The following is a PM between Darth and me regarding Darthmod internal working, posted here at Darth's request.
Originally Posted by DARTH VADER Quote:
Originally Posted by Cofresi Hey Darth,
Hope everything is improving for you and still enjoying the deserved rest.
I'm modding one of my Darth mod installations just for the fun of it and practice modding (my new challenge) just to make a personalized Darthmod of mine and now I understand you better when you say Darthmod components are interacting with each other and that taking parts of it is not recommended.
I added some new units to the changed Darthmod in question and noticed they were not getting the whole "Darthed" effects like the original units even though I "darted" them in the edu file. That's when I noticed your animation vector changes at the models file that you have mentioned at the forums and as an experiment cloned some of them to the new units and the changes in battle dynamics were drastic, so I don't understand why other modders are in denial of this and just elected to ignore this while the reality is that it works! and you have told them!
I quit playing kingdoms after the very first battle!
I'll see if I can help "Darthing Kingdoms" with the team.
Thanks for the mod Darth
Cofresi
I am really relieved from your words. Not because I was skeptical about my findings but because someone actually from the WHOLE INTERNET base has found a little time to actually test it and verify.
Not even CA is aware of it because...I assume how they work.
This story is bitter for me because the "modders" came to criticize me at a moment where my application was evaluated, and I sounded like a fool when I told that this was true.
I do not know if this was "accidental" but eventually everything happens for a reason and maybe for the best.
I would be thankful if you have posted to DarthMod forum so that others can realise WHY someone cannot fully implement DarthMod and at least have a ground to understand how this can be done if this would be a feedback for the best of modding.
What it does? It proves my theory of the animation vector modding
It includes:
The default Darth battle_models.db Test 1 battle_models.db Test 2 battle_models.db
4 custom battle test scenarios
testvsprojectile.cbx
cavalry endurance test inf.cbx
cavalry endurance test archers.cbx
goth test.cbx
In order to test you install by simply copying to your DarthMod folder as the file structure I give.
Then you rename each of the battle_model.db files to be recognised by the game by removing the Darth, Test1, Test2 before of the core name.
Darth= the setting included + shipped by DarthMod 1.4D Test1= Mailed Knights are modded to have more endurance,
Dismounted Gothic Knights to have extra new behaviour in
penetration..almost idiotic..just to see how this is clear...also different
endurance in arrows (hopefully..had no time to re-check). Test2=Given the values of old vanilla to both mailed knights and
dismounted gothic knights.(watch for example how less endurance the gothic knights have in arrows in battle testvsprojectile.cbx)
ALL other remain the same as DarthMod 1.4D
Now play the battles I give by swapping the files accordingly and tell me if you see in all of them THE SAME THING...if yes I am blind and a fool.
If not..I will tell you later.
I expect from the Darth Team to awake and test this.
Note:
In DarthMod there are other countless mod parameters which contribute to the effect of the battles such as enduring charges, other penetration effects, balance of stats, attack delays etc.
So the whole effect you must test may seem different to other mods if you simply copy these values I did change to the file.
But there is no doubt..that it changes the gameplay. No doubt.
The test would be better if I had mass modded the file to see far more different behaviour of all....I did a very big thing here...I modded some lines despite my retirement. I should have not. But since I have to prove this, I was forced to continue.
---edit---
PS.
And despite all the animation vector thing and gameplay, all this is a game of testing and not testing of a game.
If different values create different effects, then we trace maybe a possible bug generator hidden in the game or maybe an enhancement factor never before found.
So all this has also a constructive manner of interaction within the game.
This is quote from the DarthMod Dev forum explaining smthg about the animation vectors.
The animation vectors and the values I propose are very carefully tested. These are not unique and you can find alternatives. They are just optimised for the current DarthMod.
For example the armour system in DarthMod is enhanced. Despite the internal of CA I amplify it with the animation vectors.
Fairly easy to see in DarthMod.
Take for example a spearman unit with 0 or 1 armour that can be upgraded 3 times.
With the CA method, its armour will mostly resemble a unit of 4-5 armour. With DarthMod this is more amplified and correctly because visually you see a man carrying 30 Kg of armour = not logical to be so vulnerable.
Do these tests against arrows.
With the animation vectors and without.
Watch the fully upgraded spearman to behave close to Gothic armour...despite the EDU stats.
On the other hand, the values I have chosen universally give the proper balance so that the units that have a lot of EDU armour not to become immune with a single upgrade.
So armour upgrade is really important in DarthMod.
Haven't you noticed in DarthMod that the naked spearmen are so weak and then as they gain armour they become maybe the most cost-effective unit in the game?
Now the funny part...the proof!
Download the file I give above and of course have installed the DarthMod 1.4D
There is a new custom battle:
The:
test arrow endurance 1.cbx
This proves my selected animation vector values and their impact to the gameplay.
I have as human, militia archers (Not having longbows due to the enhanced armoured penetration in DarthMod which causes very powerful effect for them which almost makes armour useless)
I gave to the AI Militia spear men and I have varied all possible armour upgrades for them to the max of 3 upgrades to the min of zero upgrade.
Do the following to test:
-un-skirmish and un-fire at will your archers.
-Pick each one unit of yours to select respectively each kind of spearmen with different armour upgrade to shoot.
-Let the AI come to you and also leave the melee fight to commence as they come to you.
Now do the above mentioned by:
1)Play the battle in DarthMod 1.4 D unmodded and watch...
2)Re-name the battle_models.db included in DarthMod folder so that it is not recognised by the game and also check in the root folder to do the same if there is this file also. In this way you will play the battle with the vanilla default and universal animation vectors and watch...
1)In DarthMod 1.4D you notice:
-That armour variance is varied in endurance approximatelly 20-25 % per upgrade. Quite satisfactory. Also you notice that arrows have a correct balance of power.
-The melee begins and the 2 troop types (spearmen vs archers) fight with different style (Spearmen more cautiously and combined, archers stretched and more free)
-The melee is having more endurance due to the militia archers having extra armour to protect them. Fixed lines are created with penetration gaps in random places.
-The melee ends with the expected losses of the 2 sides
2)In DarthMod 1.4D without the special animation vectors:
-You notice first thing that the arrows are much weaker than previously.
(magic 1)
-You notice inter-variance between armour types is insignificant. Either you fire to an armoured or un-armoured unit, similar low casualties are inflicted.
(magic 2)
-Melee starts and both types fight almost similarly (they would fight completely similarly if I had not modded respectively with the negative formation values in EDU)...units fight almost like a total mess with risky penetration attempts (This is quite good but overally the AI would lose over human because it marches all the time and easily could be crashed with flank attempts while creating thin lines of risky isolated un-timed charges.
(magic 3)
-Despite the armour of the archers they die like flies and the battle ends in 1/5 of the previous time.
(magic 4)
-Losses are very few for the spearmen who had not lost but a few men to a rain of arrows!!!
(magic 5)
Everybody can check this.
Even a child.
I currently come back to defend my dignity destroyed by Lusted and some CA members as it seems.
Hello all.
Have a nice week!
Darth
Last edited by DARTH VADER; October 14, 2007 at 04:02 AM.
Notice how the values are basically identical apart from minor variations? The rest of the border_horse battle_models entry also relates to the info from Caliban in the thread i linked to.
And yes i have actually tested changing those values to see what affect they have, more precisely in regards to Darths claim they affect the toughness of armour upgrades, and i found no difference from vanilla(though any testing of armour upgrades effects is likely to be wrong if people are not aware they give a bonus of +2/2.5 per level in vanilla despite only showing 1 on the unit card).
In my mod as it doesn't matter what mod it is done in, those values have the same meaning and if they do something other than just affect the torch offset value, then they should have an affect in all mods not just DarthMod if the right changes are made.
And those values are the torch offset values, the thread i linked to above was a bit burried at .org but i dug it out when i wanted to investigate the battle_models file more.
With all due respect then you should go and try the changes in Darthmod since it is the point of reference for the findings.
Can anyone deny that Darthmod plays different from other battle mods?
The evidence, called Darthmod speaks for itself, Darth created it, He knows what he changed and the effect of it. Darth has said many things contribute to he's battle physics, the changes in this file are part of that, but for what I understand reading his posts this one is a major contributor.
Last edited by Cofresi; October 09, 2007 at 04:50 PM.
The point is it does not matter what mod the changes are made in, IF those values do what Darth claims, then they will have an affect in ANY mod they are put into, as the value works the same in all mods as they all use the same game. They will not work differently in one to another, that is impossible without some editing to the .exe(which is illegal btw and no mod does that).
I've tried the values in my mod, IF they had an affect on something apart from the torch offset they should show up ingame. My tests have shown no difference.
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OK guys, let's make sure we keep this CIVIL. Even if you disagree with Lusted, you should still show him some respect, he does deserve that.
I want to clarify this.
I have not been disrespectful to Lusted. Perhaps the arguments sound strong for some, but that what they are......arguments. I have not said anything unrelated to the threat topic or in an offensive manner.
Well I'll give more information about what I said in the first post of this threat.
I downloaded Naimad's hibrid mod and played with it, I liked the Persian Heavy Spearmen unit from the Long Road Mod and added it to my Darthmod installation and gave them to the Turks and Egypt so to give them a better spear unit. After playing lots of huge battles vs the hordes of Turks 6000-8000 men average I was noticing that while I Darthed the new unit in the edu file they were not bahaving as powerfully has I wished even though I gave them 2 hit points!
They were just not holding the line has other spearmen in Darthmod nor were that much aggressive when charging other infantry units, their hit rate was less than the other units. I then added the animation vector to them in the models file. The first thing I noticed was a lot more aggressiveness of them while charging and been in melee, and of course an overall increase in its battle performance. That what the reason to write to Darth.
@ Lusted
I'm glad you decided to test in Darthmod, it is the correct thing to do, but
You should test with the files Darth provided. He has provided the testing tools to verify. I don't think he has to said anything else IMHO.
Last edited by Cofresi; October 13, 2007 at 03:11 PM.
Well I'll give more information about what I said in the first post of this threat.
I downloaded Naimad's hibrid mod and played with it, I liked the Persian Heavy Spearmen unit from the Long Road Mod and added it to my Darthmod installation and gave them to the Turks and Egypt so to give them a better spear unit. After playing lots of huge battles vs the hordes of Turks 6000-8000 men average I was noticing that while I Darthed the new unit in the edu file they were not bahaving as powerfully has I wished even though I gave them 2 hit points!
They were just not holding the line has other spearmen in Darthmod nor were that much aggressive when charging other infantry units, their hit rate was less than the other units. I then added the animation vector to them in the models file. The first thing I noticed was a lot more aggressiveness of them while charging and been in melee, and of course an overall increase in its battle performance. That what the reason to write to Darth.
@ Lusted
I'm glad you decided to test in Darthmod, it is the correct thing to do, but
You should test with the files Darth provided. He has provided the testing tools to verify. I don't think he has to said anything else IMHO.
As i said before, I totally agree with you.., there is something in that file that is affecting the performance of the units, but i haven't enough time to mod that file (too big and too messed up) i will leave it to the last thing when i begin my battle enhacements..
Ok...I read the post and i followed the link provided by Lusted(just above) and read the things mentioned there as well.
I have something to say about the negative numbers used by Darth in the EDU file. I think that the negative values work! I don't think this was the intention of CA, but i think it is possible to use negative numbers. Notice that the numbers used in the EDU at the formation line support numbers in floating point(like 1.2 or -2.5)! Usually, in programming, these values are declared as float or double, or whatever(depending on the programming language)... AND these numbers (floats, double...) are ranged from a large negative value towards a large positive value.
Go to this link and look at the floating point data types: http://www.angelfire.com/fl3/mwallin...ableTypes3.htm
So i don't think CA intended to use exclusively positive numbers. I think they declared them as double and they knew that THEY will not get to the point where they would use negative numbers. They did not think that somebody would use negative numbers. And i don't think they included a line in their code like: if(value<0)
value=0;
This means that if the number is negative then that number will now be assigned with the value 0. This would have assured that all negative numbers would have been treated as 0s.
From what i noticed about CA's work(by looking at the EDB & other files) i think that they did a messy, disorganized job!(This is not about CA in particular. It only help me with my case )
Furthermore. Variables are declared as a certain type from the beginning!And if someone uses a value that is not supported then the application will crash! And if the game worked with negative values(there were no warning for neg values for formations only for fire_delay) then i suspect that CA did use a floating point data type which supports negative numbers. And this was not intended by CA. They overlooked this possibility. They had more important things to worry about than this...
But Darth tested the EDU with negative numbers and found that by using neg values he gets something special. He knows best what he did when he experimented with his values.
So there is a great chance that negative values are supported! But that does not mean that by using negative values you will get something special. And there are cases where, by pure chance, negative values DO affect the outcome. So i think that Darth experimented with these values, and luckily noticed that the neg values do have a positive effect for the formations.
Jesus...I now notice how long my comment is...
Ohh and one more thing. you may think that i am on Darth's side on this one just because i am part of the Darth Team. This is not the case. I just needed to tell you that it is possible, based on the properties of data types used in programming. One way to settle this is to look at the code written by CA. I don't think they will tell us, but Caliban, or someone with links there, could ask them about negative values. Don't just ask them. Point them to my arguments expressed above. Maybe they overlooked something.
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And if someone uses a value that is not supported then the application will crash!
Well that's not true for a start. For instance i can add in lines and lines of code to battle_config.xml and other files that don't work and the game won't crash, it just ignores them. Or even in the EDU if you set attack to 99 or something it will default to the maximum of 64. So i would assume the same with negative values being read as 0 for the formation lines as my testing showed no difference between units with 0.0 and negative values on that line.
Well that's not true for a start. For instance i can add in lines and lines of code to battle_config.xml and other files that don't work and the game won't crash, it just ignores them. Or even in the EDU if you set attack to 99 or something it will default to the maximum of 64. So i would assume the same with negative values being read as 0 for the formation lines as my testing showed no difference between units with 0.0 and negative values on that line.
The negative values will be converted to 0 if there is something in the code like:
if(value<0)
values=0;
And i don't think CA thought about that. They thought that there is no need to check if the value is negative since they don't intend to use negative values. So they didn't include a code similar to that above. And if they have used something like that then the game would have been slowed down allot. Checking the formations time and time again if they are positive.
The only way to settle this is to ask someone from CA to take a peek at the code.
The negative values will be converted to 0 if there is something in the code like:
if(value<0)
values=0;
And i don't think CA thought about that. They thought that there is no need to check if the value is negative since they don't intend to use negative values. So they didn't include a code similar to that above. And if they have used something like that then the game would have been slowed down allot. Checking the formations time and time again if they are positive.
Well i'm assuming there is something like that in the code as when i've tested negative values on the formations line they've had no effect. Or at least the game is feaulting to 0 when it reads things it can't understand on it's line, just like if you put negative values for defense or attack, and yes that has been tested as being zero.
Yes, i've seen the test you made. It involved spearmen. But spearmen have a defensive behavior. When 2 units of spear units fight each other then both of them adopt a defensive stance and rarely break the line and attack. So there is little movement going on.
I will do some test myself. With DFK or peasants.
Dark Secret revealed.............again!
Originally Posted by Lusted
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