Slitherine

Howdy Slitherine folks,
I have had Battle Academy for about a week or so and I'm enjoing the game. The modding is pretty easy to get into as well.
I was able to combine the stock campaigns into one big campaign as a test as well as making my own german player side campaign - with place swaping and unit merging
(thanks to the nice folks in the modders corner)
However there are some realy horrid limits on some of the major compnents to modding.

First is the 128 units on the units list. This bars any kind of multi year campaign as there isnt enough space on the unit list to
have new equipment to replace the old models.
(I had been under the impression that this was already addresses as per forum remarks...)
This also makes you have to juggle the maps in the editor if you want to edit a preexisting map - eg. since the squads.csv that im using doesnt have certain units in it it will crash the game unless i open it with the proper squads.csv and del out the units then save it and move it. (a msg. like incorrect squads.csv would you like to load without units might be better then an unhandled exception)

The second big limit I'm finding is the 18 unit types for the Players side. I see that I can get around this somewhat by having fixed units placed in transports as they dont seem to get counted as a seperate units, but that's not realy a good work around.

I'd like to see more objects, units, and tilesets as well as these seem pretty sparse and mostly repeated in the addons.
The biggest draw to a ww2 game is the fact that ww2 encompassed so many nations and used so many technologies in it's undertaking.

Anyway I like the game and I hope that you can address the limits on the squads.csv and the 18 types of units for the player side
as this would make modding/playing a little more flexible and fun.
Thanks.

-shooty

If you want to do a custom campaign create your own squads.csv file merging all the units from the base game and all the expansions. In each expansion there is a small squads file with the "new" units for that expansion, each has a unique ID so they don't overlap, I am using IDs 255 and higher for my custom units hope they don't get used in new expansions.

So I don't understand the 128 unit you are referring to, it may be the limit for number of units during gameplay, 64 per side. It is true that it limits the possibilities, but you can always divide missions so that you have smaller battles, also AI turns could become tedious.

I didn't knew about the 18 limit of unit types per side, luckily I haven't encountered it yet. But I don't see any reason to have it, maybe the developers can help with this.

rf900 wrote:I didn't knew about the 18 limit of unit types per side, luckily I haven't encountered it yet. But I don't see any reason to have it, maybe the developers can help with this.

Interesting, I didn't know about the limit of 18 unit types per side either. But Slith may have added this when they introduced force selection? The FS window only shows max 18 unit types, in three columns of six...

Ah, so maybe the limit is only for the units that can be bought, but combined with fixed units you can have more types, not so bad then if it is that way.

Hi rf900,
yes I understand these things you have mentioned, I have made several mods with custom squads.csv files as stated above in the first paragraph.
(did you read it? )
It is quite easy and took about 6 hours (once i figured out the 128 unit limit) to make a german player side campaign with 20+ rebuilt maps and all the german units from the game and expansions in the squads.csv, - also edited boni, player side walking arty, place switching, squad merging, custom models, units, skins, (from the folks in the modders corner and from user addons). I just havent done the ai setups.
Ive also combined desert,normady and bulge into one campaign with evertything working.
So yes thanks for the explaination but if you read my original post you will see that I have already gotten that infomation. Though I do appreciate you trying to help.

Anyways- The squads.csv only allows 128 entries. This isnt enough to use all the units from the base game and the expansions together, so many entries must be deleted to fit units that I want. To do a campaign that spans a few years requires a larger capacity in the units spread sheet to model the technical advances of armor and the armies ect...

Using more then 128 units in the squads.csv will cause the game to crash.
"exceeded max templates" then "unhandled exception.
I just hosed my mod double checking, lol, but yeah... 128 unit entries on the csv.

If you have been able to have all the units from the base game and the expansions in one csv that doesnt crash the game I'd be interested to see it. Have you try to use it in the editor?
I got the info about the 128 unit limit from these very forums so if you have it working please share the secret.
Otherwise it may be best to let slitherine reply so as not to confuse the issue or misinform.
I mean no offense by that, just that your process doesnt work. (at least for me)
Anyway I'd check what you have to make sure it actualy works as I can only get 128 units working and this is - as programmed according to pip in 2010.

viewtopic.php?f=104&t=20708
viewtopic.php?t=19560

Also just to let you know the 18 unit types only effects the players side and not the AI side - it has to do with the deployment sceen only being able to display 18 entries. ( was still writting this when GottaLove88s replyed)

The 64 units per side on the map seems ok to me as this is a tactical game and not strategic in scale and i agree with you that more would make turns a bit tedious.

I tend to write a bit stiffly as i have some difficulty in getting my ideas out clearly so please know that im not trying to be sarcastic or anything I just realy write like this lol...

-thanks

Also about the 18 unit types limit - only affects human players (due to the force selection screen as GottaLove88s has mentiomed).
and You can get around this somewhat. Fixed Units in transports dont count against the 18 type limit.
I hope this is helpful.

shooty wrote:Units in transports dont count against the 18 type limit.

Hmmm, thanks Shooty... that's useful to know... Do unit types count if they're "fixed"?

lol just edited my post ive only tried with fixed units so fixed units do count unless they are in a transport

by the way GottaLove88s thanks for all your mod work I have learned so much from your posts...
the walking arty ect..

Haha, thanks and you're welcome, Shooty... but you're being way too generous... I learned everything I know from Pip & Iain, J2D, Amaris, Enric, RF900... reading the guides and experimenting... BA's a cool environment for creating fun stuff... and there are a lot of folks on the forum who'll give you a hand... Looking forward to playing your new scenarios, when you want an opponent to playtest...

Well I too should thank all the modders as I have jumped right into using there work but it's my first posting and i havent learned everyones names yet.

I cant say I've made anything worthwile yet just tests to get a feel for it. So I dont forsee releasing anything soon -I havent learned the AI stuff yet.
The mapping & modding itself is quite easy though... perhaps when I have more original maps. So far I have mostly just edited stock maps for german side play (messing up the ai in the process )
But I dont work so I have alot of time to learn and mod so im sure it will come to me... I guess for Multi player maps I dont need ai though so maybe I will have something to play test... but I have only been at it for a week or so therefore I havent much to show beyond reshuffled stock maps, and 2 homemade maps I made that im happy with, which were setup as single player and not balanced for mp. and no AI yet.
At the moment Im starting to replace stock maps in my german test campaign with original maps as i build them and maybe I will have something to share sooner or later...

Also, Now, please dont laugh at me but Ive been a bit timid about playing online both due to my lack of experince and just trepidation about understanding the mutiplayer system. Though I'd like to give it a try though.
If you dont mind playing a newby and possibly poking me with a sharp stick to get me going in the right direction it would be neat to try muti-player.
Im pretty much always around so if you want to play lemme know.

Well I think I'm starting to ramble I been playing with making BA stuff for about 30 hours without sleeping I may need a nap
but It was nice chatting with you both and I hope we can chat and play in the future.
Also again if any of my writting sounds harsh or stiff or doesnt make sense i do apologise - I have some trouble keeping my ideas together. It's why I dont work anymore so please excuse me...

-shooty

Anyway I'd check what you have to make sure it actualy works as I can only get 128 units working and this is - as programmed according to pip in 2010.

Ok, didn't knew about it and not understood the problem at first. No, I haven't tried a squad file with more than 128 units.

shooty wrote:Also, Now, please dont laugh at me but Ive been a bit timid about playing online both due to my lack of experince and just trepidation about understanding the mutiplayer system. Though I'd like to give it a try though.
If you dont mind playing a newby and possibly poking me with a sharp stick to get me going in the right direction it would be neat to try muti-player. Im pretty much always around so if you want to play lemme know.

Hey Shooty,

Sounds like you'll be creating some interesting stuff... Sure, happy to play you MP...

Best way to get started with MP is to play the same map versus the same opponent, as Axis and as Allies, in parallel games. You'll see where both sides start, any advantages or disadvantages, but you're already thinking what would I do if I were him...

Pick any map, set up the same game, once as Allies, once as Axis, password them and PM me the passwords... Looking forward to it... And expecting to be resoundingly thrashed for being cocky, lol!

The 18 unit TYPE limit is indeed for unit which are placed on the map in the editor - fixed units do count, as we need to show the player what else they have. It is possible to alter the number of units shown, but IIRC it gets set in the tweaks file, so it might be that I need to allow that to be tweaked per-campaign. I would need to check whether that would require reworked icons and other layout (e.g. not sure if you could get away with much smaller icons with iPad controls), so it's not a simple addition.

One way to work around it is to use a script to add additional units to the player force - that is, not place them on the map in the editor, but place them using script commands. Heck, you could even create 'phantom' units which are placeholders for various groups of units - name them as battle groups with a variety of units inside them, then remove the phantom units from the map and replace them with a load of other units at mission startup.

How's that for a project for you .

Cheers

Pip

@ pip- Well thats bad news about the 18 unit types i had hoped it would be somethig easy. What about the 128 unit limit on the csv?

I cant script I can only edit prexisting scripts and hope i didnt break them. I will of course try to look through some scripts and see if I can decipher them enough to at least have good questions about scripting.

@rf900- I know you were trying to help and I apreacite the intentions.

@GottaLove88s- I'll setup a game some time tomarrow so look for a pm from me tomarrow if you get a chance.
You could probabliy be quite a bit cockier too... ;P

and thanks again everyone

The 128 limit in the CSV is also hard coded I'm afraid. I'm not sure of the impact of altering it at this stage, so I wouldn't expect it to increase certainly in the next update.

Cheers

Pip

"The 128 limit in the CSV is also hard coded I'm afraid."
-Ah that's mood killer, It doesnt seem like I will be investing any further modding time.
Well thanks for the reply and best of luck.

@GottaLove88s- I setup a game but I think I'm done here so I going to retract them, and move along...
Sorry for the changeup...

Was nice chatting a bit, be well everyone.

One way to work around it is to use a script to add additional units to the player force - that is, not place them on the map in the editor, but place them using script commands. Heck, you could even create 'phantom' units which are placeholders for various groups of units - name them as battle groups with a variety of units inside them, then remove the phantom units from the map and replace them with a load of other units at mission startup.

Nice trick to remove the 18 unit type limit, noted.