Mod Questions

[DarkStar]

I'm looking over doing a Mod for the game.

I see quite a few .TXT files I would need to change. Do these need to be changed by hand using a Text Editor or does the tilegen, and the other command line arg do it for me?

I know I would need to edit some of them by hand, but was wondering mostly about the terrain and map files.

There seems to be quite a bit that needs to be changed, can someone that has made a Mod give me an idea how much work/time we are talking about.

In my Mod I would like to add new items, monsters, and have an adventure that contains 2-3 towns, a wilderness, 4-5 dungeons each with 3-5 levels.

Maybe I should start with something smaller..

[henk brouwer]

Originally posted by DarkStar:
I'm looking over doing a Mod for the game.

I see quite a few .TXT files I would need to change. Do these need to be changed by hand using a Text Editor or does the tilegen, and the other command line arg do it for me?

I know I would need to edit some of them by hand, but was wondering mostly about the terrain and map files.

Tilegen is very, very usefull for making tiles.
Just copy paste the textfiles it makes into the correct tilefile, and don't forget to change things like connection settings to their correct values. Starting dungeon oddysey with -mapgen will allow you to see wether your maps are generated the way they should, complete with monster generation and items, very usefull.

There are also a couple of usefull programs in the utilities folder, It's possible to make terrain files with the classfilegenerator (could have the name wrong) program, but you will need to change a lot of values manually afterwards. I haven't used the other two programs much, one can be used to search for and replace certain lines, I haven't used the other one.

There seems to be quite a bit that needs to be changed, can someone that has made a Mod give me an idea how much work/time we are talking about.

In my Mod I would like to add new items, monsters, and have an adventure that contains 2-3 towns, a wilderness, 4-5 dungeons each with 3-5 levels.

Maybe I should start with something smaller..

My advice, from experience, would be to definitely start with something smaller . or at least make a first release after finishing your first town and dungeons. (That's what I'm doing, the current module has only 5 levels, but future Versions will have far more)

[ October 15, 2003, 07:25: Message edited by: henk brouwer ]

[ace joh]

Well, I've been lurking the forums some time , but have come up with some questions myself :
1. Are corpses implemented yet? I've seen them in some data files, but nothing uses it.
2. Is it possible to give a creature a natural ranged attack? I know you can set it's range and firing fx, but it doesn't seem to use it?? Do I always have to use spells in irder to let monsters shoot?
3. which of the "syspics" can be overwritten by a module? The manual only says some can't like MainUI...

I've got more, but can't remember them right now . Thanks all, and hi

[Akachaki]

Originally posted by ace joh:
3. which of the "syspics" can be overwritten by a module? The manual only says some can't like MainUI..

I tryed adding a new spells.bmp to my mod folder to create a new spell picture and it was'nt working. But manual says that only the syspics that are'nt already loaded can be overwritten. spells.bmp should logicly only be loaded when loading a mod. I think it's a bug and I hope it'll be arranged, if there is a new patch...

[ October 17, 2003, 21:07: Message edited by: Akachaki ]

[Rollo]

Originally posted by ace joh:
Well, I've been lurking the forums some time , but have come up with some questions myself :
1. Are corpses implemented yet? I've seen them in some data files, but nothing uses it.
2. Is it possible to give a creature a natural ranged attack? I know you can set it's range and firing fx, but it doesn't seem to use it?? Do I always have to use spells in irder to let monsters shoot?
3. which of the "syspics" can be overwritten by a module? The manual only says some can't like MainUI...

I've got more, but can't remember them right now . Thanks all, and hi

1. Not sure if corpses are working, but you could always make the monster 'drop' a corpse item when it is slain. I have seen several corpses in Henk's new module. So it must work one way or other.

2. Natural range range attacks are not possible to my knowledge. One thing I did with the elvish archers in my mod is give them a magic missle which looks like an arrow . That is the closest I got.

[ October 17, 2003, 22:24: Message edited by: Rollo ]

[ace joh]

Ok, thanks all for replying. I guess it's waiting for a new patch to include these features then . Although my guess is Aaron will first work some more on starfury...

yeah, I tried including a new spellfxmissiles pic, but didn't work either. Also tried adding a new pic in the 'effects.txt' file
Number Of Effect Bitmaps := 6
Bitmap 1 Name := spellfxmissiles.bmp (tried changing this one in something else)
Bitmap 2 Name := SpellFXAnim1.bmp
Bitmap 3 Name := SpellFXAnim2.bmp
Bitmap 4 Name := SpellFXAnim3.bmp
Bitmap 5 Name := SpellFXAnim4.bmp
Bitmap 6 Name := SpellFXAnim5.bmp

but the game didn't seem to take it into account. I also wonder why MainUI is actually loaded on startup, the main menu and submenus seem logical, but MainUI is used only once you have actually started the game, right?

[ October 18, 2003, 07:38: Message edited by: ace joh ]

[Akachaki]

The best thing would be that the game reload all the syspics when loading a game or a mod. This would be something prety interesting to see in a new patch. But Aaron will probably make one for starfury first as you said.

I guess patience is the only possibilty.

Justin

[henk brouwer]

Originally posted by ace joh:
Ok, thanks all for replying. I guess it's waiting for a new patch to include these features then . Although my guess is Aaron will first work some more on starfury...

I hope he will make a new patch for DO, it might help if the forums pick up some speed, and if there are some more modules released.

oh, and welcome to the forums!