Player Controlled Ground Units
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@Cloud:
You missed my point which was this wouldn’t be some easy end user implementation. To have units glow or pulsate would be a code fix, if this were to be done correctly.
I’m not trying to be critical of the idea, but I believe the way of tinkering away and creating a separate icon is more of a monkey wrench approach that won’t really work and look good at all. Of course it would be just one or two person(s) doing that, I understand, but I’d never use that approach.
C9
Fair enough. I didn’t particularly mean the pulsing effect-but the white contoured effect is just as good. The code fix piece would only help by automatically switching the icon to a different index if it was being user controlled. Here we are basically doing the same thing that I (and a lot of others) do in a campaign by adding an extra “squadron” that is always going to be User Controlled ONLY. The difference being if we want a quick way to identify them without sifting through the OoB, we have to make a small adjustment to the DB as well.
I just think the modified icons might be helpful for people who really like to control the ground war. This could be a very easy user fix if the icons already exist like Dee-Jay mentioned they might, and really only trivially harder if they don’t. Adding the new unit to the DB only takes a minute or two if you have the steps laid out in front of you–but I’m not willing to list them out until I get a chance to look at it and run through it once so I can avoid a hail of flaming for skipping a step while trying to recreate the procedure in my mind.
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…This is why I said earlier you would have to search through the installation files to see if there is a complete list of ground units listed or indexed somewhere (Maybe TEUnits? I honestly can’t remember). What gets displayed in the TE Editor and MC get compiled from several different sources and files, not just a complete rundown of what’s in the database.
Oh I guess I got too much RDBMS in me for that to have registered when you were first talking about it. Sorry. Well dang it, I wouldn’t have the foggiest where to start looking for a list which enables the relations (backwards and-or forwards). Shoot that’s a lot of digging. Surely somebody already knows those files and what tools are needed to edit them. If they happen to be in a database or binary file then I’ll need the right tool to read those as well. Hopefully, we get pointed in the right direction then. Otherwise, I’ll start digging through the files tomorrow. I’ll start in the Balkan add on theater folder and work through those subdirectories and come up with a list of possibilities.
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Okay I glanced through all of the files (in the original install and theater) and this is what I found to be some of the most likely candidates for the files that may need updating after using BMS Editor.
…Data\Sim\Vehdef
vehicle.lst (ascii)
…Data\Campaign\Save
korea.*
teunits.lst (ascii)
VALIDAC.ACT (ascii)
=== ART ===
…Data\Campaign\Art
Lots of *.lst files but they seem to reference *.irc files so probably the equivalent of an INCLUDE library statement for different modules of the program?
…Data\Campaign\Art\campaign\mission
IMAGERC.IRC
…Data\Campaign\Art\common
IMAGEIDS.ID
IMAGERC.IRC
…Data\Campaign\Art\resource
…Data\Campaign\Art\setup
imagerc.irc
…Data\Campaign\Art\tacref
IMAGEIDS.ID
IMAGERC.IRCI was going to play around with F4Browse which looks at the falcon4.fed file (so that is also a file that may need massaging) but it couldn’t map the KoreaObj.lod file. The version I got was F4Browse_v2.31 and I am guessing it’s a completely dead vesrion.
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Okay there is another thread working on adding custom units using the BMS Editor and I think it will solve everything but our icon association issue. I’ll be testing it tomorrow.
Here are the posts to look at:
You can modify a battalion without adding an entry, but it will modify all of that specific type–to leave the old one in place and have a modified one you will have to add it to the database. He confirms though that it is teunits.lst that needs to be changed.
Using that, you can follow his steps to create a new battalion in the DB. The trick will be to see if the icons Dee-Jay mentioned are already installed and finding a way to map to them. If they are it shouldn’t be terribly hard. If they aren’t, you will have to create your own.
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You can modify a battalion without adding an entry, but it will modify all of that specific type–to leave the old one in place and have a modified one you will have to add it to the database. He confirms though that it is teunits.lst that needs to be changed.
Using that, you can follow his steps to create a new battalion in the DB. The trick will be to see if the icons Dee-Jay mentioned are already installed and finding a way to map to them. If they are it shouldn’t be terribly hard. If they aren’t, you will have to create your own.
Thanks for all the help @MorteSil et al. I am going to work today on duplicating battalions and getting them recognized in game. Crossing my fingers now.
But then I will be stuck as I don’t know how to access or modify the image galleries. Can you recommend a thread or guide to look at? The only one that pops into my head is the “add your squadron patch” thread (which I haven’t tinkered with) which might have a couple of bits of information I need but I suspect it won’t be answering most of the questions I have or will have.
I know how to use GIMP and Inkscape to create my own icons (I’d just copy what @Dee-Jay did because that was a pretty elegant solution IMO). I just will need to know the graphic format, size, settings, etc. It’s putting the images in the library and linking that image to DB that will be the problem.
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Okay I got it to work. IIRC:
1. Open BMS Editor (from the Launcher);
2. Select [UNIT] tab;
3. Right click on the unit you want to duplicate;
4. Select [Add Unity Copy] from the context menu (it’s the only choice);
5. When asked “Duplicate associated CT also?” select [Yes];
6. Select [Class Table] tab and scroll down to the bottom and double-click on the new “#” entry;
7. Take note of the SUBTYPE number (i.e. 3 Armor);
8. Change the Specific to a number that is not being used for that Subtype (I first tried 11 and 12 but those were already in teunits.lst so I went to 99);
9. Select the Data: [Open] button to bring up the unit so you can change the name, unit icon number, and whatever else you want for your custom battalion and select the save button;
10. In your campaign folder open up teunits.lst and add the (1) side number, (2) sub type, and (3) specific to the bottom of the list (I am not sure the side numbers in teunits.lst is accurate in Balkans because it lists DPRK etc. so I added it to both “sides” with the biggest unit list in the TE:D). This seemed necessary to do for TE but I don’t think it’s necessary for use with Mission Commander.Note: there could be other was to get this to work.
Anyway, so I went to the next step and checked Russian armor and NATO armor for Balkans and they both use 10010 for the icon number. I am not sure what exactly that means bc it could be “use 10010 for the side it’s on” and then the sides all have colored icons (i.e. blue for U.S., red for DPRK). So there could be a 10010 icon for each side and each side’s icons are manually colored different or there is only one 10010 icon for all sides and it the background is colored different depending on which side is being depicted.
Either way, I don’t know how to look at the resource files and find the icons and take a look see if I can find Dee-Jay’s and just reference them and if not how to add icons to the resource files. So that’s where I need help now.
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Search for F4ResTool by Khronik - best option I know for packing and unpacking the resource files.
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Okay I found another piece of the puzzle using F4ResTool as suggested by @Malc. The icons appear to be in and-or referenced in the \Data\Art\Resource xxxyyyy.rsc .irc .idx files where xxx is “blu” “red” “brn” “grn” “gry” “orn” “wht” “ylw” (colors) and yyyy is either “lite” or “dark”. They are .tga files and some colors (at least blu) are not as they appear in game so maybe some code that processes these icons to display the correct color BUT the xxxLITE files appear to be the ones with the white border! So blulite.* could be the player controlled icons (possibly). But this is may only apply for Korea. I don’t see them in Balkans (but of course Balkans may just be using the Korea resources when it comes to map icons).
Anyway, I think the last part of the puzzle is figuring out how to point the CT to the icons in the xxxLITE file? I don’t know if I have the right version of F4Browse, but I get the “Can’t map file KoreaObj.lod” when trying to open Falcon4.fed. The version I have is 2.31. I don’t know what other tool to use to check the *.idx and other files. Any help much appreciated.
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I would like to thank whoever got different icons for player controlled units to work! Three years ago to this month I started tinkering with this and then Real Life sidetracked me. But today I started taking control of ground units and I actually gasped (lol) when I noticed that the player controlled units had the white border. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!