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Patching extra functionality into <gamemd.exe>
#16
Finally, I'm also here Smile
Here are at least 3 letters needed so my name's PaD and not pd.

To sum up what I'm going to do next:
1. Expand the exe file so that I got room for new code.
2. Try to find out how animations are loaded and stored in YR to
3. add new InfDeaths.

I had a look on the wishlist :blink:
Well it's long. And I don't believe that I'm able to do this all.
At least at the moment I don't, I'm still a beginner in hacking.

Just to comment a few wishes:

Ice1Set, Ice2Set, IceShoreSet and TrainBridgeSet - what's wrong and what are they supposed to do? Just make them being loaded again?

Spotlights - what's that?

What's the 74-unit-bug?

More countries... B)

InfDeahts stuff, yeah, I'll be working on this first.
The MakeInfantry should be easy I think (err... I hope).

Mouse-cursors... eeehh... this is hard...

Veins... ohhh how did I love them in Red Alert LOL
I'm really missing them.

More armor types,
shouldn't be that hard as the Armor stuff is a simple enumeration... but what would you need new ones for?

Laser fence... never of heard of it.

Custom colors for RadBeams etc.
Yay - I like this idea!

OpenToppedRange and stuff... hmm.. that's why snipers in buildings can't fire that far... Shift eyes

"Fixing of the "Tank Bunker only allows ground locomotor units" issue"... err... do you want to put drednaughts in it? LOL

Alternate arctic art for vehicles... THAT ROCKS WHO HAD THAT IDEA?!

Unused EVA voices... cool there's even more EVA?

Fix debris logic... I need an explanation... debris are parts of the vehicle that fly around when a unit is destroyed right? What's wrong with them?

New Superweapons... that's cool!

DrainWeapon with range... LOL *imaging a "Steal-Money-Tower"*

Permanent mind control... or just a weapon that changes the owner... I also thought of that once.

Huh, I NEED to get Tiberian Sun so I understand some things and see what was better with it... I never played it though... :unsure:

I've added some new wishes myself LOL
So I won't forget them...

@Marshall:
I still wasn't able to test your program but the screenshot says it all: Nice work!
Am I seeing it right that you can even restore the original file? *thumbs up*

But I have to give a note to you:
The next patch will enlarge the exe files by 2000 bytes (in hex) and move MUCH stuff... do you think that still works with you're program?
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#17
Welcome, PaD Wink

To answer those questions: Most of those are things that were in TS, but removed in RA2.
74-unit-bug: When you have >74 units on a vehicle tab, the game locks up.
Tank Bunker issue: lol, that'd be funny Big Grin Actually, Robot Tanks and other hover/amphibious vehicles can't go into bunkers either.
AlternateArcticArt - that already is implemented on infantry, but only in arctic theatre. It works by appending "A" to the art, like seal.shp becomes seala.shp. I'd like to see that expanded onto vehicles.
DrainWeapon - currently it only works on jumpjet units. Since you cannot spawn jumpjets, you can't use this logic to fake a "Spy" temporary power blackout.
Armor stuff - certain things can be worked around by giving them a unique Armor type. Since we only have 11 armor types, the things we can work-around are very limited.

Worth playing: 1 | 2 | 3
#18
Explaining the armor types a bit more:

Harvesters are "ImmuneToRadiation=yes"
Desolators' rad beam weapon is a "Radiation=yes" warhead

Desolators can still fire at Harvesters, they just don't do any damage (this is mainly a problem for the AI - who will use Desolators on Harvesters)

Harvesters' armor is "medium".
If Harvesters' armor was "new_armor_type_1" and every single warhead in the game's Verses= was updated so that it accounted for this new armor type (specifically, it's 'medium' value was copied to the end)
Then you could change the warhead of the rad beam so that it had 0% effect on 'new_armor_type_1' and the Desolator would never be allowed to attack Harvesters.

Okay, "so what?" I hear you say "medium is only used by Harvesters anyway so just change rad beam's value for medium to 0%".

Yes we could do that. However, I have added a unit in my mod that is Warpable=no (Immune to Temporal=yes warheads)
It's armor type is 'heavy'. There are quite a few units in the game and I don't want to make the Chrono Legionairre have no effect on, say, the Apocalypse Tank.
So in my mod at the moment, AI (and human players) can target and ineffectually shoot my unit with Chrono Legionairres.
A new armor type would solve this problem.
I would love to have about half a dozen (or more) new armor types to solve various similar problems.

However, the new country patches do not require any other changes (like ini files) - Yuri's Revenge will continue to work as normal, even online.
With new armor types, I believe they would have to be declared for every warhead, which would break compatibility with non-patch-using-mods [unless the fact that they would come last in the list of Verses= would allow them to have a default value].
Ever wondered what the hell is going on?
Believe me friend you're not the only one.
--Lysdexia

Check out Launch Base for RA2/YR - http://marshall.strategy-x.com
Also home to the Purple Alert mod, 1.002 UMP, and the YR Playlist Manager.
#19
@DCoder:
I knew that alternate arctic art is possible for infantry but for vehicles it would kick ass.
I'm going to get TS for 100%.
Is it required to have the expansion to understand everything?
I can get the original game for ?3 (~ $1,50) but the expansion is ?20 Shift eyes

@Marshall:
I understand... That's actually a reason for adding some Smile
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#20
Hi everyone.

Can i wish a limited storage for Ore Refinery and reenabling the silos... or make this stuff optional in rules.ini.
#21
Im serious.. if this gets done, i might consider a comeback in modding, because a lot of things (esspecially the 4th side and hacker (drainweapon) logic)

Reminds me.. I need to add wishes for 4th factions
[Image: fsbanner.gif]
Daedalus -- FreedomStudios Super Moderator
#22
PaD Wrote:Finally, I'm also here Smile
Here are at least 3 letters needed so my name's PaD and not pd.

To sum up what I'm going to do next:
1. Expand the exe file so that I got room for new code.
2. Try to find out how animations are loaded and stored in YR to
3. add new InfDeaths.

I had a look on the wishlist? :blink:
Well it's long. And I don't believe that I'm able to do this all.
At least at the moment I don't, I'm still a beginner in hacking.

Just to comment a few wishes:

Ice1Set, Ice2Set, IceShoreSet and TrainBridgeSet - what's wrong and what are they supposed to do? Just make them being loaded again?

Spotlights - what's that?

Veins... ohhh how did I love them in Red Alert? LOL
I'm really missing them.

The Ice1Set, Ice2Set and IceShore set are from the theatre.ini files (isosnomd.ini for ice), they reference the tile set from that same file that will acts as ice (see IceCrackingWeight and IceBreakingWeight in rules.ini). When a unit drives over an ice tile, depending on its weight, it will crack (and additional passes may break) or break instantly, in which case the unit sinks into water. It was used in TS to create crossings over water that only certain units can cross. TrainBridgeSet set the bridge tiles for a train bridge (basically just like the high wood bridges and road bridges with alternative artwork showing a train track), its needed to add train bridges like TS had without overwriting the existing graphics. Actually an additional 2 types of bridge on top of that would benefit the TX project for new urban and snow theatres.

To understand spotlights, you need to see TS in action...they are tied to triggers as well as just being eye candy and if you add the tag that created them in TS to a building in RA2, that building existing causes an internal error.

Veins are from TS as well BTW, they were a type of malignant tiberium that wrecked units that drove over them, but could be collected and used to activate the chemical missle superweapon.
#23
In light of the potential breakage of patched-but-unmodified YR, I think I like Blade's idea of making a true community 1.002 non-mod patch.
including all the graphical assets and ini updates of the UMP into expandmd02.mix, enabling other mods to use such things. Of course, some modders will then want to make 1.001 and 1.002 compatible versions of their mods. This could be handled of course by making the 1.002 community patch have it's own automated installer/uninstaller and modder's can say either 'You must have 1.001' or 'You must have 1.002 - get the 1.002 patch from (website)'

And then there's languages - there's one string gets modified by the UMP, so updating the end users csf is preferable to making multiple versions of the patch.

It could be tricky, and involve a lot of work.

What's everyones thoughts?
Ever wondered what the hell is going on?
Believe me friend you're not the only one.
--Lysdexia

Check out Launch Base for RA2/YR - http://marshall.strategy-x.com
Also home to the Purple Alert mod, 1.002 UMP, and the YR Playlist Manager.
#24
I like that idea.
It wouldn't only fix bugs but also re-enable many stuff (if I manage to do that).

Languages... we got at least two, English and German.
We just would have to find some members of other languages or just someone who send us their stringtables.
I speak French as well, I speak a bit of Russian, my friend speaks Spanish he could also do something...
That wouldn't be THAT great problem I think (except that you have to make the patcher Marshall Wink )

Besides, expand02md.mix sounds much better than 43 Big Grin

@ Blade:
I always wondered why there's an IceCrackingWeight and stuff...
That'd be great.

I thought the veinhole monster was that weird thing that was caused by Chronoshifts in RA...
For the other TS stuff... I'll get the game at the weekend then I'll see Smile
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#25
I've thought about the same thing, but actually, I'd suggest going one step further: Not only should we include the changes of the UMP, but also support for the Assault Map Packs, and, more importantly, the complete TX. Why, you ask? Because that'd mean that, if you say "My mod only works with YR 1.002", you could be 100% sure that you can include assault maps as well as terrain expanded maps.

In other words: We could be sure that whoever has got the latest version, also supports the additional map-types that fly around in the community. Plus, a wider distribution of the TX would allow map-makers to switch to the making of TX-maps. After all, the TX is made because we're not satisfied with WW's terrain, and the UMP is made because we're not satisfied with WW'S code. So why not put it all together? Include the XWIS-client stuff as well, and with only one patch a normal standard YR-user can be upgraded to a normal modder YR-user, with fixed code, support for additional maps, and switched to servers it's actually worth playing on.

Plus, the inclusion of the TX would not prevent the creators to still update and distribute it as usual, as the new mix would still override expand02md, and, if we've done it once, nobody prevents us from doing it again. YR 1.003, with the latest TX, more modding-options, and hardcode-fixing for several previously UMP-fixed issues...you get the idea.

If you didn't guess it by now, I'm a strong supporter of a "real" community patch. Big Grin I'm aware of the extra MBs that an inclusion of the TX would lead to, but let's be honest: The only reason why the 1.001 patch is so small, is because it doesn't do much. And, compared to patches for current FPSes or DoW-patches, it'd still be relatively small. In the UMP-thread, we were always complaining about how shitty the patch actually was. Let's not repeat Westwood's mistake. Let's go all the way.




P.S.: If we pull this off, I vote for the inclusion of an updated credits-file, acknowledging all the people who helped RA2 and YR modding become what it is today, and, of course, a massive Greetings-section LOL
P.P.S.: I can do the English-German translations as well, so pd can concentrate on coding Tongue
Forum Rules

(01.06.2011, 05:43:25)kenosis Wrote: Oh damn don't be disgraced again!

(25.06.2011, 20:42:59)Nighthawk Wrote: The proverbial bearded omni-bug may be dead, but the containment campaign is still being waged in the desert.
#26
My only concern is that if we include the assault map packs (which first requires Cannis' permission), it is known that some of the maps cause some problems (although the reason(s) are as yet unknown).
We would have to test each and every assault map and could only possibly include those that don't have problems.

BTW, TX size is about 6/7 MB, assault map packs can be compressed down to about 4.6 MB
Ever wondered what the hell is going on?
Believe me friend you're not the only one.
--Lysdexia

Check out Launch Base for RA2/YR - http://marshall.strategy-x.com
Also home to the Purple Alert mod, 1.002 UMP, and the YR Playlist Manager.
#27
The idea is simply great. I shall help in any way I can.

Worth playing: 1 | 2 | 3
#28
:o That'd be the biggest YR mod ever...
Great idea!

Damnit I MUST hurry up with that exe expanding *arg*
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#29
I have another suggestion. Fenring is going to make a completely improved AI, rescripted from the beginning. maybe we could include that as well when its finished. So RA2 really works like we want it to work
[Image: fsbanner.gif]
Daedalus -- FreedomStudios Super Moderator
#30
@pd: No. It'll be the most wanted patch ever. The biggest YR-mods ever will be coded after the patch is released. Big Grin

EDIT: About the A.I.-issue: Although I do support the idea of a better A.I., Courageous and DCoder work on better A.I.s as well, and I'll be working on mine, too (if I finally get my goddamn mainboard back :angry: ) - so even though I agree with you that we should put in a better A.I., I suggest to carefully pick it, and not just take Fenring's because it's all-new Wink
Forum Rules

(01.06.2011, 05:43:25)kenosis Wrote: Oh damn don't be disgraced again!

(25.06.2011, 20:42:59)Nighthawk Wrote: The proverbial bearded omni-bug may be dead, but the containment campaign is still being waged in the desert.




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