Cold War 2020 Mod R.C.0.6 is out!

PlasmaKrab · #1 July 20th, 2008, 08:36 AM

Hello everyone!

As discussed quite exactly a month ago, here comes the new installment of the Cold War 2020 Mod for WinSPMBT v4.0!

To those who don't know the mod yet, here is the idea: the USSR has not gone bust, the East-West standoff has continued uninterrupted from 1990 all the way to 2020.
Nothing too original, but this means three decades of unfettered force consolidation and military development, FMS and shifting alliances.
Now think about it in wargame terms...

There come Comanches, T-95s, Marder-II, Block-III MBT, and a lot more! No force reduction, no oldies kept in service for decades without replacement, no Shinseki doctrine (well, not too much), now you can have fun wreaking havoc in germany with the best technology that will never be available!

The mod installer contains:

1. 20 historically modded OOBs: Russia (USSR), USA, West Germany, East Germany, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Austria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Libya, Algeria, Chad, Mujahedeen and Japan.
2. 160 new IA picklists
3. 832 new icons
4. 1369 new B&W .lbm pictures
5. 52 presentation-screen color .lbm pictures
6. 356 encyclopedia text files
7. 7 stand-alone scenarios
8. 1 complete campaign

To play, just install a new, clean version of WinSPMBT v4.0 (that's to prevent wrecking your custom files or your PBEM games), and run the mod installer over it.

about this:
[official warning]
"This mod contains highly altered or additional files that may or will cause interference with the master game files and it is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED that this mod be installed and played ONLY in a separate copy of the game and NOT run from the master game"
[/official warning]

You will find the mod install on Fabio Prado's Armor site, who kindly offered to host it and saved you all from the bother of unregistered RapidShare queuing:

Fabio Prado's WinSPMBT page with the Cold War 2020 mod install. If you didn't already, you should really check his site on the way, it's a great reference on armor and SP-based wargames, but I guess you all know this last part.

Just in case, here is the backup RapidShare link.

As always, I am open to commentaries, criticism, corrections, death threats or fan gifts

Have fun!

Regards,

Plasma

cronos3807 · #2 July 20th, 2008, 02:40 PM

Nice work Plasma !!!

Warhero · #3 July 25th, 2008, 06:22 PM

Very nice work Plasma! Impressive icon work.

Btw, I found one bug:OT-2000 Rys in Czech oob don't show in game (you can shoot it but there's no icon for it). Could you fix it?

edit:Another bug:W-3U Sokol and some plane (Bournak if I didn't remember wrong) don't have icons in game...

PanzerBob · #4 July 26th, 2008, 12:54 AM

One question, on what seems to be an excellent piece of work. Does this effect the Canada OOB? I have an MBT loaded just for kind of thing, just wanted to know if I should protect my Canadian OOB.

Bob out

PlasmaKrab · #5 July 26th, 2008, 06:16 AM

Quote:

PanzerBob said:
One question, on what seems to be an excellent piece of work. Does this effect the Canada OOB? I have an MBT loaded just for kind of thing, just wanted to know if I should protect my Canadian OOB.

Nope, not yet. The list of affected OOBs was posted pretty much everywhere on this thread, on the mod page, the readme... Canada I haven't got around to do yet, but probably soon. There are no icons, lbms, picklists or other changes that should affect the Canadian OOB, and the .obf file itself is not overwritten.

In any case, I once again advise everyone to install the mod over a new copy of WinSPMBT rather than over the one you usually play and edit, to avoid PBEM conflicts and losing custom files.
If you want to install the Cold War mod on a fresh game folder and then copy your custom Canadian OOB into it, I don't see why it wouldn't work.
Please tell me if it doesn't, and how.

PlasmaKrab · #6 July 26th, 2008, 06:33 AM

Quote:

Warhero said:
Very nice work Plasma! Impressive icon work.

Btw, I found one bug:OT-2000 Rys in Czech oob don't show in game (you can shoot it but there's no icon for it). Could you fix it?

edit:Another bug:W-3U Sokol and some plane (Bournak if I didn't remember wrong) don't have icons in game...

Thanks for the feedback!

I don't know how this can happen, since neither the Rys or the W-3 use custom icons, and these icons are not in modified files.
I guess this if unit #725 "OT-2002 Rys" in OOB 37? I have no other entry for the Rys in Czechoslovakia.
Please check that the files icon0100.shp and icon0101.shp in folder WinSPMBT\Game Data\Graphics exist with modification dates of 25/03/2008 and 12/05/2006 respectively. They contain the official icons used by these units.
Did you try these units in the official game as well? That would be unit #439 "Rys Azalia AOP", #459 "Rys M-98" and #572 "KTO Rys" in OOB 02 Poland, and all the Sokols you can find.

Could you give me more detail about the other graphic bugs you have encountered? OOB and unit number would be fine.

Regarding the L-201 aircraft icons, these are custom icons which I recently moved, so there may be some bugs left here and there.
I will issue a correction shortly if some more of these problems are found. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Still no idea about the other bugs with the original icons, though.

Warhero · #7 July 27th, 2008, 04:20 AM

Hmm 1st bug was in generated campaign game.
Btw, I just noticed that both icons 0100 and 0101 don't exist in my graphics folder... I just reinstalled 0.6 version. What I did wrong? Did you forgot to add them into installer? If so, could you attach them here?

PanzerBob · #8 July 27th, 2008, 06:45 AM

Seems everything has worked as advertised, it didn't effect my Canada OOB. Just to clarify, is there supposed to be a Comache or a Abrams follow on? Not a problem otherwise, seems to play fine so far.

PlasmaKrab · #9 July 27th, 2008, 10:23 AM

Quote:

Warhero said:
Hmm 1st bug was in generated campaign game.
Btw, I just noticed that both icons 0100 and 0101 don't exist in my graphics folder... I just reinstalled 0.6 version. What I did wrong? Did you forgot to add them into installer? If so, could you attach them here?

Huh, as said earlier, these two files are official and should be part of your original WinSPMBT v4.0. As such, they are not supposed to be in the CWM installer in the first place.
First, did you install the mod over an V4.0 WinSPMBT game? Using any earlier version is bound to cause problems, e.g. missing icons.
If you did, then there is a problem with the game install you used. I would recommend extracting to a new folder the required WinSPMBT patches, and copying the graphics files from there to your Cold War Mod install.
Use Upgrade v4.0 for file icon0100.shp, and
Supplement v3.0 for file icon0101.shp.
The files needed can be found in the usual Game Data\Graphics\ folder.

If other such problems come up, the radical solution would be to install a fresh WinSPMBT with all patches, and then only install the Cold War mod on it. If you keep a copy of your campaign savegames, there should be no problem to start it again when this is done.

PlasmaKrab · #10 July 27th, 2008, 10:29 AM

Quote:

PanzerBob said:
Seems everything has worked as advertised, it didn't effect my Canada OOB. Just to clarify, is there supposed to be a Comache or a Abrams follow on? Not a problem otherwise, seems to play fine so far.

Great, nice to know everything works as planned!
Abrams follow-on is pretty clearly included in the US OOB in the shape of the old Block-3 tank and family. That's the non-export version, export-proof successor coming soon.
Comanche follow-on would be rather out of scope in terms of game timeline and technology IMHO, and the late Apaches and Comanches are already fearsome enough to hold the line until 2020.