Little fixes

[dvk901]

I'll upload the rest of the small fixes tonite...including the nysterious mercenary unit cards....whihc has a story. Every time somebody said these two were missing, I would look in the UNITS\MERCS folder and there they would be. I couldn't figure out why you guys wouldn't have them. Last nite, I realized that where I was looking was in the EXTRACTED UI folder I use...not the 'pak' directory to see if they were showing up in an install. I found then, that I had for some unknown reason, never put them in any Hotfix or anything. Sorry about that.

Another thing I have fixed which you probably haven't noticed...well, you have because it hasn't happened, was a CTD when you took certain regions. They were regions the Free People had, and the ex-Roman factions. The CTD was being caused by the named character in those cities having a trait not normally given by the culture they now were. So the Free People (Briton) character had a 'barbarian' trait, and the 'Greek' character had a Roman trait. Removing them has solved the issue. (Remind me to remember this when we start changing ex-Roman, now Greek, to Barbarian factions.)

Still another thing, unrelated to this, is that I'm going to go thru DMB after this patch is released and put all currently used skins in folders by faction name (except mounts, banners, Legions), get rid of unused stuff...in preparation for building the ability to swap factions in and out. It will be much easier to do this if 'everything is in it's place' where it can be readily found.

[aja5191]

Can we really count on releasing this tomorrow?

We won't be able to beta-test these mini-fixes though....

[cherryfunk]

Is Sat. more realistic? My only concern at this point is -- well you know what it is... Other than that I'm very pleased with everything.

[aja5191]

I mean, I think that everything is good, and would be fit for release in almost any other condition, but eventually we just have to accept that tehe balance will always be a little off, and that we have to get started working on RS 2.0, and leave this to rot, metaphorically.

However, when we release this, we need to announce that this will be the final release of RS 1.0, and that we will be unable to release any other hotfixes or anything, because all of our files for everything will change, because of the new start date scenario.

[cherryfunk]

I thought dvk had decided to move more gradually into 2.0?

[aja5191]

Really? Hm...I thought all the files would have to be changed to allow it to happen, but I don't recall precisely what the plan was for the future...

little help, DVK?

[cherryfunk]

Well there are a number of changes:

-- New start date and faction starting locations.
-- Remove Epirus
-- Add Boii, Belgae and Scythians
-- Get Greek batch-file system working
-- Move to the new map

I think he means to implement these gradually and release each major change as a new patch, rather than 'freezing' 1.0 and leaving it alone for several months while we do everything else.

[Spartan_Shame]

*raises hand*

Ooh, ooh, me, me!!

Um, could I have a go at adding a new faction? I have been trying my hand at doing some small modding, and if you would let me, Id love to have a go. Watch me as a hawk, but maybe it would be a small load of your shoulders. If you prefer to do it all yourself, I understand.

Anyways, I thought id put that through.

[Squid]

Once dvk puts the final fixes up for the patch I can have the new installers created reasonably quickly. There will be a slowdown when I have to upload it somewhere though.

[dvk901]

As I recall, the plan is to finish skinning this as it is. We have to do that because this Mod in it's current state will include the 'optional' factions of Syracuse and Epirus. If we don't finish this, it is going to be really hard to do it, because making an optional faction requires numerous sets of files, all of which have to be changed if you change a faction that is common to all setups. A nightmare keeping it all straight.

By way of explanation, let's say you are going to reskin Seleucid....which is going to be in all the campaigns, no matter which faction you play. If you have 4 optional factions, that's four sets of files including 'export_descr_units.txt, export_descr_buildings.txt, descr_model_battle.txt, export_units.txt'...at a miniumum. If I have to maintain a '0' and '1' turn file for each one, that's two sets for each optional faction...8 sets in all for just four factions. If Seleucid isn't finished, and we reskin it after starting to do this, then I have to manually change 8-9 sets of files just to change a model or a skin texture. That just isn't going to happen this year, folks.

So this has to be done 'methodically'. The current campaign has to be finished, then IT becomes an 'option'. Then you switch factions, add the Boii, Syracuse becomes Belgae, Eprius becomes Scythia, Greek_cities becomes Sparta....you skin all this, and then THAT becomes an option. (Bear in mind the map has to change as well!)

Once we reach that point, it'll be much easier to just switch Sparta to Rhodes, Crete, or whatever Greek state you wish (or any faction you wish, for that matter). I have it all mapped out how it can be done, but you have to have a 'finished base' to start with, and this mod as it is, is that 'base'. I have been slowly building the 'means' of doing this and keeping it all straight.

[cherryfunk]

Okay, makes sense.

[dvk901]

By the way...once we have released Patch10 (I didn't want to do this before, because we'll need to test and make sure there are no issues).....I'm going to change the internal name of the 'Senate' to 'Boii'. Assuming all goes well, we could add the Boii then at any time because this will be a totally empty slot.

[cherryfunk]

Yes! I can't wait to have them in. I'll start working on their unit roster.

[Squid]

Not to make your life ridiculously more complicated dvk, but while you're changing the senate's internal name could you change all the other factions internal names so they match their faction names. The number of times I get confused looking at the files saying which faction does XXX really represent isn't funny.

[dvk901]

No one has ever done that, that I know of.....not even EB. They changed the Senate to 'Saba'. Is this because of issues with traits? If so, what's going to happen when a current faction like Syracuse, which is Greek, becomes the 'Belgae', and Barbarian?

I guess I could try it...but, yikes!

[aja5191]

I would say try it, but make like 17 copies of this version of RS beforehand, as an extra-extra-extra-extra precaution.