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| Mod resources[message #60397]
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Thu, 06 March 2003 15:20 
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 markpoll |
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Messages:101
Registered:November 2002
Location: sydney |
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I'm thinking about doing a UB campaign, which would probably be in WWII era from the German perspective. It would be nice to pay homage to something like "the eagle has landed" or "the cross of iron".
Anyway, the biggest problem at the moment is that I know next to nothing about weapons, esp historic ones,aside from what I've learned playing JA2. Could anyone suggest any good on line resources for info re WWII era weapons, with the detail level you'd need for a mod, eg pictures and range/ROF info?
Also, am I right in understanding that there is no simple way to put soldiers in different uniforms? It occured to me that you'd only have to change the uniform colour, not redraw it, eg lighten the shade of grey on the grey shirts to have something approaching a wehrmacht uniform or deepen it for SS or go to khaki for allied forces or brown for soviet. Actually, I never understood why most of Diedrianna's soldiers do a red baron and wear red instead of khaki.
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Sergeant
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| Re: Mod resources[message #60400]
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Thu, 06 March 2003 16:10 
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| LCJr. |
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Messages:83
Registered:November 2001 |
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Forgot to mention get an Unslf'er and take a look in the Animations.sti. IRC the all the people anims are done in very odd bright colors so some kind of palette or tinting must be applied to get the colors.
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Corporal 1st Class
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| Re: Mod resources[message #60404]
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Fri, 07 March 2003 11:23
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| markpoll |
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Messages:101
Registered:November 2002
Location: sydney |
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Thanks for the help.
I appreciate that talk is cheap and will keep that to a minimum, esp as I'd be high risk of not getting this finished due to lack of skills and time. Realistically, it'll take me months to do this, especially since I'll be playing UC and BP2 in priority to this. Hence, I'll not talk it up until it's solid and will keep it modest, 12 -15 sectors max (probably less).
Since the keyboard's out, my initial concepts are as follows:
1. It'll be eastern front. It interests me and I think west front's the subject of another mod project. West front's also been done to death in games and movies. I'm aware of the large Russian fan base and will keep it in good taste.
2. It'll be hard. You should finish feeling that you got a result agianst the odds.
3. It'll be based on my grandfather's experiences on the eastern front. In fact, I might put him in as a recruitable NPC. He died in 1945 of grenade wounds and my father was only 8 then, so a lot of the history is lost, but some stories were passed down and some of these would make great sector premises. Also, I might hire the Cross of Iron and Enemy at the Gate videos again and get some ideas from there. I was thinking that it would be highly linear, eg your team is an infantry squad or maybe a pioneer/combat engineer unit and after each sector it gets orders to report to a specified new sector. That way I could make the sectors representative of major east front battles, culminating in Stalingrad, which would be a multi sector city.
4. Re mercs, I'd like to convert the recruitable NPCs into german soldiers, like the way it's done in SOG69. I'd also like to rewrite the bios for the German AIM and Merc mercs and bar the others. I'd like the player to use the German mercs like Grunty and Thor plus the in game recruits. Maybe the non German, European mercs could be defectors, but I'm not sold on that. It would bother me to have a fine Russian soldier like Ivan doing that. It would be nice to have Ivan play a Mike like function.
5. re weapons, I want it to be realistic as possible. I'm thinking one sniper and LMG per squad and every one else gets a rifle or SMG without scopes. No scopes or maybe one sniper scope on one sniper rifle for the squad sniper, LMG=MG34 (which will be very powerful, perhaps huge number of bullets per burst to encourage area fire, but very heavy and only one in the game),laws=panzerfaust, no NVGs, breaklight=flare, reg grenade=potato masher, mini grenade=egg grenade, smoke ok but no gas, explosives=satchel charges, get rid of nearly everything else. Maybe you find the Sniper rifle and LMG, but otherwise finds limited to better rifles, ammo, panzerfausts, grenades, med & tool kits.
6. I'm not sure how to end it, but may leave the end game trigger in place. If it were possible, I'd perhaps make Commander Morris a Soviet officer in charge of a Katyusha battery keeping the last possible Stalingrad breakout route closed and make your last mission one of opening that route.
7. I downloaded yesterday all the editors I think I'll need and I'm figuring out how to use them. At this stage, I've no idea what I'm doing, but think this might be the methodology:
a.research and figure out what weapons I want.
b.write a story board for the sectors, ie the premise of each sector and where you find the NPC and main items
c.conceive and create recruitable NPCs.
d.conceive and create maps, at which point I'd see if it's realistic to alter uniforms. Sounds like it might be, but I'd be using pallets, not re animating.
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Sergeant
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| Re: Mod resources[message #60407]
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Mon, 10 March 2003 01:59
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| Roadkill |
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Messages:155
Registered:May 2001
Location: Lords of the Bytes |
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Quote:Originally posted by drop bear:
LMG=MG34 (which will be very powerful, perhaps huge number of bullets per burst to encourage area fire, but very heavy and only one in the game) Machine guns in JA are a bit of an oddity. Area/suppresive fire is unrealistic in the game. Enemies come up from ducking down the next turn which makes suppression imo useless. True suppressive fire would have them stay down during the next round i think... but that's the way the game works.
The other problem with an LMG is that is also has a one shot capability (no auto-only weapons are available in JA). And the max burst option is 6 rounds. For true suppresion and a true feeling of machine guns you would have to have both an auto-only weapon and give it a larger burst size, which both are impossible.
So most LMGs in the game are more like beefed up assault rifles (large range, large burst) than true machine guns, with usually a large AP requirement. In the original game, given the range of the assault rifles, sight range etc. i personally don't see the use for machine guns except for coolness' sake  . But that may be just me.
All in all not a problem, just something to be aware of. Making it a sort of unique weapon would make the MG quite usefull, especially if you manage to work out a good weapons balance.
Judging from your posts (one sniper, scope etc.) this is something you've thought about allready. so that should work out allright.
Good luck 
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Staff Sergeant
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| Re: Mod resources[message #60408]
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Mon, 10 March 2003 02:14
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| Roadkill |
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Messages:155
Registered:May 2001
Location: Lords of the Bytes |
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Quote:Originally posted by Uzi:
Quote:Originally posted by drop bear:
Maybe the non German, European mercs could be defectors, but I'm not sold on that. Not necessarily. They could be symphatizers for the German cause.
For example, many Finns fought alongside the Germans on the Eastern front against the Russians. And I'm not talking about the Winter War or the Continuation War, but Finnish volunteers who went to join German units.
Uzi There was also the Waffen SS, which had recruits from several European countries. This may provide a solution. I know that at least Belgians. Norwegians and Dutch people were in those units, but i seem to recall there were more nationalities. Spanish volunteers were also fighting along Germans on several fronts if i remember correctly.
Since Belgium has a French speaking section, you could for instance put the French/Canadian mercs in that category. Same for some Arulco natives, putting them in the Spanish or Italian category (who knows what accent these guys speak).
The russians can be put in the Cossak, Polish or Rumanian categories.
Ah well, i went to look for a link while writing this post:
http://www.wssob.com/wss.html
This has a long list of Waffen SS nationalities about 2/3 of the way down. So have fun fitting them all in somewhere 
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Staff Sergeant
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| Re: Mod resources[message #60410]
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Tue, 11 March 2003 16:53
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| markpoll |
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Messages:101
Registered:November 2002
Location: sydney |
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I appreciate the participation of non Germans in German units, but it's not the feel I want it to have. I want it to be a German "Band of Brothers", with the odd "ring in". It might be possible to do this with conversion of the RPCs and keeping the money tight. I'm thinking no shops, so you'd be limited to the initial team plus RPCs, with supplies to come from supply dumps you encounter periodically (necessitating temporary use of Russian stuff if you run short). The premise will probably be plane down behind enemy lines - get to nearest base - get sent on a series of missions, the last of which is to close down the Katyusha battery preventing air evac of the last wounded from Stalingrad.
I'll add another video to the list of influences - a German film of about 10 years ago called Stalingrad - very bleak.
I'm reading and learning at the moment, but the main thing I'd like to do which may be difficult (for me with little or no artistic ability) is adding to the maps some new items like Kubelwagons, motorbikes, military transport planes, personal items a German soldier might have carried, things you might find in a Soviet village (eg giant statues of Lenin).
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Sergeant
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| Re: Mod resources[message #60412]
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Wed, 12 March 2003 13:03
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| markpoll |
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Messages:101
Registered:November 2002
Location: sydney |
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@Yoda. I think Stalingrad and Das Boot (both German)are the best two WWII films made.
Your idea re mercs is excellent and I'll use it. I'll redo the bios for the AIM & Merc mercs to put them in a WWII era. The idea (provisionally Eastern Folly) will be that in W41 the Wehrmacht (I'm not using SS except maybe as Hicks) is in deep trouble and recruits mercs to help. Of course, different mercs will have different degrees of enthusiasm for this cause and their prices will reflect that. They will vary in cost depending on the plausibility of their appearance. Most will be prohibitively expensive. If I can figure out how to do it, there'll be six recruitable German soldiers, so there should be enough for two 6 man teams, comprising 8 Germans and a few plausible supporters.
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Sergeant
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