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Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
This is a placeholder for now but I'm proud to say that I've come far enough in development that I can now officially announce the Foxhole mod for Steel Panthers WWII. It's still a WiP but I'm hoping to have the most basic version of it out by mid-November.
Right now every Warden vehicle before the newest update has been added and the Colonial vehicles are being drawn up and added. I'm also working on the heightmaps for every map at the moment and the OOBs of both nations. Once this is done I'll post it up on here. For now enjoy an image of every Warden vehicle currently in the game. https://i.imgur.com/1IKFzkq.png I'll post more pictures as we get closer to completion. For now enjoy the wonky, too-big scale of Foxhole. |
Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
Are there dimensions for these vehicles for LxW or are you just estimating?
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Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
There are, but the problem is that the developers fudged the numbers big time. The Silverhand was listed at being !!9!! meters long by 3.9 meters wide so I went with that. It was only about halfway through the vehicles that I was informed that the developers corrected this relatively recently, but I'll be damned if I'm starting fresh. Foxhole also has a scale that makes things appear larger than they actually are, so I'm just sticking with what I've got now.
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Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
Fortunately most people that play Steel Panthers don't really know that the game has an official scale, so it'll buff out in post right?
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Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
Question Sir. What is the Foxhole Mod?
troopie |
Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
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https://store.steampowered.com/app/505460/Foxhole/ https://foxhole.wiki.gg/wiki/Vehicles |
Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
Thanks DRG! See what I mean about the vehicles looking massive though? The developers managed to nail a huge sense of scale in that game, even if the actual ranges are.. Forty meters at best. It's fun, though the community can be highly toxic at times.
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Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
That tanks shown isn't so much big as tall compared to the scale of the troops, it looks about M3 / Char-B1 sized with a hint of Neubaufahrzeug. There is a lot of French 1930's influence from what I have seen but that is limited
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Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
The tanks in this game are joyfully scattered in their styles. For the Wardens (the blue guys) you get a LOT of French and German influence with the tiniest dash of British. For example they have a cruiser tank, the Outlaw, which is clearly inspired by British examples but with an odd turret. The Colonials (green guys) take a lot of influence from Britain and America themselves, but they also for some reason have some Swedish mingled in too, and plenty of Russian. It's great, but also funny how some vehicles just look incredibly non-functional at times. The weapons too tend to look non-functional as well, if only because of how the developers made the receivers and bolts and breeches.
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Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
Here's a brief update while I'm dealing with a hernia, lack of sleep, and a busy work week in that order. The Colonial vehicles are going well. Once those are all done I just have to balance them.. Which is a lot harder than just drawing pixel tanks or commissioning a far more skilled artist to draw pixel tanks. As you can see the scale is, as the youth say, 'hecking chonky', but it still looks damn fine (even if a tankette is roughly as big as a PZIII here). https://i.imgur.com/vjfmtRx.png
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Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
Tiny update for those still waiting:
Good news: all the vehicles are in the game (except the Warden bus, but shhh). Bad news: I'm still balancing things. Even more bad news: I was injured on the job and have been having to take things slow while waiting for a surgery the government refuses to admit happened. So that's delayed the initial release date a fair bit, but it'll still be coming soon(tm). In the meantime, have a little vignette of all the units in the game. https://puu.sh/JTN8v/f937a30d7b.png Right now I have three major steps to getting this out. 1-BALANCE. Balance everything. I've been doing this as I go, but that made me realize that a sort of power-creep has settled in. 2-Infantry sprites. Right now the Wardens have green helmets. That just won't do. 3-Maps. The first release will have two or three non-canon maps. I'll release all the actual maps later down the line. After that we'll be golden. |
Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
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https://forum.shrapnelgames.com/atta...1&d=1699220667 Also, there were a couple of WW1 mods done and you might be able to find them and although I do not know for certain there MAY be a blue uniformed infantry SHP already done. That said creating a new set is not the least bit difficult if you have worked with SHP files and you have |
Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
Thanks for the quick and dirty fix! I've been fiddling around with SHPs quite a bit, it's just another one of those things you throw on the pile of 'it'll get done eventually'. The guns for the Wardens are complete now. Just gotta' get the Colonial field cannons and finish this balancing act that is, well, balancing.
I'm also 100% debating whether to add custom buildings or not. A part of me wants to, since there's a massive stone wall in Foxhole that plays a pivotal role in the lore and I'd love to have that represented in game. |
Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
Small update to start off the month of December. Balancing is fun. Really fun. Really, if I had a choice between a colonoscopy and balancing I'd pick the colonoscopy twice, because I feel like I'm having too much fun. For starters, I've realized that despite my best efforts there's no real way to make these play 'authentically' and have them be a match against real-life tanks. Instead of worrying about how a Silverhand would face a Sherman, or what year these tanks should come out, I've been focused on keeping it how it would act in Foxhole. That means each year is a tier, and each tier brings new goodies to keep the war churning. https://puu.sh/JVZGJ/fbcc41125b.png
Secondly, I've found it best to keep a spreadsheet of all the weapons so I can balance things like vehicle armor around them. There are a lot of weapons. https://puu.sh/JVZFJ/1a69867c24.png Thirdly, in an attempt to keep my sanity I've started doing 'stream of consciousness write-ups'. As I balance a vehicle, squad, or weapon I write why I'm balancing it, how I'm balancing it, and how it'll react to the other vehicles / weapons. This'll allow me to go back later and violently chastise myself for not thinking as hard in the past. https://puu.sh/JVZH3/04e8938a44.png Overall progress? Pretty good, I think. I just have to sweep over everything with the magical balance fairy, and then.. Do the maps. Oh boy. Alright, maps, let's talk about that real quick. When I initially started the mod I wanted to add each map from Foxhole as a 120x120 map, one going E-W and one going N-S. Now I realize this is incredibly time-consuming even with a heightmap generator, so instead my plan is simple: Take core locations from each map and turn them into big areas. Abandoned Ward in the Deadlands, for example, or Jade Cove or the islands of Godcrofts. Eventually I hope to transmute the actual maps, but for now I think this is a fair compromise that'll allow me to actually push this mod out before I'm putting candles on my birthday cake. To wrap up this blog / newsletter / rant, apologies for the delays. My work schedule up until last week was hellish, but I now have a whopping -2- days off in a row, which is nice. Additionally having to deal with worker's comp over an injury I sustained at work has been keeping me on my toes, as is working around said injury. I'll try and expedite this mod for the whole five people actively waiting for it. I hope it'll be worth the effort. P.S: Is there a way to change the name of a faction? I know the Civil War mod did it. P.S.S: Thanks for this awesome game. After playing it for thirteen years I can't believe I'm getting close to actually releasing a mod for it. P.S.S.S: Yes, I know the HE kill / accuracy values for handheld guns are odd. That's part of the balancetm |
Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
You "can" change the names of factions / countries but this requires a proper hack of the exe and ini files using a hex editor and substituting "Germany" or what ever for your faction (They MUST however be the same number of letters ie if you sub "Red" then a 3 letter name, "Germany" then 7, etc)
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Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
Twelve days, an almost medical emergency (Thought my hernia became entrapped), and an actual emergency (Co-worker's girlfriend has cancer, which means I'm managing everything while he's tending to her like a good fellow) later, and I'm back with some updates and questions.
First off, spreadsheets are amazing. I can see why people get paid the big bucks to manage them. I've set up quite a few spreadsheets to help keep track of stuff, which I've already detailed in the previous post, but those spreadsheets only keep growing as I keep piling more onto it. Right now I'm working on penetration. As a relatively young, spry fellow I should be quite skilled at this sort of thing, but unfortunately the opposite appears true. SO! Here's my biggest question of the week. Penetration: what determines it the most? Is it purely decided by warhead size, or does the maximum range, AP, and some sort of random fairy dust help to decide the average penetration of a shell? I ask this because I'm attempting to make sure every gun has a purpose. What's the point of having the monstrous 94.5mm if the 68mm can penetrate every vehicle in the game? I want to break vehicles down into different levels, to ensure that only certain guns can penetrate them from the front at certain distances so no gun feels pointless. Finally, a new update for Foxhole released recently and, as of typing this up, the vehicles are being sketched out. Hopefully this'll release before Foxhole's next huge update.. Whenever that is. Thanks for your patience. Hopefully I'll have something soon-ish that isn't just babble, images, and vague promises. |
Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
Short answer: it all factors in. WH size range, AP vs He pen AND randoms....... always some randoms. This is why we built and included an Armour Penetration calculator with every game. Experiment with it. That's one reason why it is there
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Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
Oh I have, don't you go worrying about that! My one complaint is that I have to close it all down every time I change a value. It's tedious, which is why I was asking before I begin the long, long process of fiddling with one number at a time to get it -just- right.
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Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
Build an entire series of variations of a weapon then check the results and pick the one you think matches whatever data you have then you have it all laid out
Also, you do not need to shut it down and restart it if you change the OOB weapon. Just make your change in the OOB then load another OOB then go back and load the one you are working on and the change will show in the APC.......... APC does not have to be shut down to see a change show up. There is no need to exit the entire program |
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APCalc is not a "live" programme - it does a snapshot of the saved OOB file and so knows you are working on say OB 007 so doesent reload it unless you manually change OOB and subsequently reload OB 007.
So do as Don suggested, and it will pick up your just-made changes without requiring a complete closedown and restart of the programme. |
Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
Depending on what all changes with the upcoming (FINAL?!) patch I should be good to finally drop this in June. Unsurprisingly distractions (health and battletech related) have kept me from finishing this, but sitting down and grinding away at the balancing I've come to really enjoy balancing the numbers. No new pictures, just.. Well, a lot of number crunching to do.
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Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
I'm running into an issue that hopefully Don or Andy can help me with. I just reinstalled Paintshop Pro 7 after having a harddrive issue, and now whenever I try to load up the Steel Panthers Palettes it states that these are not valid palettes. Any fix for this?
Update: I am a spectacular moron. I forgot that going into the lbm file itself will generate a palette that I can save. Ignore me! |
Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
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IDK why your new install of PSP7 would reject your old Palettes as I have never had that problem and I use PSP 7.04 BUT......... those palettes are in the game Game Data/ Design/Palettes and they should work for you because they were made with my copy of PSP7 That said an LBM WILL give you a palette from the game but it is not the Icon palette. There is a palette in the game that gives the full game palette that includes the colour cycling ones used by water and smoke and a slightly different one for colour photo LBM's where we do not want the cycling colours and another for regular B&W LBM's and a different one for Icons and they are all slightly different as their intended purpose is different. We do not want the full palette used for icons and risk getting a colour that is coded as part of the water or smoke animation If you use the LBM pallete for your icons you may see they do not display in the game the way you expect ( as well the palette I use to create B&W LBM's is different than the one included with the game ...it has fewer colours I don't want than the standard B&W LBM palette The palette that PSP reads is a series of numbers in a TXT file that is saved as a .PAL This is the master Icon PAL. Copy this and past it as is and save as a TXT file (like Notepad ----do NOT use Word for this !!! ) then rename .TXT to .PAL \ IMPORTANT...... LEAVE ONE MORE SPACE after the last 255 225 225 or you WILL get the "Not a valid PAL" message Like this https://forum.shrapnelgames.com/atta...1&d=1716901212 JASC-PAL 0100 256 0 0 0 23 23 23 43 43 43 67 67 67 91 91 91 115 115 115 139 139 139 159 159 159 183 183 183 207 207 207 231 231 231 255 255 255 75 75 151 43 207 51 255 200 0 195 0 0 227 203 147 231 191 147 219 195 135 211 183 127 219 175 131 207 171 119 211 163 115 211 159 111 195 155 107 179 159 103 187 171 115 195 183 131 183 139 95 191 135 87 195 139 91 171 147 87 159 135 75 151 123 63 159 103 71 171 111 67 167 99 59 143 87 55 135 87 51 131 103 51 235 226 165 115 79 39 111 83 39 91 67 35 91 67 35 91 67 31 75 55 27 71 51 23 63 39 23 47 31 15 35 27 15 39 35 27 23 15 7 0 31 0 7 63 0 11 87 0 7 111 0 7 135 0 7 163 0 87 107 23 99 103 15 98 103 21 113 118 36 129 134 52 133 138 56 147 152 70 164 169 87 178 184 108 183 119 79 175 123 83 115 127 23 99 119 35 75 91 27 71 83 0 67 67 0 84 89 7 55 11 0 231 227 219 199 195 191 167 163 159 135 131 127 99 99 95 67 67 63 35 35 31 243 241 245 227 223 231 199 191 207 171 155 179 143 123 155 200 110 70 48 64 0 54 70 6 63 79 15 72 88 24 79 95 31 92 108 44 99 115 51 110 126 62 123 139 75 144 160 96 151 163 199 139 155 187 131 143 171 119 131 159 107 119 143 99 107 131 87 99 115 75 87 99 67 75 87 55 63 71 43 51 59 35 43 43 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 151 135 99 151 127 99 143 127 91 139 119 83 143 115 87 135 111 79 139 107 75 139 103 75 127 103 71 119 103 67 123 111 75 127 119 87 119 91 63 127 91 59 127 91 59 111 99 59 103 91 51 99 83 43 103 67 47 111 75 47 111 67 39 95 59 39 91 59 35 87 67 35 107 87 67 75 51 27 75 55 27 59 47 23 59 47 23 59 47 23 51 39 19 47 35 15 43 27 15 31 23 11 23 19 11 27 23 19 15 11 7 0 23 0 7 43 0 7 59 0 7 75 0 7 91 0 7 107 0 59 71 15 67 67 11 71 67 0 77 82 0 91 91 0 95 95 0 103 103 0 109 114 32 123 128 46 119 79 51 115 83 55 75 83 15 67 79 23 51 59 19 47 55 0 47 47 0 59 59 0 39 7 0 131 127 123 111 111 107 95 95 91 75 75 71 59 59 55 39 39 39 23 23 23 151 147 151 135 127 139 119 111 123 107 95 111 91 75 99 144 75 44 25 37 0 37 49 11 49 60 23 60 71 35 71 82 47 82 93 58 93 103 69 119 129 95 142 152 118 165 176 141 99 107 131 91 99 123 83 95 111 79 87 103 71 79 95 63 71 83 55 63 75 51 55 67 43 51 55 35 43 47 31 35 39 23 27 31 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 255 225 225 Which version of PSP7 does your copy show? |
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Howdy! I tried what was instructed, but I still get the 'not a valid PAL' issue. This is real odd. This is also what it shows me when I open up the 'about paintshop pro' tab.
Quick EDIT: I was using the PAL files from the SHPedit folder. Whoops. Swapping over to the palettes in designs I found the original palette I started using two years ago. I saved that palette as a 'color swatch' in aseprite and sent a copy to the artist that's done most of the heavy unit lifting here. Whoops. http://puu.sh/K8nvf/4fa5110d54.png |
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The PAL in the Shpedit folder is set up for for Shpedit. I had never tried using it with PSP until just now and it does indeed give the " not valid" message but as I said that pal is set up specifically for SHPEDIT and was never intended to be used by PSP but the ones in Game Data/ Design / Palette were What you show with that screenshot is the same version of PSP I use and that uses the PAL's that are in Game Data/ Design / Palettes just fine so yours should too WHY it does not is beyond weird I just tried this one and it works perfectly...... as it has done many , many times. Try it with your copy as yours *may* have been corrupted somehow ( I had to zip it up as "PAL" is not a valid extension on the forums) |
Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
I'm sorry, I didn't clarify better -- I swapped to the PAL files shown in the Designs folder and it works perfectly now. Everything's a-okay. Sorry about the confusion!
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Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
So here's a stupid question, but what do y'all think of these unit cards? I tried posing some 3D models or using old war footage, but it didn't jive well with me, either looking too bad or the contrast being off. Instead I decided to go for the "Men of War" approach.
https://puu.sh/K8zlH/29e75495ce.png https://puu.sh/K8zlM/0ccd5b84d1.png |
Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
I'm still alive, barely. Anxiety, depression -- all excuses, but tonight I finally finished the leviathan issue that was porting the mod to V17. The casualty? Icon0199. So Icon0199 was one I figured was 'out of the way' enough to use without worrying about it being overwritten. Oh how wrong I was. Icon0199 contains the LSM (R) USN now. So I could move each and every one of my SHPs over by one, all 64 of them, but seeing that I'm in a frenzy to do all the LBMs, add the stuff from the newest Foxhole updates, and actually finish this thing after three or four years of working on it? I figure the LSM (R) USN is an acceptable casualty. Let's all take a moment to mourn it before I get back to chipping away at this.
https://puu.sh/KrLvL/dba5810665.jpg |
Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
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Don |
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I hope you get to feeling better Don! Brain injuries can be a pain in the rear and they're my biggest fear in the world. Keep fighting man -- and not just so we get that 2025 update, just in general. |
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