Trying to test a few new nations for openRa

[NethIafin]

Hello, I really want to try myself in openra modding, and one of the things I want to do, is to test my idea with nations for RA mod in OpenRA

How can I add custom nations and rules for them in LUA?

Thanks!

[Murto the Ray]

Hi Nethlafin, can you expand on your idea? Are you talking about new factions or something more complicated?

[NethIafin]

As smart person said: "Ideas are nothing, execution is everything", so I will post what I want to do (although just a part of it, because my brains can't express currently because I'm a bit sick... but somewhere in the middle of this I said "fuck it, I'm writing it all"). Maybe someone will implement this instead of me, for which I will be grateful (monetary compensation may be involved for sprites or general coding help). I can code in C# (just not games... not yet) and I have knowledge in LUA (thanks to TOME4)

So I want to try and standardize "racial" mechanics and give each race 2 unique units and/or abilities and 1 upgrade. Also I want to add 3 more races (1 to allies and 2 to soviet)

Basically I have following in my mind (easiest first):
Allied Side
1) England

• Upgrade - British Spy - vision +1, cost /2
• Unique - Snipers - they exist already in the game, so why not
• Unique - Phase Transporter - although in all my "mods" for RA95, this belonged to soviet (since nod has it, and nod was with soviet), I agree that it should be with England

2) France

• Upgrade - Gap Generator has huge rocket deflector (like radar jammer, but 80% of gap range). Rocket deflection is fun but also useful only against rocket soldiers and some other fringe cases. Don't see why not.
• Unique - Fake Buildings - they are useful... sometimes. Maybe allow them to place fake conyard anywhere on the field... can be abused, but it will make games with France more fun.
• Unique - Mobile Gap Gen - yep

3) Germany

• Upgrade - German Chronosphere - yep, it belongs to Germany, since Einstein and all
• Unique - Chrono Tank - also yep. Maybe give it back ability to shoot air... don't know why it was removed, Maybe because arty+chrono?
• Unique - Gepard Tank - *new unit, will need sprites* a rocket tank, that can deploy itself. When undeployed - can't attack, has same armor as light tank, health slightly higher. When deployed, armor is changed to heavy and receives a large bonus to health. Also in this mode it can fire either pairs of quick anti air missiles on artillery range distances, or it can use medium range rocket-type attack against tanks and infantry. This is tech center tech (t3)

4) New nation - US - Aerial combat focus

• Upgrade - Pilots - all air units except Chinook has 100% success rate in ejecting. Ejected unit - pilot (civilian) that inherits the rank of destroyed unit. This pilot (unlike rifleman) has pistol as a weapon, twice the health of rifleman and 1.5 speed of rifleman. You can "infiltrate" your building with air unit landed on it to transfer veterancy.
• Unique - helicarrier - sprite exists - This unit will be quite mediocre in openra, so it needs some love. First - it has 5 slots for air units and speed of a destroyer. Second - it rearms all 5 helicopters at the same time at twice the speed. This should make it a bit feasible. This is radar tech (t2)
• Unique - Drills - an ability. Since previous two items on the US list is pretty situational and mediocre, their last ability IMO should be strong to compensate. This ability gives in radius 3 (improved chrono, for example, has this size) to every unit a +2000xp bonus (maybe less maybe more). This has a 3min cooldown and is given when Radar Dome is built and powered. This ability synergies with pilots pretty well.

I also thought about Greece, but... that would be too much. maybe later

Soviet Side:
1) Russia

• Upgrade - Advanced Tesla Power Plants. Russians already has pretty powerful unique units (shock troopers are literally t3 infantry with cost of a rocket soldier). So their upgrade is quite weak - their advanced power plants has 300 power instead of 200, and also they have their health increased by 50%
• Unique - Shock Troops. Very powerful unit. Maybe give it +100 cost...
• Unique - Tesla Tank. Maybe increase Radar Jamming distance.

2) Ukraine

• Upgrade - Hydrogen Nuke. Since Ukraine for most part has the "explosive" vibe, for some reason, most upgrades won't fit its style or will be imbalanced. My thoughts were "increased V2 splash", "grenadier damage increase", but overall, Soviets missed "high tech" idea of Allied Germany. Hydrogen Nuke has +25% range (which is converted to about 50% increase in area) compared to standard Nuke. There is no downsides for this, except that your enemy will definitely focus it.
• Unique - Demo Truck. I hate this unit... RA should not have suicide units, and "Chernobyl" jokes are old (yes, I'm from Ukraine). But still, decision was made, so why the hell not. Maybe allow it to be armed - while it is not armed - it can't explode. This will give more incentive in building it, since 5 hinds or 2-3 yaks can't snipe it on being built and wreck whole base. As a tradeoff, those yaks/hinds/longbows are not destroyed on such snipe. So win-win imo
• Unique - Paraboms. I'm okay with this. I think most players if they Pick Ukraine do it because of this. It is quite strong in places w/o massive AA defence, that's why upgrade is so very underpowered (until it is active, ofc...)

3) New Nation - Belarus - Guerrilla Warfare

• Upgrade - Camo Flak Truck - If Flak Truck is not moving for 5 seconds, it becomes invisible. It breaks on attack, movement and being damaged. Also their Flak Trucks are undetectable on Radars and GPS satmaps (they are still detected by radar dome, they are just not showing on radar MAP). So basically they are good air deterrence and scouting.
• Unique - Partisani - A combination of grenadier and rifleman. This unit uses rifle against other infantry and tanks. They use grenades only against buildings. They have 5 second stealth when not moving, like Camo Flak Truck. Idea behind it is to place them somewhere where enemy can potentially expand. After that, they can grenade the built base, when enemy moved forwards. Cost should be 200 or more, depending on how destructive and preventable that "expansion harassment" can be. This requires War Factory.
• Unique - Ore Purifier - new building, maybe use technology center (the building with 3 domes) as sprite for it. Builds from "defense" list, costs 2000, can be only 1 on map. Ore has +50% return value. Does not affect gem and oil derrick returns.

4) New Nation - Turkey - Long Range Warfare

• Upgrade - Upgraded Heavy Rockets - V2 rockets has +1 range and +25% damage against heavy armor. This gives this nation initial gameplan idea.
• Unique - U3 Artillery Plane. New unit, maybe should use U2 (spy plane) sprite. It is armed with two V2 rockets with same (upgraded) damage and distance. Also these rockets can target air units and against air they are shot 1 at a time. The plane should not strafe - it launches rockets and immediately bails trying not to get in range of enemy aa that is behind its target.
• Unique - Badger Plane. New unit, uses TD badger plane (nod's tank production). It sits on airfield and always returns to sit on it. Tank can be drive inside landed badger plane. Badger then can "attack" location to drop that unit there. - This allows soviets to bring MCV to some inaccessible locations (like chronosphere for allies)

I'm sorry for any mistakes in my English - I'm sick and it's not my native language. Also I'm sorry for any misunderstandings of OpenRA strategy ideas, I'm a person of RA95 and Tiberium sun. For me - this balance is quite a new thing.

Thanks for your time! Please contact me if you want to help me implement and test this[/list]

[MustaphaTR]

Adding new units and sides in OpenRA is completely about .yaml files. It has nothing to do with lua.

First of all i think you should create a copy of ra mod folder, give it a different codename, edit mod.yaml and give it a different name and edit file paths.

uibits folder contains png files used by UI. One of the files there has flags, can't remember the name. You'll need to add US and Belarus flags there and edit Turkish flag outline. It is currently blue as in vanilla RA Turkey is an Allied Country.

You need to define those flags on chrome.yaml.

On world.yaml under rules folder actual info about factions are found. Do some copy paste and add the new ones.

Go below in world.yaml and there are a section about starting units. Add new sides for Faction: tags here too or game would crash for new sides with starting units. There are some other places you need to add new factions like ProvidesPrerequisite stuff under Structures.yaml.

Other yaml files under rules folder like infantry.yaml, vehicles.yaml and structures.yaml etc contains code about units, you can add new units there. You can check www.github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/wiki/Traits for what trait does what.

Edit: You talked about custom artwork too, they go to bits folder. Codes about artwork are found under .yaml files in sequences folder.

Edit 2: I would use Carryall logic for Badger unit (I have such unit in my modmaps, but i used RA Badger artwork). I don't think it is possible to put passengers on a plane landed on airfield right now.

Edit 3: I don't think any of ideas you said for USA is possible to implement right now, unfortunately. But pilot logics sounds easy to code as we already have DeliversCash/AcceptsDeliveredCash traits and just modifying those for experience should do it so that function can be added in next version.

[Murto the Ray]

-SNIP-

Pretty much what MustaphaTR said. Though you could implement pilots by creating inheriting definitions of aircraft and redefining their ejection rate to 100%. Aircraft carrier logic has been done before with OpenRA (see Nolt's nomad galaxy or look for an older post somewhere on this forum about it). No idea how feasible the ability is with current traits, will probably need a few custom ones.

[NethIafin]

So there is no way to make it into a map and it has to be a mod?

It will be much harder to find people to test it in that case...

Yeah, I don't expect to implement it in one gulp, I just wrote the outline.

[MustaphaTR]

So there is no way to make it into a map and it has to be a mod?

It will be much harder to find people to test it in that case...

Yeah, I don't expect to implement it in one gulp, I just wrote the outline.

No, there are stuff modmaps can't have, and new factions are one of them. Stuff under chrome.yaml and files under uibits folder can't be edited per map. Turkish, Spainish and Greek flags exist under uibits and defined under chrome.yaml for current ra mod (so world.yaml stuff left which can be edited per map) but i don't think even adding them is possible. But not sure about that part, never tested.

[camundahl]

I really like the vehicle transport plane idea!