Using the editor

[Obsolete]

R does not work for buildings, only for units. Perhaps this was a bug that got into the 0.7? Are you sure it works in your CVS for the next release?

Shift with Page Up/Down works, but 99% of the time we want to do a quick and precise 90 Deg angle.

[pipfromslitherine]

My mistake - R doesn't apply to objects. You can use L to toggle 90 degree placement on and off IIRC.

Let me know if that works as you would want.

Cheers

Pip

[Obsolete]

Hmm, for some reason pressing 'L' doesn't work either.

Tried this before and after placement.

[pipfromslitherine]

OK. Had to go back into the code to work this out! L is actually a toggle to allow you to do arbitrary placement of edge objects (should you need to).

So - you would like for R to cycle objects to 90 degree rotations? Simple enough.

Cheers

Pip

[Obsolete]

Yes, I would like something that works and is consistant between elements in the editor. I am quite puzzled because, some items like the Church are not fully enclosed. One can clearly observe that only singe-sided polys are used depending on your viewpoint. Logically, I assumed that we were supposed to just clone the first building, rotate it 180 deg, and replace to have a fully enclosed (visually) structure. I guess instead the original intention was to put another church piece (tower?) there to block the open side end.

[pipfromslitherine]

Yes - the church comes in many parts which can be combined to make a lot of different types of building. The editor is skewed towards flexibilty currently, and so getting feedback on a few shortcuts is a good thing.

Thanks

Pip

[Obsolete]

Well it would be nice to have these shortcuts alone the same lines between the different assets. Even the way the tiles works is different from the units. For a unit I hover over it and press R to rotate. For the tiles, I have to press R, and then click down. Or click down and hold while pressing R. It is not good to not keep things consistant.

[Obsolete]

I've been getting quite a few glitches in the editor. Often some tiles will show up as other tiles when I move or rotate about, I also get other tiles flickering into some blackness when working as well. I'm not sure if this is common, or possible just isolated to my system. Maybe I am configuring something in a way not expected? Sometimes I get strange colors on certain tiles as well, aside from the blackness.

[pipfromslitherine]

I have fixed a small bug that was showing up on older drivers, so that might help in the next set. I know you were seeing unusual behaviours on some of the victory point markers too, which points to some unhappiness on your machine. Can you please remind me again of your video card, and your driver version if you can.

Thanks

Pip

[Obsolete]

I'm using nVidia GeForce 6150 nForce 430 on a Vista Box. I"ll check on the drivers in a short while.

Today I tried to re-name a unit. Or at least add another 76mm Sherman under a different name. I cloned the line in the squads file and then appended it to the end. The problem is changing the name doesn't seem to do anything. If I change the asset name, then the game logically can't find the asset. Do I have to clone the asset too (then rename) or is there a simpler solution.

[pipfromslitherine]

It will depend on what you want to do (I assume you copy the squads file then alter it, please don't alter the main game dir files, as it makes it harder to validate any bugs you might see).

If you want to just call it something different and tweak the stats (say), then you need to alter the ID (which is a string ID), and add a new string using that ID, for example IDS_UNITNAME99, in a text file (you can create these in your local campaign too).

To use a local squads file, just drop the file you want to use instead of the main one into the campaign dir (root).

This will (honest!) all be covered in the modding docs, just not had time to get them written up yet. If you want to try something specific, let me know what you're aiming for and I will explain how to get there.

Cheers

Pip

[Obsolete]

Not sure I got it right. Like this?:

IDS_UNITNAME_Sherman_77, "OddBall",

I guess I can focus some more on the terrain layout before I need to polish off the units.

[Obsolete]

I've been trying to place AI points, hoping to create patrols. But for some reason I can't get the points to STICK when I'm supposed to place them in the editor. I'm probably not setting something right but not sure.

[IainMcNeil]

To be honest I would avoid modding any data until after release as the files are changing so fast anything you do now would be wiped out by the next beta update. If you are just testing the system then fine but if you are trying to create a real mod it's not likely to work if you start now as the data is not finalised.

[Obsolete]

Some needed things for the editor. Back in some of the scenarios you would drag & move units around the map with ease at the start. This type of thing is definitely most useful in the editor. Currently it is a pain since you often have to delete units then replace them. Even more tiring is when they are loaded transports which is double the work. The editor should not make editing such a painful task.

Also, sometime you could maybe extract this to dragging buildings around. It would be nice to drag say, my churches and other buildings around in exact tile increments after placement. You could also add an option to drag the TILE with the asset too. This would make things like re-positioning my forests/trees a lot easier, etc.

[Obsolete]

In one of the Normandy scenarios, I was able to walk infantry across what looked like shallow water. When I tried to use the same texture over water in my own maps, I found out I can't, because I can't walk over water. I took at look at the original map and I see for some reason the engine thinks it's rough ground instead of water, which is why it allowed infantry to walk over it.

Is this some trick, or a bug?

[Obsolete]

I am also wondering why are there two different tiles in the editor for laying down forests?

[pipfromslitherine]

+ you can move units by holding down the SHIFT key and dragging them

+ I imagine that an overlay was used that has a rough ground terrain over-ride on it. It's hard to spot in your version, but the next version has tooltips on all tiles telling you their terrain type.

+ I think Richard uses 2 different types for forest which blocks LOS and which does not, but does provide cover. I'm not sure .

Cheers

Pip

[Obsolete]

Ahh, I just did some investigations now in the world builder. Yes, the shift-drag support is already there. Let me make a suggestion that you change the icon to a HAND to represent grab mode is on when holding down shift. That's what all other standard apps do.

One tiny glitch there, when I place a FIXED unit into a transport, then move the transport, the text FIXED: still remains in the original position. I assume it's only an aesthetics glitch, and won't really leave anything harmful or unexpected behind later on?

I did some investigation into the trees. It seems there is no difference that I can see between the two forest tiles. It also seems that the only TREE that blocks LoS is the BLOCKING TREE. Fair enough, but the problem for players is how do they tell which TREES are blocking LoS in the game, and which are not? There is no LoS tool-tip (at least in 0. that notifies the player of this.

As a rule to keep things simple for the player, I will simply enforce all FOREST tiles to be LoS blocking. I am very hesitant to use trees just for AESTHETICS to make things LOOK BETTER, since that can cause some confusion.

[Obsolete]

I'm also curious, what scripting language are we using here? I may be doing something wrong, but for some reason /* */ doesn't work well for commenting chunks.