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modmaking tutorials and faq's. collecting questions[message #135972]

Sat, 14 April 2007 16:05

Messages:1834
Registered:September 2004
Location: CH

i've been a big mouth again and claimed to do some tutorial stuff once RR is out.

use this thread to suggest topics, adress issues that you've had during modmaking or simply ask any questions.

maybe we can use the questions to create a short FAQ list as older FAQ's have mostly dissapeared.

there's a huge ja2 modmaking world outside the 1.13 wikipedia site.

let's just collect some input here. After a certain time, we'll also see if there's an actual demand for such a thread or not.

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Sergeant Major

Re: modmaking tutorials and faq's. collecting questions[message #135976]

Sat, 14 April 2007 16:47

Messages:28
Registered:September 2005
Location: Duesseldorf, Germany

JSDs

- how do they work, how to edit them, what is possible with JSDs, what isn't, how do they translate to map objects and STIs

NPCs

- how do you get them into the game, into a map, how do you script them, what's possible with NPC scripting, how do NPCs relate to civilian groups, how do these relate and interact to the player's actions

animations

- anything really

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Private 1st Class

Re: modmaking tutorials and faq's. collecting questions[message #135980]

Sat, 14 April 2007 17:39

Messages:1834
Registered:September 2004
Location: CH

these are god topic suggestions realist. If we try to squeeze everything into a system/ order, then...

mapmaking --> tilesets --> jsd's and sti's

quests --> npc --> scripting
mapping --> npc placements --> shedules
prof.dat/proedit --> npc into the game

of course your second question encompasses all of these 3 aspects

all input very appreciated Wink

Wink

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Sergeant Major

Re: modmaking tutorials and faq's. collecting questions[message #136067]

Sun, 15 April 2007 15:11

Messages:1156
Registered:October 2005
Location: USA

This will be good. So once I can ever get started on some mod work I will have a guide to follow instead of asking questions, that have been asked 100 times already. I do hope the 4 of you put your heads together and get us a good guide. 4 being yourself, Khor, John, and Will Gates. I thought John was also working on a guide.

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Sergeant Major

Re: modmaking tutorials and faq's. collecting questions[message #136072]

Sun, 15 April 2007 16:01

Messages:1834
Registered:September 2004
Location: CH

yeah, you're right, the tilesets question might be covered by john's tilesets guide.

maybe he'll look into this thread so he can specifilcy answer realist's first 4-5 questions, those on the jsd's.

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Sergeant Major

Re: modmaking tutorials and faq's. collecting questions[message #136136]

Mon, 16 April 2007 14:57

Will Gates is currently offline

Messages:1012
Registered:September 2006
Location: Far far away.

I'm up for it. My contribution is small though as I still use the UB-Editor and really the input only relates to bespoke or complex tilesets etc. However in the process I've managed to get the UB-E to tell me all sorts of schedule & faction info for every living thing on any given map by mistake & which I've taken advantage of mercilessly.

:evilkitty:

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Sergeant Major

Re: modmaking tutorials and faq's. collecting questions[message #137248]

Tue, 01 May 2007 01:52

Messages:5
Registered:April 2007
Location: Lisbon, Portugal

well, after, not acually contributing much, (and i've only registered here pretty recently, became participant instead of a mere follower). there are some questions, that would need to be answered for a mod, and some people already did it. (change mine places incomes, have full control over sectors, wich are available, wich are not, starting position etc.)

I've never even looked into C / C++. (even tho i'm studying computer science in university, programming included, weird)

Anyways, i'd help anyone who'd go for a big mod here, doing gathering, organizing resources, doing the .GAPs for synchs, and those things, tilesets and such. just not into hard coding. oh well, keep at it Smile

Smile

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Private

Re: modmaking tutorials and faq's. collecting questions[message #165816]

Tue, 27 November 2007 15:59

Messages:19
Registered:November 2007
Location: Bulgaria

The link goes to page that lead to mods actually, but RR mod is not there Sad

Sad

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Private

Re: modmaking tutorials and faq's. collecting questions[message #165824]

Tue, 27 November 2007 17:01

Messages:1834
Registered:September 2004
Location: CH

are you referring to the link in my signature?

after you have clicked on the link in my signature, follow the steps outlined under the link.

ja2 RR is on the second page of listed mods, thus the use to click on the small "weiter" line to get to the second page of mods where you can find ja2 renegade republic.

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Sergeant Major

Re: modmaking tutorials and faq's. collecting questions[message #165825]

Tue, 27 November 2007 17:02

Messages:1834
Registered:September 2004
Location: CH

the website design doesn't allow to link directly to the section where ja2 RR is located, otherwise i would have posted a direct link.

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Sergeant Major

Re: modmaking tutorials and faq's. collecting questions[message #165843]

Tue, 27 November 2007 20:30

Messages:19
Registered:November 2007
Location: Bulgaria

Sorry, I have to read more carefully, 10x! Embarrassed

Embarrassed

Right now I am downloading and after while will start new adventure... :cheers:

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Private

Re: modmaking tutorials and faq's. collecting questions[message #165888]

Wed, 28 November 2007 13:26

Tyco is currently offline

Messages:188
Registered:September 2001
Location: Be'er Sheva, Israel

Can you offer tutorials on how to make normal guns have explosive ammo, and how to change firing animation so, for example, a normal gun would fire like a rocket launcher?

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Staff Sergeant

Re: modmaking tutorials and faq's. collecting questions[message #165901]

Wed, 28 November 2007 15:47

Will Gates is currently offline

Messages:1012
Registered:September 2006
Location: Far far away.

What program you intending to use for this? In JA2IE both the ammo type and associated animation can be set weapon by weapon in editor mode. You save that to your exe. You then might need to tweak it (for new name of ammo type for instance) in good old WeEdit.

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Sergeant Major

Re: modmaking tutorials and faq's. collecting questions[message #165952]

Thu, 29 November 2007 11:34

Tyco is currently offline

Messages:188
Registered:September 2001
Location: Be'er Sheva, Israel

Don't think I'm familiar with JA2IE, and by WeEdit you mean W4st's old weapon editor, than it won't work with 1.13 (unless there has been an update I never heard of. Which is likely).

Actually, I was hoping the tutorial could "suggest" to me what program to use. Smile

Smile

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Staff Sergeant

Re: modmaking tutorials and faq's. collecting questions[message #165961]

Thu, 29 November 2007 15:32

Messages:1834
Registered:September 2004
Location: CH

i think for 1.13, these things are described and documented on their PBwiki page, no?

as for pre-1.13, i have to admit that i used to ask the same question but didn't get an answer (especially true explosive ammo i think must be hacked into ja2 pre-1.13)

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Sergeant Major

Re: modmaking tutorials and faq's. collecting questions[message #173674]

Wed, 30 January 2008 01:36

Hieronymos is currently offline

Messages:26
Registered:December 2007

The Scorpion,
would it be possible to take some of the extremely finely crafted sectors you've made for RR, and import them back into 1.13 Arulco?

It occurred to me that this might be a stopgap solution for people eager to explore (aspects of) your work until RR is debugged.

I understand that RR-specific characters, items, etc. would have to be amended for any sector importations to work in 'vanilla' 1.13.

Hieronymos

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Private 1st Class

Re: modmaking tutorials and faq's. collecting questions[message #173914]

Thu, 31 January 2008 11:33

Messages:1834
Registered:September 2004
Location: CH

there's no easy way to do this.

you'd have to port the tilesets, ja2set.dat and the map files. (plus radarmaps for cosmetics)

custom map files might be what 1.13 isn't really coping with (freezes) so in fact i doubt that importing them back to 1.13 arulco helps anything in regards of stability.

also the maps would break vanilla quests, you'd have to reset a ton of npc's in the maps etc make sure they can reach the gridno's they have to go to in vanilla etc.

you better import them to vanilla (non-1.13) ja2 (there they might work, though you had to erase a ton of items first plus the npc stuff outlined above)
vanilla ja2 would however not support the 70 tilesets so you'd have to convert other tilesets...

RR was bulit under the assumption that 1.13 serves as a platform. Now it suffers from bad backwards compatibility.

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Sergeant Major

Re: modmaking tutorials and faq's. collecting questions[message #180639]

Wed, 09 April 2008 21:48

SpaceViking is currently offline

Messages:751
Registered:January 2004
Location: Rochester, Minnesota, USA

Say, are you still looking to fix up the dealers so more than Tony and Devin can be realistically used as arms dealers? I looked at that a while back but set it aside.

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First Sergeant

Re: modmaking tutorials and faq's. collecting questions[message #180715]

Thu, 10 April 2008 17:23

Messages:1834
Registered:September 2004
Location: CH

yeah, that would still be very interesting

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Sergeant Major

Re: modmaking tutorials and faq's. collecting questions[message #180725]

Thu, 10 April 2008 18:18

SpaceViking is currently offline

Messages:751
Registered:January 2004
Location: Rochester, Minnesota, USA

OK, I'll take a look at that then (once I finish doing my taxes).

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First Sergeant

Re: modmaking tutorials and faq's. collecting questions[message #180737]

Thu, 10 April 2008 19:39

Messages:1834
Registered:September 2004
Location: CH

great!
the externalisation of traders is kinda underdeveloped so far

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Sergeant Major

Re: modmaking tutorials and faq's. collecting questions[message #180750]

Thu, 10 April 2008 21:11

SpaceViking is currently offline

Messages:751
Registered:January 2004
Location: Rochester, Minnesota, USA

Yeah. I have to be careful with whatever I do to make sure the new stuff acts like the old but I'd like to give some new options, too.

IIRC, there are two kinds of shopkeepers right now Tony/Devin and everyone else. Tony/Devin have their inventory choices limited by the game progress (albeit slightly differently from each other). The other merchants just have a flat 50-50 chance of having anything they carry. The behavior of picking out what they have in their inventories as limited by the game progress is hard coded into the program.

What I was thinking of doing is adding some new XML to the existing inventory files for the dealers. Initially at least it would let you duplicate and tweak the current settings.

Current file is like this (using Tony's as an example):

It's just a list of items that they have in their inventories. I would change Tony's to something like this which would duplicate the current code:


 
   1 <\MinCoolness>
   1 <\AddCoolness>
   0 
   10 <\CoolnessProgressDivider>
   10 <\MaxCoolness>
 
 
  
 . . .  (the rest would be the same for now) . . .

and Devin's to this:


 
   3 <\MinCoolness>
   0 <\AddCoolness>
   0 
   10 <\CoolnessProgressDivider>
   10 <\MaxCoolness>
 
 
  
 . . .  (the rest would be the same for now) . . .

and other dealers to this:


 
   50 <\RandomChance>
 
 
  
 . . .  (the rest would be the same for now) . . .

Then that would be used in place of the current formula to determine if something meets the right coolness rating like this:

The dealer would stock the item like normal if:
  The item coolness was less than or equal to either the MinCoolness or 
    (the current progress / CoolnessProgressDivider)
        + AddCoolness
        + (Bobby Ray Setting if AddBobbyRaySetting is 1)

The "Bobby Ray's Inventory" setting should probably be renamed to be "Dealers' Inventory" instead (could still use the name name internally, just change the text on the setup screen).

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First Sergeant

Re: modmaking tutorials and faq's. collecting questions[message #180778]

Fri, 11 April 2008 00:12

Messages:1834
Registered:September 2004
Location: CH

i don't quite get it. Bobby ray setting? is this the global setting from the options screen?

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Sergeant Major

Re: modmaking tutorials and faq's. collecting questions[message #180789]

Fri, 11 April 2008 01:18

SpaceViking is currently offline

Messages:751
Registered:January 2004
Location: Rochester, Minnesota, USA

the scorpion

i don't quite get it. Bobby ray setting? is this the global setting from the options screen?

Yes. It is either 0 (the default), 1, 4 or 10 I believe. It adds to the maximum coolness that Bobby Ray currently carries for inventory.

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First Sergeant

Re: modmaking tutorials and faq's. collecting questions[message #180878]

Fri, 11 April 2008 14:20

Messages:1834
Registered:September 2004
Location: CH

and you think it should be used for traders?

i mean it is activated from a simple yes/no option while the point of it would rather be to define individual traders differently.

some traders shoudl stack according to coolness, others might be better off with that 50% roll.

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Sergeant Major

Re: modmaking tutorials and faq's. collecting questions[message #180893]

Fri, 11 April 2008 15:42

SpaceViking is currently offline

Messages:751
Registered:January 2004
Location: Rochester, Minnesota, USA

I think it should be optional for traders and thus this setting (with the default to keep things as is). If someone is using the (silly IMO) "Bobby Ray has everything at the start" setting then why not have the other arms dealers carry it too? It's weird that BR is carrying machine guns and mortars while Tony only has .38s and knives.

If you want individual dealers to carry more stuff then you set the AddCoolness appropriately. As it is in-game Tony carries stuff one coolness level higher than the game progress would indicate (as I show above with AddCoolness set to 1). Devin the explosives guy always has a minimum of coolness 3 stuff in the code (and thus the MinCoolness of 3 above).

And this retains the ability to have the 50%, actually any%, chance of having something in stock as an option.

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First Sergeant

Re: modmaking tutorials and faq's. collecting questions[message #181199]

Sun, 13 April 2008 14:18

Messages:1834
Registered:September 2004
Location: CH

as long as every trader can be set individually and independantly regardless of the options.ini or options screen, why not?

but the decision as to how a trader works under different settings must be made within each trader's own xml, otherwise it becomes extremey restrictive and balancing is impossible.

one trader may only slowly stock more/better, say, laser beam rilfes of ultimate doom than the other trader stocks new hammers and nails or pens.

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Sergeant Major

Re: modmaking tutorials and faq's. collecting questions[message #188895]

Tue, 17 June 2008 00:39

Messages:1834
Registered:September 2004
Location: CH

i think i have adressed some of the points that lacked publicly available information in this section of the board

http://www.ja-galaxy-forum.com/board/ubbthreads.php?ubb=postlist&Board=43&page=1

the jsd's that were asked are not adressed, but i think there was a thread by CNC_gun that brough across some basic information, the rest can be learned by using a jsd editor.

ah yeah, there was that explosive ammo question for 1.13 that wasn't answered, basicly it works by adding the (corresponding) index of explosives.xml into the "high explosive" tag in ammotypes.xml

there should be some of these amm types in RR for additional reference/ blueprint.

In absence of any other topic suggestions, i guess we can call it a day with this thread too, can we.

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Sergeant Major

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