jonwil
Let me go over various items on the wishlist and state things about them
Tank Bunker bugs:
We managed to get it to display the "enter" cursor for the tank bunker but could not get a hover unit to actually enter the bunker (it would drive up to it and not enter).
However, one fix we can implement (but havent yet done) is to make it impossible for units with Powered=Yes (i.e. units like the robot tank) to go into a tank bunker.
Train Turn bugs, the train turning radius is handled by the Locomotor.
IsTrain=Yes and MovementRestrictedTo=Railroad have nothing to do with it.
Spyplane, I am looking into that to see about making it usable for firing weapons and not just for taking photos
I am looking at the prerequisite code, if I can find where the actual prerequisite checks take place I might be able to add the requested prerequisite stuff.
I am also looking for hard-coded items (specifically animations, units, infantry, aircraft, buildings and stuff, things that are in the lists in rulesmd.ini) to make them unhardcoded.
Being able to declare a new name for an existing tag would be far more trouble than its worth.
For destroyable clifs, I tried an experiment by giving the allied Grizzly Battle Tank weapon an ambient value but they were still unable to attack destroyable cliffs.
For the parachute, I do want to make it possible to give each new custom paradrop a custom parachute animation. There is also a reference to the BombParachute= tag, I plan to see if that tag leads to the possibility of working Parabombs. This would also include custom ChuteSound= settings.
Psychic Reveal, it is possible to make a new version that can have custom reveal sound, custom radius and custom EVA sound, I plan to look into this too
Adding new theaters is definatly possible and I will look into it
Custom re-definable nukes, I will look into those if PD doesnt get to them first.
Making a per-unit CloakSound= tag (with the one in the general section being used only if the per-unit one is not found) shouldnt be too hard if we can find the place where the cloak sound gets played.
It would be good to create a superweapon type that does absolutly nothing but is still valid. This would allow the effect with Explodes=Yes, DeathWeapon= and so on desribed here:
http://www.cannis.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=4097
to be used without having any particular side effects. Perhaps add several so you can have multiple custom SWs?
A custom genetic mutator with non-hardcoded-stuff is also very possible, if PD doesnt get to it first, I might look into this.
Changing the limit of players in skirmish/multiplayer is not possible without a LOT of work
There is no limit for filenames in mix files per se (look at filenames like ls800germany.shp) but some data storage areas may be of limited size.
Changing to true-color instead of the palettes is not possible without a LOT of work.
Being able to play RA2 in a windowed mode would be VERY nice, if I can find out how to do it I will give it a go adding a -win option or something to make it windowed.
Questions to do with this:
1.Are there things here we dont want to fix at all
2.PD, are there things here you are going to do (i.e. stuff I shouldnt do)
3.Destroyable Cliffs, how do you make them "work" (i.e. work so they blow up when shot with the Ambiant= weapon). Can you put Ambient= on something like the Grizzly Battle Tank and make it able to destroy cliffs?
4.Does anyone know where the code that actually checks prerequisites is? Or how it works?
5.For parachutes, I need to know where the code that actually takes the list of infantry to parachute and creates the infantry is, anyone know where that is?
6.Is a windowed mode usefull? Is having a -win switch for the exe file (like the -debug switch added by PD) the best way to do it? PD, if I implement this with a -win switch, can I add to the end of Mypcd_NewEXECommands?
7.Are there any particular hardcoded items where being able to change them would be usefull?
8.Do we want to stop units with Powered=Yes from being able to enter a tank bunker (regardless of locomotor)?
9.PD, if you know where any of the relavent code for these things (e.g. the code where the cloak sound gets played) is located, do let me know
10.For the new theaters, how many should I support?
The plan is to have something like this
[Theaters]
0=Indoors
1=Jungle
2=Mars
etc
Then each theater would have a section like
[Indoors]
Name=indoors
UIName=Name:Indoors
IniName=INDOORS ;also used for one of the mix files
MixName1=ISOINDO
MixName2=ISOIND
Extention=IND
FrameworkExtention=MMI
SpecialLetter=I
If you created a theater with the same Name= (i.e. the name used on maps and stuff) as a standard theater, it would still use the settings for the standard theater (since it comes first in the list)
There may be other items (for example, there are some unknown floating point and integer values in the theater information, some of which might need to be changed for new theaters)
The main thing to find is a way so that if a map requests a theater that doesnt exist, things wont go south, anyone got any ideas?
Anyway, PD, if you can answer these things, I will then have a go at whatever from this list I can have a go at
Tank Bunker bugs:
We managed to get it to display the "enter" cursor for the tank bunker but could not get a hover unit to actually enter the bunker (it would drive up to it and not enter).
However, one fix we can implement (but havent yet done) is to make it impossible for units with Powered=Yes (i.e. units like the robot tank) to go into a tank bunker.
Train Turn bugs, the train turning radius is handled by the Locomotor.
IsTrain=Yes and MovementRestrictedTo=Railroad have nothing to do with it.
Spyplane, I am looking into that to see about making it usable for firing weapons and not just for taking photos
I am looking at the prerequisite code, if I can find where the actual prerequisite checks take place I might be able to add the requested prerequisite stuff.
I am also looking for hard-coded items (specifically animations, units, infantry, aircraft, buildings and stuff, things that are in the lists in rulesmd.ini) to make them unhardcoded.
Being able to declare a new name for an existing tag would be far more trouble than its worth.
For destroyable clifs, I tried an experiment by giving the allied Grizzly Battle Tank weapon an ambient value but they were still unable to attack destroyable cliffs.
For the parachute, I do want to make it possible to give each new custom paradrop a custom parachute animation. There is also a reference to the BombParachute= tag, I plan to see if that tag leads to the possibility of working Parabombs. This would also include custom ChuteSound= settings.
Psychic Reveal, it is possible to make a new version that can have custom reveal sound, custom radius and custom EVA sound, I plan to look into this too
Adding new theaters is definatly possible and I will look into it
Custom re-definable nukes, I will look into those if PD doesnt get to them first.
Making a per-unit CloakSound= tag (with the one in the general section being used only if the per-unit one is not found) shouldnt be too hard if we can find the place where the cloak sound gets played.
It would be good to create a superweapon type that does absolutly nothing but is still valid. This would allow the effect with Explodes=Yes, DeathWeapon= and so on desribed here:
http://www.cannis.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=4097
to be used without having any particular side effects. Perhaps add several so you can have multiple custom SWs?
A custom genetic mutator with non-hardcoded-stuff is also very possible, if PD doesnt get to it first, I might look into this.
Changing the limit of players in skirmish/multiplayer is not possible without a LOT of work
There is no limit for filenames in mix files per se (look at filenames like ls800germany.shp) but some data storage areas may be of limited size.
Changing to true-color instead of the palettes is not possible without a LOT of work.
Being able to play RA2 in a windowed mode would be VERY nice, if I can find out how to do it I will give it a go adding a -win option or something to make it windowed.
Questions to do with this:
1.Are there things here we dont want to fix at all
2.PD, are there things here you are going to do (i.e. stuff I shouldnt do)
3.Destroyable Cliffs, how do you make them "work" (i.e. work so they blow up when shot with the Ambiant= weapon). Can you put Ambient= on something like the Grizzly Battle Tank and make it able to destroy cliffs?
4.Does anyone know where the code that actually checks prerequisites is? Or how it works?
5.For parachutes, I need to know where the code that actually takes the list of infantry to parachute and creates the infantry is, anyone know where that is?
6.Is a windowed mode usefull? Is having a -win switch for the exe file (like the -debug switch added by PD) the best way to do it? PD, if I implement this with a -win switch, can I add to the end of Mypcd_NewEXECommands?
7.Are there any particular hardcoded items where being able to change them would be usefull?
8.Do we want to stop units with Powered=Yes from being able to enter a tank bunker (regardless of locomotor)?
9.PD, if you know where any of the relavent code for these things (e.g. the code where the cloak sound gets played) is located, do let me know
10.For the new theaters, how many should I support?
The plan is to have something like this
[Theaters]
0=Indoors
1=Jungle
2=Mars
etc
Then each theater would have a section like
[Indoors]
Name=indoors
UIName=Name:Indoors
IniName=INDOORS ;also used for one of the mix files
MixName1=ISOINDO
MixName2=ISOIND
Extention=IND
FrameworkExtention=MMI
SpecialLetter=I
If you created a theater with the same Name= (i.e. the name used on maps and stuff) as a standard theater, it would still use the settings for the standard theater (since it comes first in the list)
There may be other items (for example, there are some unknown floating point and integer values in the theater information, some of which might need to be changed for new theaters)
The main thing to find is a way so that if a map requests a theater that doesnt exist, things wont go south, anyone got any ideas?
Anyway, PD, if you can answer these things, I will then have a go at whatever from this list I can have a go at