Guille's PzCorps Support Base - Multipurpose Icons and more.

[guille1434]

Nils60: Thanks for the encouraging words! I really appreciate when other people here use this stuff and drop by to say "Thanks!"

Zakblood: No problem, it was not such a big deal, I got a little pissed off by the disrespectful tone of the posting, but the forum staff give a good answer to that user. Thanks!!

[guille1434]

Well guys, this is it...
I am uploading here the first "release" of my equipment mod for PzCorps... I hope you like it and use all the stuff included there as you please.

Some technical comments:
- The equipment file is based on the one released by Nikivdd (the last version was 37). Because of that is 100% compatible with all the game official campaigns, all all the ones published by Nikivdd. Also, I think many other scenarios and campaigns can be played using this equipment mod.

- There was no content deleted or changed in order (that gives us its compatibility) just image files added, so you can just dump the new files in the game directory folders and there is no risk of breaking anything.

- Some important data files were edited, so before replacing them, make backups (ALWAYS make backups).

What's in the pack:
- Audio folder with AttackSfx and MoveSfx sub folders: new/adapted/modified audio attack and move files ---> You can just copy the contents of these folders right in the correspondent game main directory folders.

- Data folder with the following files: equipment.pzeqp - movement.pzdat - strings.pzdat - unitclass.pzdat
These files will overwrite the original ones present in the game Data directory --> Make Backups before overwriting

- Graphics folder with the Units and Animations sub folders ---> Again you can just copy the contents of said folders in the equally named game folders, nothing will be overwritten.
Inside the Graphics folder you will also find the efx.pzdat file, this one will overwrite the one present in the game, is just the vanilla game file with the new entries added after the original ones,
so, you will not lose anything of the original game, but if you want to be careful, make a backup up of it also.

- UI folder this folder includes various sub folders and files that affect the visual style of the game (User Interface). Nothing very flashy, but you will see changes in the purchase/upgrade screens,
unit information panel, etc... There are some original files included in .rar format as backups, but I advice to just make a (compressed using zip or rar, if you prefer) copy of the whole UI game folder
and store it somewhere else. It also includes some new Heroes portraits not used in this mod, but that will be useful in my second modding (campaign) project.

That's all, I know it sounds a bit complicated, more than so there is a good software as JSGME, but in fact, I don't know if this mod can be installed using that program. And, best of all, if you follow the simple instructions given here, you will be up and running in five minutes or less.

Credits: To Alex and all the development team of PzCorps, of course.
Nikivdd, for everything, short of making the base game, he gave us tons of ideas, equipment files, campaings, advice, and a big lot more
Puma, for his "Purchase mini mod".
Phcas, for his extended unit data panel.
All the icon makers (in no particular order): Bebro, Flakfernrohr, Phcas, Asuser, McGuba, Messman, Speedy, and many others
Many users who posted ideas, tested them, and made useful comments or made postings in different threads from which I learned a lot of useful things: cw58, Deducter, Uhu...

Please, forgive me if I forgot any name, just drop by and I will include them here!

This work will be expanding to include more units variety, and also importantly, better documentation.

Here is the link to download (24 Mb): https://www.sendspace.com/file/cq6ocn

Enjoy!!

[guille1434]

Just a reminder:

I updated the first post of this thread, including the Eqp mod, and also a separate link for a bigger download (91 Mb) of a collection of all my "finished" icons, including the basic ones with their masks to use with the DCS software, but this pack only includes the icons with no other animation, sound or any other files.

The link for the icon pack is also here: https://www.sendspace.com/file/rodbgg

Enjoy!!!

[glaude1955]

Download in progress, thank you Guille for your involvement in Panzer Corps.
I will gladly test your changes.
For the Unit collection and Mask file, is there an easy-to-understand tutorial for using DCS Sofware?

Best regards

Yves

[glaude1955]

Hello Guille,
It seems that the Mask are not included in the latest version.
I kept those of the version 2017-04-03

Best regards
Yves

[Anduril]

Thanks a lot, Guille. Fantastic job!

glaude1955 wrote:

Hello Guille,
It seems that the Mask are not included in the latest version.
I kept those of the version 2017-04-03

BaseIcons and Masks are in an extra rar file.

[guille1434]

Hello Yves!

Please, note that inside the Icons file, there is another compressed .rar file which includes the most up to date base icons and masks... I just checked it (downloading the file) to be sure, and it is in there. It is called "BaseIcons and masks.rar"

Unfortunately, I have no tutorial on the use of the DCS software, but it is very easy to understand its functions.

Thanks Anduril for your nice words! Have fun!

Greetings!

[glaude1955]

Thanks Anduril and Guille.
Yves

[uzbek2012]

That's all, I know it sounds a bit complicated, more than so there is a good software as JSGME, but in fact, I don't know if this mod can be installed using that program. And, best of all, if you follow the simple instructions given here, you will be up and running in five minutes or less.
Here is the link to download (24 Mb): https://www.sendspace.com/file/cq6ocn
Enjoy!!

The link for the icon pack is also here: https://www.sendspace.com/file/rodbgg

Thank you for the excellent work, it is sad that it is not yet possible to include through the program JSGME )
http://beutepanzer.ru/Beutepanzer/main.htm

[GrizzlyKt]

hi Guille thank you for these they are great its people like you and others that keep Panzer Corps going so thank you to everyone

[glaude1955]

Hello Guille
I have a problem with DCS.
I can incorporate your unit.png and Unit_mask.png into a personal file in DCS BaseIcons but I can not incorporate the camo you sent to Speedy.
DCS tells me he can not find the file?
In which repertoire do you put your skins and how do we do it?

[speedythefreak]

Hello glaude

Camo files are split in 2, the skins (4) and the thumbs (4), they co in different folders, if not it won't work. so you have to make sure to put them at their right place, the thumb ones one the skin thumbnails folder and the skin files in the skins folder, that should work. hope that solves your problem.

Best

[guille1434]

Yves: As Speedy explained, inside the directory structure of the DCS program, there are two folders called "Skins" and "SkinThumbnails". In them you have to copy the two-part skin files. In the "Skins" folder, you should copy the "big" skin image file (Example: "Desert Camo 1.png") and in the "SkinThumbnails" folder you have to copy the _Thumb file (in our example, this one should be "Desert Camo 1_Thumb.png).
Note that the pair of files should be named the same, except for the suffix "_Thumb" added to the skin thumbnail file name (see my the names of my example files above). Otherwise, the program will not recognize the added skin.

Happy painting!

[glaude1955]

Super !
It works.
Thank you very much my friends.
Yves

[guille1434]

Hello all:

I would like to know thoughts, opinions, suggestions, etc... about the following topic:

While testing "my" eqp file and some early war scenarios, I noticed that there is no real incentive to use light tanks (I am specially thinking about the Pz38(t) which was a good fighting machine, at least till 1941 when the Germans started to face the T-34 and KV-1 tanks). In the player's core will only feature Pz III and PzIV because there is no real advantage of having Pz 38, Pz35 or even Pz II in place of some of the earlier mentioned tank models. It would be nice to have a way to limit the number of units of the same type in the core, but this is not possible.

The most easy approach to the problem is to edit the units cost in prestige points, making PzIII and PzIV more expensive than light tanks than at present are. But the values involved would not make much difference, or if making a big enough value difference, one would be forced to edit the costs of many other units, which is not what I want to do.

So, what I thought is to make a new move type for light tanks, giving them a little better movement over forests, jungles, swamps than medium or heavy tanks (after all, light tanks tend to have smaller size and weight of course than medium and heavy ones and can be better driven through tree groups and terrains with heavy vegetation)... But the most important change would be to give light tanks the possibility to cross rivers just the way regular tanks can do at present, and make medium and heavy tanks unable to cross rivers (movement table value -200), except when crossing over map bridges or using Bridge Engineer units (this last is a good thing to do, in my opinion, as there are little incentive to use Bridge Engineers, except for some very specific scenarios). May be also I would include a new non-combat, low cost bridging unit to support tank formations and offset in part the new disadvantages that many medium and heavy tanks would now have.

I even designed a new little icon for the "light tank" move type...

24.png (636 Bytes) Viewed 4049 times

So, guys, what do you think? Any other ideas to make light tanks more needed (except giving them recon move trait, which in many cases have already been implemented)?

Thanks!!!

[McGuba]

So, guys, what do you think? Any other ideas to make light tanks more needed (except giving them recon move trait, which in many cases have already been implemented)?

Maybe light tanks could get the "bonus" trait so that they can only be upgraded to each other, creating a sub-class within the tank class (original idea copyright goes to Intenso82 ). If that happens the player can only get rid of them if he disbands the unit, but then he does not gain anything as bonus units do not have an effect on the number of core slots. Also, in this case you do not need to do any other mumbo-jumbo with them to make them special like giving them new or recon move, even though it might be a good idea, regardless.

Also, good luck with your campaign, but I would have two humble suggestions, if you do not mind:
1. start a new topic for that, so that it would not get mixed with this icon creating workshop
2. for installation maybe GME should be preferred over manual backup and overwriting, I do not really understand why it could not be used

[guille1434]

Hello McGuba:

Thanks for your suggestions... Some comments:

Bonus trait: Don´t think this will work in my mod, because I added a lot of bonus units, so if you make light tanks exclusively bonus units, the player would seldom receive light tanks if he ever receives one (I plan to play with a core of approx. 20-25 units with four or five SE units). So this will make light tanks less used, not more.
I think a new unit unit class "light tank" could be added, but, again, making them impossible to upgrade to better tanks when the war advances, will cause them to be less attractive to the player, not more.

New Thread: Of course, when I have new (more or less) finished stuff for the campaign project to be tested by people here, I will start a new thread and upload it there.

GME software: The problem if that i don't know if it will work correctly, and I am more comfortable with the manual installation of my mods (I feel I am more in control of things). Of course, I would test it when things take a more definitive shape, but this is not my priority now. Notwithstanding that, anyone is free to adapt the mod to be used with that software and offer it to the community.

[Intenso82]

So, what I thought is to make a new move type for light tanks, giving them a little better movement over forests, jungles, swamps than medium or heavy tanks (after all, light tanks tend to have smaller size and weight of course than medium and heavy ones and can be better driven through tree groups and terrains with heavy vegetation)... But the most important change would be to give light tanks the possibility to cross rivers just the way regular tanks can do at present, and make medium and heavy tanks unable to cross rivers (movement table value -200), except when crossing over map bridges or using Bridge Engineer units (this last is a good thing to do, in my opinion, as there are little incentive to use Bridge Engineers, except for some very specific scenarios).
Thanks!!!

In my mod, I've added Light Tracked movement type.
The main difference from Tracked is the ability to move on frozen water in winter. In contrast to the usual Tracked that can't do this.
There are also differences in the movement in difficult terrain, forest, marshes, hills. Perhaps other differences in the mud.
But I'm still not completely determined what should be the difference from regular tracks. It's still an open question)

At the same time, I did not add Wide Tracked type, because I do not have enough information about the differences with usual tracks.
And also I know that the Germans after the winter of 1941 began to expand their tracks to wide for the winter time.

[guille1434]

Hello Intenso:

Yes, this is more my line of thinking... I would like to test the addition of a "light tracked" movement type and give the units with this kind of movement some advantages in compact vegetation type terrains (jungle, dense forest, marshes) because of the idea that smaller vehicles can better negotiate the transit through densely packed trees, bushes, etc... But, the most tactically important change will be that light tracked units will be able to cross rivers without any preparation (just like every tracked unit in the unmodded game), and regular-tracked units will only be able to cross rivers on bridge hexes or with the assistance of bridge engineers units. Also, I will adopt your very good idea of making light tracked units to move over frozen lakes and rivers. May be I would allow regular tracked units to move over frozen rivers (but not over lakes, I think) but giving a high movement cost to cross frozen rivers. I would not completely prevent tanks to cross frozen rivers because I think this could affect the AI units behaviour in winter scenarios. The AI is not very smart as things are now, and I imagine lot of AI tank units left stranded in the wrong bank of any river instead of making an advance or counter-attack un the player´s units.
Thanks for the suggestion!

[guille1434]

Because of the making of a new Oob - PzCorps campaign by Terminator, here I also upload a unit icon imported to that game in the PzCorps format. A field bunker. As it looks like having been made from materials available from the surrounding terrain (logs, earth, wooden planks, etc...) I thought to use it as a switch for the Engineers unit, in order to model their capability to make field fortifications... But also, this icon can be used by itself as a field fortification unit.

Greetings!!