hey guys, i hope it is okay for me to make a thread for some really basic questions. if not, please tell me, or just remove it.
anyways, discovering that the love of my youth (aka tibsun ) is now freeware and there is an active modder base, i want to get into modding myself. after a little lurking around on the internet, my first (and probably not very original) ideas are:
- forgotten as a working faction with own units and structures
- rebuild the dropship bay
- rebuild the thread rating node
- make light towers useful (not just buildable) for all factions
now, my unsolvable problems:
i cant make selling structures work for the new faction, only things that use an already existing gdi or nod model can get sold. Unsellable=no or Sellable=yes dont seem to change anything. here is an example,
it was contained in the .rar i loaded. i just changed cost/hp/power provided and tried to make it sellable:
; forg power plant
[CAPOWR]
Image=CA0007 ;NAPOWR
Name=Salvaged Generator
Prerequisite=TECH ; to make it require Forgotten con.yard
Strength=600
Armor=wood
TechLevel=1
Sight=4
Adjacent=2
Owner=Forg,Special ; Special required to make 3rd faction work
Cost=200
Points=40
Power=75
Capturable=true
Crewed=yes
Explosion=TWLT070,S_BANG48,S_BRNL58,S_CLSN58,S_TUMU60
MaxDebris=6
ThreatPosed=0 ; This value MUST be 0 for all building addons
DamageParticleSystems=SparkSys,SmallGreySSys,BigGreySmokeSys
DamageSmokeOffset=450, 200, 300
TogglePower=no
Unsellable=no
i made the next one myself, yet it does not seem to work. note that i completely copied the GDI version and just changed the owner, name, [NAME], image and prerequisites, exactly what was did with the power plant. it appears as an invisible 1x1 structure without a cameo and can't get any upgrades, yet i would assume that is somehow caused by the upgrade system and i might just relay on the laser for now. help would still be appreciated of course!
;forg component tower
[CACTWR]
Name=Component Tower
Image=GACTWR
Strength=500
Armor=light
Prerequisite=TECH,CAPILE
TechLevel=2
Sight=4
Adjacent=3
Owner=Forg,Special
Cost=200
Turret=yes
Points=50
Power=-10
Sensors=yes
BaseNormal=no
Crewed=no
ROT=12
Explosion=TWLT070,S_BANG48,S_BRNL58,S_CLSN58,S_TUMU60
TurretAnimZAdjust=-45 ;WST 6/18/99 was 50 but cause z buffer problem: Component towers turret animation depends on what the player attaches :
HasSpotlight=false;
MaxDebris=2
ThreatPosed=30 ; This value MUST be 0 for all building addons
DamageParticleSystems=SparkSys,LGSparkSys
DamageSmokeOffset=500, 500, 400
IsBase=no
HasStupidGuardMode=false
more basic things i'd like to know:
- if i want to add cameos to the game, where do i put them? where is the Cameo=XYZ set, in the rules.ini or somewhere else?
- are there public cameos for campaign units which i could make use of?
- where (and how) can i find the dropship bay model / cameo? i assume they are somewhere hidden in the files since it is also in the rules.ini (though disabled)
- where do i put said model once i have it, to make my game load it?
- is there a public place for community cameos / models i could browse for said model? i dont want to steal someones art, i just want to use them for my personal playground.
- lastly, is there someone out there who has ever made the dropship bay work? reading a little about it, it was supposed to drop a contingent of pre-game defined factory units on demand?
i assume that is impossible, so i my idea would revolve around this: make it a factory upgrade which produces copies of the gdi factory units which use the dropship bay image / model and can fly to the rally point. their primary would be to deploy into the actual unit you ordered, what bothers me is that i can neither transport several units in one dropship nor will the dropship return to the bay or fly out of the map because it just deploys. would appreciate ideas / working concepts here.
on a side note, could i make copied factory units which are Category=Soldier, yet still built from the factory / make them keep the larger selection frame inherent to vehicles, to fit several into a dropship? can i limit this to the dropship only?
- are there any settings to make the light tower behave like in the campaign? i just managed to make it do the regular sweep to one side or a full circle spin (which was also heavily elliptic to one side, OCD wants me to fix that ). i would want it to play an alert, or make nearby units rally to attack its target from a further range than normal threat range or something along these lines. any idea / insight on the spotlight possibilities would be awesome.
i have so many questions O_o i got a little carried away writing this whilst working on said problems so please excuse the wall of text. i would really appreciate your help, especially in terms of my 3rd faction and dropship bay problems. i didn't work on the threat rating node yet, so i will try to work that out myself, i could also share my work for anyone's personal use once it is finished in case someone ends up being interested.
edit: fixed my main problem (adding new structures to 3rd faction, turns out i'm just retarded (forgot to add them to BuildingTypes ). i do still need help regarding the component tower, the dropship bay and the general model / cameo questions!