XV25 with drone controller

In the Tau Codex we can see this unit

I mean XV25 with a drone controller on board. The relics didn't make us such a unit. I dreamed of making such a unit for a long time. And just the DoW-modders of the old school started doing it in FoK, but even then (and this is already 13-14 years ago) they abandoned it. In FOK, among his files, you can find only the idea of this unit with plasma and shield, the controller drone was not even in the project, and as a result, the unit was simply not made in fact. FoK doesn't even have textures for it.

In 2008-2009, I had no skills to raise such a project. Later, skills appeared, but other more pressing tasks swirled me, so, as you can see, I did not return to this unit very soon. But now he's back. Two days of hard work and the result is obvious. Meet the XV25 with Plasma, Shield and Drone Controller

XV25 in Max and OE

This is how it looks in Max after I worked on it

And this is the main stumbling block when creating this unit — the drone controller. I had to sculpt it myself from scratch. It turned out quite similar to the Codex, although not quite one to one, but rather in the old spirit of the Relic models

This seemingly small unit required a lot of work in max, OE, and AE. I had to animate, code, test, fix various glitches, and still remember a bunch of different aspects, for example, changes in the campaign related to this squad. In general, I had to do absolutely everything that I always did in DoW modding, but then the unit also forced me to model a new part in max. I usually don’t like to do this - not my forte, but sometimes I have to do it, and here is just such a case.

Plasma Shooting Tests

Plasma, according to the default of relic animations, does not fit well into this unit, so a lot had to be animated again. But now the unit shoots accurately. And by the way, it no longer has clicks in idls. As well as the penetration of new details into oneself.

New XV25 in the game

And now the game. One of the reasons why I didn’t take on this unit for so long is the secondary nature of the task. In TWM, the XV25 squad was already quite good and managed well without a commander. In general, the task was not a priority. In addition, retrograde had an effect - I was very used to my old version of the squad and was in no hurry to change it. Moreover, I knew that the new squad leader greatly changes the concept of the squad and its behavior in the game. But I still wanted a chip with plasma and a visual in the form of a drone controller. Codex! Such things Wahi fans always want. So I finally did it. And here he is in the game

In general, now the XV25 squad has replenished with a commander, and this fact will have to get used to again. In particular, this commander confuses the squad a little, because the plasma shoots much further than fusions and bursts. The squad will now strive to stay away from the enemy. This slightly spoils the behavior of the squad for bots, and for the player it adds control problems. The squad will often have to bring the fusions to the firing distance with their hands. But I think this is not a very big price to pay for new functionality, a new visual and generally Codex. I'm glad I finally picked up and made this old project. I wanted this unit back in 2009. The funny thing is that TWM always had a luash for this unit. For a long time, she was waiting for ready-made WHE and WHM for herself. It bears the date February 21, 2009. This is one of the oldest files in the mod, given that the mod itself started life on December 15, 2008.