Topics

[Bomber]

I did some more 1.3 stratting lately, and these are my observations and critique.

Bomber
I noticed that the bomber's attack seems to have been nerfed. When sending the bomber vs an antenna/overseer or forge, it no longer kills the building , instead taking them to critical damage. The bomb seems to be easier to kill as well. Which is odd, since in a (1.2) human vs human strat where all players are competent, the bomber is already rather ineffective.

Lucky Foot and Wug variants.
These are basically the same types of recs, with not a lot of difference between them. Perhaps it would be best to merge their effects somehow. The Lucky Foot variant gives you the ability to make empty tanks, but not empty scouts -- which is rather nonsensical -- since when teams are in a bind, they need empty scouts. And the Wug variant gives you rather overpowered empty tanks. I played a 2v1 and was killing both of my opponents rather often, but they kept coming back in shielded arc warriors, even though they were only on 2 pools and had no scavs on loose. At which point I noticed that it kind of makes the enemy ships disposable to do it this way. I would suggest merging the units. 40 scrap for an unupgraded empty tank, and 50 for an upgraded empty tank.

Scav Pushing
This is a common tactic in vet games, used to prevent enemy scavs from collecting loose scrap from the battlefield, or to delay their deploying on pools, also used to quickly get rid of them in watery areas. This tactic is now impossible to perform.

Greenheart/Commando Variants
Should be allowable in regular strat. The additional units and buildings are interesting, and often requested by the other players.

ST: Death Island
This map didnt work for me, saying that it cant find the BZN file. This has probably been noticed by other testers, but just in case...

Weapon Linking
Its an interesting feature, and I usually set it to on manually every time. Would suggest this be set as default to on.

[My addon folder has the following subfolders and/or files:]

I am getting sporadic bad assets errors on BZ2, when I try to join certain games. There doesnt seem to be a pattern to it, sometimes its strats and sometimes its MPIs. I tried to host some games using default rec, and all my clients got bad assets too.


Bzone.cfg load order is as follows:
addon -> maps13 -> patch13.pak -> data.pak -> data


My addon folder has the following subfolders and/or files:
IvGlowSkins/ (contains only textures (Softimage PIC files))
missions/models/bbgtow.inf
custom/bzgame_keys.cfg
autoreg/*.autoreg (seems to contain all rec variants)
config/ (bunch of configs)
config/game/ (a bunch of resolution specific configs)
commando.zip
OpenILChanges.7z
BZ2_v13pb4.txt

Theoretically, NONE of these should cause bad assets. As I do not recall modifying them (the configs files all have the modified timestamp of 01/08/08. Bindata is empty save for NULL.msh. Everything appears normal in the maps13 and data folders.

Any ideas?

I've been thinking of reviving the Front Line Soldiers project, as a drop-in recycler mod for 1.3. But I need to know first if any of these ODF names are taken.

iszuser / iszuser_m (ISDF, player ODF)
fvzuser / fvzuser_m (Scion, player ODF)
iszpilo (standard pilot)
iscomm (commando)
isflame (flamethrower)
iselite (elite soldier)
iszrckt (rocket soldier)
isgun (heavy gunner)
isshock (shock trooper)
issnipe (sniper)
fselite (scion elite soldier)
fszpilo (scion pilot)

ibmsilo (mssl silo)
ibccentf (command center)
- ibrdetectf (command center radar dish)
- ibsensorf (command center motion detector)
ibpill (pillbox turret)
ibtbun (turret bunker)
- ibsvlung (turret bunker medical facility)
ibarckt (rocket turret - laser missile)
ibspecops (soldier factory)

fvhcarr (scion attack helicopter / APC)

Will anyone who is using these or any other FLS files (including soldier weapons) please step up and let me know? Also, if anyone is using objects the same ODF names as these, let me know as well, so I can go ahead and change the names on them.

I dont want to cause any conflicting asset errors.

What happened to Ground Zero? I tried playing it in PB4, but the map is exactly Ground Four, not the map it's supposed to be.

Lobbies are really annoying, IMO (you know, the ones with No Map that advertise a website). Would it be feasable to make an option in GamePrefs.ini to disable the showing of them?

Things were behaving strangely in a 1.3pb4 game yesterday so I turned on the histogram and noticed that the network traffic was flatlined (meaning that that the game is out of synch and none of the multiworld traffic going through).

Well after awhile, the "esc" menu (you know the one that shows the chat, current players, options, etc) started toggling on and off every 5 seconds or so. And when i'd try to type that the game was flatlined, the esc menu would toggle again and i'd be unable to get a word in (I did eventually).

This bug, as I know was present in 1.2 when games were terribly flatlined. Just thought i'd let you guys know that the bug still exists.

Just thought i'd repost this, since everyone is downloading PB4. I made a teamcolor enhancement for 1.3 awhile back, which makes units look much better in multiplayer.

The only minor bug is that on darkly lit maps, your units will look much brighter than the ambient lighting would normally permit. Should not cause any other issues that i'm aware of.





DOWNLOAD: Here

INSTALL INSTRUCTIONS:
Simply Unzip to your "Battlezone 2/addon" folder.

REMOVAL INSTRUCTIONS:
Go into your "Battlezone 2/addon" folder and delete the folder ivglowskins

PB3 worked fine for me, but this is the output that I get when I try to run my PB4 launcher script in the terminal

dave@icarus:~/Programs/Battlezone2$ ./Launchbz2.sh
Launching Battlezone 2
ALSA lib pcm_dmix.c:874:(snd_pcm_dmix_open) unable to open slave
err:dbghelp_msc:pdb_process_types -Unknown type info version 20040203
<duplicate entries removed>
err:dbghelp_msc:pdb_process_types -Unknown type info version 20040203
wine: Call from 0x7b844b20 to unimplemented function dbghelp.dll.SymRefreshModuleList, aborting
wine: Unimplemented function dbghelp.dll.SymRefreshModuleList called at address 0x7b844b20 (thread 0009), starting debugger...
Unhandled exception: unimplemented function dbghelp.dll.SymRefreshModuleList called in 32-bit code (0x7b844b96).
Register dump:
CS:0073 SS:007b DS:007b ES:007b FS:0033 GS:003b
EIP:7b844b96 ESP:022bf578 EBP:022bf5dc EFLAGS:00200212(   - 00      - -IA1)
EAX:7b82eb09 EBX:7b8b3884 ECX:00000000 EDX:00400000
ESI:00400000 EDI:01e76470
Stack dump:
0x022bf578:  022bf604 00000008 7e201360 00110014
0x022bf588:  80000100 00000001 00000000 7b844b20
0x022bf598:  00000002 7e1fe3e0 7e1fe769 022bf5e4
0x022bf5a8:  7bc42887 00110048 7e1da320 ffffffff
0x022bf5b8:  7e1ff074 ffffffff 7bca2788 00000001
0x022bf5c8:  00000000 00000000 00110000 00000002
Backtrace:
=>1 0x7b844b96 in kernel32 (+0x24b96) (0x022bf5dc)
  2 0x7e1fe365 in dbghelp (+0x2e365) (0x022bf60c)
  3 0x7e1d82ec in dbghelp (+0x82ec) (0x022bf6a8)
0x7b844b96: movl        0xfffffffc(%ebp),%ebx
Modules:
Module  Address                 Debug info      Name (122 modules)
PE        400000- 1ebc000       Deferred        bzone
<... list of enabled DLLs removed (it's long) ...>
ELF     b7f7e000-b7f9a000       Deferred        ld-linux.so.2
Threads:
process  tid      prio (all id:s are in hex)
00000008 (D) Z:\home\dave\Programs\Battlezone2\bzone.exe
        00000009    0 <==
0000000c
        00000013    0
        00000012    0
        0000000e    0
        0000000d    0
0000000f
        00000015    0
        00000014    0
        00000011    0
        00000010    0
Backtrace:
=>1 0x7b844b96 in kernel32 (+0x24b96) (0x022bf5dc)
  2 0x7e1fe365 in dbghelp (+0x2e365) (0x022bf60c)
  3 0x7e1d82ec in dbghelp (+0x82ec) (0x022bf6a8)
wine: Call from 0x7b844b20 to unimplemented function dbghelp.dll.SymSetHomeDirectory, aborting

What is this dbghelp.dll file? And is there a way to disable the debugger?

My linux version is Kubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) using Wine 1.0 RC4. If that even matters.

[Keep in mind that this must be installed and run from your BZ2 folder in order to work!]

This custom editor launcher is compatible with all known versions of 1.3 and does not require FE to be installed. It is designed to have the following features:

• Pre-edit Launcher allows the player to change the editor's parameters (ie: map name, toggle scripts, toggle windowed mode, etc) prior to launching the Battlezone II Editor
  
• Custom folder allows you to test assets in the editor without causing them to conflict with asset checks in public games
  
• Auto accepts Activision's legal agreement when starting the editor
  
• Texture previews (for painting terrain) are much bigger (for those editing at 1024x resolution or higher)
  
• Includes set of terrain ramping tools
  

As the 1.3 editor is much improved over the stock 1.2 editor, these make it even better. I am hereby requesting help of anyone who wants to help me improve it.

http://timedisruptor.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2996




Keep in mind that this must be installed and run from your BZ2 folder in order to work!

Does anyone know how to add a tap to a non-powered object?

I'm looking to do the following (the -> indicates that the object is tapped to the other object)

Elevator Shaft (classlabel: powered) -> Gravity Lift (classlabel: flaremine) -> Push Mine (Classlabel: magnetmine)

Problem is that the pushmine does not seem to get tapped to the gravity lift even when I add an hp_tap_1 to the gravity lift's model. Does anyone have any ideas to get around this?

[C: CORBAZero Angel]

My Team:
C: CORBA
Zero Angel
vs
C: ZOE Bart
JohnnyChaingunWatson

Whoever you guys are, good game today. That was like the longest strat ever. Props to the enemy commander Bart for managing scavs/pools like a pro -- and our cmd for bouncing back against their assaults quickly. It was a hard game, our team was really struggling to stay afloat the whole game, but we were also making them sweat -- there were a few times large parts of our base were wiped out in attacks, but CORBA rebuilt quickly and we got bomber again. Every once in awhile I would get about 7 or so scavs and hard the pools than 3 minutes later all of my pools and scavs would be wiped out.

At one point, I was mortaring/bombing their base from the back. And I lost my tank. I told the cmdr that they must be getting weakened because their base was empty of forces. But when I respawned at base, half of it was wiped out and was under heavy attack. 2 minutes later, the entire thing was rebuilt, bomber bay and all.

Somehow we would parry their base assaults and wipe out their attack forces only for bart to profit from the loose and build up another force. At one point we managed to totally annihilate one their serviced, defended hedoux/locust seige only to be hit again by more forces.

The locusts that bart sent at our base were brutal! . I seen during one attack over 10 locusts all hitting our 2nd UG pool emplacement, at one point they were all focused on me and I was rabidly tearing through them with chains/mortars.  I managed to kill most of the escaping locusts after the attack failed, but my tank killed after I got ambushed by a rat in the field.

About an hour and a half in, we cleared the field of enemy scavs and were counterattacking their base with bomber/mortar, then JohnnyChainGun ended the server

Knowing Bart's scav managing tactics, they probably wouldve bounced back anyways. And we wouldve been playing all day. I didnt know such a good commander played FE. I almost expected it to be a walk in the park. Well anyways GG.

[Updates:]

OK, so i've started the process of trying to port some of the old modifier tutorials over to my website BZ2Realm, but havent found very much of any use. Anyways, I'm gonna use this thread for 3 things:

• News and updates for Battlezone Realm
• Questions about the site (use start another thread for modding questions!)
• For people to provide feedback
• For people to post their tutorials

So heres the start:

Updates:
2008-February-16 -- Battlezone Realm moved to zeroangel.overminddl1.com
2008-February-21 -- BZ2 Modifier tutorial "Damage.eX Mapmaking Tutorial" ported to site.


Call for submissions:
Anyone have a tutorial to submit, please point me to it -- or email me at zeroangelmk1 -AT- gmail -DOT- com , and I will put it on the site if it meets the requirements of being very useful.

Questions:
For those who have seen the Modifier site, which of the BZ Modifer tutorials were most useful to you? -- I ask because I'm only going to port a few over to BZ2Realm.

Hey all, I am working on some modding stuff (1.3 drop in mod/rec variant) and need to know if the "f" suffix is taken or will mesh well with my stuff.

For example, using custom recys, can I go with ODF names like:

ibrecyf.odf
ibcbunf.odf
ivconsf.odf
etc..

Anyone have mods or rec addons that this will conflict with?

Decided to play a strat in 1.3. I was ISDF and the enemy commander (Michael) was Scions.

First thing I noticed was craft handling. It seemed much more sluggish right off the bat, I imagine it was because I was so used to air maneuvering in 1.2. I seemed to adjust rather quickly to the new handling, however, and didnt really notice it much later on.

Game started out as usual, mostly involving dueling for control of the field with scouts and turrets. I tried to hover the enemy turrets but was unable to really do any damage with a minigun scout, instead having to resort to a gambit of hiding behind a pool while i moved my own into place. It worked. Later attempts at hovering were not the most successful, so I had to wait until tanks.

The base built OK, and I didnt notice any bugs. And I got to blast tanks without incident. Attempting to hit the enemy base was a frustrating affair however, as I was unable to target it for bombing runs, the enemy had too many jammers up. I couldnt tell any assault units to attack the enemy base, so I was forced to resort to attempting to mortar the base and being unable to do so with the enemy thugs defending.

Aside from that, I noticed a few bugs.

1) One time while charging the enemy base, I was able to get to a blind spot and ended up somehow making it inside of the enemy Overseer array, killing it from the inside.

2) Late game (about an hour and a half in) our game got a joiner, who lagged out. The rest of the game started to resynch like crazy. One moment I would be doing one thing, and the next, I would be instantly in a different place. The resynchs happened until the end of the game. This is quite a serious bug.

3) I noticed a little bit of warp, but this is probably due to the host's settings or connection.

4) I did notice a resynch bug, where I would build a unit and the scrap would be deducted, then a resynch would occur and the unit would not end up building (though I would still lose the scrap). Previous to the resynch flood, this only happened twice, and is not really more serious than it was in 1.2.

The game ended with my teammates lagging out and me being stuck fighting 3 guys. They took my recy down with maulers, and I ended up charging at their base, spending about 4 tanks killing all the jammers, and sending in the bomber to hit the enemy rec.

At each subsequent run, the enemy rec would be fully healed. So it was hopeless even with bomber. It just seems that a bomber/chain rush is much less effective.


Anyways, I have some preliminary suggestions. They're not big pests just yet, and I will have to play a few more games before I know for sure that they'll affect balance positively.

1) Set a build limit for jammers, make them slow to build, or make them cost more. They're far too effective, since its nearly impossible to attack a well defended jammed base with even AI units.

2) Bring back the ground attack for bombers. Jammers can still have effect in that they make locking on hard, but when your in the enemy base, unable to call bomber on anything, it can be a real pain that your 100 scrap unit is going to waste (For the hour that I had the bomber, I was only able to make 6 bombing runs, on non-base targets -- which made the bomber quite useless). Feint attacks and the subsequent 'watch for bomber!' elements are pretty important ones IMO.

3) In an 8 player game where only 2 players are playing, it would be nice to use the F8 and F9 slots.

4) Bring back the teamchat/allchat shortcuts introduced with newkeys! Or integrate newkeys into the release.

Just posting these for informational purposes

BZ2-WINEError.log

Code Select Expand

fixme:d3d:IWineD3DDeviceImpl_GetAvailableTextureMem (0x34f0020) : stub, simulating 64MB for now, returning 64MB left
fixme:ddraw:IDirectDrawImpl_SetCooperativeLevel (0x334a390)->(0x10024,00000008)
err:ddraw:IDirectDrawImpl_QueryInterface (0x334a390) The App is requesting a D3D device, but a non-OpenGL surface type was choosen. Prepare for trouble!
err:ddraw:IDirectDrawImpl_QueryInterface  (0x334a390) You may want to contact wine-devel for help
fixme:ddraw:IDirectDrawImpl_SetCooperativeLevel (0x334a390)->((nil),00000008)
fixme:d3d:IWineD3DStateBlockImpl_Release Releasing primary stateblock
fixme:ddraw:IDirectDrawImpl_SetCooperativeLevel (0x334a390)->(0x10024,00000008)
fixme:ddraw:IDirectDrawImpl_SetCooperativeLevel (0x334a390)->(0x10024,00000051)
fixme:d3d7:IDirect3DImpl_7_EvictManagedTextures (0x334a390): Stub!
fixme:d3d7:IDirect3DImpl_7_EvictManagedTextures (0x334a390): Stub!
fixme:d3d7:IDirect3DImpl_7_EvictManagedTextures (0x334a390): Stub!
fixme:d3d:IWineD3DDeviceImpl_CreateAdditionalSwapChain The app requests more than one back buffer, this can't be supported properly. Please configure the application to use double buffering(=1 back buffer) if possible
err:ddraw:PixelFormat_DD2WineD3D Don't know how to handle a 24 bit depth buffer with stencil bits
fixme:d3d7:IDirect3DImpl_7_EvictManagedTextures (0x334a390): Stub!
err:ole:CoGetClassObject class {25e609e4-b259-11cf-bfc7-444553540000} not registered
err:ole:CoGetClassObject no class object {25e609e4-b259-11cf-bfc7-444553540000} could be created for context 0x1
err:dinput:DirectInput8Create CoCreateInstance failed with hr = -2147221164; Try running wineprefixcreate to fix it.
fixme:d3d7:IDirect3DImpl_7_EvictManagedTextures (0x334a390): Stub!
fixme:ddraw:IDirectDrawImpl_SetCooperativeLevel (0x334a390)->((nil),00000008)
fixme:d3d:IWineD3DStateBlockImpl_Release Releasing primary stateblock

BATTLEZONE.log

Code Select Expand

DIAG|Main            |            maininit:523  |14:36:10|13     |Version Information Section
DIAG|Main            |            maininit:530  |14:36:10|14     |Session started Sat May 12 14:36:10 2007
DIAG|Main            |            maininit:533  |14:36:10|24     |CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2800+/2125MHz L1:128K T:0 F:6 M:10 S:0 (SSE,3DNow,MMX,TSC,FPU)
DIAG|Main            |            maininit:536  |14:36:10|24     |Executed by icarus\dave on Windows 9x v4.10  A  Build 2222
DIAG|Main            |            maininit:539  |14:36:10|24     |Compiled by Ikkoku\GSH on Win2000+SP2
DIAG|GLOBAL          |               setup:73   |14:36:11|873    |Drive type : Fixed
DIAG|GLOBAL          |               setup:143  |14:36:11|873    |Startup directory : Z:\home\dave\Programs\Battlezone2
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:1008 |14:36:11|1161   |
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:1009 |14:36:11|1161   |dd: DirectDraw HAL
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:1039 |14:36:11|1173   |mem dx:
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:3295 |14:36:11|1173   |tex mem:   total 67108864, free 67108864
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:3310 |14:36:11|1173   |frame mem: total 67108864, free 67108864
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:1050 |14:36:11|1173   |mem actual:
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:1052 |14:36:11|1173   |frame mem: total 68030464, free 68030464
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:1714 |14:36:11|1182   |d3d: * direct3d
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:1714 |14:36:11|1182   |d3d: * direct3d
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:1461 |14:36:11|1182   |vidmode: * 2048x1536 32  mem req 31457280
......(250 or so lines of possible vidmodes removed)........
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:1575 |14:36:11|1202   |vidmode:   Windowed : 640x480 24  mem req 3379200
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:1591 |14:36:11|1202   |Trying to use a shell screen size of 640 x 480
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:1661 |14:36:11|1202   |modes: game 1024x768 32, shell 640x480 32, full 1024x768 32
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:1367 |14:36:11|1210   |
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:1383 |14:36:11|1210   |dd driver: display : DirectDraw HAL : 1.1.1.1
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:1389 |14:36:11|1210   |dd device: 0.0.0.0
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:2003 |14:36:13|2747   |D3D: VendorID = 0, DeviceID = 0
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:2110 |14:36:13|2747   |caps:Gamma TripleBuffer Filter
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:1831 |14:36:13|3162   |zbuffer depth: 14 with 1 bit stencil buffer
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:1835 |14:36:13|3162   |zbuffer depth: 16
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:1831 |14:36:13|3162   |zbuffer depth: 16 with 8 bit stencil buffer
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:1831 |14:36:13|3162   |zbuffer depth: 20 with 4 bit stencil buffer
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:1831 |14:36:13|3162   |zbuffer depth: 16 with 8 bit stencil buffer
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:1835 |14:36:13|3162   |zbuffer depth: 32
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:2307 |14:36:13|3166   |d3d: can render after a page flip
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:2309 |14:36:13|3166   |d3d: supports 2 texture stages
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:2313 |14:36:13|3166   |d3d: anisotropy supported
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:2330 |14:36:13|3166   |d3d: supports z biasing
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:2401 |14:36:13|3166   |d3d: max texture size 2048x2048
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:2433 |14:36:13|3166   |d3d: fog caps: vertex = 1, pixel = 1
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:1810 |14:36:13|3166   |pix format: * 8 8 8 8
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:1810 |14:36:13|3166   |pix format: * 8 8 8 0
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:1810 |14:36:13|3166   |pix format: * 8 8 8 0
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:1810 |14:36:13|3166   |pix format: * 5 5 5 1
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:1810 |14:36:13|3166   |pix format: * 4 4 4 4
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:1810 |14:36:13|3166   |pix format: * 5 6 5 0
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:1810 |14:36:13|3166   |pix format: * 5 5 5 0
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:1810 |14:36:13|3166   |pix format: * 3 3 2 0
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:740  |14:36:13|3179   |
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:741  |14:36:13|3179   |640x480 32 : direct3d : DirectDraw HAL
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:744  |14:36:13|3179   |using a flipable surface triplet
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:761  |14:36:13|3179   |using 24 bit Z buffer with 8 bit stencil buffer
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:772  |14:36:13|3179   |opaque pix      8 8 8
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:775  |14:36:13|3179   |translucent pix 8 8 8 8
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:777  |14:36:13|3179   |
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:3295 |14:36:13|3179   |tex mem:   total 67108864, free 62853120
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:3310 |14:36:13|3179   |frame mem: total 67108864, free 62853120
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:781  |14:36:13|3179   |
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:315  |14:36:13|3179   |ddx: does not support gamma settings
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:315  |14:36:13|3187   |ddx: does not support gamma settings
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:315  |14:36:13|3188   |ddx: does not support gamma settings
ERR |Debug           |               debug:765  |14:36:13|3190   |[ E X C E P T I O N ]
ERR |GLOBAL          |              i76win:80   |14:36:13|3190   |Patch 1.3pb3 Aug 10 2006 07:49:33
ERR |Debug           |               debug:772  |14:36:13|3190   |Type:    ERROR
ERR |Debug           |               debug:773  |14:36:13|3190   |SubType: FATAL - fatal error
ERR |Debug           |               debug:774  |14:36:13|3190   |Message: Direct Input Error at DirectInput8Create(hInst, DIRECTINPUT_VERSION, IID_IDirectInput8, (void **)&di, NULL) [Unknown DirectInput error]
ERR |Debug           |               debug:775  |14:36:13|3190   |Module:  .\input.cpp
ERR |Debug           |               debug:776  |14:36:13|3190   |Line#:   1019
ERR |Debug           |               debug:777  |14:36:13|3190   |Stamp:   Mon Oct 27 22:56:22 2003
ERR |Debug           |               debug:410  |14:36:13|3190   |CallStack:
ERR |Debug           |               debug:552  |14:36:13|3190   |7B843898 +7B843898 kernel32.dll [Unknown] [Unknown] [Unknown]
ERR |Debug           |               debug:552  |14:36:13|3190   |0060F24A +00BA bzone.exe system debug.obj void __cdecl Debug::Error::Err(char const *,...)
ERR |Debug           |               debug:433  |14:36:13|3190   |Registers:
ERR |Debug           |               debug:434  |14:36:13|3191   |EAX: 7B82EDD1h   CS: 00000073h  DS: 0000007Bh
ERR |Debug           |               debug:435  |14:36:13|3191   |EBX: 7B8AE888h  EIP: 7B843898h  ES: 0000007Bh
ERR |Debug           |               debug:436  |14:36:13|3191   |ECX: 00000000h   SS: 0000007Bh  FS: 00000033h
ERR |Debug           |               debug:437  |14:36:13|3191   |EDX: 03E44448h  EBP: 022AFD84h  GS: 0000003Bh
ERR |Debug           |               debug:438  |14:36:13|3191   |ESI: 03E44448h  ESP: 022AFD20h           
ERR |Debug           |               debug:439  |14:36:13|3191   |EDI: 00000002h                       
ERR |Debug           |               debug:449  |14:36:13|3191   | CF: 00000216h PF:0 AF:1 ZF:1 SF:0 OF:0
DIAG|Main            |            mainproc:158  |14:36:13|3202   |Entering critical shutdown
ERR |Input           |               input:1194 |14:36:14|4659   |Input not initialised

GSH if you're reading this, these are probably nothing you need concern yourself with, though the WINE errors might be pointing to something which might present a problem (ie: a non-standard or deprecated way of doing this -- unlikely as that may be) with Windows OS'

The WINE version i'm using is the latest as of posting, and the video drivers are official NVIDIA drivers (for GeForce4MX4000).

I made a teamcolor update a long time ago, that uses the glowskins capability of 1.3 to fix the issue of ships looking ugly when they are teamcolored.

The file is here.

If so, then it could be installed into the addon folder, and if anyone has any difficulties (ie: low videocard ram) then they only need delete the folder from addon or use low object detail settings (where glowskins are not rendered).

I think that it would be highly useful in 1.3 and might even help convert some ppl over from 1.2.

[Avatar]

Sorry for the long'ish delay. I've been busy with more things that I can keep up with at the moment.

By popular demand, heres the freekin' enhanced scout for 1.3

www.bzuniverse.com/~zeroangel/misc_files/ivenhscout.odf

Just place it in your addon folder, and place it in the editor, and you will see how dangerous these can be in pairs.

I did some last minute tweaks (after several weeks of not touching the ODF) and i'm still not fully satisfied with my result. Some of the parameters have also been added in just for the sake of letting you know that they exist.

Enjoy.


(Avatar, that other topic didnt need to be locked. There was a lot of good discussion in there. I've seen threads which were nothing more then flame-fests, but that one wasnt. Now that info is going to be buried. )

Is there any way to allow the relay bunker to have a 'free camera' option, like the editor has? That way, you can spin and zoom the camera and even get in closer to the action, watching from any angle as your tanks decimate the enemy base, etc.

I've been watching my FPS closely while toggling graphics settings and i've noticed the following things.

:: Local Fog has no effect on FPS ::
Therefore this shouldnt be in the auto-adjust. In fact, it probably shouldnt even be an option, as those with this setting turned on are at a disadvantage against those who have it off.

:: Lighting one->none has no effect on FPS ::
Or not that i've noticed anyways. Again, should this be in the auto-adjust? Going from lighting one->none is a big shock on the eyes, especially on dark maps.

What are your thoughts/findings on these?

ISDF VEHICLE TEAMCOLOR ADDON FOR BZ2
By Zero Angel [zeroangel@bzuniverse.com]

DESCRIPTION:

This update  makes the skins look a lot sharper, brighter and more colorful overall during multiplayer games.

Standard BZ2 team coloring simply changes the color of the unit to a monochrome version of one color (ie: shades of red).

This update will change that by using the 'glow skins' feature of BZ2 to mask all parts of the skin, except for the orange areas which will be recolored to match team colors (ie: red,blue)


INSTALLATION:
Unzip directly into your addon folder.

To uninstall, delete ivGlowskins from your addon folder.


ISSUES/KNOWN BUGS:
1) Will _not_ cause bad assets under stock BZ2 or any MOD.
2) Will cause vehicles to be more visible in dark environments,
   this helps to allow night maps to be usable for all gfx settings.
   As 'high' lighting settings penalize users, this should help to
   offset the problem.
3) May cause a slight FPS hit due to the extra textures that are to be drawn. Do not  use if your videocard has less than 16MB RAM.