Buildings and Infantry.

[lukerduker123]

Howdy! While attempting to work on a mod I realized that replacing a couple buildings would go a long way. For this I have one simple question:

Do I have to make a building for every zoom level? I notice that there's six TerXXZXs per layer. Is this still in use or is it obsolete?

Secondly I'm attempting to change the infantry of the BLUE Nation (OOB-42). Just to make sure this means I have to change Icon0010 (infantry) and Icon0028 (Crew), correct? Are there any of these I don't have to change? I noticed a lot of deprecated sprites in these!

Thanks!

EDIT: Whoops, I have the aim of a Stormtrooper here and posted this in the MBT forum instead of WWII. Well, er, the question(s) still stand I reckon!

[DRG]

No.... only make the 1:1 version used by Z4 the other "Z"s are no longer used by the game. I left them in just in case anyone ran an older EXE for whatever reason. Leaving things behind in the code that are not used in SP goes WAY back to before SP1 was even released

In regards to infantry. They are based on the original SS1 ones and there is a lot of legacy "junk" in some of those files that, at the time, was work that did not need to be done because 99.99% of the players would never even know it's there. Just change the ones facing right and the center MC/sidecar. The ones facing other angles goes back to code Grigsby & Brors used before they release SP1 and that's the way all the vehicles showed up as well in the original files and the last 9 in the "crew" set can be ignored

HOWEVER..... changing those will change more than the Blue OOB. It will change Germany and others.... Slovak Republic, RSI, Vichy, Finland, Nat Spain, Italy AND Blue

[lukerduker123]

Thank you for the quick reply! Since I'm aiming this to be a total replacement mod I'm fine with messing up the infantry, however I'll leave that part optional.

Also, one last question. For DD tanks is it possible to add more? Is there an icon sheet tied to them and the tauchpanzer?

[DRG]

Both the DD and Snorkle tanks UC both use special two part land / water icons. The land Icons are normal but the DD water version and the "Snorkel" icon location can be found in SPWW2-MasterIcon.txt

There is no "sheet" that produces swimming tanks like the DD or snorkel tanks. That done in the code case by case

[lukerduker123]

Got it! So to make my own DD / snorkel tank I'll have to modify those icons?

[DRG]

To make ones that change radically when they are in and out of the water yes. You will notice that the DD uses one Icon for summer, winter or desert on land and both Tauch use different icons for summer, winter and desert but still produce the snorkel graphic in the water


That said, all it takes to make something swim is to give it a swim speed but the DD and the Snorkel tanks were special cases

[Mobhack]

And the DD Tanks have thier own specific classes - 134 DD tank and 135 Snorkel tank. Whether that leads to a specific snorkel graphic or not, you will need to experiment with. One may use a "snorkel" and the other a DD sherman graphic when in the water. Been a long time since I coded it, but thats probably it - Unit class X for a flotation tube and Y for a sherman with sides up swimming graphic.

There is no alternative "floating" icon, its all hard coded for the specific types. You would need to find the snort and DD icons wherever they reside and change for your purposes if you want to change them. (Similar hard-coded icon swaps are done for the parachutist types while falling out the back of a plane - the parachute icons are special ones)

Also IIRC, there is a difference in the to-hit and hit resolution for firing on a submerged snort tank and a floating DD tank. Neither react well to being hit by any weapon type (glug glug!) but the snort may be treated as a smaller target (likely also for spotting the thing), vaguely recalling code I wrote back in the MSDOS days and havent looked at since. I vaguely recall snipers being a good thing(tm) to shoot at snorts with for exmaple, but I am not going to delve into the code to refresh my mind.