[MOD] [RA] TORA -- the Empire of Japan comes to RA

TORA! TORA! TORA!

Information and discussion for custom maps and mods.
bellator
Posts: 90
Joined: Wed Sep 28, 2011 12:22 am

Post by bellator »

I made another ship model, if you're interested.

I will be making a turret for it.
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ad.shp
Another ship
(22.66 KiB) Downloaded 529 times

wusche1
Posts: 87
Joined: Tue Jan 10, 2012 6:44 pm

Post by wusche1 »

Great stuff! Keep em coming :)
Attachments
Just a screenshot with some random turrets.
Just a screenshot with some random turrets.
ship snapshot.jpg (80.71 KiB) Viewed 11502 times

bellator
Posts: 90
Joined: Wed Sep 28, 2011 12:22 am

Post by bellator »

alright, heres your jet

its a little big so maybe decrease it by 10 %

there might be some odd rogue pixel, but you can fix that.
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jpjet.shp
(6.26 KiB) Downloaded 465 times

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Petrenko
Posts: 156
Joined: Fri Apr 08, 2011 5:36 pm

Post by Petrenko »

heyho.

what are you using for making these units bellator?

Looks like i need to get 3dsmax. But i don't like their trial-offers.
Hail to the soviets!

bellator
Posts: 90
Joined: Wed Sep 28, 2011 12:22 am

Post by bellator »

Petrenko wrote: heyho.

what are you using for making these units bellator?
Mostly google sketchup, actually.

wusche1
Posts: 87
Joined: Tue Jan 10, 2012 6:44 pm

Post by wusche1 »

Thanks for the new huge tank chassis. I tested it, and it looks better then the old one. However, it comes with some color problems (the yellow-ish green shadow). Any chance You could correct that? Note: corrected by Bellator. His new tank is attached to this post.

Attached is a WIP screenshot of the current state of the japanese vehicle repertoire -- bottom units were drunk and parket in the wrong way.. =) Some camoes need to be redone, unit turrets adjusted, most unit values balanced (on paper). However, this is planned to be done after the initial release.

Also, I am still lacking graphics and animations for a japanese tech center and a tier 2 tech center (integrated tech plant - on the screenshot, the placeholder BIO3 graphic is used).

Last, a screenshot of the new Yamato Prototype Tank, the japanese super-unit that can only be present once per japanese faction and that represents one of the japanese super-powers in a game. The japanese Fuji Tank that parks right below the Yamato is the least cost effective tank system in the game when it comes to speed and health. As such, a 'big brother' and some of the japanese supporting units will be badly needed.
Attachments
wip41 empire faction screenshot
wip41 empire faction screenshot
nippon_vehicles_planes_wip.jpg (144.64 KiB) Viewed 11415 times
Japanese MLRS in action
Japanese MLRS in action
empire_MLRS.jpg (60.54 KiB) Viewed 11397 times
Tank park (wip43)
Tank park (wip43)
tankcomparison_wip43.jpg (36.24 KiB) Viewed 11388 times

wusche1
Posts: 87
Joined: Tue Jan 10, 2012 6:44 pm

Post by wusche1 »

Some more rather small updates -- apart from the aircraft carrier that can be found in the modeling thread, the japanese strike bomber has been finished on the drawboard:
Attachments
Japanse Strike Bomber
Japanse Strike Bomber
strikebomber.jpg (47.25 KiB) Viewed 11343 times
plane_4color.zip
Japanese Strike Bomber Google Sketch File
(71.32 KiB) Downloaded 444 times

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zypres1
Posts: 276
Joined: Mon Oct 24, 2011 8:22 pm

updates?

Post by zypres1 »

Hi, I want this faction... Any updates?

Matt
Posts: 1144
Joined: Tue May 01, 2012 12:21 pm
Location: Germany

Post by Matt »

If those pixelart is own work and/or released under a permissive open content license we can integrate this. However it looks like some WIP screenshots with nothing published: I currently only see pictures, some random .shp files, no mod.zip or uploads at http://content.open-ra.org/ The Generals cameo obviously can not be used, but the icons derived from WW2 photos might be old and in the public domain depending from wherever they are grabbed from.

WolveNZ
Posts: 13
Joined: Wed May 15, 2013 5:36 am
Location: Auckland

Post by WolveNZ »

Just saying to the Disscussion on the first page, skimmed though the rest

The Soviets in the 70's had Tanks with Laser mounted on them, but due to the lack of Range due to the weight of the system, how much bigger it was than a normal 125mm Turret setup, and the fact that is was pointless using it on anything but armour the concept was dropped


And, if anything thinking of Japan Though the Cold war Period and the War time Period I would go with faster ground Infantry Units trading off with Health possibly, and maybe more forms of Heavy units in smaller packages compared to what you seam to have with that large Tank thing (as Japan, being a Island country it just would be a bit silly having something big and heavy)

wusche1
Posts: 87
Joined: Tue Jan 10, 2012 6:44 pm

Post by wusche1 »

Cmd. Matt wrote: If those pixelart is own work and/or released under a permissive open content license we can integrate this. However it looks like some WIP screenshots with nothing published: I currently only see pictures, some random .shp files, no mod.zip or uploads at http://content.open-ra.org/ The Generals cameo obviously can not be used, but the icons derived from WW2 photos might be old and in the public domain depending from wherever they are grabbed from.

Hello Matt - not sure if I talked to you before. Are you Mailaender in irc/#openra?

Regarding your question:

The mod was in a playable and somewhat playtested state, with all units on the picture integrated into the YAML config files. To the best of my knowledge, we (that is me, bellator, BaronofStuff) did not steal any unit graphics - the exception is the material that was taken from Overlord. I still should have all the stuff stored away.

However, the yaml files are definatly out of date by now, as the last update was around 2/2012. Also, the unit balancing was only in its bare infancy, with me crunching numbers and playing around with the units to get a certain faction feeling. In addition to that, I am not sure wheather the ship graphics are aligned in a correct angle, and all the buildings just use placeholder graphics.

What I definatly liked was the japanese MLRS and mobile AA system, the crappy wheeled troop transport, the feeble japanese tank, the beautiful Shinden fighter plane, and the prospect of getting heavy bombers and a carrier in-game. I envisioned the japanese to have a focus on Air power. Also, I found the idea to use CnC sized units really nice. Especially Chitzkoi would look truly the monster dog he is.

Some additional code base logic needs to be implemented:

+ Bombing with the japanese bomber planes (heavy bombers)
+ Torpedo drop logic for torpedo planes / helicopters
+ sonar buoy logic for sub detection
+ logic to drop sonar buoys
+ carrier logic and graphics (starting, refuel, repair of planes)
+ japanese special weapon - no idea what it should be
? Recharge building for the mobile Laser platforms.
+ add Cnc laser weapon logic for Dr. Einstein

May I ask for the motivation to bring this old thread back to life now? One of the main reasons I stopped working on that was my lack of C# knowledge, the lack of time to learn it), the missing graphics and my suspicion that my work would not be integrated into RA anyway. Has anything changed in the upper echolons of #openra/dev?

While I still think that a third faction might do some good for OpenRA, I could envision that a broadening of the unit spectrum of the two existing faction could also be a good idea.

I did not release any mod files because I did not consider the mod to be in a state that I envisioned it to be - especially since the behaviour of the faction was not yet fleshed out. I have uploaded the files if you want to have a look at them.

One would need a handful of fairly motivated people to bring this back to life. While I do not think that starting from scratch is a good idea, re-thinking the japanese faction concept certainly would do not harm. I had to learn the hard way that it is a lot of work to design, implement, debug and integrate a faction - time that might be better spent on another mod.

Thanks for all the guys in #openra, Bellator and BaronOfStuff , and all the other guys that made the unit and building graphics for helping out in this old endevour!

WolveNZ wrote: Just saying to the Disscussion on the first page, skimmed though the rest

The Soviets in the 70's had Tanks with Laser mounted on them, but due to the lack of Range due to the weight of the system, how much bigger it was than a normal 125mm Turret setup, and the fact that is was pointless using it on anything but armour the concept was dropped
In fact, the image of the laser tank you see on the control panel is taken from a photograph of the russian laser tank prototype..
WolveNZ wrote: And, if anything thinking of Japan Though the Cold war Period and the War time Period I would go with faster ground Infantry Units trading off with Health possibly, and maybe more forms of Heavy units in smaller packages compared to what you seam to have with that large Tank thing (as Japan, being a Island country it just would be a bit silly having something big and heavy)
Not sure what your sources are. Japan was actively developing medium, heavy and super heavy tanks (O-I or Type 5 Chi-Ri) in the late war years and was trying to get german jet technology integrated into those marvelous Shinden fighter designs. Japans problems were not with technology, but with recource access, relative industrial capacity, manpower, submarine doctrine and military training doctrine (e.g. fighter pilots). Of course they had some deficit in technology as well, and it was significant e.g. lack of state of the art night fighting tactics with the use of radar.

But all in all, all this does not count when it comes to balancing an RTS game, does it? We could give Japan samurai mine divers as long as it fits nicely into the game.

Matt
Posts: 1144
Joined: Tue May 01, 2012 12:21 pm
Location: Germany

Post by Matt »

Yes, I am Mailaender at FreeNode and GitHub. It is just me who is treasure hunting community forums for useful pixelart. Often people e-Mail me their WIP folder so I can not promise everything will land in the final product as it also goes through QA via pull requests, but I saw JOo crafting some nice asian houses and Combine adding some more WW2 sprites so maybe we can get a complete set out of that. Let's see what is missing after throwing away all placeholders. Rebasing the YAML rules and writing some code in C# is no problem.

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JOo
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Joined: Wed Jan 25, 2012 8:12 pm

Post by JOo »

my suggestions :

japanese Type 97 Motorcycle (1935) ... "as scout unit"

amphibious tank ... "as some sort of medium/ligh tank ... but more flexible"

Infantry Mortar ... "against infantery / light vehicles " ...

Bomber balloons (aka Fireballoon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_balloon) ... "aircraft against buildings ... good vs fast expansion"

look here for more :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ja ... ry_weapons

Image

Image

Image

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_balloon
Image

WolveNZ
Posts: 13
Joined: Wed May 15, 2013 5:36 am
Location: Auckland

Post by WolveNZ »

A Light mortar would be nice, having a cheap, not very powerfull infantry based artie might be usefull for something...

wusche1
Posts: 87
Joined: Tue Jan 10, 2012 6:44 pm

Post by wusche1 »

I also had a thought about ballons, and I very much like the idea of infantry based mortar unit in-game (deployable).

I also like the motocycles - these japanese military vehicle design often had strong influence from the other major axis power.

But again, if one wants to take up this project I suggest to make a project plan first, as mentioned at the page six or seven of this post.
Attachments
Carrier and plane. Just for the sake of showing around - a pity to let them rot.
Carrier and plane. Just for the sake of showing around - a pity to let them rot.
planeandcarrier.jpg (28 KiB) Viewed 10500 times

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