incremental patch discussion

[Slvynn]

Ah
and please dont forget to nerf Laza - at mit is incerdibly powerfull - Hammer cost and parameters are too powerfull
Also i cant see how laza can be good +0% against vehicles and thopters.... so perhaps hammer cost (which is les s than infantry's!!!!!! Oo) and penalties vs vehicle and thopter

 

[Slvynn]

Next weekend is a big four day holiday weekend in the US. What could be better than having a new patch of Dune Wars available to play?

I have made about 10-15 bug fixes in addition to the Kwisatz Haderach feature. I have made some progress but not much on the new espionage missions from the spy thread, but I will try to finish that up. I will put out a new patch Monday or Tuesday night.

@ Slvynn, is there any chance of getting the set of action buttons in the next couple of days? Also, I have added some promotions and I have made buttons for them, but my buttons are not very good. Could you make Inspired 1,2,3,4 (you can see my buttons in 1.6.4), Diplomat 1,2,3 and Sabotage 1,2,3? I have attached my graphics and also a composite gif. In the gif, you see Sabotage 1, Diplomat 1, Inspired 1, and Inspired 4.

Any other unit art or graphics would be appreciated as well.

I beginning my prepatch work session now aiming to finish actions and new promotions , would you mind if i add them into atlas? It is much better for my course of work b/c i am working with Corel and it have own specifics, so the whole work is much easier and faster when i use atlas. It's also much easier to track those icons later having them gathered into one file.
Can you please give me new xml with new changes? are you ok with me posting locations strings for each one on forum?

 

[davidlallen]

would you mind if i add them into atlas?

That is fine. As you know the related file is civ4promotioninfos.xml. However, the files I have contain many changes which interact, so I cannot give you just this file. In fact, I would have to give you a whole release in order for you to see your graphics in the right places in the game.

Instead, please test your graphics by locally modifying your xml. When you post the atlas, you can also post a list of each icon and its x,y coordinates. However, I should also be able to easily see which icon is at which x,y coordinate; then I can update my own xml. Either way is fine.

 

[Slvynn]

Great then
I'll do that in atlas way, giving you location strings for each one

 

[Slvynn]

Sabotage I

<Button>,Art/Interface/Buttons/Promotions/Combat1.dds,Art/Interface/Buttons/dunepromoatlas1.dds,2,7</Button>

Sabotage II

<Button>,Art/Interface/Buttons/Promotions/Combat1.dds,Art/Interface/Buttons/dunepromoatlas1.dds,3,7</Button>

Sabotage III

<Button>,Art/Interface/Buttons/Promotions/Combat1.dds,Art/Interface/Buttons/dunepromoatlas1.dds,4,7</Button>

Diplomat I

<Button>,Art/Interface/Buttons/Promotions/Combat1.dds,Art/Interface/Buttons/dunepromoatlas1.dds,5,7</Button>

Diplomat II

<Button>,Art/Interface/Buttons/Promotions/Combat1.dds,Art/Interface/Buttons/dunepromoatlas1.dds,6,7</Button>

Diplomat III

<Button>,Art/Interface/Buttons/Promotions/Combat1.dds,Art/Interface/Buttons/dunepromoatlas1.dds,7,7</Button>

Inspired I

<Button>,Art/Interface/Buttons/Promotions/Combat1.dds,Art/Interface/Buttons/dunepromoatlas1.dds,1,8</Button>

Inspired II

<Button>,Art/Interface/Buttons/Promotions/Combat1.dds,Art/Interface/Buttons/dunepromoatlas1.dds,2,8</Button>

Inspired III

<Button>,Art/Interface/Buttons/Promotions/Combat1.dds,Art/Interface/Buttons/dunepromoatlas1.dds,3,8</Button>

Inspired IV

<Button>,Art/Interface/Buttons/Promotions/Combat1.dds,Art/Interface/Buttons/dunepromoatlas1.dds,4,8</Button>

 

[keldath]

jey guys, im working on updating revdcm 2.61 that have bbai 0.82J
along with some good fixes.

 

[Slvynn]

@david - did you fixed new Terraforming victory ? Old New one was imposible to achieve due to very high requirement... If yes (as far as i remember you did) - that will be good it will go to patch notes as well

 

[davidlallen]

Version 1.6.5 is out. I won't have time to update the issue sheet tonight. I did put in the new leaderheads and traits, but I did not put in the new design for wonders. There are always more releases.

I did not make as much progress as I wanted to on the new spy missions; there is only one, Force Friendship, to give a +1 diplomacy bonus. Still, try out a Reverend Mother and see if you can take over the world.

For next time, I would like to (a) build on keldath's updated core, which means the release will be 1.7; (b) put in the new wonder design, (c) work on more diplomatic spy missions for the Reverend Mother.

 

[davidlallen]

@david - did you fixed new Terraforming victory ? Old New one was imposible to achieve due to very high requirement... If yes (as far as i remember you did) - that will be good it will go to patch notes as well

I have not changed this victory condition between 1.6.4 and 1.6.5. What change did you think I was making?

 

[Slvynn]

3% treshhold is too much since it counts desert tile - i thought you made fix for it. For now it required 124 tiles !!! being terraformed on standard map i think.


Also Mechanized have not its short form - it is used in long form in all places....

 

[Slvynn]

SL24
New Spy promotions have no descriptions / hovering help (Sabotage)
Its unclear what and by which amount they improve something.

SL25g
Odd stuff - in my screenshots BTl Facedancer look ok
I removed parts of Dream Eater FFH model and retextured it, and i am sure i done it. (you can check my pedia and game screenshots in art thread)
Very oddly, but it have back bloacks from Dream Eater......
How can it be? *shrug*

 

[davidlallen]

SL24
New Spy promotions have no descriptions / hovering help (Sabotage)
Its unclear what and by which amount they improve something.

Well, Sabotage doesn't actually do anything in the current version, so the hover help is correct. The only thing diplomat does today is enable certain missions. Are there other spy promotions with missing help?

 

[Slvynn]

Yep Sabotage... As it does not nothing then i thin kthat is not time to play ordos yet.
However if we play terraformin victory i fear we might not to achieve it on standard Arrakis Script due insagnificant land tiles.
Perhaps i'll increase land tile percentage on start.....

 

[davidlallen]

I have updated the issue sheet with all of the recent discussions. In some cases the discussion is still going on; for some, I have put an issue into the sheet which says "ongoing discussion" and for some, I have not yet put an issue into the sheet.

Very few people are listing suggestions with issue numbers; that is fine, whenever I have added an issue that doesn't have a number, I just used "DA" to track it. I am not sure anybody but me gets much benefit from these issue numbers anyway.

I am going to be on a business trip for the next week. I will try to keep up with the posts but probably I will be quiet. Please feel free to make patches like 1.6.5.x, or 1.6.6 if it contains a lot of stuff, and please try to carefully list out which other patches are required by your patches. This may avoid confusion if people have a different assortment of patches installed.

The next release I do will be 1.7. The main goal will be to integrate all the new art into the fpk file. If possible, I will also use keldath's work on merging the new revdcm and bbai. This will be at least two weeks from now, such as December 13.

 

[Slvynn]

I'll make few art fixes soon which not changes gameplay - so i can use them even in sucession game.
Just saying, i think it will be something like 1.6.5a with that small Windtrap patch and some art (full remake of action buttons, some gamefonts fixes, few textures, some unit art), if there will be any, from Deliverator as well. (perhaps we should keep all game-influencing updates till 1.7)

 

[davidlallen]

Just saying, i think it will be something like 1.6.5a with that small Windtrap patch and some art (full remake of action buttons, some gamefonts fixes, few textures, some unit art), if there will be any, from Deliverator as well. (perhaps we should keep all game-influencing updates till 1.7)

Let us make a series of patches like 1.6.5.n, where "n" is a number. Coordinate the use of these numbers in this thread. For example, you may say, "Tomorrow I will make a patch 1.6.5.3 with the following ...". Then if somebody else makes a patch they will use 1.6.5.4. It is easy to use many numbers. It is confusing if each patch contains contradictory files, but that is OK; just try to avoid two people modifying the same file at the same time. After we have a number of small patches, we can roll up into one patch. I am not worried about gameplay changes. Of course, people who have only one installation of DW and are playing in the succession game will need to be extra careful.

 

[davidlallen]

Here is patch 1.6.5.3. It goes on top of 1.6.5 only. It contains a fix for the mid-game CTD problem reported by ahriman and artherion. The details are in this post. Only one file is involved, cvgamecoredll.dll; so I did not make a full installer. Simply unzip cvgamecoredll.dll over your existing file in <your BTS path>/mods/Dune Wars/assets. It will not break save games. No other changes are included in this patch. If the succession game comes to a crash because of this, it is safe to install this patch to fix the problem.

 

[davidlallen]

@ deliverator, when you finish your building work, it would help me greatly if you packaged it as a 1.6.5.x release rather than a 1.6.6 release. That is, please only include the files which are changed between 1.6.5 and your work. If you also include all files which are changed between 1.6.1 and your work, then it will be much more difficult for me to merge into my current local (1.7) area.

 

[Deliverator]

@ deliverator, when you finish your building work, it would help me greatly if you packaged it as a 1.6.5.x release rather than a 1.6.6 release. That is, please only include the files which are changed between 1.6.5 and your work. If you also include all files which are changed between 1.6.1 and your work, then it will be much more difficult for me to merge into my current local (1.7) area.

No problem. I was planning to do a incremental patch anyway.

I have entered all the new wonder buildings in the XML and hooked up all the 3D art. I have two blocks of work left to do - setting appropriate costs based on tier and then make buttons for the new wonders.

I may release the patch with placeholder buttons once the costs are done, as it would be good to start getting feedback so we can refine things a bit prior to 1.7.

 

[davidlallen]

I may release the patch with placeholder buttons once the costs are done, as it would be good to start getting feedback so we can refine things a bit prior to 1.7.

A patch sounds great. It will let me start the integration work also.
Keldath has now successfully updated the internals to use a newer version of RevDCM and BBAI, and phungus420 has written a new installer so that vista and windows 7 users can run the mod even without admin mode. Because of these two big changes, I will also want to put out a "1.7 beta" for feedback. I expect to do that in the next couple of days.

Hopefully we can get feedback on these two things, and then I can release 1.7 next weekend.