BlackSpectre

This is a handy little hack of the keybinding system that allows us to set Options settings that aren't "setable" in Options.txt, activate powers, or execute any slash command when we use /Bind_Load_File to load a text file into the game... just like a bind file. Why is it useful? Well, not all options settings are able to be made into a default setting when we create a toon. For example, /tray_labels... whether to number the slots in the power trays 0-9 or A+1 (slot number vs key binding). Personally, I try to automate everything I can so I don't have to think about it. Just create a new toon and hit the ground running! How to Do It In almost any text file, add the double dollar signs at the beginning of the line followed by a slash command, and repeat as many times with as many commands as you like. For example: $$tray_labels 2 $$powexecname super jump $$monitorattribute current hit points or whatever slash command(s) you want. Then use /bind_load_file in the chat box to load in the text file. For example: /bind_load_file /binds/keybinds.txt I have a duplicate copy of keybinds.txt that I use to edit, and when done I copy it over to Homecoming/Settings/Live/ so that it's used when I create a new character. I added "$$tray_labels 2" to the bottom of the file, and now whenever keybinds.txt is loaded, it also sets the option for the tray labels. This method can also load in macros, which can be very handy if you use the same macros on every toon. For example: $$macro "Get Global" "getglobalname $target" P.S. In case you were wondering, this method does NOT bypass the normal rules of creating and using binds. For example, if you were to add 2 toggle or click powers, only 1 of the commands will be executed when the file is loaded. Just consider the whole text file as one big bind string.

Hi, Would it be possible to add these features to popmenus? In order of importance... 1. custom color titles, menu names, option names, and descriptions. Use the alpha channel or opacity to gray things out rather than colors. 2. ability to write blocks of text without resorting to the grayed out PowerOwned trick using names of imaginary powers 3. when using popmenus within pomenus, don't close the previous popmenus after clicking on the "sub" popmenus, keep them open. I can't imagine anyone who uses popmenus not cheering about using color with them. I know I would. Adding color would have the largest impact on using and making popmenus than any other change. There are several bugs that could be addressed too. They're listed in the NOTES section on the wiki page https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Popmenu_(Slash_Command)

I’d love to see Praetoria expanded up to level 30-50. I think a 10 level void from 20-30 is warranted to account for the end of the story arcs as they are now, but there’s no reason story arcs can’t be added to the zone. All it takes is a little creativity.

This is a FANTASTIC little app!!!!

I finally tried this out. I'm sorry to say, it's not worth even $2 to download. As a character tracker, you'd have to create your character's build in the app. The UI makes it a real pain, and definitely not worth adding 50+ characters to the app. the UI is clunky and not easy to use. Functions that could simply be "touch to select", instead it requires going to a separate screen to select the powers, and then back again. It would be much better to simply touch to select the power and if desired tap a "Details" button to the right of the power to see its details, or better yet just long press or double tap). On top of that, the app is set to landscape mode, there is no way to switch it to portrait mode. This makes it much more difficult to type and select items on the screen. You have to reach to select them, and typing is much slower. When in the details view, the front facing camera on my iPhone 16 Pro Max obscures the first 2 characters of most lines in the text on the left. There is no way to slot or add enhancements. There are no totals for combat stats, let alone set bonuses. No proc calculations. So really it's only half of a build PLANNER, and as a result not very useful. The app also enforces a kind of level requirement when selecting powers... which is OK, I guess if building a character from scratch, but if you set the level to 50 it still enforces the level requirements. Makes it more difficult to quickly select the powers for your characters quickly. It should act more like a RESPEC, especially if the character level is set to 50. It does appear to bring in some data from City of Data 2, but it's not any easier than simply viewing the information on the CoD2 website. It's possible to email your build, but again not very useful. It doesn't format the data in the email into any that the game, or even Mids Reborn, can use (not that it matters since the app can't deal with slotting and enhancements). Worse, there is no way to import a build from the game (or from Mids) into the app. The app needs to be able to import builds from at least the game. Otherwise, it's just a waste of time. It really needs the ability to access the various cloud drives like iCloud, One Drive, Google Drive, DropBox, etc. Needs the ability to not only import builds, but also export them in file format. Honestly, the app suffers from the lack of a single, clear vision. It purports to have 2 purposes: 1) It enables you to plan your builds for characters by choosing from all power sets and powers in the actual game, optimized for the Homecoming (HC) version of the game. 2) As a character tracker it enables you to enter a database of all your characters on any servers, their names, powersets, powers, a screenshot, bio, etc. Actually, the app accomplishes neither of these goals well. Honestly, the developer should abandon any idea of it being a character planner, and instead focus entirely on being an easy to use archive or "tracker" for players' characters. Make it easy to input and store characters. That's it. Anything else, and the complexity will skyrocket. As a build planner, it can't have any capabilities less than Mids Reborn... and that would be a lot of work for a single person to code. The ability to select powers is a good thing to keep, and even being able to see the power's details is a nice bonus, but there should be no level requirements to selecting powers at all. In addition, the ability to list slots and enhancements should really be in the app. Just list them. Don't even try to be a build planner. Don't deal with numbers, buffs or debuffs. Fundamentally, it should simply store a list of powers and enhancements and that's it. Honestly, the ability for users to select enhancements doesn't even need to exist in the app if an import feature is added. It can simply list what's in the imported build file. I don't see any reason why the app's user interface couldn't be redesigned to use in portrait mode. I think most would prefer that. Instead of presenting data side by side, stack it onto of each other. The ability to pinch and un-pinch to zoom in and out needs to be implemented for us with old eyes, and landscape mode could be used to increase the size of the text in addition to displaying the information in a slightly different format. Again, details on power and enhancement data is a nice plus, but is secondary to the goal of archiving characters in my view. Do "tracking" or archiving well, and if you like then branch out to build planning. Right now, it really doesn't do either. Sorry if this review was too harsh, but honestly if you see a half of an apple you have to report that there's only half of an apple. Besides, my hope is that the developer takes all this to heart and actually improves their app.

Hi again, @Manga! I hope there is a quick answer to this... @Michiyo posted a link to her City Chat Watcher a while back and it's always something I wanted to try. Can I use it in conjunction with COH on a Mac? Would it be as easy as just installing it by opening it with the copy of Wine in /Applications/COH?

There is some issue with the game/Wine/MacOS. Not sure what. I ended up deleting all of my COH installation, but when I tried to re-install HC with LaunchCat it hung just after installing Wine (although a couple times it hung a bit after that). Deleted and reinstalled several times, same result. I would recommend waiting for Manga to get back to you, @lintboy. However, if you want to take your life in your own hands… you can do what I did. 1. download the HC installer 2. right click on that .exe file and select Open With and choose the copy of Wine in /Applications/COH. 3. Let it install Hopefully that will fix it, but no guarantees. In my case, I suspect the problem was MacOS security after an update, but it’s just a guess. I know the problem was not caused by the firewall because I disabled it completely to test it. No change. But the issue was solved simply by reinstalling HC in a different way, so it could be the files. No idea.

No, not really. The game is designed to activate sounds when a character reachers a certain location. You can mod the sounds, create your own sounds, or just duplicate existing sounds so that only one music file plays in every neighborhood in a zone or even across all zones. It’s a lot of work, but if it’s important to you it can be done. The City Modder might help make this easier, but maybe not. It depends on what you want to do. Otherwise, you can find the knowledge to do it here at the forums. Lots of posts on the subject of modding are here, and maybe even at the wiki. Of course, you could always turn the music volume down to zero in Settings and play your own music in the background on your music device. It’s probably the easiest and fastest method. If you want COH sounds, here’s a big list… https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Music and also here.. https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Sg_music_(Slash_Command)

@Carnifax has been doing an amazing job squashing bugs and adding features. He has added so many features that fellow players have asked for. His little app has grown into a mighty app! There’s a small update almost every week! I just thought I’d send some praise his way and remind people that this resource is out there. 😀

Honestly guys, I like both Knockback and Fold Space. We're no longer herding as the main tactic, so it doesn't have that much effect anymore. I just keep my eyes open when playing on a team. I read the chat from the leader and other teammates, and I WATCH the battlefield and ADJUST to what I see happening. I haven't died from other players using knock back or Fold Space (or Black Hole for that matter, another somewhat annoying power) because I change my tactics to match what my fellow players are actually doing. It mixes things up a bit, and for me that's a good thing. I should mention that I have no qualms about running away and leaving teammates who are willfully acting stupidly to their fate. I usually let them take the lead because they're taking the lead anyway... or to put it another way, they act without the slightest awareness of the battlefield, the situation, or fellow teammates. In some situations those players eventually notice that they are dying an awful lot or the rest of the team isn't backing them up, and then quit the team... or blissfully continue without ever noticing. These, of course, are PUGs I'm speaking of, not players that I know well. With SG mates who are all used to playing together, there's no issue. Knockback, fold space, whatever... we just talk to each other and things always go smoothly. For example, if one player is using knock back I already know and am ready to kill those targets wherever they land. In the past, knock back has saved my ass a several times by scattering the foes. It take time for them to run back to us, which give us a chance to regroup or run... it all depends.

You can break down incarnate salvage into threads??? Where and how?

Yeah, it's a real pain. I agree. Would be great if salvage and threads could be moved from character to character. Or at least used for SOMETHING. It would make gaining incarnates a bit faster. For another reason to do it.... Players EARN that incarnate salvage. Every drop. So it's not like we'd be asking for a free lunch. I'm not going to use my main, as that character is a bit of an aberration, but a character that I still use from time to time has about 300 pieces of incarnate salvage just sitting there... and about 3000 threads. At least with threads I can buy those group inspirations but honestly they're not something I really need. To play devils advocate, allowing transfer of incarnate salvage might make gaining incarnates too fast. I'm not sure how it would impact the overall game balance.

Deletes

I it’s working on my Mac running MacOS Sequoia (15.6), FYI.

Have you tried our Homecoming GM @Manga’s solution Mids4Mac? You can find it here https://launchcat.powermadsoftware.com Delete all of your previous Mac installation of Mids, and follow the instructions carefully. You might also need to install the newest version of Mids AND download the archive and install it manually. If you still have trouble, contact the Mids team on discord https://discord.gg/mids-reborn-593336669004890113 … and if they can’t help, come back here and ask again. I or someone else slightly knowledgeable about MacOS and Wine might be able to walk you through it.

Good advice. Stuff like you mentioned, @Marine X, is so simple it just doesn’t occur to me. It’s a lot like when I was tech support for a small ISP, people would call and tell me they can’t view web pages anymore. There’s a whole bunch of possible solutions (and causes) for that, but it took 5 cases for me to finally add “Press the power button to turn on your computer” to the troubleshooting list. LOL.

Hey, Since Homecoming is licensed by NCSOFT, it occurred to me that we can probably use their game manuals. They might be good things to have available on the Getting Started page for new players. I already had 2 previous versions, but I tracked down the last published versions. Here they are... https://drive.google.com/file/d/1k4AKUzoYV8FYFAkpQVvZ1BU3R7D8cPt_/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uXXsFhFkHjAdngzQT1X91NrYs-ghfM6l/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sbKu2FmWJRCMx20Pco_yxtb4KQ6rrgNd/view?usp=sharing P.S. Most everything in them is still current, with just a few minor exceptions.

That’s just not fair! My dark defender’s Tar Patch can only do -30% resist and, as far as I know, there’s nothing I can do to increase that number. Blah.

Paragon Protectors. Not because they’re hard to beat but because their MOG lasts too long. Not fun just standing around twiddling your thumbs until their MOG runs out.

Well, at least you have a list of powers (most are all still here) and pic of your costume. Thats all you really need to recreate your toon.

Pssssssst! I'll give you 100 influence if you give me 1,000 infamy.... wanna trade?

Hey, @JKCarrier, come with me on a BAF and I swear you'll have fun! I don't do speed runs, but they're more like methodical runs. I give my league mates a lot of freedom. I setup the general structure, and then whatever else happens is up to the league. 1 or 2 people doing their own thing is not usually going to spell doom for the trial, so I don't sweat it... well not much anyway. The other day I was running a badge run for Gotta Keep ''em Separated, and one of the tanks didn't read chat. They ended up preventing us from getting the badge by taunting the AVs to the tennis court as if it was a normal BAF run, but the trial ended successfully anyway. Just meant more incarnate salvage for the rest of us. Started another badge run right afterward, and all went well. People make mistakes, and they usually learn from them. My mottos is "Be gracious, and cut everyone some slack. Just have fun!"

People ask me, and I just reply "Follow your leader, and you'll be fine." LOL Kind of curt and to the point, but at the end I almost always hear from them showering me with praise on how great my instructions were! It's a little embarrassing, but I'm glad they had fun. 🙂

I’ve used wine and winetricks for 20 years yet never really took a deep look or learned much about how to set it up. It’s pretty cool. Have you tried to find a way to enable hardware acceleration?

Oh wow! Running COH under Wine 9.0 vs 10.0 makes a world of difference! So much better! My FPS is steady at 95-100 for most places, and 40 FPS inside my SG base... which is a huge improvement! The FPS in my SG base using Wine 10.0 was a low, low 12 FPS!!! There might be other reasons, like the way I set up Wine 10 on my sytem, but this is good enough for me right now. @Manga, out of curiosity what was the WINEPREFIX you used for the Wine 9.0 distribution in LaunchCat? I was messing around with Apple's Game Porting Kit today. Interestingly, Apple's GPK uses code from both Wine and Crossover to run Windows apps.