Giving pikemen armour

[S-te-Fan]

I've been trying to make a 17th century pikemen by taking the "euro_pikemen" line and change its unit's model to episodic_armour. Too bad for me, it doesn't work. If I load the game the pikemen just look like they are in vanilla. What am I doing wrong?

[Dogmeat]

There are different armour categories in the Db files but i dont think they change anything visually, probabaly more to do with a damage modification value.

[S-te-Fan]

Hmm... So how can I change the mesh? There has got to be a line somewere...

[harshman_chris]

Well if it is not working there is a good chance something is broken.

But the best way to add armour to a unit is to change the armour type in the unit files, then just edit the texture to add armour.

[S-te-Fan]

I found out! I think... gonna test asap.

[erasmus777]

Also, make sure you haven't mispelled anything, e.g. make sure it's "episodic_armoured". I got it to work by creating a new unit euro_pikemen_countryname and changing the model name (see thumbnail). In my experience, sometimes the program reacts strangely when you change the original entries.

[falcone79]

Also, make sure you haven't mispelled anything, e.g. make sure it's "episodic_armoured". I got it to work by creating a new unit euro_pikemen_countryname and changing the model name (see thumbnail). In my experience, sometimes the program reacts strangely when you change the original entries.

Those look pretty good!

[S-te-Fan]

You also had to edit something in "warscape_animated_lod"? And yes I tried the Hakapiikablabla guys but didn't succeeded...

[erasmus777]

Here's what I did to make them show up in custom battle:

1) Clone "euro_pikemen" in unit_stats_land.
-Change the name to "euro_pikemen_xxxxxx" (whatever you want; in my case is was ..._denmark).
-Change the model name to "episodic_armoured".
-I also made recruitment global, but that's not necessary

2) Clone "euro_pikemen" in units_tables.
-Change the name to "euro_pikemen_xxxxxx"

3) Clone "euro_pikemen" in units_to_groupings_military_permissions
-Change the name to "euro_pikemen_xxxxxx".
-Add to whatever faction group you would like.

4) Extract the diffuse, gloss, and normal textures for episodic_armoured from models.pack.
-Add them to your new .pack
-Rename them "euro_pikemen_xxxxxx_diffuse.dds", etc.

I think that should do it. To change the screen name and add the to the GC, change the .loc files and add to the building permissions.

[S-te-Fan]

4) Extract the diffuse, gloss, and normal textures for episodic_armoured from models.pack.
-Add them to your new .pack
-Rename them "euro_pikemen_xxxxxx_diffuse.dds", etc.

I think that should do it. To change the screen name and add the to the GC, change the .loc files and add to the building permissions.

I don't understand it. I'm editing the main.pack. What to do? And were are those loc files?

EDIT: I found the 2 files. My unit now has the right mesh, but it still has the old pikemen textures. Even thought I replaced them with the armoured textures...

[erasmus777]

I don't understand it. I'm editing the main.pack. What to do? And were are those loc files?

EDIT: I found the 2 files. My unit now has the right mesh, but it still has the old pikemen textures. Even thought I replaced them with the armoured textures...

Weird.

It's probably not a good idea to edit main.pack. Extract the tables you'll be editing (units, units_stats_land, and the one for groupings) from patch.pack. Then create a new .pack and add those tables to it. That's where you want to do your editing. Define it as patch. Add your textures to it and make sure they're named correctly. Hopefully that will work.

I'll recreate what I did yesterday and upload it.

[Wolfgang von Zweibrücken]

Weird.

It's probably not a good idea to edit main.pack. Extract the tables you'll be editing (units, units_stats_land, and the one for groupings) from patch.pack. Then create a new .pack and add those tables to it. That's where you want to do your editing. Define it as patch. Add your textures to it and make sure they're named correctly. Hopefully that will work.

I'll recreate what I did yesterday and upload it.

Not sure if you figured this out already, Stefaneke, but just in case you didn't, I have two suggestions: The mesh and textures are already tied together by the game, so that if you just clone the "euro_pikemen_---" entry, and change model from "euro_pikeman" to "episodic_armoured", the model will be different but the unit stats will remain the same, and they will be equipped with pikes and act in all ways like pikemen. You don't need to mess with textures to do a model swap unless you want to create a new texture.

Example: All I had to do to give my pikemen the Line Infantry model was delete "euro_pikemen" in the unit model entry in unit_stats_land, and replace it with "euroline". The game reads this and connects it to the appropriate textures itself.

The second suggestion is that you copy your main "patch.pack", rename it "17th_century_mod.pack", change file-type to "mod" and make your alterations in there - If you alter the main "patch.pack" in your Data folder, your changes, alterations and custom units will be deleted by automatically downloaded patches (which have been coming out every week or so).

You can also delete all the junk files in your new "mod.pack" to save space and improve performance; For instance, anything that the Pack File Manager cannot read, can be deleted out of hand, and other things you wont need like "unit_stats_naval" or "trees" or whatever. Be sure to leave all of the areas you need for custom units (unit_stats_land, units, building_units_allowed, faction_unit_permissions, so on) and also leave in "battlefield_personalities" and anything dealing with the campaign map that you might need to reference or want to alter.

Once your mod.pack is altered, you can copy-paste it into your data folder and start the game with the mod manager, or tell your game to run your mod manually (mod manager works very well, unless you have more than one mod.pack, in which case it can be troublesome, in my experience).




The first stuff I did with the PFM was try to make 17th century units also, which isn't that hard, but I think the biggest hurdle is to get pikemen to move while in pikewall formation (Don't know how that can be handled without either hex editing or CA tools).

[Dogmeat]

Thats wicked

Means you shoud be able too create Conquistadors and similar.

An English Civil War mod for ETW would be most nice.

[falcone79]

Thats wicked

Means you shoud be able too create Conquistadors and similar.

An English Civil War mod for ETW would be most nice.

Yup, but one that carried over into the late 1700's would be epic...

[S-te-Fan]

Thank you very much erasmus777. Now let's get those things ready for reskinning for my mod!

[erasmus777]

Thank you very much erasmus777. Now let's get those things ready for reskinning for my mod!

[1dominator1]

Im tempted to just change the textures/armour of the units and have myself some 17 century pike and musket battles. Change the pikemen armour and the musketeers range and accuracy.

[S-te-Fan]

Can you show us some screens?

[erasmus777]

Here's what I got. Extract to your data folder. I've given the armoured pikemen to Great Britain for custom battles.

[S-te-Fan]

I've succesful managed to get them ingame. I also tried to get an arquebusier unit but it crashes when loading .