I thought I would create this thread for those that would love new features being moddable. Hemp had the good one of separating Heat seeking rockets from Vision Locking Rockets so the Phantom VIR wouldn't prevent the heat rockets from locking on to ships. Post your suggestions. If there are enough good suggestions, I may sticky this thread that way it gets attention. Hopefully the easiest fixes will be added. Fee free to add anything you can think of, there is no guarantee that your requests will be added, and there is no guarantee that anything will be added. It is worth a try bringing up all of the suggestions related to modding. Please keep the suggestions modding based. I think there is a broader wishlist thread already, so I decided to create one aimed at modding and modders.
QuoteI would personally love to see a hold or deploy command for soldier class. That way, you can have soldiers loaded with pulse cannons, you can tell them to deploy so they would use their sniper rifles. They would basically become slowly rotating sniper turrets while holding.
QuoteAnother wish. The ability to specify what the ai targets on the ship. For examples snipers. The ability to tell them to aim at the hp_eye point instead of the hp_com point would be great. This would probably be best placed under the ai type. This may be too hard to implement, but it would make ai snipers a little more effective.
QuoteI would also love to see a switch weapon command for every unit available. For example the rocket tank. If a human player uses VIR on an ai Rocket Tank, the owner could select that RT and tell it to switch weapons. That way it would attack the human piloted unit with Salvo instead of Shadower, because the shadowers won't lock, but the salvo will fire because it is a cluster of dumb rockets.
QuoteThe ability to move the hp_vehicle hardpoint for the recycler and factory would be great when certain units are built. For example, moving the hp_vehicle hardpoint when the bomber or apcs are built. That way those ships don't clip through the Factory mesh because they ascend before moving. Due to their current build location, they raise up and clip through the arch on the factory. Half of the body makes it through the space while the other half of the ships clip through the structure. If this is made possible, I'll gladly move the points for all of the factory odfs so the factories will take advantage of this feature.
That was more of a 'bug' really. The ODF's state that it should work, but it doesnt. In BZI it worked. and i could bring on more and more evidence that has in other areas been good enough for a change.
Bug: Fix the bug that causes unit to take major damage from weapon kick (Much greater than it should be), COMPLETELY, so that it would never happen.
Suggestion: Make all weapons effects visible from great distances, ex: draw_twirl_trail effects.
Morphing is basically the same thing as crouching, deploying, or otherwise changing state, according to AI. It shouldnt be too hard to shoehorn the 'force morph'/'force unmorph' commands into that class, in fact, you could probably do that with all deployableClass units including aircraft. :)
Its fairly simple then, because adding the command into their command pannel is supposedly a 1,2,3 kind of process. (Atleast as far as i know)
When it comes to commands though, I'd like to have more customability with the command pannel, like the implemented CanRescue and CanHunt commands, would be cool to see commands like that for the rest of the commands you can give guys.
YEAH COMMANDO! THANKYOU! YOU REMINDED ME OF SOMETHING I WANTED TO SUGGEST!!!!!1!1!1!!11!
I'm thinking about having more slotted structures/being able to have different slotted structures. If there wouldn't be enough room for those, just have a drop dowm menu that leads to a selection of those structures.
Well before we get off topic (and this community does not have a good reputation for keeping on topic :s ), Lets focus ont he title of the thread.
It is '' request for extra modding control '' , not nessearily '' hey, lets do my idea ''. No matter how great or accurate or logical that idea is.
I think there should be great modding control on the areas that are stated. Asking for ''total modding control'' is very hard. But At least trying to leave as many things that *seem* to be useful for modding is good.
Wouldn't it be possible for [ChargeGunClass] weapons to have a charge glow for each of their charge stages?
So as you charge up the mag, a ball of energy would ap....STOP! Stop suggesting NEW suggestions. Make another thread called
(minor suggestion) Weapon Charge Glow
Despite that being a really damned good idea.....its not for THIS topic. This topic is about requesting for MORE MODDING CONTROL. Not nessearily '' My idea ''.
Many mods don't look as good as they could in multiworld because animations for certain things don't play. Fishbone can provide some exact examples for his dune command mod. I think one of his harvesters is suppose to spawn, but while it is spawning, there is suppose to be an animation. The animation failes to play while multiworld is on. Fishbone will know the specifics.
it is not that it always fails to play.
It fails to play if fps go below a certain threshold, I think it is around 50 fps.
It sometimes is only a matter of turning your head a little bit away from the base and you can see the animation while you cannot see it when you are looking right at it.
it would be nice if you could force the engine to render certain animations.
Fishbone that sounds similar to the green selection square disappearing when you aren't looking straight at a selected recycler builidng. If most of it is in the corner of your screen, the green square completely disappears, even though a good 20% of the building is still visible.
So we agree that it would be very nice if there was more modding control?
I agree the more modding control would be great. Everything I posted so far, even the ones that don't sound modding related, will give modders more control.
It would be nice if one could create scavenger class vechiles which were hovering and did not deploy on pools (BZI style).
Asked for, rejected. The code is too intertwined with other things for it to be a trivial task.
Believe me, I wanted it badly, but not if it meant causing havoc with other subsystems without Ken putting in mondo hours. What I have works pretty well...
-Av-
More than 16 terrain textures available in the TRN would be nice...32 would be ideal.
Wasn't going to bring this up until I was certain my editor configs werent involved, 1.3 PB bz2edit.exe hates the big gridsize maps. I'm content to edit in 1.2 if I have to, and this may easily be an assets problem, but 1.2 runs it fine.
[ E X C E P T I O N ]
Patch 1.3 PublicBeta1 EDITOR Feb 28 2004 11:39:52
Type: ACCESS VIOLATION
Info: WRITING to 00000010h
CallStack:
005CC474 +0074 bz2edit.exe LIBC strcat.obj _strcat
0048A5CF +1311 bz2edit.exe EXE GameObjectClass.obj public: __thiscall GameObjectClass::GameObjectClass(class GameObjectClass *,char *)
Registers:
EAX: 112FD78Fh CS: 0000001Bh DS: 00000023h
EBX: 00785C00h EIP: 005CC474h ES: 00000023h
ECX: 112FD790h SS: 00000023h FS: 00000038h
EDX: 11318B68h EBP: 021AF744h GS: 00000000h
ESI: 1131346Ch ESP: 021AF734h
EDI: 00000010h
CF: 00210202h PF:0 AF:0 ZF:0 SF:0 OF:0
Entering critical shutdown
It also chokes when trying to MSH the big sky domes from XSI, I have to paste them in from 1.2 editing install. No sweat, whatever, just seems to signify a crawly bug and denies me use of your shiny new editor. Apart from that and the few other minor omissions like the DLL thing it seems very functional, thanks :)
It would be very important to be able to just go-in Single player game. Control tilde, BZeditor, Control E, and edit a map. That kind of insta-acess for testing and editing is going to be *nessesary* in FE rev.d. It was also ment to be apart of the game.
Quote from: Jwk the Hemp MonkeyIt would be very important to be able to just go-in Single player game. Control tilde, BZeditor, Control E, and edit a map. That kind of insta-acess for testing and editing is going to be *nessesary* in FE rev.d. It was also ment to be apart of the game.
But not at the expense of wrecking MP games. Stop being lazy and get used to the way it works now because that's the way it's most likely going to stay. I'm getting really tired of your bashing things in 1.3 Hemp, even though you claim to support the work that GSH and Ken have done.
stop being lazy? Constant MP games wreaking? what are you talking about.
Redoing basically 90% of the * FE * single player is going to take 100s of hours if we had a 1.2 edtior, let alone this 1.3 one that doesnt do what it was MENT to do. i am not 'bashing' 1.3 and its not something you should be sick off, its the entire point of having a 'beta'.
Its called constructive critism.
Now if you want to keep the anti-multiplayer-cheating gone then *fine* But do it *properly*. Not just the quickest easiest and most damaging way possiable.
If the editor is not fixed then the proabilty of FE becoming compatible with 1.3 becomes significantly less. you cannot just 'write blank checks' in the future FE editors time.
OHhh PAAALEASE Hemp, 90%? My understanding is that the biggest problem with FE is stuff relating to the shell. I'm not discounting that there will be needed changes to some ODF's, DLL's and other little things here and there, but 90%? I think you insult all the amazing ppl that worked on FE from the very start.
As for the MP anti-cheat, there was another method employed first but someone found a way around it. Even the slightest amout of MP editing can and has induced lag so I say go riddance to bad rubbish. And as for it being "the most damaging", I ask, how is it the most damaging?
Now for bashing, How many times in the last month have you called the editor "castrated"? There are a couple things missing but not all that much from what I can tell. You also seem to be assuming that the editor won't see any more work done to it.
Quote from: Jwk the Hemp Monkeyyou cannot just 'write blank checks' in the future FE editors time.
Heh heh, sounds a bit like you picked up GSH's manners :lol:
Because you know, i was not making a point or anything by sticking that last bit in ' ' did I?
And actually, with 1.3 AI, yes all the single player missions will have to be edited in some way, not to mention anything that was done using clever hacks. Alot of the Singleplayer maps will most likly need editing. As of now you cannot just go ingame and start editing something like you were supposed to. If GSH can only fix things by gutting them then he is not a very good programmer. The entire point of being a programmer i last heard was to fix things, not just take a sledge hammer to them.
Who said they ever really intended you to drop into the editor anytime you felt like it?
The editor still works. You just have to intentionally activate it. DLLs currently don't load, but that is a 50/50 causality.
On one hand, the editor exe doesn't attempt to load the DLLs.
On the other hand, by my understanding, the DLLs won't work with something that isn't called bzone.exe anyway. The exe may have to call itself bzone.exe internally for them to work, even.
The first one is easily fixed by Nathan, just remove the forced /noscript or whatever it is from the command line parameters.
The second one could take some work. DLLs may have to have two compile modes, one for the editor, and one for the main executable.
Of course, all of this is really a moot point. Saving a map once the DLL has already done stuff doesn't make sense. You don't WANT to edit and then save a map while you are playing it. You note what is wrong, edit it, and try again. The little checkbox in MM5 would be perfect for that, actually, as not only does it toggle between edit and normal mode, but it toggles between executables as well in 1.3. Thus, you edit, you tap the box, you test. If you want to change something, you tap the box, edit, tap it again, and test. Otherwise you are liable to confuse the DLL, AIPs, whatever by randomly adding/removing/moving units/buildings, and get entirely different results then if you had played it straight through to begin with.
In fact, the only thing I see the current editor as doing is forcing you to leave the game 100% before re-launching to test, which I do not see as a bad thing.
Quote from: Jwk the Hemp MonkeyAnd actually, with 1.3 AI, yes all the single player missions will have to be edited in some way, not to mention anything that was done using clever hacks.
What's the matter, AI too hard for you?
Quote from: Jwk the Hemp MonkeyAlot of the Singleplayer maps will most likly need editing. As of now you cannot just go ingame and start editing something like you were supposed to.
This is where "stop being lazy" would come into play.
Quote from: Jwk the Hemp MonkeyIf GSH can only fix things by gutting them then he is not a very good programmer. The entire point of being a programmer i last heard was to fix things, not just take a sledge hammer to them.
Bashing yet again, eh?
You still have yet to tell us why the editor is so damaged to the point that you (and only you so far) consider it "castrated". When it comes to programming and modding your cluelessness is staggering. And with that in mind, I shall return to ignoring you.
The whole concept of a Beta still escapes you a bit doesn't it jwk.
Oh for sure slaor, desipte the fact that i have done lots of mods for different games.
And Bezerker your inabilty to actually think about my points is staggering.
QuoteWhat's the matter, AI too hard for you?
When the FE singleplayer and all of its dll's etc etc were designed, it took into account ''crappy AI''. Even as it stands it is still far far harder than bzii normal single player, and with 1.3 AI it willl become extremely difficult for the player to complete the single player. I might be able to do it but thats not the point.
1.3 aiming cerberi swarms anyone? What a great way to make a newer player just drop the game for saying that it is ''too hard''.
QuoteThis is where "stop being lazy" would come into play.
Oh right, shall i stop bothering to test things whilst you have a go at me for 'being lazy' whilst simultaneously make the abilty to do things in the future much much harder. Thats self righteous BS if you ask me, and not even well concealed. I mean, after all, people like me or Mower man are just 'lazy' arnt we?. Its not like we spend and will hopefully continue to spend 100s and 100s of hours testing and comming to fourms where people like you are on our backs constantly.
QuoteBashing yet again, eh?
its not 'Bashing' to make a point that is not targeted at GSH specifically at all. It is a standard requirement of to expect good programmers to...program things well. Saying that something needs improvment in a select area is not 'bashing'. You are always going on about how GSH has the right to be 'blunt'. Well I am being 'blunt', so why the double standard?
It is quite probable that a 1.3 patch if not properly made would do more damage to the community than good. If its final release has those attributes, then it would be better off not released.
QuoteWho said they ever really intended you to drop into the editor anytime you felt like it?
because there is a function called game.cheat Bzeditor , Thats why. A function that currently does not work the way it is supposed to.
QuoteThe whole concept of a Beta still escapes you a bit doesn't it jwk.
What? To be (spit) on?
EDIT 2: oh great, just noticed that this topic has also been trashed because some people decide to not work together, I wonder how many more posts will be made before this on finds itself in davy jones 'locke'r. Or mabey in an act of bad managment only the 'negative' posts will be removed, you know..the ones that actually make valid points and call for a tiny change.
Now if you want to keep the anti-multiplayer-cheating gone then *fine* But do it *properly*. Not just the quickest easiest and most damaging way possiable."
Yes, but of course. Its compeltely obvious that you know absolutely everything that happened during 1.3's days in private beta, and that the editor move from seperate EXE was done to complete prevent MP editing 100% since the original blockage for MP editing was an AV errer, which MP editors taunted GSH that it could easily be broken, so he took stronger measures...obviously GSH decided to take the easy way out.
"What a great way to make a newer player just drop the game for saying that it is 'too hard'."
Well that makes sense, but then again wasn't the response for new players that had not brushed up on their skills yet that played FE and complained about the SP told that the MOD was meant to be hard in the first place? The reason is great and all, but yields nothing to your cause.
"because there is a function called game.cheat Bzeditor , Thats why. A function that currently does not work the way it is supposed to."
I see, so you were on the design team for Battlezone II: Combat Comamnder, yes? You're lucky they left it in the release code in the first place, supposedly (according to Ken Miller) BZ1 & BZ2's design did *NOT* include any modification ability at all, the fact that it is quite easy to modify most aspects of the game is just luck, be happy you have that instead of nothing at all.
Give it a rest Hemp, live with the editor you are lucky to have. And don't even use FE as a reason for the supposed need for a complete editor, I've already worked on creating an FE version to work on 1.3 in my own spare time, I'm not all to dedicated on it obviously so its pretty much a half assed effort, but in the end I was able to get the shell working how it should have, and have normal Instant Action maps work with the Hadean race, mind you this was done in less than 3 days worth of work. The SP in its own is obviously alot more work, but not as much as you say it apparently is, besides, the editor doesn't even work too well with getting around scripted maps so you're not going to get too much help from it anyway.
Yes, but this is a much more worth while responce than '' oh just deal with it'' isnt it Tempest.
'' its getting solved and compensated for '' is what I want to hear, Not '' oh your a bad bad person ''.
With luck rev.d will get though the single player without to much difficulty, but i do not relly on 'luck'.
Has the request for a non-draconian model format been asked yet :D
Heh, I just dropped in to see how good ol Battlezone was getting along, and I was pleasantly surprised that not only was the BZCP that I was pining for so long ago finished, but that some cool dude who worked on the game itself was still taking care of its code - now thats dedication that you've no choice but to respect :)
I was thinking about the possibility of making some custom units for a project I've always wanted to do, but after reading all of Fish.XSI I'm terrified :P Theres no way I could get my head round that, and I think getting my hands on a copy (even an old one) of Softimage is kind of out of the question as well... Its just a slight step up in price over the tools that I'm used to using, heh
So, without thinking about the question further, what are the chances of that happening?
Hmm. Well, now that I've poked around the forums and uncovered whats been going on, I feel a bit of an idiot. I didnt realise what a lamentable state the development was in.
I'm certainly dissapointed with some of the vindictive attitudes that people have been keeping here, over such trivial things. In my short time here I've seen people act like children just because they cannot have things exactly as they want. I just want those people to know that they have pissed on something I dearly loved, for no other reason that they cannot see past their own distorted personal views. On the flipside thanks to all those here who kept a cool head, regardless of the fact that the fun has been spoiled for you.
GSH, if you're reading, I hope all your future projects attract more forgiving fans. And I hope you at least find the energy to finish 1.3 the way you wanted to, because I can guarantee there will be 50 quiet, appreciative people to every one outspoken, opinionated jerk. And Overmind, I hope you make a million before you're 30, because that will mean I'll no doubt be playing my idea of the perfect game ;)
Yes, there are newbies still, and yes, this is what they think of you.
Heh, believe it or not, multiply that million by about 15 and it might have a chance of a complete popular game, you have to pay for development, manufacturing, and advertising.
Chilvence, If you have a closer look at Fish.xsi there is a very easy tute there by yours truly, that details about 5 easy steps to export game ready XSI's via free (or at least extremely cheap) tools. There are actually more than 5 steps but some of them involve pizza.
I've tried Softimage - It's a nightmare that you can't wake up from. Could barely figure out how to draw a cube primitive, even then could do nought with it :P
A combination of Threed (free) and 3D explore 1.8 (or so) will have you peering down the barrel at your own baddies in no time.
BTW: if anybody is after a cheap powerful modelling program try Silo.
After 5 minutes of random playing I have concluded that it is perhaps the most powerful and streamlined modelling interface I have ever seen, hoot u not. Seriously gonna be learning it very shortly. At $110 US its a steal.
Quote from: SlaorAt $110 US its a steal.
I'd say. 3DSMAX costs $3000! I doubt anyone could easily afford that.
But everybody could rip it off their site, they really need to change priorities...
Back on toppic, back on toppic, back on toppic
The thing I would love the most is being able to make some kind of dll-like script in the unit ODF. This could bring us very close to almost total modding control.
Like you could have a vehicle entry "extraCom# = insert your command here" that makes a unit have an additional command when you select it listed as number #. And under [script] have "action,command name" that defines te actions a unit makes when the command is selected.
Other things that trigger something could be "wait,#" that makes a number of actions (switch team, goTo, autokill, atack closest) happen each # amount of seconds.
Or "near,odfname,#", were odfname is the name of the odf of the unit you want to calculate the distance to and # the distance in m.
And the opposite of near, far, that makes the actions happen whena unit is farther than # meters from odfname.
I think you could do most of the modding with those commands (and a few others). Although I doubt it is doable...
I could never get the DLL function SetWeaponMask function to work. If I understand correctly, this should let you select which of weapon the AI unit will shoot. So if this is a bug, it would be nice if it was fixed.
only rockettank class listens to the weaponmask, so avengers and maybe lancers.
SetWeaponMask? I do not know of it, I probobly tested it once, found it doesn't do anything useful to me, and forgot about it... heh...
Geez monkey, its probably not considered constructive critisism if you know there is no chance of it being changed back.
tbh its sounds alot more lazy to be keying in and out of a sp map at will rather than noting everything that needs change and then doing it all.
maybe its too much for you :O
Something grandiotic; taps enabled for vehicles :D
heh i also wanted to post about taps as well..
i know of the "work around" the recycler turrets and such use.
but could a line be added telling the engine not to expect the building linked to the tap have power for it, so we can drop the odf trickery?
and is there isnt a line specifing a building cant be demolished can that be added? if such a line exists for it someone please let me know?
just use
addHealth = 5000
to the ODF and you get an indestructable building.
re: taps for vehicles
There is already something similar to taps for vehicles that next to no modder is using:
visualHard1 = "HP_GUN"
there is a lot of potential in visual hardpoints. If I had more help in DuneC, all vehicles would have weapon mount stations and the weapons would be seperate models so an upgrade of weapons would actually change the look of the vehicle. (same as with infantry).
spAce, care to elaborate what you would use taps on vehicles for?
Ken Miller said the correct way to make indestructible buildings is a zero health setting.
ZTV has been using visual hardpoints for long time now. ;) Note you do not need a seperate visual hardpoint in the XSI. Simply describe the visualHard as the weapons hard point and it should work fine. This makes it very easy to go back and retrofit mount points on all odfs.
weaponHard1 = "HP_GUN_1"
visualHard1 = "HP_GUN_1"
Zero health is the only true indestructable building, the 'addHealth' bit only works against 'normal' weapons. :)
Someone did use the visualHard stuff once, I remember the weapon powerup crates looked like the weapons they were... very cool.
-Av-
QuotespAce, care to elaborate what you would use taps on vehicles for?
Defensive turrets.
Additional parts with independent health.
Could do ai controlled weapons that would shoot in any direction.
Is it possible set pilotable turret to tap ? If it was possible there could be units that could be piloted by multiple human players.
One handling ship movement and traditional weapons, other(s) would be gunner for an example.
hey there, I've got a suggestion for a new ODF switch. Something like
isThreat = 0
for stuff like the tech center and such. I was playing FE 3 ways and after killing off the ISDF recy and factory, i put some turrets around the base pools and they wound up using all their ammo on the power, servicebay, and the techcntr. I have no idea if it could be implemented this late in the development though. :s
On the visualHp stuff, I can't seem to get it to work, which unit uses it in ZTV? I can take a look at that.
that would handled via aip's/dll
targetPriority = ## would be a better one. Have the default at 5 or something for buildings and 10 for vehicles/defenses. That would allow for greater variability.
visualHP works only when the weapon has a geometry assigned to it. Look at the pilot and pilot weapon ODFs to see the examples.
oh you mean like the jetpack or the satchel? hmm, I can't check it out right now 'cause I'm at work, but is there a way to make this visual HP shoot on its own terms? I've edited a map where you fight the ISDF and there is a carrier hovering about 200 meters over their base, and would love to see it have some heavy kinetic turrets on it. :twisted: I was gonna make it a building but if I can I'm gonna make it attack in the later AIP, and Dlls are still foreign to me :s
Ooh yeah target priority that'd be nice, (especially for scavengers distracting GTs) and have it so if the target priority is 0 then they dont attack unless you tell them to (so you have the choice to demolish it later.)
Hey on that note (now this i really don't think will happen) you could set tactics on your units ingame like homeworld. Aggressive=They attack anything in radar range, Neutral=pretty much what they are now, and Passive=they like to dodge and come back to the repair bay alot :-D
No, all that visualHp does is display a model of the weapon. There is no way to get weapons to shoot on their own terms, unless you make a guntower tap, but that will only work on buildings.
1.3pb has a 'hunt' command that you could set up in the units and DLL script. I imagine you could also have that command to put the AI into 'alert' state with the radar ranges, or into a 'passive' state.
the hunt command works in 1.3? awesome! I saw it while I was exploring Bzone.exe in notepad looking for minelaying stuff. I couldn't get hunt to work though. Have you a hunting vehicle I could look at? Oh wait, there needs to be some Dll scripting to make it work? Hmm maybe i need to go ahead and try my hand at dlling...
Ok, well I'll just keep the carrier as a building then. It's still pretty neat to see such a massive structure hovering just hundreds of feet above you :)
hunt doesnt do anything, but you can use it to trigger things via dll
minelayer is broken except for later versions of 1.3