TA:Upgraded, coming to Spring

Anti Hacker · Post by **Anti Hacker** » 21 Oct 2005, 19:51

Basically, I have for ages had my own personal compilation of units for TA fr ages and have bee modding TA and looking into spring for some time. Expect units from well known authors (credit given to them, 100% for sure!) such as MAD-TA, Total-Obliteration, Savant and many, many more!

There will be some big naval battles, this is certain. If anyone has ever heard of or seen the Admiral, Yamato, Sea Dragon, Black hydra or the super heavy carriers like the smitt (4 pads) they will be included for sure.

I am planning to beef out the land battles to, and expand the amount of level three units. There will be the Orcone, its famous core counter as well as Absolute chaos, a whole myriad of mechs/giant Kbots plus super tanks like the Tiger. There will be Level 2 mechs included like the Razorback and the Ketzer, as well as many more level 1 units to give a feeling of plodding mechs and rushing infantry (Small Kbots). Expect some boomsticks to light up your day such as the Emancipator, and Bert and Ernie (Advanced artillery cannons) will most likely make an appearance to.

Of course I will balance the game as best I can, and I will see to it that there are little or no conflicts or bugs.

I am thinking of using some form of "Spacecraft plant" to produce large carriers like percyval, it should make things interesting.

Before I really start work, I would ask for units people would like included/balance guidance.

I'm starting to have a prod at things, it would be great if people told me what they thought.

Kuroneko · Post by **Kuroneko** » 21 Oct 2005, 21:04

It sounds like you'll have so many units that balance would be pointless.

Caydr · Post by **Caydr** » 21 Oct 2005, 21:27

Don't be such a pessimist, Kuro.

When porting to spring, make sure all your ballistic weapons have adequate weaponvelocity to meet their actual range. About 400 is necessary to propel a plasma shot 1300 units distant.

I would also highly recommend completely rebuilding all your tech trees. It's taken me a week thus far and I'm not done yet, but the end result will be much easier editing later. DELETE your guis and download directories and use sidedata exclusively. I would recommend using Excel or some similar spreadsheet program to arrange your menus beforehand.

For easier testing in single-player, I recommend adding the enemy commander to your commander's build menu, doing ".cheat" and ".nocost". Then add the following line to your mod definition file:

Code: Select all

NumReplaces=1;
Replace0=xta_se_v065.sdz;

This will allow single-player testing of your mod without the game defaulting to XTA.

Hmm... Oh, to avoid a lot of headaches, release a beta as early as possible. Make sure it's clearly labelled "BETA" and tell people only to download it if they want to help, since it's probably not really playable. I'd recommend opening your own forum at an independent site if that's within your power, to aid in bug reporting. I'm sure the boys here don't want just two or three mods clogging up their entire board.

Above all else, remember more units doesn't equal better. Make sure that every unit has a distinct purpose and place in the game. I think everyone's sick of TAUIP/TAUCP-style "eleventy-million units that do the same bloody thing."

FLOZi · Post by **FLOZi** » 21 Oct 2005, 21:49

Caydr wrote:Don't be such a pessimist, Kuro.

When porting to spring, make sure all your ballistic weapons have adequate weaponvelocity to meet their actual range. About 400 is necessary to propel a plasma shot 1300 units distant.

My Python program automagically calculates the weapon velocity for ballistic weapons, too

Although in the version you have the gravity constant is the TA standard (112), not the Spring standard (140ish?)

Pxtl · Post by **Pxtl** » 21 Oct 2005, 21:52

Good point about the "units that all do the same thing" - I played TAUIP, and there were about a hundred "Even Biger Laser Tank" units.

I was planning that little "Bazillion factions" mod and thought I'd look around unit sites like Core Prime... and it pretty much changed my mind. That's like a desert. How did you even find enough gold in there to put together AA? 90% of the stuff on those sites is Arm Krogoths, Super Battleships, rapidfire plasmacannon tanks, and reskinned units. It seems the only void that was properly filled was L2 hovercraft.

There is almost _no_ L1 customs. Nobody wants to make units that actuallly fit - they all make giant monsters that are fun on Metal Heck.

Kuroneko · Post by **Kuroneko** » 21 Oct 2005, 21:55

Caydr wrote: For easier testing in single-player, I recommend adding the enemy commander to your commander's build menu, doing ".cheat" and ".nocost".

or do...

.cheat
.give corcom
.give armcom

viola.

Anti Hacker · Post by **Anti Hacker** » 21 Oct 2005, 22:10

I have played TA since it came out and have tampered with balance extensively. The thing is, with most good units the creator, r someone else, makes a counter to it to keep the balance. I understand some dont want races to get the biggest unit or just mass production rushing, but the more I think about it thats what makes TA so addictive. It has stratergy, but it also has titanic battles. Dont pretend the first time you built an Orcone it wasnt fun!

I will keep balance as best I can, but I havent touched spring before, so I will need some information to make this thing work (and it WILL work :D)

For example, in OTA you have .ufo files, but it seems that in spring you have FBI files instead (for the units). How did people go about converting the original UFOs into FBI files? And split things up into different folders (textures etc). I really need someone to help me grasp at the basics of modding spring. I do not pretend to be an expert, but I'm not an idiot I should be able to understand most modding terms. So how about it? Help a guy out?

I was also thinking about races such as the Argon, but I no longer have the Argon race version 3.0 and I can find nowhere to download it, all I can find is the 2.5 and then the 2.6 patch. Does anyone have it, or know of a download location? I am eager to experiment...

Caydr · Post by **Caydr** » 21 Oct 2005, 22:19

Err.... You surely know how to decompress a UFO file... right? How can you balance anything without modifying the units?

Anti Hacker · Post by **Anti Hacker** » 21 Oct 2005, 22:33

Caydr wrote:Err.... You surely know how to decompress a UFO file... right? How can you balance anything without modifying the units?

I used to but it has been a couple of years at least, I can't remember alot of what I did before. It's really annoying because I reember a few things but not others so I end up getting stuck.

DeathHawk · Post by **DeathHawk** » 22 Oct 2005, 00:23

We need to attract alot more people like you

.

Its people like yourselves that make this game great.

Warlord Zsinj · Post by **Warlord Zsinj** » 22 Oct 2005, 01:16

Really? I prefer people like Zaphod and Buggi who try to fix the game as it is now for everyone, rather than forking the path yet again, with another "unit balancing mod".

GrOuNd_ZeRo · Post by **GrOuNd_ZeRo** » 22 Oct 2005, 02:21

do you know how many L1 vehicles I made? alot, mainly arm but also quite a bit of Core units...

I also have some Kbots for L1 but not a whole lot...

The only thing I have to say that my old buildpics are terrible and definitly could use some upgrading...I suggest taking screenshots in spring...that's what I did for the Raven and my other updated TA units...

If you are interested, I remade an old unit of mine...

Anyone who wishes to use it, contact me :) it's the K64 Black Lion.

Maelstrom · Post by **Maelstrom** » 22 Oct 2005, 03:22

Well, the .ufo files are gone (which were just HPI zip files renamed), and instead .sd7 files are here. They are 7-zip files renamed.

7-zip site: http://www.7-zip.org/

The directory structure is exactley the same as it was in OTA (Original TA), just compressed a different way.

.GAF textures are no longer used, .BMP or .TGA pictures are now used.

Everything else is almost the same. The most notable differences is some new FBI unit tags, and the scripting works slightly different.

Go read the wiki for more information: http://taspring.clan-sy.com/wiki/Units

Anti Hacker · Post by **Anti Hacker** » 22 Oct 2005, 14:22

Maelstrom wrote:Well, the .ufo files are gone (which were just HPI zip files renamed), and instead .sd7 files are here. They are 7-zip files renamed.

7-zip site: http://www.7-zip.org/

The directory structure is exactley the same as it was in OTA (Original TA), just compressed a different way.

.GAF textures are no longer used, .BMP or .TGA pictures are now used.

Everything else is almost the same. The most notable differences is some new FBI unit tags, and the scripting works slightly different.

Go read the wiki for more information: http://taspring.clan-sy.com/wiki/Units

Thanks very much. I was thinking that to make this mod a bit different maybe I could try to make the sides more unique. For example, I could give Arm lots more low end level 2 units and a wider variety of level one units, whilst giving core some bigger units and some better defenses. My aim will probably to make a swarm vs elite kind of mod. This will be hard to balance, but if I get it right it should be pretty neat. I really do want to expand the navies, though. I liked the look of a big battleship on the field, I feel that the millenium and warlord are still to small. So if people like GZ give me some ideas of what to use, I will try my hardest to implement them in a fun mod for all to play.

Constructive criticism will be taken into account.

Note to GZ: I remember your units! Big fan

GrOuNd_ZeRo · Post by **GrOuNd_ZeRo** » 22 Oct 2005, 15:02

Hehe hey thanks :)

I'm on a unit (re)modeling frenzy lately so I can easilly just create new units, just give me the specs and i'll see what I can do...

Anti Hacker · Post by **Anti Hacker** » 22 Oct 2005, 15:38

GrOuNd_ZeRo wrote:Hehe hey thanks :)

I'm on a unit (re)modeling frenzy lately so I can easilly just create new units, just give me the specs and i'll see what I can do...

That would be so awesome.
What I really need are some good level one Kbots for arm.

Well, after a little tampering, I managed to implement the 'Melee Infantryman' one of my favourite (non-overpowered) level 1 Kbots for arm.

Here he is

For the TA:U mod (TA:Upgraded) I referred heavily to the XTA mod, because thats the closest thing I can find to what I am trying to close on. I hope the XTA guys dont mind, I am not attempting to copy your mod, and the two mods will be completely different once I figure out how to edit the tech tree ^_^

One problem with the melee infantryman, is he is supposed to have a lightsaber sort of weapon. Obiously his blue line stick is now outdated, can anyone give me a better weapon effect? Thanks

- Anti (still new at this >_<)

Caydr · Post by **Caydr** » 22 Oct 2005, 16:09

AA used to have the Melee too... I wouldn't bother with it, if I were you. Neither TA nor Spring handles close-range combat very well.

Torrasque · Post by **Torrasque** » 22 Oct 2005, 16:15

I don't know if, or how it work, but there is a CMeleeWeapon class in Spring.

AF · Post by AF » 22 Oct 2005, 17:30

tut tut, using the emptyAI.dll.

The CMeelee weapon class can be seen in action in the old spring I think.

Anti Hacker · Post by **Anti Hacker** » 22 Oct 2005, 17:36

Alantai Firestar wrote:tut tut, using the emptyAI.dll.

The CMeelee weapon class can be seen in action in the old spring I think.

hehe I was testing

OK, now I am having texture problems.

Immidiately in my mod file (TAU.sdz) I have got the path:

unittextures/tatex/(in here are all my converted textures, converted from gaf to bmp)

Yet in game, the converted textures do not show up! I took the original gaf files that I converted to bmp from the folders "Anim" and "Textures". These folders were in the original UFO.

Can anyone help me?

Spring RTS Engine

TA:Upgraded, coming to Spring

TA:Upgraded, coming to Spring

hmmm...