[Mod] Taco's RA [1.04]

[BaronOfStuff]

I'd say get everything working for a current version first, and then start adding all that new stuff.

You know, stuff such as...



...and yes, I'm figuring out ways of getting most of these (and some others) out as buildable units ASAP. Quite a few of them are workable now, but they're for v2.0! Nothing before then!

[tacozmeister]

I'd say get everything working for a current version first, and then start adding all that new stuff.
You know, stuff such as...
...and yes, I'm figuring out ways of getting most of these (and some others) out as buildable units ASAP. Quite a few of them are workable now, but they're for v2.0! Nothing before then!

Sweet! Didn't know you were going that far. I'm not going to be adding ALL of them (yet), because quite frankly we have a heavy tank and medium tanks already. But a few of them will see it into 2.0, and the rest likely in 3.0 as the African People's Army. I think that's what the faction will legit be called.

Anyways, here's the timeline then:

1.4:
- Still need that SpecOps Icon
- I'd like the GDI's MLRS to be used as the US's kind of BM30 smerch.
- Shotgun sound?

Could you get those for me?

After 1.4, we'll do 2.0 with
- Dreadnought
- Eisenfaust (maybe?)
- Mortar soldiers ("Rocket soldier")
- New Landkreuzer's icon. Seriously, "Kreuzer" sounds a lot scarier than "Cruiser"
- Demoman
- Konigskreuzer -- I have to set up my keyboard to be able to do Umlauts again. Neulich, habe ich nicht so viel (oder genug) Deutsch gesprochen.
- Allied Heavy Tank
- Inferno Cannon(maybe?)

Seriously, we could just add in a German faction which is an allied derivitive with those kickass tanks and with stormtroopers, but without so many other units (less air, maybe.) Maybe without light tanks. I dunno. We'll make it work.

And of the things you uploaded, the following can make it into 3.0 as part of the APA
- Light tank
- Cluster Cannon
- SCUD Launcher
- Missile Truck
- Rail Driver (not exactly sure what this is, but it sounds pretty jank so it fits!)
- Field Gun
- Medium Tank

[BaronOfStuff]

1.4:
- Still need that SpecOps Icon
- I'd like the GDI's MLRS to be used as the US's kind of BM30 smerch.
- Shotgun sound?

Could you get those for me?

Take your pick/pic (hurr durr I made a funny)
And the rest (and more) is in here:

http://www.speedyshare.com/j3RyM/Elephants.zip

You'll notice a few infantry in there; these are 'midget' SHP's that I had somehow missed last time around. No more freakishly tall Medics, Shock Troopers and Spies.

At some point I'll re-work the current Stormtrooper SHP to look different... probably in some subtle way involving armbands again (red armband on darker remapped colours so that they still stand out somewhat against regular E1 units).

I had some sort of description/faction file somewhere for those new things, but one thing that was certain was the Rail Driver being an Allied top-tier unit, using the Tiberian Dawn Obelisk Of Light's weapon as an attack (or at using least that visual effect -- for the life of me though I can't remember if it's available in the RA mod or if the DLL in the CnC mod has to be referenced).

Also, if there's going to be an Allied Heavy Tank, then it should use the Tiberian Dawn MTNK SHP; I've seen a SHP somewhere that uses the same turret as MTNK, but without the 'white box' on top (instead having two antennae) -- that can be the Adv. Medium Tank, on the basis that it simply uses a bigger gun.

Yeah, there's going to be some drastic rebalancing and shuffling going on here soon.

But then we have the Eisenfaust... arrgh, shit! Too many units! Going to need more structures and negative prerequisites (potentially the best feature ever) in order to make all this variety worthwhile!

Also, I was considering a Mortar Soldier, but the very idea of having to manually construct hundreds of new frames made my knees buckle... and I wasn't even standing. It's a 'Rocket Soldier' now for Africa... he doesn't have homing capabilities or any real accuracy compared to his enemy counterparts, but does have a fractionally better range and is half-effective against infantry (if he can hit any!).

[tacozmeister]

Quoteception

Last post

You are like Jesus. My savior. Seriously. You deserve to own ALL rights to this mod. I feel bad for repackaging your awesome work. I only have one real question: how do I make the shotgun guy do his sound? Changing the "Report: " to "shotgunfire" (all caps or not) does nothing but crash. After I get that down, I can package and release 1.4

Ohhh. Awesome. I guess then I won't have to make a technical for the APA, I can just use the nod buggie thing. The bike might be useful, but I don't think I'll use it. Missile Truck could just be the SSM Launcher. And the rocket truck, I kind of want a utility van with rockets strapped on the sides. But I dunno about the uh, Rail Driver. Seems like it's too high-tech for this game. But if we ever add that high-tech faction, maybe 4.0, we can do it.

What's the bio and npwr? They're buildings, but which buildings?

[BaronOfStuff]

I only have one real question: how do I make the shotgun guy do his sound? Changing the "Report: " to "shotgunfire" (all caps or not) does nothing but crash.

I'll look into this. Try shortening the filename or something in the meantime, it might be some sort of unspecified character limit for filenames.

I kind of want a utility van with rockets strapped on the sides.

I have an APC edit that could fill the gap for this as a placeholder. Let's be honest, they're just glorified armoured vans with tracks anyway.

But I dunno about the uh, Rail Driver. Seems like it's too high-tech for this game. But if we ever add that high-tech faction, maybe 4.0, we can do it.

When we have Chronospheres, weaponised Tesla Coils and Iron Curtains, a railgun as a weapon for an expensive top-tier unit is far from "too high-tech"!

Speaking of this faction from '20 minutes into the future', it's advisable to start planning their possible tech tree and firepower ASAP. The worst thing to do would be leaving it without consideration and then suddenly try to shoehorn a bunch of new stuff in while keeping some sort of balance between them and what's already been fine-tuned.

What's the bio and npwr? They're buildings, but which buildings?

Bio Laboratory and Advanced Power Plant from Tiberian Dawn. Renamed the cameo for the latter though, "Nuclear Power". A possible prerequisite for Missile Silos (that provides a fuck-tonne of power and explodes like a 100-megaton bastard when destroyed... well maybe not that horrendously unbalanced last bit).

[tacozmeister]

Alright! Cool! So I'll add nuclear power and nukes back into version 1.04. For now, though, I think tomorrow I'll release 1.04 (with or without the fixed shotgun sounds.) Then we can release patch 1.04.1 with the fixed shotgun sounds, if we can't figure it out by tomorrow.

Then for version 2.0, we'll need the next stable release of the game so we can do "factions". I think multiple faction support (non-coded) is included because of Dune 2000. I'll have to ask Cmd. Matt about that. In the mean time, I'll just write the YAML to add for units. After that update, I'll rework the code and flesh it out then migrate the YAML from a secluded file into the game one piece at a time and troubleshoot and we'll have version 2.0.

For 2.0, we'll have the factions "Allies", "Germany", "APA", and "Soviet". Germany will be based off of "Allies" with a few differences.

Also will release a TacoRA 1.05 as a transition for the new update and stuff. Maybe even get it so there's multiple build queues.

Bleh. This is gonna be hard to do, mostly because the game is currently hardcoded for two factions, as far as I'm aware. And I'm not about to go into the source.

[BaronOfStuff]

Bleh. This is gonna be hard to do, mostly because the game is currently hardcoded for two factions, as far as I'm aware. And I'm not about to go into the source.

Not at all. You can freely add as many factions as you want -- I easily added some 10+ countries in an old mod that I was experimenting with over a year ago.

One thing you will want to do though is mess around with new faction flags and build menu backgrounds for var-... oh forget it, I've already done this too. Months ago, in fact.

Speaking of factions...

There's our 4th faction, because it makes sense.

[tacozmeister]

Bleh. This is gonna be hard to do, mostly because the game is currently hardcoded for two factions, as far as I'm aware. And I'm not about to go into the source.

Not at all. You can freely add as many factions as you want -- I easily added some 10+ countries in an old mod that I was experimenting with over a year ago.

One thing you will want to do though is mess around with new faction flags and build menu backgrounds for var-... oh forget it, I've already done this too. Months ago, in fact.

Speaking of factions...

There's our 4th faction, because it makes sense.

Hmm.. Operations group echo. Sounds like a great idea.

You are seriously a genius. Which file can I add the APA faction in? Because I can't find the file because I'm stupid .__. we'd also need an icon, I'm thinking something like this. Maybe with a bigger Africa, to be similar to the others.

[Matt]

Have a look at https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/blob/b ... .yaml#L257 and https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/blob/b ... hrome.yaml Just add your third country there.

[tacozmeister]

Have a look at https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/blob/b ... .yaml#L257 and https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/blob/b ... hrome.yaml Just add your third country there.

You so smart. Thank you It's kinda hard to see, as it's only 4 lines in a file I rarely look at! This'll be fun

[tacozmeister]

Version 1.04 is out now :D

I also got a barebones APA working, what kind of sequences does the SSML have? I tried a few different things and it's workin' kinda silly =P

[BaronOfStuff]

Version 1.04 is out now

I also got a barebones APA working, what kind of sequences does the SSML have? I tried a few different things and it's workin' kinda silly =P

The SSML is a shit to get working properly - that is, to launch one rocket at a time and display it properly on the turret.

I got pissed off and just had it fire both missiles at once. THAT worked.

Code: Select all

ssml:
	idle:
		Start: 0
		Facings: 32
	turret:
		Start: 32
		Facings: 32
	aim:
		Start: 32
		Facings: 32
	turret-empty:
		Start: 96
		Facings: 32

Now, all this talk of rocket systems gives me ideas. We can include the SSML too, and explain away any sort of 'me too' effect by changing the Missile Truck, simply limiting its attacks to being 'flat'. That is, unlike the SSML or V2 or whatever else, they don't go flying up and arc through the air, and as such are incapable of passing over walls.

The advantange is that they just instead smash the shit out of the walls and allow other units to fire on whatever's behind it (or just pour through the gap).

The SSML, to balance the fact it fires two rockets that CAN breeze above the clouds, can be laughably inaccurate when compared to its one-shot counterpart.

Last (for this post), the Op. Group Echo idea was to replace the idea of a sole German faction. Four factions is workable, five would just be ridiculous to balance!

[tacozmeister]

Now, all this talk of rocket systems gives me ideas. We can include the SSML too, and explain away any sort of 'me too' effect by changing the Missile Truck, simply limiting its attacks to being 'flat'. That is, unlike the SSML or V2 or whatever else, they don't go flying up and arc through the air, and as such are incapable of passing over walls.

The advantange is that they just instead smash the shit out of the walls and allow other units to fire on whatever's behind it (or just pour through the gap).

The SSML, to balance the fact it fires two rockets that CAN breeze above the clouds, can be laughably inaccurate when compared to its one-shot counterpart.

Last (for this post), the Op. Group Echo idea was to replace the idea of a sole German faction. Four factions is workable, five would just be ridiculous to balance!

Hmm.. That's actually a very good idea. And the SSM launcher can probably just cost more, and the Rocket launcher can have slightly less range. :D Sounds great!

Ohhh. Yeah. We can just merge OGE with the German units. That way we can get more elite units, but they're more expensive and require a lot more technology. Sounds awesome. So then OGE would have fewer units like rangers, medium tanks, and riflemen, and more units like special forces, Eisenfausts, Rail Drivers, and Königslandkreuzers. Maybe even a stealth bomber and fighter!

But here goes my list of shp's for APA, to make them at least functional. I added the nod buggie, that can act as a technical. Infantry is barebones, but functional. But here we go:
- Biplane
- Unique Light Tank -- maybe one of the T-(#) tanks from Bellator's mod. Preferably before '72. A 62, 64, 52, or 34 if he has those
- Unique Medium Tank -- A latter version of the light tank but more bunged-up looking
- Some sort of suicide vehicle
- Boats
- Tent SHP, or an explanation how to make a new barracks building look like the default tent barracks
- Base defenses (MG nest, camo SAM site, some sort of anti-tank)
- That Rocket truck (artillery version)
- That utility van / APC with rockets strapped on it.
- Mortar Truck or ghetto form of artillery
- Some sort of AA

[BaronOfStuff]

But here goes my list of shp's for APA, to make them at least functional. I added the nod buggie, that can act as a technical. Infantry is barebones, but functional. But here we go:
- Biplane
- Unique Light Tank -- maybe one of the T-(#) tanks from Bellator's mod. Preferably before '72. A 62, 64, 52, or 34 if he has those
- Unique Medium Tank -- A latter version of the light tank but more bunged-up looking
- Some sort of suicide vehicle
- Boats
- Tent SHP, or an explanation how to make a new barracks building look like the default tent barracks
- Base defenses (MG nest, camo SAM site, some sort of anti-tank)
- That Rocket truck (artillery version)
- That utility van / APC with rockets strapped on it.
- Mortar Truck or ghetto form of artillery
- Some sort of AA

I can scavenge a surprising amount of this into workable conditions. The difficulty is going to be with structures and that Biplane. Although we could probably get away with excluding them from even having an Air Force (with the exception of Chinooks if necessary). It worked for the GLA in Generals, so it can work here.

As for the suicide vehicle, the Bike can be used for this as a placeholder until I manage to dig something up. I'd much rather keep that as a scouting vehicle (even if for OGE in place of Light Tanks, Rangers, etc.) The Demo Truck is making a comeback in the next stable release IIRC, which makes things easier.

As for the Barracks, Allies and APA may both end up using the standard tent (looks like OGE are getting GDI's PYLE.SHP at this rate), unless (and this does make some level of sense if you look at the campaign map in Tiberian Dawn) the APA get a modified Hand of Nod. I can effortlessly rename the cameo to 'Barracks', so there's no problem there.

[tacozmeister]

As for the Barracks, Allies and APA may both end up using the standard tent (looks like OGE are getting GDI's PYLE.SHP at this rate), unless (and this does make some level of sense if you look at the campaign map in Tiberian Dawn) the APA get a modified Hand of Nod. I can effortlessly rename the cameo to 'Barracks', so there's no problem there.

I think we should just rip out the tent from the original (Open)RA or something similar. I would like the Hand of Nod idea, but i think anything Nod-related should stay in Tiberian Dawn. Not to mention, according to an article I read, the Hand of Nods were created by using "arms of destroyed soviet statues" for the hand and arm.

But yeah, I guess we can not give them an airforce. Do you have any civilian shp's that we can use for "Hostages" or some sort of stealthy, expendable scout unit? Because, to be honest, I use aircraft mostly in the beginning of RA games as scout vehicles. Without an air force we'd lose that. I'd also like their unique unit to be like a spy in that it can disguise as enemy units, but has a powerful anti-infantry machine gun and C4 like the others.