Adding, removing and reordering countries

[pd]

The first feature to break the golden rule of not touching the original game... but in my opinion, it is worth it.

The pre-RP2 "New countries" system was horrible. The reasons might be because it was the first RP feature ever, also my way of concepting at that time was still horrid.

Instead of binding countries to use certain flag images, loadscreens, etc, I plan to go a much more object oriented way.
All these things will be determinable in the country's ini section.

This would be the example for America:

Code:

[Americans]
;Original settings
UIName=Name:Americans
Name=America
Suffix=Allied
Prefix=G
Color=Gold
Multiplay=yes
Side=GDI
SmartAI=yes

;RP2 settings
Flag=usai.pcx
LSImage=ustates.shp
LSPalette=mplsu.pal
LSTextColor=AlliedLoad ;from the [Colors] section, where you can easily add custom entries
SpecialName=Name:Para ;or use the NOSTRING feature here? :)
LoadBrief=LoadBrief:USA
StatusBarText=STT:PlayerSideAmerica ;mouse over text of the countries selection box
TauntPrefix=tauam

This way, each country has the settings in its respective ini section and the hardcoding is gone.
This also means that the order in the list can easily be changed without having to do tons of file renamings.

The tag called "NewPlayableCountries" would be replaced by simply "PlayableCountries" to determine the total amount of playable countries (necessary for the random country choice).
This change I propose because it is more logical... if you remove countries (e.g. only want GDI and Nod) and have to put NewPlayableCountries=-7, that's just stupid.

Since the hardcoding of these setting would be removed for good, these tags become obligatory.
That means, RP2 will have to deliver them in a new rulesmd.ini, and modders who decide to use RP2 would have to add them to theirs.

For that matter, I would of course create a patch ini file and maybe even an ini patcher that would quickly add all the new stuff for you!

That's about it for now!
Leave comments, ideas and worries.

[Bobingabout]

you're giving me a lot to do ;P
but i did ask you to do this a long time ago, so, i can't blame anyone but myself.

[pd]

If that hadn't been my first hack ever I might have actually have gone this way

[gordon-creAtive]

I guess breaking the rules.md-rules in hard-coded stuff could be tolerated...

[Bobingabout]

yeah, i'm just concerned at how much of my mod i'll need to change to be RP2 compatible.
its not the changes in code i mind, its if i have to drop any of the RPCE and RP10 features

I guess breaking the rules.md-rules in hard-coded stuff could be tolerated...

I'm guessing the original sides hardcoding will still be there as defults, its the new countries hardcoding he wrote into it that he's changing (like c10flag.pcx, will be useful for when i re-order countries)


question, can you fix the taunt names too while you're at it? (its tau##CC instead of tauCC##), also, the ability to specify a name would be good, would allow me to move yuricountry to a different number, but still use the original tauyu## taunts. after all, taunts is part of countries ;P
(thinking a line Tag like "Taunts=tauam" for your america example there would be the right way to go)

shit, been back 10 mins and i'm already asking requests...

[pd]

I'm guessing the original sides hardcoding will still be there as defults

Since the hardcoding of these setting would be removed for good, these tags become obligatory.

That's the thing. The logic is being revamped. No more hardcoding whatsoever, including defaults.
That's why RP2 will deliver a new ini.

It saves me a lot of annoying work, yes, doing it this way is much less work than setting defaults and hardcoding all this.

The taunt file names won't require "fixing" because they can be set to whatever you want.
To the prefix you choose, internally, "%02d.wav" is going to be appended.

Creating the new tags for your new countries is a 5 minute copypasta job, and I don't think that half an hour of work to adapt from RP/NP to RP2 is too much.
In the end, it might even be worth it.

[TheMan]

pd is back And me to
--
This idea here is very good, i would like to se it in RP2. And good idea here is to also be able to customize a little bit more.
Like
LoadScreenColor=Red Green Blue EDIT: Did not se that you already use it
Sicdec=sidec05.mix
Does it sounds good to you?

[Xeno]

Hmm interesting stuff Also the good thing is that i've just re-started up my mod (from scratch) so hopefully it'll be one of the first people to test and use RP2, once it's released. So keep up the good work, i'll be keeping a close eye

[Blade]

I have nothing in particular against this kind of change as long as the patch installation is transparent to a normal YR user (in that AFAIK everything just works the same).

PS if you are going to include a new rulesmd.ini file, you may as well include all the UMP fixes as well.

[Renegade]

While I in theory support the inclusion of the UMP fixes, that's a contradiction: You can't have everything work the same way as before, just with new code, and include fixes at the same time.

[Bobingabout]

I'm thinking the UMP should be RP2 compatible, i supose it depends on what kind of changes PD makes, but so far adding all those country tags to UMP shouldn't be too hard...

although, i do recomend against removing defaults, i would prefer the tags to overite than be mandatory.

[IcySon55]

although, i do recomend against removing defaults, i would prefer the tags to overite than be mandatory.

That's not advancing the engine, it's simply adding to it. As PD said, it's also much harder to do. In the long run, replacing the old hardcodes with this new dynamic system is way better. Go for it PD, I'll be amazingly good for Taktics too.

[Blade]

While I in theory support the inclusion of the UMP fixes, that's a contradiction: You can't have everything work the same way as before, just with new code, and include fixes at the same time.

You are quite right, I meant to mean the experience is more akin to applying one of the official patches from WW in that the missions and such still work.

[Marshall]

It's easy enough for me to create an RP2-happy version of the UMP if future changes to RP2 don't require further changes and re-releases of the UMP. However, why bother? The UMP won't make use of RP2 features, so the only reason to launch UMP with RP2 would be for any additional RP2 fixes and changes to the RMG. Although, actually, I can see why people would want that.

The biggest issue I see with integrating UMP with RP2 is that the artwork and map changes would increase the size of the RP2 installer.
However, that wouldn't be so bad because mods built on RP2 wouldn't have to include the UMP assets themselves. And with Launch Base Mod Creator, pd can create patchers for the patcher.

So in conclusion maybe it would be a good idea to incorporate the UMP into RP2. Ultimately this is pd's choice.

[Bobingabout]

It's easy enough for me to create an RP2-happy version of the UMP if future changes to RP2 don't require further changes and re-releases of the UMP.

this is exactly what i was saying to PD last night, if people have to re-release their mod for every new RP, then they might decide not to even use rockpatch2

how about some sort of new ini file rockpatch loads first, containing all these "Defaults" that you've un-hardcoded? that way, modders don't need to add them if they don't change them