questions of MP construction

[R'as al Ghul]

Many things changed with cavalry. The full archer animation of Hatamoto and CavArcher needed more space than was possible with just using the custom folders 0 and 9. Also some HCav and Hatamoto fighting and running anmations were left out. Some weapons (YariCav and NagCav) have changed because there's more space for them now. etc, etc.
Beta_5 doesn't touch any of the existing vanilla animations and it's still possible to play vanilla. With beta_8 we overwrite the vanilla files and have more space to include all the necessary animations.

If you can get everything running but the Cavalry animations then we know what the problem is.
If that is so, I think barocca will be able to solve that and it seems he'll be back soon.

R'as

[R'as al Ghul]

beta_8 Cavalry uses:
Armhorse, Bowman, CHHLBOW, Fullplar and Camel animations.
beta_5 uses:
Custom_0 and Custom_9

So, yes, you're right the custom folders are the same, I guess I forgot to delete them or planned to have a failsafe. If you check the other animation files you'll see the difference.

R'as

[TechnoMage of Shadows]

i see now what happened with cav, learning my way around the unit prod file now

is there any reason why every troop type is listed as missile, shock, spear, cavalry - even yari ashi?

progress report :-
(i have not yet added in any of the packs Puzz has given links to,)

i just tried the beta unit prod(with excess factions deleted) in beta 5 WITHOUT the beta8 cav animations, and desynced every time (i used the default anims from those locations, so it sure looked weird, knights running on their sides and so on,
but the point is the problem does not appear to be the cav animation files themselves,
for they were not used in the last test.


going to run the unit prod in a pure beta5 copy, (no updates), and see what happens
(if that desyncs then the culprit looks like the unit prod file)
back soon

[TechnoMage of Shadows]

sorry about the delay, wanted to run multiple test just to be safe

taking beta5 MP and using the MP unit prod from beta8, (removing all entries for factions 1 to 7 and 25 & above),
and including the "new" unit prod in a the beta5 mp startpos,
AND NO other updates
desyncs every time

the game does not care that the unit prod "calls" the wrong animation files, and thus what you see is all messed up,

it looks like there is an error in the unit prod file for MP beta8
and that is not my area of expertise,
i cannot even imagine an easy way to fix it, you would have to rewrite the unit prod, maybe by simply adjusting the beta5 unit prod and not removing the extra entries for crusader/muslim/viking units??

i am going to take a break now, if you rewrite the unit prod soon i can test it tomorrow,
(i am uncertain how long i can keep this lan in place - other people normally live here and it's rather crowded with 6 PC's up and running, wires, cables and extension cords all over the place - a few days at most, everybody will be home by wednesday evening and then we will need the space back)

[TechnoMage of Shadows]

and as a cross reference test, beta5 stats and startpos files work fine in beta8 - as long as you dont mind the funky sideways floating horses because beta5 points at old style horse bifs, but uses the new style action pages.

so a new beta8 startpos is required before we can continue debugging

[Puzz3D]

taking beta5 MP and using the MP unit prod from beta8, (removing all entries for factions 1 to 7 and 25 & above), and including the "new" unit prod in the beta5 mp startpos, AND NO other updates desyncs every time.

the game does not care that the unit prod "calls" the wrong animation files, and thus what you see is all messed up,

it looks like there is an error in the unit prod file for MP beta8 and that is not my area of expertise,
i cannot even imagine an easy way to fix it, you would have to rewrite the unit prod, maybe by simply adjusting the beta5 unit prod and not removing the extra entries for crusader/muslim/viking units??

I made the beta8 unit prod file from the beta5 unit prod file using the gnome editor. The gnome editor is known to sometimes introduce junk at the end of the saved file. It's possible that there are other bugs in the gnome editor. In any case, I'll make a new beta8 unit prod file starting with the beta5 unit prod and editing it with a text editor, and I will not remove any MTW/VI units.

[R'as al Ghul]

It's very well possible that Gnome has introduced an error in the unit_prod.
I think you don't notice it if you play a custom battle with beta_8_MP.
If it's just the unit_prod, it should be easy to fix. I don't think we've looked into that possibility yet.

is there any reason why every troop type is listed as missile, shock, spear, cavalry - even yari ashi?

Yes, it's a required entry but is not really relevant for MP. The AI uses that to determine which is which but I'm not not certain if this column is still used. Some of the columns need to be there but are leftovers from Shogun and not really used anymore in MTW.

R'as

P.S: Sorry for being vague, I write this all from the top of my head. I don't really have time to look it up. I do have the stuff with me on an external harddrive, though and if needed can provide more accurate info.

[TechnoMage of Shadows]

i understand "talking off the top of my head" only too well, neither of you have been at all vague,
it is obvious you know the subject very well.


on a side note:-
the org's file download system has become a nightmare,
trying to find the old utilities is, well the only polite thing to say is impossible.
Many have vanished from 3Ddownloads, and even getting to the 3D (Atomic) downloads is challenging.

I also noted some mods have vanished from 3D as well,
War of the Roses for Medieval1 for example - completely gone from the downloads area.

The new system "claims" to have 5 pages in the tools download area, yet all those "pages" display the same set of categories, and it is slow to load pages. Not as slow as being forced to wait the 5 minutes at 3D/Atomic.

I too have been having to go to my external data storage to find tools,
but a stack of cd's a meter high is not an efficient method of storing data for fast retrieval...especially when one counted on the org always having them in download and thus has not catalogued each CD
(I had an ancient but efficient archivist catalogue tool around here somewhere, i can see the need for it again... will send the elves to delve for it...)

[Puzz3D]

Here is a new MP unit prod file carefully created from the beta5 STW_MP10_unit_prod.txt file with the notepad text editor. I've named this STW_MP12_unit_prod.txt. You can edit \campmap\startpos\Samurai_Wars_MP.txt to point to this file.

STW_MP12_unit_prod.rar

[TechnoMage of Shadows]

please test this.

based on Puzz new unit prod,
- added the religion Pagan to samurai units - allows Hoganji to have units,
- fixed references to the new cav bifs,
- fixed references to the new ninja bifs.

tested stable in 3v3 (6 players)

requires Samurai Warlords Single Player version 8 (THIS fix makes that an MP version!)
Samurai_Warlords_MP_v8.2k8 (in the org's medieval beta file upload area

and here is a mildly different version of the startpos file,
with Tokugawa, Taira and a couple of other clans that were "latent", they work fine, so 29 clans now
beta8.2k8.1.zip


BUT the fight animation for heavy cav has a mistyped reference set in one of its actions pages,
(i think R'as will know how to fix that?) there may be one or two others, but thats all i spotted.

[Puzz3D]

Many thanks TechnoMage of Shadows. I'm not sure how soon we can get this tested online. Previous online tests of the beta8 unit prod with beta 5 were inconclusive because we didn't have enough players in the test.

requires Samurai Warlords Single Player version 8 (THIS fix makes that an MP version!)
Samurai_Warlords_MP_v8.2k8 (in the org's medieval beta file upload area

Just to clarify, SW beta8 supports both singleplayer and multiplayer using two different unit_prod files by the player selecting either the "smap_8" or "Samurai_Wars_MP" era. I can modifiy the unit stats in this new multiplayer unit prod file to generate the required singleplayer unit_prod file for the next beta9 version of the mod.

[TechnoMage of Shadows]

i thought mp in beta 8 desynced, hence my experiments - to get the new clans into MP

i cannot look at anything this moment,
does the new unit prod point at the correct horse anims?
samhorse and samhorse2 changed from looking at custom(x) to armhorse - or similar,
check if the change IS in the file i modified

[Puzz3D]

i thought mp in beta 8 desynced, hence my experiments - to get the new clans into MP

MP in beta 8 does desync when playing battles with more than 2 players.

i cannot look at anything this moment,
does the new unit prod point at the correct horse anims?
samhorse and samhorse2 changed from looking at custom(x) to armhorse - or similar,
check if the change IS in the file i modified

That was an error of omission on my part when editing the beta5 unit prod last night. I'll fix it.

"CUSTOM9, NO, YES" ALL_FACTIONS changed to "ARMHORSE, YES, YES" NO_FACTION

The SP unit prod will require extensive work if a new one is going to be developed from the MP unit prod because many changes were made to it since beta5.

Edit: I uploaded the fixed version. Same filename as before:

STW_MP12_unit_prod.rar

[TechnoMage of Shadows]

thanks, i'll adjust that upload later

is there a show error command line switch? (-showerr is not it)

[Puzz3D]

There is no command line switch that I know of to show errors. There is an "error.log" file in the main game folder that logs some types of errors. There is a -D command line switch the enables a debug mode. It runs the game in a window, and activates some keys for debugging the SP campaign.

[TechnoMage of Shadows]

from what i can see the mongols are built into the mod, yet when i make them active the game crashes,
when hosting MP at "host game"
when SP custom battle at "continue" after choose clan, before choose army.

sufficient units exist to make up the mongol unit roster with nothing more than changing the unit religion in the unit prod,
but first need to activate the mongols as a faction - a file is probably missing...

[TechnoMage of Shadows]

I have activated the mongols, all seems ok so far.


i have 2 questions

1 - how to change a factions religion (simply changing the 2 values in the startpos file is not enough)

2 - where is the toggle for unit available/not available in mp

[R'as al Ghul]

You can activate the Mongols as a faction that's called Mongols but you won't have any units different to the Japanese factions. Our intention always was to import the Mongol units from Shogun: The Mongol Invasion. Time didn't permit that yet. There are almost 30 Japanese clans in beta_8 and I don't think there's much point in having another one just for the sake of having a faction called Mongols that's not different from the others. Another problem with the Mongols is that they're very difficult to playbalance in MP. (There was much discussion already about that topic)

Changing the religion of a faction is a rather complex endeavour. There's a whole file structure for the different cultures/ religions and all the required files need to be there before it works.

Making a unit available only for MP works by using the "No_Faction" instead of the "All_Factions" or a specific faction trigger.



R'as

[TechnoMage of Shadows]

gotcha
thanks
mongols added and activated with mongol units!@!@!@!
(kinda - i cheated ... a little bit, but you'll see)
you'll need to mod the stats to suit MP

uploading now
TMS

[R'as al Ghul]

Thank you very much for your work, Techno_Mage, I highly appreciate it.


I only just now had the opportunity to test the files you uploaded in custom battle.
It all works for me and all the intended changes we made to beta_8 work in custom battles.
Prices for MP are right, the unit animations are correct in the new unit_prod, so all is fine.
You say that it works on 6 machines in a LAN which is great and sounds promising.
I'm eager to test this new setup.
Because I'm a perfectionist I wanted to delete the second set of STW units from the unit_prod but when I do that, the startpos doesn't show up in the list. This change seems to introduce an unspecified error. I can't have that, makes me mad because I want to understand it but I guess I've to live with it now.
I thought I could make a patch that overwrites the old beta_8 MP startpos and prod files so as not to introduce another era. People tend to get confused easily.....
I'd call the patch beta_8.1, release that as a simple installer and if enough people have it installed it could be tested on Saturdays and Sundays. That okay with everybody?
I know that the core group usually has multiple installs and should have a beta_8 install sitting on their HDs, ready to play.
It would be nice if you join us, too, Techno_Mage.

I think I'd like to keep the added improvised Mongol era seperate from that, with its own startpos and prod files.

Comments?

R'as

[Puzz3D]

Because I'm a perfectionist I wanted to delete the second set of STW units from the unit_prod but when I do that, the startpos doesn't show up in the list. This change seems to introduce an unspecified error.

I don't understand this because there is no second set of STW units in the unit prod file. There are two separate prod files; one for SP and one for MP.

[R'as al Ghul]

In the unit_prod that you posted in post #43, there're two sets of units, both are the same units but one is tagged "ALL_FACTIONS" and one "NO_FACTION".
That's also the case in Techno_Mage's unit_prod.

[Puzz3D]

Oh! That is an oversight on my part. As I recall, having the two sets of units in one unit prod file caused a problem, but I can't remember what the problem was. I intended to remove the SP units from what I sent TechnoMage. The SP units are the second set. The last two lines, STW_SamHorse an STW_Samhorse2 have to be kept, and there are some blank lines after that which I was also going to keep. Then I was going to create the other prod file for SP keeping all of the MTW/VI units but with no STW MP units.

[TechnoMage of Shadows]

all of my work is in your hands to tidy, balance and refine,
all i have done is use a lan (and max detail settings) to work out what was causing the desync bugs,

as a bit of fun i also took the opportunity, presented by Puzz's refined unit prod, to bring the mongols into the mod to add some fun

[TechnoMage of Shadows]

one small thing needs fixing

in the unit prod,
the samhorse entries (last two)
the faction recolour section needs to be changed from "NO" to "YES"
otherwise the units lose faction colours during charge and combat.

[Puzz3D]

in the unit prod,
the samhorse entries (last two)
the faction recolour section needs to be changed from "NO" to "YES"
otherwise the units lose faction colours during charge and combat.

Ok. Thanks.