A Plea for Global Modding

[junk2drive]

We recently visited the subject of sound mods. Wav files are typically large. A sound mod can be several mb zipped. If I have a sound mod, I only want it once in one location.
People designing campaigns don't want to have to fiddle with a lot of files if they can avoid it. Merr and I and others have been working on bonus and action mods and new units. I\we can can package those bits and pieces up and share them but then the other person has to figure out what they need out of the files and where to put them in their campaign.

You won't let us put a mod in the base game. I don't see why having different sounds would cause a MP cheat warning. I don't see why having a Japanese tank on my csv would effect a battle in France.

For the game to go forward with modding, we need a way to store Objects, Sounds, Units, Terrain, Bonus, Scripts, etc. outside of the user campaign folder.

Thanks for listening.

[pipfromslitherine]

I take your point, but it also works the other way. People don't want to have to know to go grab some other global mod to be able to download a map etc. It's a thorny issue for sure. Having everything in a single place does make the downloads larger (although I'm not sure even 20 or 30Mb is a lot in these times, either for download or disk space), but it means you can be sure that your download will work every time.

The best approach would be for us to simply fold these cooler mods and bonuses into the main game, but that requires a level of admin and testing that to be honest I'm not sure we have the bandwidth for, especially given the pretty large amount of cool stuff that you guys generate. It also raises issues that we then need to be sure that everything is backward compatible, as you don't want to break legacy missions when you change the global scripts.

I do have ideas about ways to automate the process, and it is on my list, but there is definitely a tradeoff between the simplicity and certainty of having everything in one place, and the ease of use of being able to access global assets.

Cheers

Pip

[Merr]

Pip,

As much as I agree with Junk, I can see your point. IMO, I don't want you wasting your resources on this ... IMO, such a large change should be considered for the next version of BA ... you know, a change that reinburse's you for the work done .

Now, with that said ... There is a small request for one item that needs addressing .... SOUNDS ...

MikeAP has made some great sounds but we are forced to overwrite the core sounds to hear them ... very ugly as you can see.

So, is there a simply way to have a global SOUNDS folder in the Documents\My Games\BBCBA that the engine can recognize for sound mods?

For now, this can be used for BA sounds .... not for BF sounds ... perhaps later we could have a BBCBF mod folder ... later on.

Thanks for all your hard work!

[pipfromslitherine]

1.5.1 adds in the ability for global sound overrides. Hope you enjoy it!

Cheers

Pip

[Merr]

1.5.1 adds in the ability for global sound overrides. Hope you enjoy it!

Cheers

Pip

Awesome, much thanks!