For CA: MTW2 Collected Modding Support Requests

Note - the assembled thoughts have now been sent in.
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What kind of modding support would we ideally like with - or shortly after - the release of MTW2?

By modding support I mean things from RTW that CA provided such as the Battle Editor, the sprite generator, the docudemon files.

I'll compile a list from the suggestions posted here and send it in to CA.

Do please consider the reasonableness of your requests - demands to make it open source etc. aren't going to be passed along.

So far...
- a battle editor
- a campaign editor
- a sprite generator
- a settlement plan editor
- a list of hardcoded limits
- model import/export script, preferably for something cheap
- an unpacker for any packed/compressed files
- spreadsheets used for where it says "This was generated by a spreadsheet - do not modify by hand"
- additional narrative at the top of the moddable files, especially identifying where a file is no longer referenced

make it like bi where we dont have to extract the skins like in rtw

preferably a battle editor and a campaign editor if possible

A list of hardcoded elements to save unneccesary wasting of time

hopefully the script you used to work on models, if they arent CAS...


thanks

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make it like bi where we dont have to extract the skins like in rtw

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I'd ammend that to: an unpacker for any pack files. CA will probably want to distribute some of their files in packs of some form.

A better and easier ability to edit the settlement plans. Perhaps an editor of some sort?

A proper 3D model exporter/importer for god's sake. Please do not claim your game to be moddable if you can't even give the community a tool for modifying your models, animations, etc. Just changing the colors of a model or making them stab harder do not qualify as highly 'moddable' these days.

Sorry for the harshness but I'm a bit bitter from all the frustrations.

Make the camp map easiest to mod, an editor sould be fine. As well something that will make the AI behaviour more editable.

in short of many of these posts, let the mod community have access to all of your editors and tools to edit models etc...

a.k.a give us the resources to mod and we will be soo happy

an AI really I !!!

;)

An AI editor, at least a basic one (It could incline the AI to certain behaviors).

I also second campaign editor. It would be so nice if I didn't have to make a half-dozen .tga's that need to be constantly cross-referenced to eachother to avoid CTD, or just downright ugliness.

I think we need to just think about what we are saying before shouting things like "give us all your tools".

MTW2 is going to have a complicated system of animations which apparently will be randomised in combat. Now if these moves have certain reactions for the units being hit then I expect all the definitions of these will be hardcoded and it would be nice for CA to provide some sort of simple guide telling which animations link in with which others.

Also the system of generating randomised units means that models will no longer be defined strictly and means modellers will have to work hard to produce several options. This generation will no doubt also be hardcoded but it would be nice for CA to provide some insight into how this process works and give us a model importer that allows for the editing of individual body parts.

It would be nice if, as with other total war games, the variables are put into text files allowing modders to easily access and change statistics and add new units etc.

I expect the community is going to have to figure a lot of stuff out and CA haven't really even mentioned modding support yet so we live in hope, thank you CA :2thumbsup:

Regards,

Sundjata

From: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=42856

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Q. Is there any chance of CA releasing any tools to aid their modding in the near future?
A. We have taken steps to improve the tools we use to create the Total War games and as with Rome, these tools will be made available to the modding community but we can’t go into any further details right now.

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When I read this I would have laughed if it wasn't for the sad truth.

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Originally Posted by Sundjata Keita

MTW2 is going to have a complicated system of animations which apparently will be randomised in combat.

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It sounds similar to Dawn of War in the sense of combos and finishing moves (actually it sounds more like Mortal Kombat, but we'll leave that allusion to one side :grin:).

Do we have any Dawn of War modders who can shed light on how Relic did it?

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Originally Posted by Sundjata Keita

It would be nice if, as with other total war games, the variables are put into text files allowing modders to easily access and change statistics and add new units etc.

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Agreed.

I've been thinking especially of the movement modifiers text file. If they are going for separate model parts then perhaps it would be possible to have a text file to govern the speed at which the running/walking animations move.

3d Models importer, unpacker for everything and campaign map editor.

A easy to do implementation of new buildings , otherwise complete conversions won't be possible ....


Propose and bump it here ....

http://p223.ezboard.com/fshoguntotal...icID=557.topic

1-pbem and hot seat multiplayer

2-More lvl of difficulty (your very hard as medium; add extreme hard or insane hard)

3- more accurate realism an historic basis

;)

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Originally Posted by =E.T=

1-pbem and hot seat multiplayer

2-More lvl of difficulty (your very hard as medium; add extreme hard or insane hard)

3- more accurate realism an historic basis

;)

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Those aren't modding support/tools. If you have suggested features then go to the MTW2 forum or go onto the .com forums.

Dream start:
Python support as in Civ4
Dream end

No, seriously, I'd like to have proper access to the game's objects in the scripts, it shouldn't be too difficult to use a kind of introspection mechanism to affect them.
Maybe include a variable system, too ;)

an editor tool like the one that Bethesda offered for morrowinf or that will offer for Oblivion would be good also ....

3 words: XML and Python.

Kushan

I was just going to draw a parallel to games such as Civ 3/4 or Space Empires 3/4 (if anyone knows those games) - both built in a way so they can be taken to pieces and altered - and of course both series have benefitted from this.

CA wouldn't loose out as the official expansion packs can provide something extra that the modders havn't been able to.

~:smoking:

It'd be nice to see more flexibility in unit stats, such as a higher hitpoint cap, rate of fire modifier, individual unit movement speed modifiers, etc.

The ability to add actual penalties to buildings would be nice (like, say, a law penalty on a tavern/brothel or something).

Speaking of building capabilities, a higher cap for armour/weapon bonuses would also be nice. Currently, there is an absolute maximum of +3 (I've mentioned this two or three times before, I think -- It's possible that BI changed this, but I haven't yet tested it). Don't let that so-called "+5 bonus" on the Artemis temples in RTW fool you. The units you actually produce are stuck at +3.

[edit]
I almost forgot to mention the following:
1. Higher limits for the number of factions and cultures would probably make many mod teams happy.
2. Higher limits for the number of traits/ancillaries (and triggers), buildings, units, models, etc would also probably bring smiles to many faces.

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Originally Posted by Sundjata Keita

I expect the community is going to have to figure a lot of stuff out and CA haven't really even mentioned modding support yet so we live in hope, thank you CA :2thumbsup:

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They sure mentioned modding support for Rome Total War. In one of the Gamespot video interviews, Michael de Plater is faced with the question of moddability. What does he reply with?

"If Rome could have a middle-name, it would be moddable."

:laugh4:

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Originally Posted by Yukon Cornelius

It'd be nice to see more flexibility in unit stats, such as a higher hitpoint cap, rate of fire modifier, individual unit movement speed modifiers, etc.

The ability to add actual penalties to buildings would be nice (like, say, a law penalty on a tavern/brothel or something).

Speaking of building capabilities, a higher cap for armour/weapon bonuses would also be nice. Currently, there is an absolute maximum of +3 (I've mentioned this two or three times before, I think -- It's possible that BI changed this, but I haven't yet tested it). Don't let that so-called "+5 bonus" on the Artemis temples in RTW fool you. The units you actually produce are stuck at +3.

[edit]
I almost forgot to mention the following:
1. Higher limits for the number of factions and cultures would probably make many mod teams happy.
2. Higher limits for the number of traits/ancillaries (and triggers), buildings, units, models, etc would also probably bring smiles to many faces.

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Once again, these are all features rather than additional support for modders. I think all modders would request lifting all hardcoded limits, but to a large extent we have to accept that CA are going to design the game they're going to design. If you want specific features then you're best off lobbying on the .com forum or on the MTW2 forum here at the Org.

A correctly working modswitcher could be very usefull .... they could allow us to just have a subdirectory where we could place one by one text files and folders that launchung the game by the relink makes it override the original data folder and instead work the folder ..... as is now is a pain and a lot of stuff has to be duplicated from BI and some other is packed or unpossible to change at the moment like the intro movie .....

As mentioned, more in-depth descriptions / documentation in text files need to be included in order to act as both general and specific guides.

EDU (export_descr_unit) in RTW is a good example of this - specific unit stats are documented at the top of the file, which unlocks many doors all at once and saves hours of painstaking testing and research by the TW community.

I'm currently modding the campaign map resources in DR (descr_regions) and DS (desc_strat), with a few other files as reference. Since there is no supporting documentation present for these resources, the coding is completely trial and error - the resources are unsorted in a list, with no comments whatsoever. To date, this has been extremely time consuming - repetition is an understatement.

There is a way around the trial and error approach - actually going into the campaign map and taking note of the exact tiles where the resources are to be added / relocated / deleted (using settlements / landmarks etc as origins). Then its the case of using map_regions.tga to mirror the exact tile location (which has already been written down) to position resources accurately.

This indirect approach could've been completely avoided if the resource list was broken into specific regions using semicolons (;) etc to document region / settlement names. This, as a result, would save many hours of taking specific notes on resource locations on the campaign map. This example can be extended to many other text files present in RTW.

Basically, more in-depth developers notes / comments in the text files are a necessity for future products in the TW series.

Are you not using the show_cursorstat console command to give you the x,y coordinates for tiles?

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Originally Posted by Epistolary Richard

Are you not using the show_cursorstat console command to give you the x,y coordinates for tiles?

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Never knew such things existed, just posted a tutorial on how to do it the manual way. Then again, there are some insights in the tutorial to other files and their meanings.

Why isnt this sticked?

-proper mod switcher
-campaign map editor
-sprite generator
-AI editor

My grievances so far....

Double post!!!

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Originally Posted by PROMETHEUS

A correctly working modswitcher could be very usefull .... they could allow us to just have a subdirectory where we could place one by one text files and folders that launchung the game by the relink makes it override the original data folder and instead work the folder ..... as is now is a pain and a lot of stuff has to be duplicated from BI and some other is packed or unpossible to change at the moment like the intro movie .....

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I agree. Many games implement a good module system that allows you to have many different mods installed over the same install.

Tool wise, we need a proper set of plugins for Max ( and other software ) that allows us to import and export models, correctly re-do animations without all the bugs, AND MAKE NEW SKELETONS....or at least, to move pivot points for models. Currently, you cannot do this.

Next on the list would be a decent map editor. TIME was a good effort, but a professional version would be a real bonus for all those people who struggled before.

Also high on the priority list would be a pack/unpack tool

Finally throw in a simple formation and unit editor, and that would do for me.

This looks like it will be a lot more complex to mod, but the results will be a lot better in terms of making decent mods. I would not expect CA to give us everything on a plate, and would understand ENTIRELY if they wanted to make exporters....but NOT importers....for models and animations. That would protect their intellectual property and still allow us to make new content

For M2:TW I would like to see the following files within:
-export_descr_ai.txt [With hundreds of AI settings and variables],
-more the 20 factions, ability to create new agents (in descr_agents.txt),
-and a export_descr_diplomacy.txt file with diplomatic settings.

Farewell,
Arbaces.

1. An in-game battle map editor, so you can create your own historical battles, place units on the battlefield, write a pre-battle description, set when reinforcements arrive etc.
2. A easy-to-use campaign map editor. Perhaps a picture of the map could come up, and you could click and drag settlements to move them, place units in them easily. It's a night-mare testing time and time again to try and place units in a re-located settlement.