/support role.

Methinks you mean "parity". Parity = equivalent. Parody = satirical imitation of something serious.

But I would suggest that this system of assigning team colors to content be retired in the future, it is grossly inefficient and hogs the most expensive element of 3D content- texture space.

I ask you to take a minute or two to look at WZ's graphical engine. Currently, I really doubt texture space is going to be a problem. In the future, it probably will, but that bridge can be crossed when it's reached.

[Deus Siddis]

Your proposal doesn't seem to have any obviouls balance issue as its target, so I can neither approve nor disapprove it. A single new weapon - double minipod - is ok, but if you want to add even more weapons, I have to ask you to start a new thread for this where it can be discussed.

At the moment, surely it is impossible to further expand the Anti-Tank line without adding new weapons? You ask that the line be expanded up past the Scourge, yet that requires more upgrade techs, or new weapons. If I had to pick one of the two, I would take the latter. If you want more choices there will have to be more weapons.

Yeah, that confuses me too. I don't know why the line would be drawn at Pod missiles but not AT missiles. As I said above they have a very similar role but opposite target types- they are counterparts.

Edit: Discussion of new AT-tree weaponry

I think it would be much easier to discuss AT weaponry in this same thread, as it all pertains to balance and how to achieve it.

Methinks you mean "parity". Parity = equivalent. Parody = satirical imitation of something serious.

My bad, when I am typing in a rush my mind fills in similar-sounding words to the correct ones.

I ask you to take a minute or two to look at WZ's graphical engine. Currently, I really doubt texture space is going to be a problem. In the future, it probably will, but that bridge can be crossed when it's reached.

If the models had shader maps to go along with a modern graphics engine then yes, the concern would be alot greater. But as I understand it, gpus still have a hard limit to the amount of texture information they can handle, I don't think lower polys or fewer shaders is going to directly help prevent this issue.

But my point is, the current limit for texture map size set by this project is 256, with 8 separate copies being used for each of the team colors. But if you didn't waste 8 times the texture space on team colors then you could easily use 512 textures on models. Trust me, that is a HUGE improvement in visual aesthetic quality for about the same price.

That + Drive/Shoot Mode = Awesomesauce xD

[Deus Siddis]

Oh Troman. . .

I still have some unanswered questions for you on the previous page.

[Troman]

Deus Siddis, I read what you wrote regarding the pods.
When you say that pods is a prerequisite for lancer it is true to some extend.
Currently there are mainly two lines for direct firing weapons that are available for all tech levels.

MG->Cannons->Rail/Neeld/Gauss
and
Pods->Lancer/TK/Scourge

Lasers don't have other weapons as prerequisites, but they only become available in T3.

Pods are not a separate line and was never meant to be (you can see it from the tech tree), yes it was indeed useless, that has been fixed though, not only by increasing the firepower of mini pods.

The way I see it is this: mini-pods is a T1 weapon and becomes absolute in T2/T3, just like MG, which makes sense IMHO.
What you want to do is to break the serialization and introduce parallelization. First of all, the idea behind your suggestion is broader than just rebalancing/resurrection of weapons, you are again offering some kind of a paradigm shift with an aim to increase complexity and amount of strategies as a result, therefore it needs its own project.

I doubt the necessity for one more mid/late game AT weapon line though. We already have cannons, and rockets (and lasers, de facto they are anti cyborg, de jure anti tank too) adding one more AT weapon line, will surely increase the choice of available weapons. But will it increase the choice of available strategies for MID/Late Games in reality? I would say hardly. Because it will be just another AT-Weapon with the same damage modifier against targets as cannons and rockets. What it can add is slightly different tactics if you modulate pod's cost/range etc, this is all it can do.

When we talk about different strategies then what I have in mind is something like this:
Instead of massing AT weapons again and again you go directly for cyborg transport and surprize your enemy with a cyborg drop. Or you mix emp weapons into your force and disable enemy units. Or you built nexus link and if your enemy has no resistance tech research you just take over the enemy force. Or you just go VTOLs and surprise the enemy, who has concentrated on AT weapons only and has no AA researched. You las sat someone. Overrun someone with no anti personnel weapons with cyborgs. Surprize with long-ranged arty etc etc. These are trully different strageties that enrich the game and make any RTS unpredictable and prolong the fun. There is still a lot that has to be done to get anywhere close to that.

I'm not vetoing your idea though, it surely has justification and I can live with an additional AT line and will most likely use in certain situations. But the problem with this approach is that it has a very low introduced diversity of strategies/introduced complexity ratio. We have already reached saturation with AT weapons IMHO, it's time to rersurrect other ways of winning the game. Therefore I'm following the variation of Occam's Razor rule that applies here: "entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity".

BTW, in case this still is not considered a balance issue, how then do I get content approved or disapproved and by whom? Surely this project has some method of handling official content contributions right?

The way it works now is: you sent a patch to the mailinglist and it gets either approved or disapproved by devs. But it will not work well with issues like balancing, therefore I suggest the following criterias for approval or disapproval:

1) It clearly improves the gameplay and WZ fans like it
2) It doesn't break too much stuff, or if it does some dev volunteers to take care of that

The first criteria is usually not related to any technical aspects of the game, therefore it is mostly game fans/players that will have a say, devs play a role of an objective (yes, I know, but most devs, being mostly interested in technical aspects, don't lobby any kind of strategy in the game) observer. The second criteria is more for the devs, since they know the technical aspects best and players can't always see through them.
When all those criterias are satisfied we can add new content/changes to the trunk, you will just have to bug the devs to do so.

If any dev is not satisfied with the scheme please speak out.

Oh Troman. . .

I still have some unanswered questions for you on the previous page.

This is one more criteria to keep in mind. We, the devs, are no getting paid for what we do, all that is done is done when we have the necessary time for it. Taking part in a discussion like this always takes a lot of time. Often I have to make calculations to explain something to someone. We all have other tasks and RL, so please bear with us.
Also bear with us when we are not ready to take additional responsibility for something. Most of us are already full with our own activities, so when someone has some idea we can't babysit anyone. If you are stuck we will try to help of course. But the initiative always come from the person who wants something to be done.

So be it, if your engine can take it then I can make it.

Yes, Pumpkin's engine should handle it ok for now.

But I would suggest that this system of assigning team colors to content be retired in the future, it is grossly inefficient and hogs the most expensive element of 3D content- texture space.

Do you have some concrete suggestion for an improvement? If so the best thing to do is to send it to the mailinglist. You can also go to the IRC and talk to all devs directly about it, this way you will make sure your suggestion will not be easily forgotten or lost.

No there are no options in the exporter script (besides precision level, which appears to be the number of decimal places that are stored for each vertex).

I tried to export it using the same rig that came with the old missile pod when I imported it (which allowed the exporter to at least recognize that it was a model to be exported to the pie format).

So where do we go from here? Is there a manual or some sort of documentation for how to get working content into the game (I looked on the wiki, but didn't see anything)?

I don't know if you already saw everything in here and whether it can help somehow.
Afaik it was Kage who wrote the script, but I can be wrong. Maybe he reads this topic and can reply, or you can try sending him a pm.

You ask that the line be expanded up past the Scourge, yet that requires more upgrade techs, or new weapons. If I had to pick one of the two, I would take the latter.

This will not address:

There are 5 different cannons plus Rail/Needle Guns and Gauss Cannon that succeed LC, MC and HC. And Scourge is bsically a dead end, as I said.

but i'm fine with it. I'm not good when it comes to coming up with upgrade names and research descriptions though (not a big weapon fan) and would be glad if you could take over research-related aspects, I can combine everything and commit to SVN.

I will need names for the research upgrades (preferably internal - in game name - and external, ie end user name) strings plus info about what kind of an upgrade it is (fire rate/damage etc), what research icons it should use, where it must be inserted in the prresearch.txt - the prerequisites file, how much all upgrades must cost. In the best case scenario it can be strings/lines ready to be inserted into names.txt/prresearch.txt/research.txt/resmessages1.rmsg files although I understand that this is probably too much asked, so this is optional.
Example for Cannon upgrade description:

Code: Select all

_("Cannon Upgrade"),
_("High Explosive Anti-Tank Cannon Shells"),
_("Increases Cannon damage"),
_("All cannons upgraded automatically"),

Ignore the _(), it is for translation. Take a look at the resmessages1.rmsg file for more examples.
There are 17 upgrades for cannons and 8 for missiles (Scourge), so we will need about 8-9 upgrades for Missiles.
The same must be repeated for Needle Gun/Rail Gun/Gauss, we will need about 6 additional upgrades. Both Missiles and Gauss have not so many upgrades compared to other weapons.

If you want more choices there will have to be more weapons.

There are many technologies like EMP, Nexus link, Cyborg Transport, Las Sat and others unused. Once fixed they will add more choices. First priority is to fix existing ones. If we want even more choices then we might need even more weapons.

[Deus Siddis]

Deus Siddis, I read what you wrote regarding the pods.
When you say that pods is a prerequisite for lancer it is true to some extend.
Currently there are mainly two lines for direct firing weapons that are available for all tech levels.

MG->Cannons->Rail/Neeld/Gauss
and
Pods->Lancer/TK/Scourge

Lasers don't have other weapons as prerequisites, but they only become available in T3.

Pods are not a separate line and was never meant to be (you can see it from the tech tree), yes it was indeed useless, that has been fixed though, not only by increasing the firepower of mini pods.

The way I see it is this: mini-pods is a T1 weapon and becomes absolute in T2/T3, just like MG, which makes sense IMHO.
What you want to do is to break the serialization and introduce parallelization. First of all, the idea behind your suggestion is broader than just rebalancing/resurrection of weapons, you are again offering some kind of a paradigm shift with an aim to increase complexity and amount of strategies as a result, therefore it needs its own project.

I doubt the necessity for one more mid/late game AT weapon line though. We already have cannons, and rockets (and lasers, de facto they are anti cyborg, de jure anti tank too) adding one more AT weapon line, will surely increase the choice of available weapons. But will it increase the choice of available strategies for MID/Late Games in reality? I would say hardly. Because it will be just another AT-Weapon with the same damage modifier against targets as cannons and rockets. What it can add is slightly different tactics if you modulate pod's cost/range etc, this is all it can do.

I think you may be misunderstanding one important factor of my proposal though and that is Pods should not be an AT weapon, just as they are not an AT weapon in real life and unless I am totally mistaken, they are not an AT weapon in the original warzone, they are best used against droids with light propulsion types like Wheels and Hover (at least I thought that was what their in-game description says). And they would probably also have some effectiveness against other 'soft' targets like cyborgs and base structures (non-defensive structures).

Because Pods are better against Wheels and Hover while the AT weapons that 'succeed' it are better against Tracks and Half-Tracks, I just don't understand how they can be considered being in the same line anymore than all direct fire rockets are in the same line, like bunker-buster missiles.

But I understand now that this probably is still not considered a balance issue.

When we talk about different strategies then what I have in mind is something like this:
Instead of massing AT weapons again and again you go directly for cyborg transport and surprize your enemy with a cyborg drop. Or you mix emp weapons into your force and disable enemy units. Or you built nexus link and if your enemy has no resistance tech research you just take over the enemy force. Or you just go VTOLs and surprise the enemy, who has concentrated on AT weapons only and has no AA researched. You las sat someone. Overrun someone with no anti personnel weapons with cyborgs. Surprize with long-ranged arty etc etc. These are trully different strageties that enrich the game and make any RTS unpredictable and prolong the fun. There is still a lot that has to be done to get anywhere close to that.

I'm not vetoing your idea though, it surely has justification and I can live with an additional AT line and will most likely use in certain situations. But the problem with this approach is that it has a very low introduced diversity of strategies/introduced complexity ratio. We have already reached saturation with AT weapons IMHO, it's time to rersurrect other ways of winning the game. Therefore I'm following the variation of Occam's Razor rule that applies here: "entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity".

The way I think of direct fire missiles is that they in general have their own strategies separate from other weapons. Their main advantages are they have the greatest range of direct fire weapons and they are lightweight. This leads to a hit and run or shoot and scoot strategy where you attack you enemy at range before he is close enough to return fire and then you use your superior speed earned by a lighter weight to maintain this range from him. Alternatively, you can hide them behind your main battle tanks or defensive walls where their limited armor is not a disadvantage and their superior range is an advantage.

How I feel the different direct fire missile weapons are or at least should be separated is by their intended targets, while the above strategy remains the same for all of them. So since you have AT, Pod, BB and SAM direct fire missiles, you give them complimentary advantages and disadvantages against different kinds of targets using all of the stats available to you.

Example: AT and SAM have tracking ability, but AT has significantly greater firepower and lesser speed and/or acceleration. Pods have the speed/acceleration and damage of SAMs but no tracking and they fire much more quickly (perhaps in large salvos). BB busters are as slow as AT, have no tracking, the same slow fire rate and do less damage against non-structures, but they have alot of damage and no structures have resistance to them.

The way it works now is: you sent a patch to the mailinglist and it gets either approved or disapproved by devs. But it will not work well with issues like balancing, therefore I suggest the following criterias for approval or disapproval:

1) It clearly improves the gameplay and WZ fans like it
2) It doesn't break too much stuff, or if it does some dev volunteers to take care of that

The first criteria is usually not related to any technical aspects of the game, therefore it is mostly game fans/players that will have a say, devs play a role of an objective (yes, I know, but most devs, being mostly interested in technical aspects, don't lobby any kind of strategy in the game) observer. The second criteria is more for the devs, since they know the technical aspects best and players can't always see through them.
When all those criterias are satisfied we can add new content/changes to the trunk, you will just have to bug the devs to do so.

That sounds like a reasonable solution to consider and I will. They only concerns it raises for me are:

1) That even if the idea is perfect and has great merit, the public will not notice or will not have the time/experience to weigh its value accurately.
2) I don't know how to code.

This is one more criteria to keep in mind. We, the devs, are no getting paid for what we do, all that is done is done when we have the necessary time for it. Taking part in a discussion like this always takes a lot of time. Often I have to make calculations to explain something to someone. We all have other tasks and RL, so please bear with us.
Also bear with us when we are not ready to take additional responsibility for something. Most of us are already full with our own activities, so when someone has some idea we can't babysit anyone. If you are stuck we will try to help of course. But the initiative always come from the person who wants something to be done.

What about content creators though, are they not considered devs or are they expected to be able to implement whatever they create to be helpful at this point?

Or is general content improvement just considered a low priority until work begins on 2.2, 2.3, 3.0, etc.? If so I can come back then if it is better for the devs and the project, if this is just a bad time right now and your team focus is on other aspects besides content.

I don't want to waste your limited time, there just isn't much specific information on the site or wiki or anyplace about how this project operates or what you are looking for (the "Help Wanted!" section just says "A lot of things \ We're too lazy to list something here, at the moment...").

Do you have some concrete suggestion for an improvement? If so the best thing to do is to send it to the mailinglist. You can also go to the IRC and talk to all devs directly about it, this way you will make sure your suggestion will not be easily forgotten or lost.

I don't know if you already saw everything in here and whether it can help somehow.
Afaik it was Kage who wrote the script, but I can be wrong. Maybe he reads this topic and can reply, or you can try sending him a pm.

Okay.

[zydonk]

Can I stick my nose in to make a comment?

the troman/Deus Siddis discussion is fascinating and very informative, and I hope there will be a lot more of it. However, you seem to be leaving the artillery and rocket systems out of your analyses. The latter, Angel and Archangel, have relatively enormous range and a couple of batteries tucked away in a base can do a lot of disruptive damage throughout the end game. I usually play against AI, and I find that the artillery - even the entry-level Howitzer - is a bitch to counter. All these weapons can be mounted on droids. So is there really a need for a missile system as a range weapon? For my part, I find that the T3 weaponry is adequate and sufficiently well-balanced. You should not be able to take out the strongest tanks or defensive structures with only one or two hits. The point about the end game is its head-to-head intensity, the worry that your best might not be good enough.

I'm playing v1.10 (with aivolution) again, after a month of so with the 2.1 betas, and I am impressed all over again with what Pumpkin did manage to produce. So I say again, get the game we have to rights first, before even thinking of what to add or take away.

ciao

[Troman]

I think you may be misunderstanding one important factor of my proposal though and that is Pods should not be an AT weapon, just as they are not an AT weapon in real life and unless I am totally mistaken, they are not an AT weapon in the original warzone, they are best used against droids with light propulsion types like Wheels and Hover (at least I thought that was what their in-game description says). And they would probably also have some effectiveness against other 'soft' targets like cyborgs and base structures (non-defensive structures).

No, mini-pods are marked as AT weapon and there is no such weapon class you described. If you open weapons.txt file you will see that "Rocket-Pod" has an "ANTI TANK" field. Thus pods have the same effect on all targets as cannons and rockets/missiles.
Whether pods should be AT or not, well this is a game, not a simulation. I don't want to start a discussion about realism, this is a religious question. If you think you can create something better, honestly, all I can say is feel free to try it.

That sounds like a reasonable solution to consider and I will. They only concerns it raises for me are:

1) That even if the idea is perfect and has great merit, the public will not notice or will not have the time/experience to weigh its value accurately.

*cough* ... Nah, everyone will appreciate your hard work and will take his time to learn your changes and understand the reasons behind them.

But seriously, what do you suggest? Perfectness is in the eye of the beholder. There are all kinds of people. Unfortunately some are "ingrates!" - quoting one of the favorite phrases of one of our devs - but most are grateful, even though if they don't always express it. *shrug*

2) I don't know how to code.

When dealing with game data you usually don't have to code. You do have to know how to edit txt files, and we will gladly help you if you are stuck, here on the forums or on IRC. Some information is availabe in the wiki already.
Yes, it can happen that code will have to be edited, if you go beyond the modding capabilities of warzone, but it is very often a very easy task for the coders. You can ask on the IRC and there's a big chance someone will help you. The artist-coder tandem has already worked in the past.

What about content creators though, are they not considered devs or are they expected to be able to implement whatever they create to be helpful at this point?

We have one artist already: Elio. Afaik Elio has same rights as the devs: he can commit to SVN etc.
If with 'implement' you refer to coding, then no, you don't have to be able to code to be helpfull. If you mean it in a more general sense, then yes, but it really depends on particular case. If you are working with 'stats' (weapon/research data etc) then you must possess modding knowledge, if you create new models, you must at least know how to preview your work in the game, which is not hard to learn.

Or is general content improvement just considered a low priority until work begins on 2.2, 2.3, 3.0, etc.? If so I can come back then if it is better for the devs and the project, if this is just a bad time right now and your team focus is on other aspects besides content.

Well, yes, it is lower priority than some other tasks like pathfinding or mp, but that doesn't mean it can't be done now. But if you want to contribute on a regular basis you must be able to be independant, unless, as I already said, you are temporary stuck and need help from coders to go on, that is usually not a problem.

I don't want to waste your limited time, there just isn't much specific information on the site or wiki or anyplace about how this project operates or what you are looking for (the "Help Wanted!" section just says "A lot of things \ We're too lazy to list something here, at the moment...").

It's ok, but the best place is always IRC, you can chat in real time and many questions can easily be answered there. The help wanted section mainly means we can use any help we can get.

[Deus Siddis]

No, mini-pods are marked as AT weapon and there is no such weapon class you described. If you open weapons.txt file you will see that "Rocket-Pod" has an "ANTI TANK" field. Thus pods have the same effect on all targets as cannons and rockets/missiles.
Whether pods should be AT or not, well this is a game, not a simulation. I don't want to start a discussion about realism, this is a religious question. If you think you can create something better, honestly, all I can say is feel free to try it.

Alright then.

*cough* ... Nah, everyone will appreciate your hard work and will take his time to learn your changes and understand the reasons behind them.

I for one do appreciate the work you are putting into balancing what was a very imbalanced game and I never meant to sound like I was critizing your changes and reasoning if I did before.

But seriously, what do you suggest? Perfectness is in the eye of the beholder.

My vision would be to create interesting and balanced "roles" for weapons (and propulsion to an extent) and then try to fit all weapons into these. As a rule, once a role began it would not terminate until the very end of the tech tree (though it could be filled by different lines of weapons). But as you climbed the tech tree, new smaller branches might come off of existing weapon lines to provide more options and new more unusual and specialized roles would start as you moved through into later tiers, like indirect fire weapons in T2 or Nexus and EMP weapons in T3.

I know what you are thinking at this point, that I am hugely underestimating what a challenge this would be and probably have no clue how to accomplish this. But I feel there would be three things on my/our/whoever's side:

1) No factions. Modules only have to be balanced so that they all are useful and different, no faction versus faction balancing as in almost all other RTS games.

2) "Softer' role (albeit more numerous and evenly spread) differences, not every weapon or propulsion is radically different from another, thus making balancing much simpler for a given number of lines.

3) Parallel roles, the difference between two lines or roles in the first tier would be about the same as in the last tier so that you only have to balance them once, which should make about half or a third as much work, roughly.

4) Most existing modules already fit into straight-forward roles already, with some exceptions like flamers and plasma cannons.

5) Roles often borrowed or inspired from other games or real life (in both places, some balancing is done for you already).

When dealing with game data you usually don't have to code. You do have to know how to edit txt files, and we will gladly help you if you are stuck, here on the forums or on IRC. Some information is availabe in the wiki already.
Yes, it can happen that code will have to be edited, if you go beyond the modding capabilities of warzone, but it is very often a very easy task for the coders. You can ask on the IRC and there's a big chance someone will help you. The artist-coder tandem has already worked in the past.

Okay, that is good to know.

If you are working with 'stats' (weapon/research data etc) then you must possess modding knowledge, if you create new models, you must at least know how to preview your work in the game, which is not hard to learn.

Is there any documentation on how to get models in game someplace, or is it only passed down by word of mouth so to speak (err. . .type)? Because I am fine learning on my own and not bothering anybody, if there is just some pre-written info somewhere on how to cross the content (that is, model and texture) pipeline.

[Troman]

I for one do appreciate the work you are putting into balancing what was a very imbalanced game and I never meant to sound like I was critizing your changes and reasoning if I did before.

I did not mean anyone in particular. Neither you nor Zydonk nor anyone else. Just agreeing with your observation about the fact that it is very difficult to please everyone when you are working with the end-user content.

As far as

But seriously, what do you suggest? Perfectness is in the eye of the beholder.

is concerned I didn't mean balancing, but nevertheless, what you say makes sense to me for the most part. Although totally identical views on such a subject is an utopia of course.

Is there any documentation on how to get models in game someplace, or is it only passed down by word of mouth so to speak (err. . .type)?

I think there is no documenation on that, since not many people worked with models so far.
Replacing the existing models should be a relatively easy task. Adding new ones is a bit harder.

I can only give some tips.

When you replace weapons for example you can look at weapons.txt in the wiki. All weapons are defined in that file (there are two versions of the file: one for campaign, one for skirmish/mp). First field is internal weapon name. You can look up the corresponding in-game-name in the names.txt file.

The trivial way to test a model is to replace the existing pie file with your own for a weapon that you can easily access in the game, then start the game and see what it looks like.
Or you can edit the gfx fields in the weapons.txt file, such as "GfxFile".

When you want to edit models for structures for example, you just work with structures.txt file, etc.

That is basically it. Unfortunately I can't give you tips for pie-making/textures, I don't have much experience with that. Some other devs will know more about it (IRC/Mailinglist/forum).

Maybe you will find some additional info here.

[zydonk]

Hey troman! Respect, brother, respect.

but it all boils down to gameplay in the end. It's like a motor car - you can apply all the tech you want, but if it won't drive straight...

Anyway, whatever about future slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, you've got aivolution behind you.

[Deus Siddis]

As far as

But seriously, what do you suggest? Perfectness is in the eye of the beholder.

is concerned I didn't mean balancing, but nevertheless, what you say makes sense to me for the most part. Although totally identical views on such a subject is an utopia of course.

Oops sorry, you meant what would I suggest as a far as getting mods or changes/additions accepted for the official game. To that I would have a few of ideas as well:

1) Official Tournaments between Official expert players (Balance/Gameplay Testers), playing on community or developer created Mods. At the end they give feedback to say what should be fixed or whether or not this mod or that mod or a part thereof shows potential for being an intricate and balanced evolution.

2) Make Mods that appear promising or polished come with the game download or separately on the download page to increase exposure.

3) Maybe have a Mod of the Month that gets special attention and scrutiny from the dev team and/or community. This includes its own news article on the front page with a link showing where to download it (and basic instructions on how to get a WZ mod to run) and a thread to discuss it on the forum, followed by a second thread on the topic with a poll on how well people liked this mod at the end of that month (another poll can be conducted amoung developers).

4) Developers take interest at some point in finding ways explored through Mods to improve the tech tree by unit additions to it to make it more easily understood, interesting, balanced, etc.

Note: I mean serious Mods with the purpose of improving Warzone 2100, not total conversion mods, weekend mods or unbalanced mods.

All of this takes precious time, I know, but you have that 'help wanted' page, so if you need more help in a particular area, you could put a request there and also copy and paste it to a sticky on this (general development) forum.

You might also want to put out a request for a graphics programmer or two, the game could use a face lift on that front. Unless of course there are things that have to be done before graphical improvements, so that it is not a matter of man power but where the codebase is at this time.

I think there is no documenation on that, since not many people worked with models so far.
Replacing the existing models should be a relatively easy task. Adding new ones is a bit harder.

I can only give some tips.

When you replace weapons for example you can look at weapons.txt in the wiki. All weapons are defined in that file (there are two versions of the file: one for campaign, one for skirmish/mp). First field is internal weapon name. You can look up the corresponding in-game-name in the names.txt file.

The trivial way to test a model is to replace the existing pie file with your own for a weapon that you can easily access in the game, then start the game and see what it looks like.
Or you can edit the gfx fields in the weapons.txt file, such as "GfxFile".

When you want to edit models for structures for example, you just work with structures.txt file, etc.

That is basically it. Unfortunately I can't give you tips for pie-making/textures, I don't have much experience with that. Some other devs will know more about it (IRC/Mailinglist/forum).

Maybe you will find some additional info here.

Okay, thanks for the help, I'll have to look around those places.