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Fixing Face Gear[message #262675]

Wed, 15 September 2010 13:25

silversurfer

Messages:2787
Registered:May 2009

Hi everybody!

At the moment I'm trying to fix the handling of face gear and ran into a few problems. It's actually two things that I want to fix.

1. Show face gear on the mercs portrait:

This is done when "SHOW_TACTICAL_FACE_GEAR" and/or "SHOW_TACTICAL_FACE_ICONS" is set in JA2_Options.ini. It didn't work with item mods like AIM because the game used hard coded item IDs so all the new items didn't show anything in the mercs face.

I already fixed that by introducing a few new tags for face gear:

0
0
0
0 This tag already existed.

When new face gear items are introduced they have to get one of those tags.

2. Goggle switching:

This one is a bit more difficult. In the past we had only a few vision enhancing items in the game and those were sun goggles and a few NV goggles. It was easy to switch between them because each of them was only good for a certain time of day. This has changed. With item mods we have more face gear and we even have gas masks with vision enhancement.

We will have to set up rules for what item type can work with another item type. Let me give some examples:

1. Your merc wears regular sun goggles and a gas mask. Night comes and you want to switch your face gear. You have another gas mask with night vision enhancement in your inventory. What will you replace? At the moment you will end up with two gas masks in your face. Very Happy

This is not good. But if the game would replace the old gas mask you will still have the sun goggles in your face which is bad as well. If you would want to place the sun goggles and the NV gas mask manually in your face the game wouldn't allow it because both have vision enhancement. (but that's another part of the game code)

2. You have sun goggles and a gas mask on and it is daytime. You also have a gas mask with day vision enhancement in your inventory which is better than the sun goggles. You hit Shift + n and no matter what the game will replace the result will be crap. Either have two gas masks on or sun goggles + a day vision gas mask which will both cumulate.

What shall I do? Your input is appreciated. Smile

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Lieutenant

Re: Fixing Face Gear[message #262676]

Wed, 15 September 2010 13:51

tais

Messages:656
Registered:February 2008
Location: NL

one thing to watch out for, if i'm correct there's an itegrated communications helmet in IoV(DBB) mod, this has the extended ear integrated
hmm now i'm saying that, there's no problem as long as the helmet does not get the extended ear tag..
but that will not show an extended ear icon when worn..

[Updated on: Wed, 15 September 2010 13:52] by Moderator

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First Sergeant

Re: Fixing Face Gear[message #262680]

Wed, 15 September 2010 14:01

silversurfer

Messages:2787
Registered:May 2009

Actually the game only look at the two face slots. So if you wear a helmet which provides +50 night vision and +200 hearing range the game doesn't care at all for the icons or goggle swap.

The tags are only for face gear. Well, at the moment that is the only place where they are used. Very Happy

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Lieutenant

Re: Fixing Face Gear[message #262685]

Wed, 15 September 2010 15:15

tais

Messages:656
Registered:February 2008
Location: NL

but it should be so that a helmet with integrated electronic ear should block you from also putting an electronic ear on ur head

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First Sergeant

Re: Fixing Face Gear[message #262700]

Wed, 15 September 2010 18:52

silversurfer

Messages:2787
Registered:May 2009

To prevent this it would have to be defined in the item incompatibilities. Extended ear is not part of the goggle swap.

Showing the helmet as an extended ear icon is a bit complicated. Of course we could check another slot (helmet) but if the helmet has an electronic ear integrated you could end up with 3 icons on the portrait. There is enough space occupied by two icons already. The second face slot should be invalidated if you wear a helmet with integrated face gear.
Nevertheless I won't support this because it is simply too much work for almost no benefit.

If he feels bored maybe Warmsteel will invent a NFAS (New Face Attachment System) where you have two default slots and a helmet might overwrite them. Wink

At the moment I'm more interested in opinions about item combinations of normal face gear. For example would you allow wearing NV goggles and a gas mask which both provide a night vision bonus?
Or the same thing for day vision? In my opinion this is overpowered but it would be illogical if you could wear sun goggles together with a normal gas mask but can't wear them together with a XM50 gas mask only because both provide a day vision bonus.

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Lieutenant

Re: Fixing Face Gear[message #262886]

Fri, 17 September 2010 20:23

Starwalker

Messages:758
Registered:October 2005
Location: Hannover, Germany

silversurfer

I already fixed that by introducing a few new tags for face gear:

0

0

0

0 This tag already existed.
When new face gear items are introduced they have to get one of those tags.

Are these tags located in items.xml? I'd need to know that for items-work.

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First Sergeant

Re: Fixing Face Gear[message #262936]

Sat, 18 September 2010 01:11

silversurfer

Messages:2787
Registered:May 2009

They will be located in Items.xml. I didn't submit the first fix to RoWa yet as I wanted to supply both fixes together. I will update the default 1.13 Items.xml with those tags when the time comes.

For item mods it will be the responsibility of the modder to apply those tags. Shouldn't be a problem since there are not that many face items.

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Lieutenant

Re: Fixing Face Gear[message #262953]

Sat, 18 September 2010 14:04

Starwalker

Messages:758
Registered:October 2005
Location: Hannover, Germany

silversurfer

They will be located in Items.xml. I didn't submit the first fix to RoWa yet as I wanted to supply both fixes together. I will update the default 1.13 Items.xml with those tags when the time comes.

For item mods it will be the responsibility of the modder to apply those tags. Shouldn't be a problem since there are not that many face items.

Yes, but I normally use the XML-Editor to add/change items, and it will probably delete those tags on the few standard items (or crash instead). So I need to know to handle these tags manually Wink

Or perhaps RoWa can add these tags to the XML-Editor as well...

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First Sergeant

Re: Fixing Face Gear[message #262967]

Sat, 18 September 2010 20:50

silversurfer

Messages:2787
Registered:May 2009

I've been talking with Smeagol about the XML Editor and its limited use at the moment. There are several things that the editor doesn't support and I would like to see them fixed so that modders again have a tool which they can rely on.

I won't submit my changes any time soon as I'm away from home most of the time and don't have the means to code on my laptop.

Btw. I didn't start the thread to tell people how it has to be done. It's just how I do it at the moment in my personal exe. If someone has a better idea of fixing the issues please tell me. Smile

Using new tags for the first issue just seems logical to me because we just can't rely on item bonuses. Relying on item bonuses in the past led to this mess in the first place. For example if an item provides bonuses for day and night vision - what is it? The game can't look at the item picture and say "Hey, this looks like some special sun glasses!". Wink

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Lieutenant

Re: Fixing Face Gear[message #262998]

Sun, 19 September 2010 12:51

Starwalker

Messages:758
Registered:October 2005
Location: Hannover, Germany

I was not criticizing your solution, I just wanted to explain why I need to know Smile

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First Sergeant

Re: Fixing Face Gear[message #263000]

Sun, 19 September 2010 13:06

silversurfer

Messages:2787
Registered:May 2009

I didn't take it as criticism. Very Happy

I can imagine how hard it is to mod without proper tools. I had to merge Smeagols AIM V10 manually last night...

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Lieutenant

Re: Fixing Face Gear[message #263011]

Sun, 19 September 2010 15:23

silversurfer

Messages:2787
Registered:May 2009

I decided now that I will not allow stacking of bonuses. It wasn't allowed in the past and won't be in the future. Razz

I changed the code so that it will first check if an item of the same type is already in the face. After that it will check if there is another item with vision range bonus in the face. If so the game will refuse to swap goggles and present a message that it failed for merc because it would have had to replace two items. Any complaints? Wink

Still have to work on the normal and uniform goggle swap...

[Updated on: Sun, 19 September 2010 15:24] by Moderator

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Lieutenant

Re: Fixing Face Gear[message #348028 is a reply to message #263011]

Wed, 04 January 2017 03:01

Hawkeye

Messages:2476
Registered:October 2005
Location: Australia

Sorry for the necromancy but I just came across this thread today by accident.

In regard to the face gear graphics (originally created by Jazz?)Is there anyway of them using the full 48x43 resolution? At the moment it seems to cut off the bottom row of pixels and I wondered why this was, or is it the nature of how the JA engine and masks work?

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Lieutenant

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