Rebalancing mod?

[j'ordos]

Not sure what you mean with that, roadwar will be kept a seperate program. Should you install a mod you could just run roadwar again and let it do it's magic with the modded exe (though some functions might not work properly depending on what the mod has changed ofcourse). Anyway the main fix (invulnerable roads) is done in the tile data files, not the exe. That should keep it safe from most mods.

[karadoc]

I am currently envisioning this method of importing for the next version:

...

Sounds good?

Yeah, that sounds alright to me. I thought you were just working on an editor, but it now sounds like it has a fully-featured 'mod manager' built into it. When I suggested having a command line interface, I was imagining that mod makers would include their own mod-manging type stuff. For example, I would have made a batch file to tell apoc'd how to switch between the modded and unmodded version. But if apoc'd has a all that stuff covered already, then that just makes it easier - but probably more work for you...

[j'ordos]

Yes it is kinda tedious work but since simply swapping the files does not work for anyone who has a different UFO2P & TACP version it is a neccesary evil.

 

edit: I'll abuse the moment to show a screenie of the current state

https://users.telenet.be/V776822/Project/10.png

[localhosed]

Wow that was fast work j'ordos. I guess I got exhausted from playing games because I was struggling getting Virtual PC 2007 to work. For me though the game runs much better than in NTVDM or Dosbox, I didn't expect it. The timing is much smoother somehow, less stutter, a smoother flow of time and the animations play more smoothly.

 

Next time I get to playing I want to load in karadoc's mod and try that with my old saved games.

[karadoc]

Wow that was fast work j'ordos. I guess I got exhausted from playing games because I was struggling getting Virtual PC 2007 to work. For me though the game runs much better than in NTVDM or Dosbox, I didn't expect it. The timing is much smoother somehow, less stutter, a smoother flow of time and the animations play more smoothly.

 

Next time I get to playing I want to load in karadoc's mod and try that with my old saved games.

There will probably be a bit of weirdness if you load a pre-mod save game with my mod, because of changes to the research costs and stuff. When I changed stuff in the mod while testing, I noticed symptoms such as progress bars that go past 100% and stuff like that. In some cases the save game would cause the game to crash when I went to the manufacture screen - I think the crash was caused when the manufacturing progress exceeded the cost (because I reduced the cost while tweaking the mod). So I recommend starting a new game with the mod, but it isn't really a big deal.

 

Yes it is kinda tedious work but since simply swapping the files does not work for anyone who has a different UFO2P & TACP version it is a neccesary evil.

That's true. Your software will be useful for taking care of that stuff. But alternatively, mod makers could create their own 'install' and 'uninstall', and mod users would just have to know that they need to uninstall one mod before installing a different one (in some cases).

 

In any case, it's pleasing to see that "RC2" on the title bar of your screenshot. That suggests that the new version is pretty much finished, right?

[j'ordos]

Actually RC2 is the previous version Exporting is done, but importing is slightly harder work and I don't have that much time ATM.

 

That's true. Your software will be useful for taking care of that stuff. But alternatively, mod makers could create their own 'install' and 'uninstall', and mod users would just have to know that they need to uninstall one mod before installing a different one (in some cases).

Ah right, I see. But since I'm still kinda writing this program for myself I want it to support my megapol mod completely out of the box.

[localhosed]

I hope i can get the saved games to work. I got my first case where a second base I spent lots of money on was attacked by unknown forces and destroyed completely because I had no soldiers there. I thought, I'm safe, nothing could happen so early...I'm X-com the hero, right? Well it just so happened that Osiron or the Cult or someone was angrier than I thought.

 

But I want to play more of a reload-much-less game and keep playing. Because living with failures can be fun, I am finding. Dead soldiers, destroyed ships, failed missions, retreats, guerrilla stuff against the gangs.. It makes it more interesting to me.

 

edit : I liked the Megapol mod idea. I'm pretty sure I tried it for short time years ago. I wish X-com had a way of attacking aliens more when the player controls Megapol, though I don't remember if that was in the mod or a realistic possibility. Still there's not a mod like it and if i go into an Apocalypse binge I'll likely try it again.

[localhosed]

Well I tried to import Karadoc's mod again into the English 1.0 CD-ROM Apocalypse, and only imported at german offsets into UFO2P, and not TACP also seperately, using the modified CFG file you gave a link to. But the same garbled data seemed to happen as before when I imported twice. It may have not been the same garbled data, I didn't compare, but it was obviously messed up.