gosh.

this is one of the more convuluted RTS games ive tried to mod...



okay, basically, what im trying to do, is mod the ground battles to take place over a somewhat (not MASSIVELY, the maps simply wont support realistic ranges as is) larger range, simply because with the miopic warriors we have now, things look... well.... kinda bum. and not very epic.

my inspiration here is ground control, and anyone who has played that game will know, having soldiers taking potshots at each other from a good distance looks frigging cool.



and so it came to modding the files.



and theres about a million files referring to each unit.


and they all overlap.


and its confusing.


and im sitting here wanting to cry.


as you can imagine, when im looking to modify the ranges that ground units engange at, im going to have to modify a variety of elements to get things looking spiffy and avoid screwing up the balance entirely.

things like, range, accuracy, the weapons travel speed, the dispersion effect of shots that roll a miss (it appears to be dice checks), and the weapons damage, various things like that.

(with regards to the infantry combat, id like to see troops miss more but be more lethal when they hit, keeping the kill rate roughly the same as it is right now, and thus the relative balance similar, but increasing the visual realism of combat)

taking damage as an example, ill be buggered if i can figure this out.

taking a unit of stormtroopers as an example, there are, at least, 3 files that refer to them

groundinfantry, groundcompaniesimperial, and from these you are led to projectiles for the weapon properties,

each one of these, has an entry referring to the units damage, various information referring to the range of the projectiles, and, well, its kinda tricky to see how everything multiplies together, or knowing what overwrites what or.... well. whatever.



basically, i NEED HELP. Sad

well. got most of it figured out - the majority of duplicates appear to only activate if the details listed in another version arent present (particularly in the case of projectiles vs groundinfantry - groundinfantry contains a single reference to damage, for the rebel soldier, which differentiates his gun from the stormtrooper version which calls the same entry in the projectiles file)



my only remaining problem is i cant, for the life of me, find the entry to change the units firing range.


ive got line of sight up, max engagement ranges are up, projectile max flight distance is up....


any ideas?

Are you referring to entries such as:

<Targeting_Max_Attack_Distance>150.0</Targeting_Max_Attack_Distance>

?

:)

you would THINK so. but no.

ive found the appropriate entry for some units in the hardpoints file. but only for certain units.

the entry is something like (forgive me, im at a friends without access to the files) - Max_Fire_Range blah blah.



cant find this for the other units though.

It should be in the projectiles file. EAch unit/hardpoint has a projectile type. Each projectile type has a maximum firing range.

Also you are wrong on the stormtroooper v. rebel infantry thing. I tested that six ways from sunday. They both have the same projectile, to differentiate damage there you have to add a new projectile.

What makes tehm different though is the innacuracy. Rebel infantry has 3 % of innacuracy whereas imp troops have 5 %.

This makes you think that rebels are doing more damage with their projectil.

regarding the range, i assume you are talking about <Projectile_Max_Flight_Distance>

ive upped this to 600 to test on rebel soldiers, yet nothing has changed in game, ive correspondingly upped the various max attack range and similar in the infantry entry, but no change again.

other changes are working as expected.


regarding the damages, hmm.. maybe i boobed :P

i know they do share the same projectile, but the rebel infantry entry in groundinfantry has its own entry for projectile_damage (this is the only case), ill admit this is not something ive tested rigourously, but a brief look suggested it acted as an override over the projectiles own projectile_damage entry. (pushing it up a bit resulted in rebel infantry smacking stormtroopers about a bit - could have been luck, ill try pushing it up to a ludicrous extent to see.)

opening mouth without extensive testing = me looking like a nub :D


related question then - what effect does the "damage" entry that every unit has in its setup have?

for almost every infantry unit it defaults to 1, which led me to believe it was a multiplier at first, but it doesnt look like it having seen the values for other units, where it ramps right up.

The damage entry is for collision damage.

is that used? never seen it happen.

I don't know if its used. Thus far my opinion on it is it isn't important enough to concern yourself with.

Targeting_Max_Attack_Distance is the value for the firing range... I've experimented with this and it worked. No idea what issues you have with it.

arrgh. i had been running tests between rebel soldiers and stormtroopers. short range shooting.

brought a bike in, it has long range.

scouttrooper, long range.

i... dont know why, when ive made the same changes to all entrys, that some work and some dont.

possibly they couldn't see far enough(sensor range) to be able to fire that long away?

Yea, the viewing range might have interfered sometimes.

sensor range doesnt seem to change things, i figured sensor range might actually be the range that units detect infiltrators, but wasnt sure. (default sensor range is usually 20 for most infantry, default shooting ranges are in the 100+ region)



still stumped :(

Shine, as said in my first post, the <Targeting_Max_Attack_Distance>150.0</Targeting_Max_Attack_Distance>
do work. I had to tweak this value in the EAW: Knifedge mod we're working and it does exactly to change the max distance (range if you like) a unit will start shooting.

If you notice, below this parameter, there the <Land_FOW_When_Attack> or something like this. My guess for this is that it represents the ability to reveal a unit when it fires (take out of war for it), usefull only for artyllery. Maybe infiltrators too, but i keep them hided.

i know, its working for some units and not others.

as a test, ive set every single instance of Targeting_Max_Attack_Distance to 400, and all instance of the FOW entry to 450.


again, its working for some units and not others.

i can post the files if you think im talking arse.

i can post the files if you think im talking arse.

LOL

Shinedog, what are the units that your code changes have no effect? Because, in EaW:Knifedge, i had to tweak most of max fire distances, including the troops' ones, and everything works fine...

You may want to try re-edditing the original XMLs.

most vehicles seem to be working fine, but rebel infantry, stormtroopers, and it looks like the various indigenous units dont use updated values,

scouttroopers who are dismounted do work, and ive never stuck a skirmish out long enough without swearing about the failure to see if plex and infiltrators work, because im a terrible failure of a man ^_^