A newcomer in modding needs help

[JSQuareD]

Hi all,

When I saw that the assembly kit had come out, I thought I'd give it a try. Since the unit editor, crashes for me, I've used DaVE to (successfully) create a new unit: the mounted ninja . However, I'm having a few issues.

The most important one is that my mounted ninja's refuse to throw their fire bombs. I've given them the same ranged stats as the normal kisho ninjas, except with a little less core marksmanship and reload. On top of that, I've also set the field 'does_fire_mounted_by_default' in the unit_stats_land-table to true, and added the 'fire_mounted'-ability in the unit_to_unit_abilities_junctions-table. However, when I give them a ranged attack order in-game, they will do a weird animation glitch (I'm not really worried about graphics just yet, but I thought I'd mention it): they will spread their arms and legs (so really it's the absence of an animation...) and jump up and down on top of their horses. An icon above their unit card will appear which says they're firing, but they're not. The strange thing is, when I activate the blinding grenades ability, they do show the correct animation, and throw their blinding grenades successfully. Does anybody know how I can get them to throw their fire bombs?

Another important problem I'm having is that the ultimate pack-file is huge! It's 600 mb, even though I've added no artwork myself, and just added a few tables. The combined size of these tables in xml-form is only 2.69 mb. In working_data form, the entire thing is about 1.7 mb, but in pack form, which should be the smallest of all, it's 600 mb! Can someone tell me how to push back the size of the pack file?

Here is the list of tables I've edited:

• battle_entities
• uniforms
• uniforms_to_faction_colours
• unit_description_texts
• unit_experience_ threshold_modifiers
• unit_stats_land
• unit_to_unit_abilities_junctions
• units
• units_to_groupings_ military_permissions

I realize there are still a few tables missing for correct use in campaign and classical multiplayer battles (if that's possible?), but for now I'm just focusing on custom battles.

Besides these issues there are a few more graphical glitches, but I think I will focus on them later.

Oh, and if anybody wants to know: I do not have any previous experience in modding, for total war games or otherwise. I do have a reasonable programming knowledge, but it seems that programming and scripting aren't necessary at this point. Concerning artwork I'm absolutely useless, so don't ask me to modify some textures, models or animations.

Anyway, I hope somebody can help out, and I will appreciate any pointers given.

Thanks in advance,
JSQuareD

[weirdoascensor]

I believe there is no animation for mounted throwing...thats explains that Floating crucifixions animations.

Size...maybe because you use the entire table, not only the entries you needed?

[JSQuareD]

Hi,

Thanks for your response. As said, I don't care too much about the animations atm. Is there a way to make the units throw their bombs without the correct animation showing? (as when the blinding grenade ability is activated - I was mistaken, they throw their bombs, but do not show an animation)

And how exactly would I go about using only the needed entries instead of the entire tables?
BTW, even the entire tables combined shouldn't be this large, like I said, even in xml-form these only make up a few MBs. My guess is that for some reason textures, models and/or animations are included in the pack file. Anyone know how to prevent that?

[MagicCuboid]

Well apologies if I misunderstand, but you wouldn't have any invisible textures or models in there. That stuff is found under the "variantmodels" folder, so you'll want to delete that. Make sure you've unchecked "CA Packs are Read Only" and then you can go about deleting parts of your pack that you don't intend on editing by pressing the delete key while they're highlighted. Stuff will turn grey and red - just save and the pack will reload with the irrelevant parts gone.

[JSQuareD]

Are you talking about ToolDataBuilder.release.exe? 'cause That's crashing on me as well.

However, thanks to your post and the wiki documentation I figured out that I had to modify the contents and location of the rules.bob file. The size of the file is now down to 1.79 MB .

[JSQuareD]

Hi again!

I've solved the problem of them not throwing their grenades by setting the primary_missile_weapon to bow, and including bow animations. However, since I didn't want them to use bows to launch their bombs, I have not equipped them with bows. Even without the bows, they still launch their grenades without graphical glitches arriving. (I'm pretty sure they were actually using some animation which resembled throwing, but I might be mistaken). I've also made them recruitable ingame, and edited the cdir_unit_qualities table to make the AI recruit them (although I have no idea if the latter actually worked). In fact, the mod is now live in the steam workshop: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile.../?id=103186123!

I still have some questions though: regarding the packed tables; the entire tables seem to be packed, not just the entries needed for the mod. Will this overwrite other mods or make them incompatible? Is there a way to only pack the modded entries?
And I used some unitparts from the saints and heroes DLC. Does this mean subscribers require this DLC to be able to use the mod? The reason I ask is that they seem to be packed with the assembly kit regardless of what DLCs you have bought. And when buying a DLC, I don't think there's actually an update to Shogun 2, the content is just activated. So obviously, the required data is there, even if you haven't bought the DLC.

Does anyone know the answers to these questions or have a way of testing it? If so, please help me out.

Thanks in advance,
JSQuareD