Jagged Alliance 2 ,

[LCJr.]

Yes, I noticed Tron is a bit touchy

I was curious if you were still at it. I've always been of the opinion 1.13 is a poor mod base, at least for I wanted to do, but it sounds like it's gotten worse.

For what's it's worth I never finished mine and I had a lot lower goals than you.

 

[Khor1255]

Well I hope this isn't the complete end of this long drawn out saga. I have so many things done I am pleased with it is hard to walk completely away from it.

Maybe I just need a longer break.

There are a few things that make the 1.13 a much more adaptable mod base but with zero team support these days and a profound lack of interest in anything other than inventory bs it has become quite a hostile environment from which to try to build.

A few coders with really cool ideas have come out of the woodwork but I haven't heard anything from any of these guys in well over a month now.

Really a shame.

 

[[Jez]]

How does using a spotter work? Every time I try to use one they become a bullet magnet

 

[LCJr.]

How does using a spotter work? Every time I try to use one they become a bullet magnet

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zekiZYSVdeQ
I think this sums it up nicely.

 

[Kaiserin]

Okay, I feel pretty confident in saying that it's one of the most entertaining games I've ever played with the 1.13 patch. A lot of the pain from vanilla seems to come from having a squad full of people with the gun store only carrying pistols 14 days into the game.

 

[The_scorpion]

places where to get UB mods and campaigs:

xrmb2.net area has some, including Vietnam SOG or Back to business (there's a link in my sig... i think)

german ja2 basis has its own section for campaigns

http://www.jaggedalliance.de/ub/mapsect ... n=kampagne

don't know whether the links still work...

then in the BP forum you find links to MFM tracona and "finishing touches" maybe also on kermi's or hoenir's hosting sites... don't really know as i upload more than i download.


if you're doing a mod lcjr, IMHO you should release it publicly even if it is small. I think the 1.13 devs might listen more ot the modders if there were more of them. If it is only Khor and I most of the time, they stopped bothering at some point.

plus you definitly have a player base for your idea of a realistic enemy loadout.

there are 3 major theories:

1. typical south american equip like you linked

2. Warsaw pact equipment loadout because the stereotypical bad guys new AK's and Dragunov's (ja2 is like an 80ies action movie, so that would fit)

3. American equipment and maybe local copies and older stuff as character dialogue in ja2 states that deidranna buys her guns from the US


plus several sub-opinions


Khor

in what respects differs your current mod's state from what you had sent us in the past?
what are the major problems you're encountering besides the map editor issues?

(this can be per email or PN too)

plus i saw somebody agreed with me about NIV, yay! i feel less of a traitor now

i'm slowly getting the feeling players primarily like NIV because of the huge vehicle inventories. At least that's what they'd list if asked what's great about NIV

 

[LCJr.]

http://www.legion.zone.zg.pl/download.php?lng=en
Has one of my favorites for UB, SOG 69'. Also several others including MFM.

Okay, I feel pretty confident in saying that it's one of the most entertaining games I've ever played with the 1.13 patch. A lot of the pain from vanilla seems to come from having a squad full of people with the gun store only carrying pistols 14 days into the game.

I guess that's the appeal of 1.13 to newer players. You can set the enemy to drop everything and have BR carry equipment that's as good or better than the enemies.
Enjoy.

if you're doing a mod lcjr, IMHO you should release it publicly even if it is small. I think the 1.13 devs might listen more ot the modders if there were more of them. If it is only Khor and I most of the time, they stopped bothering at some point.

Nah, you people don't deserve my innovative genius. LCJr. = Little Cleve Junior I just looked and I first tried it in 2002 so the project needs to mature more.

Seriously I had my idea up to alpha/beta stage and ran into a major snag with not being able to remove the Rocket Rifle. I shelved it and picked back up again after Deutscher(?) found the weapon tables in the exe. Sidenote, I miss LotB. Tweaked the idea and had it back up to beta and my HDD burned up. Lost a lot of work and gave up.
Sorta picked it back up last year but my interest wasn't really there. Remember these?

That's about as far as I got last time If I would have had a mapper I might have got somewhere. Still it wouldn't be anything more than a gun and map mod.

 

[Khor1255]

The other parts are maybe far more thankless labor intensive.

And I know what you mean by a hd crash taking the wind out of your sails. I had a similar problem a couple of months ago but - get this - it was self induced sort of. I reinstalled my os because I was noticing a lot of internet drag and instead of loading into the c drive windows wanted to load onto my slave drive where about 15 copies of my mod in various tests and pre alphas were. Being a little drunk at the time I didn't notice and my whole slave drive (about 50 gb or so of saved material) went by by.

YIKES!

Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. It has been very hard to get back into anything like a momentum since that stroke of brilliance. On top of this I got into some pretty vicious arguments with the current 1.13 devs while trying to explain to them the problems I was having with their new version of the 1.13. All this and trying to track down problems they should never have let get passed the development stage (especially since we all warned them). I realised I was spending far more time on this than playing with my infant son. This really made me feel like a selfish bastard so the decision to shelve the mod was not even a close one.

I do get time by myself when my wife and son visit relatives on the west coast or overseas but I have not been able to get much done even during these times.

I'm still going to keep plunking along but I don't have anything like a desire to really get into it these days. The state of the 1.13 was a pretty big let down.


@scorp

All in all I am not having that many problems I don't know how to fix. There is something where I can't get a basement map to teleport to a different sector and this greatly impedes a major quest but mostly it is apprehension about releasing something so full of late game bugs it will be more annoying than entertaining.

I have been experimenting with moving towns around and without any coder support this is kind of like noodling for piranhas. I just don't know when or how it's going to bite me in the ass.

I may return to the idea of just mapping over existing towns in their exact locations but this is such a let down it is hard to stay motivated. You could say I expected too much from the 1.13 and I would agree with you. The painful alternative is making a much more conventional mod and I just cant get my fingers to do any work in that direction. So I just may finally release a complete train wreck whenever it is I get to finishing this thing.

 

[Ryuken]

Thx for the tips lads, time to give it another go I guess.

 

[Ryuken]

nm, woops.

 

[The_scorpion]

@scorp

All in all I am not having that many problems I don't know how to fix. There is something where I can't get a basement map to teleport to a different sector and this greatly impedes a major quest but mostly it is apprehension about releasing something so full of late game bugs it will be more annoying than entertaining.

I have been experimenting with moving towns around and without any coder support this is kind of like noodling for piranhas. I just don't know when or how it's going to bite me in the ass.

I may return to the idea of just mapping over existing towns in their exact locations but this is such a let down it is hard to stay motivated. You could say I expected too much from the 1.13 and I would agree with you. The painful alternative is making a much more conventional mod and I just cant get my fingers to do any work in that direction. So I just may finally release a complete train wreck whenever it is I get to finishing this thing.

underground teleporters work the same as teleportters above the ground. First you enter the map and gridno to which the exit grid should teleprt to, then save the map, then place the exit grid, then save again. Works for me that way.

Keep in mind that a10_b1 has a special npc action that does the first teleporting in and out and creates the teleport later on in the map so if it's a10_b1 that you're talking about, it is a slightly more complicated matter


important about moving towns is to move the mines/ sectors where income is generated. I think i may have written a tutorial on that stuff, haven't it?

i thnk most towns can be moved fairly well. Personally i would leave san mona where it is in order to break as little functions as possible (brothel, boxing ring, angel's leather shop etc.)

moving the towns is something i didn't do in RR so it's kinda interesting for me to follow what you're achieveing there.


@lcjr Mapping and weapon mod is already something rather cool. Some of the mods right now basicly copy-paste stuff from other mods into 1.13, your idea at least would yield novel content

 

[Kaiserin]

Okay, one last question. Is there any way to surprise somebody on the other side of a door by forcing initiative? I'm in Alma attacking the military base, and all of the NPCs in the area will shoot you after a few words. If I try to just shoot them, I may or may not get the first shot, usually they win and unload an entire clip into one of my people.

And what about people who are inherently hostile on the other side of a door? There are another few people in there that are right on the other side of a door waiting for it to open, when it does, full auto...

 

[Khor1255]

@Kaiserin

The best way I know for forcing combat is either by explosives or gas. You can - of course - try shooting first but as you know you don't always get the drop that way.

Very often an explosion will trigger turn based combat especially if an enemy is injured during the attack.

@scorp

I was afraid of that with the teleport. It is A10-b1. I can easily enter the map from another map (which is not the a10 surface map) but when they walk out of the basement they end up in A10. This is a bummer.

If you know how to fix this I would be much obliged. So far everything in the moved Omerta works as it should except that. It would be very cool to get that working.

 

[The_scorpion]

kaiserin

i agree, some remote activated explosives may help


Khor

this teleport that leads from a10_b1 to a10 is, as far as i know, only activated through NPC action, just like the one from a10 to a10_b1 is.

well, after short testing, the above ain't accurate

there are two ways to get out of the rebel hideout: one is guided/ led by ira, the other is by "normally" using the exit grids close to the stairs tile

in my opinion, only the former is the problem, right?

the exit grids, you should be able to have them lead to wherever ou want or add different exid grids, no?


assuming the above is correct, please have a look into Ira's npc script (059.npc)

in her record 08, she performs NPC action 102 (leaves rebel hideout)
In my opinion, this is the source of your problem. Remove this action from her script, start a new game and there should be no way to get anywhere else than to where your teleporters are leading.
you may also replace the npc action with another action that would fit, like maybe try npc action 39. This one is afair not used very often in ja2 or mods but might actually be entertaining.

 

[Khor1255]

It's weird but if I try to change the exit grid from the a10 basement it acts like I haven't done anything to the file. Typically, it would even read a10 as the destination sector but today I loaded the basement, changed the exit sector and exited the editor. This is the first time that when I returned to the editor the new exit grid (sector) was still there but if you look at the properties of the file it looks like you have made not changes today.

I'll have to try yet again on an older editor but what seems to be happening is that the destination sector is loaded into the map as soon as Ira talks.

Does this make any sense?

I really don't understand the reason the map file does not even appear to be updated when you look at it's properties.

I tried exiting the sector without hiring 'Ira' and it still puts me at A10.

 

[The_scorpion]

what about you telling me the target sector and the gridno, and i try myself?

then i'll see

*edit*

is the map in any custom tileset or something? old map format?
you may want to send it over to me so i can try to solve the riddle too

 

[Khor1255]

Will do.

 

[LCJr.]

@lcjr Mapping and weapon mod is already something rather cool. Some of the mods right now basicly copy-paste stuff from other mods into 1.13, your idea at least would yield novel content

If the mood strikes me I might try again but it's not likely. Maybe if Stratiacella gets up to speed.

Are they getting the permission of the original creators of these mods? I know Becoming X and Dr. Quack put a lot of work into getting SOG 69' balanced just right.

 

[Khor1255]

I don't think anyone has done an SOG version for the 1.13. I was really hoping someone would. Heck I might even chisle a little time away to help with that one but as far as I know noone got any answer from those guys sooo...

All of the mods that have been converted have the full permission and or involvement of the original authors. At least to my knowledge. I know this is the case with UC. I remember asking and asking again if it would be alright to do so with Wildfire but I guess that guy's ass was so burned from the less than favorable reviews he was getting to really want to cooperate with anything. But seeing as that is the only mod with a copywright I should hope that they got permission.

I really hope you pick it back up. As scorpion said, modders are quite the rarety around there despite the cutsey badges they've seemingly handed out to everyone (myself included).

 

[LCJr.]

http://www.ja-galaxy-forum.com/board/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=149055&page=1#Post149055

 

[The_scorpion]

that totally sounds like somebody ought to pick it up at some point. Judging by will's latest mails, he is very busy on job/ RL stuff and probably not currently working on it.

but that might change eventually.

 

[Zhuangzi]

Hey the_scorpion, I have been over at the Bear Pit forum and I've downloaded your Renegade Republic mod and the patch. I am excited about this because I only ever played Urban Chaos and found that not to my liking. But before I start playing, I have a question for you. I think I have installed the mod correctly, but now I have about four different exe files to choose from.

RR_ja2_2124.exe
ja2 RR b17.exe
ja2_RR-2322.exe
ja2_RR_rel_b22.exe

Which one should I be using? :shock:

One of them, I think it was the b17 one, gave me an intro of sorts to the game, but all the screens were progressing too quickly and there was no speech. The others gave no intro at all. Am I doing something wrong or is this is a known issue?

Sorry to pester you with this but this way is quicker than trying to trawl through the Bear's Pit...

 

[The_scorpion]

Depends on how far you've patched up.

given you have the RR 2322 and the 2124 exe, i assume you installed the all in one patch, right?

in that case i suggest to play either 2124 or 2322 because you can use more recent features there like New Inventory (if you like that)


i know about the sucky intro. Ever since my rad game tools broke down on my computer, i couldn't fix it anymore. The game itself should be a little less amateurish, but it's still a beta especially as far as the custom/ new quests are concerned.

better to ask me here or through PN's, emails, whatever since i'm not planning to post anything at the BP right now anyway

hope this helped, maybe you do some qucik browsing of the BP and see what exe 2322 or 2124 have to offer in terms of bugs and features. I must admit i haven't tested these newer exe's all that much. so while the mod certainly starts up, i can't say a lot beyond that point for sure :-/

 

[LCJr.]

that totally sounds like somebody ought to pick it up at some point. Judging by will's latest mails, he is very busy on job/ RL stuff and probably not currently working on it.

but that might change eventually.

Which comes back to the question of did he get permission from Becoming X?

 

[Zhuangzi]

Depends on how far you've patched up.

given you have the RR 2322 and the 2124 exe, i assume you installed the all in one patch, right?

in that case i suggest to play either 2124 or 2322 because you can use more recent features there like New Inventory (if you like that)


i know about the sucky intro. Ever since my rad game tools broke down on my computer, i couldn't fix it anymore. The game itself should be a little less amateurish, but it's still a beta especially as far as the custom/ new quests are concerned.

better to ask me here or through PN's, emails, whatever since i'm not planning to post anything at the BP right now anyway

hope this helped, maybe you do some qucik browsing of the BP and see what exe 2322 or 2124 have to offer in terms of bugs and features. I must admit i haven't tested these newer exe's all that much. so while the mod certainly starts up, i can't say a lot beyond that point for sure :-/

Thanks for that, and yes I got the all in one patch. :D

I started playing the b17 version first but managed to get myself a bit stuck looking for this 'commander.' Then I read that the newer versions had more streamlined quests, so I tried 2322. Unfortunately, I kept getting a runtime error on the first level when I killed one of the rioters.

So I moved onto 2124 and tried again. No crashes yet, and it seemed this one was scripted better. I am referring to when one of the women (Galina?) takes you to the next sector. In the b17 version I talked to her and then nothing happened. In the 2124 she gave me some more papers and then led the way to Ilya or whatever his name is. So I understood a lot better what was supposed to happen.

I've only just started playing this but I'm having a great time so far. I've been thinking for months now that all I really need is a new campaign for JA2. 1.13 is nice but ultimately it's the same campaign. So cheers for all your hard work on this, the_scorpion. I look forward to playing this some more!