Join Allies and Axis: Total War!

[therussian91]

Join Allies and Axis Total War. We need historical battle mappers, modellers, skinners and more.

Go here for more details
http://www.stratcommandcenter.com/fo...p?showforum=85

[Zharakov]

Nice use of Soviet Propoganda...

You'r definately going to get all the Russians on the forums to join...

[therussian91]

Do you fell like joining?

[Zharakov]

No, I seem to be cursed...

Every MOD I join seems to die...


I don't think you want my help.

[Bwian]

Hmmm....another WW2 mod.

Took a look at your forum, can't say I was impressed by the stickied ' no whiners' type of post.

I have some questions:

1) When you post to ask for various 'needed' skills, what DO you have at present? Is this an idea waiting for people with the skills to make it work, or is this an idea that would happen sooner if more people were working on it?

2) ANY kind of modern warfare is, by nature, rather awkward to apply to a game engine geared up for swords and spears. Your forum message aside, you NEED to solve the problems, and you need to have answers to the obvious reasons why a project like this won't work. I posted a similar message in a couple of the Star Wars threads. The thinking remains the same.

You are asking people to help make a mod which may well not be possible. A lot of mods dwindle and die due to the massive effort needed to complete them. They are based on themes which fit with the game engine. If you have given the thought to this and come up with the answers, then your mod may be viable. If you are hoping to work your way through problems when you get to them...er....no thanks.

The object here is not to say your mod is impossible...but rather to ask you if you have got answers to the obvious problems. If you want something a little more accurate than your screenshots of the 'Pak 40' I have plenty. I don't have much free time, and I value it as a result. so...here goes the REAL questions:

1) Troop formations. How are you planning to handle this? Everything as a 'horde' or are you going to accept the unrealistic and daft looking lined up formations?

2) Volley fire. How are you going to work around this? Or are you going to accept every tropp in the unit firing together. There is also the question of firing rates along with the tendancy for archers to 'avoid' shooting at close range.

3) Map size. RTW battle maps are small compared to the ranges of WW2 weapons. How do you plan to cope with this? The bulk of artillery would NOT be present in the immediate vicinity, but would provide fire support from behind the lines. Are you going to ignore this ?

4) Heaqvy weapons. Replacing siege weapons?

5) Armoured vehicles. Tanks I have done myself in a limited way. How do you plan to implement both main gun and hull MG's ? Using a 'horse archer' is out, so you are limited to Elephant based units. I found it impossible to restrict the arc of fire for any given weapon. You can't animate the tracks either.... nor could I find a way of making the wheels turn! Then, of course, there is the ordinary trucks and armoured cars etc. How do you plan on making a 4-wheeled vehicle? I have not been able to make one. Chariots seem stuck as 2 wheeled, and siege weapons require troops to push them.

6) Destroyed tanks. You cannot change the external model or texture to indicate the 'brewing up'. I ended up just making a variant of hte 'stand idle' animation, which just meant they stopped.....whats your approach?

7) Aircraft.... on the start map only...or not at all ?

8) AI ... will the AI be able to cope with your new units, or will it just use htem exactly as if they were Romans with new bodies.... your mod is too different to the Romans to work like this.

There are lots of things that CAN be done...but also, a lot of basic combat techniques and tactics that RTW will not simulate. You can talk 'work arounds' all you like .... but if the AI can't do it, you rule out lal the single player types...and that includes me.

[therussian91]

Well, you'll have to figure that out with my boss. I due have a vague idea of what we are going to do, but I have no modding capability at all and am in the dark. I'm just propaganda specialist and Soviet historian. We are in search for moddellers, and we are in dire need of them. We have but one, and though he's good, one is not enough.

Please Join if your willing!

[Bwian]

Get your 'boss' to post the answers here then ;)

I can help if you can convince me the project is viable. I am not going to chase down the answers. You are trying to recruit me after all....I am also not going to join a mod that hasn't planned things through

But...I DO have a LOT of 3D modelling experience, an exhaustive knowledge of WW2 AFV's and a reasonable level of RTW modding skill. I have some WW2 AFV models knocking around and could probably convert some easily enough. Pack that together with a large library of Osprey WW2 reference works and plenty of historical material....and well...guess the rest.

[IliaDN]

Well , when registered here I was told there are no russians here and I am the first one.

[therussian91]

Get your 'boss' to post the answers here then ;)

I can help if you can convince me the project is viable. I am not going to chase down the answers. You are trying to recruit me after all....I am also not going to join a mod that hasn't planned things through

But...I DO have a LOT of 3D modelling experience, an exhaustive knowledge of WW2 AFV's and a reasonable level of RTW modding skill. I have some WW2 AFV models knocking around and could probably convert some easily enough. Pack that together with a large library of Osprey WW2 reference works and plenty of historical material....and well...guess the rest.

Very well then, I will


Illiadn-Privet, tavarish

[ultimatekhmaster]

Took a look at your forum, can't say I was impressed by the stickied ' no whiners' type of post.

Yeah, I don't like it either. But alot of stuff gets started there and that post seemed to slow it down.

I have some questions:

1) When you post to ask for various 'needed' skills, what DO you have at present? Is this an idea waiting for people with the skills to make it work, or is this an idea that would happen sooner if more people were working on it?

At the moment we have 2 modelers. (1 active, and one very unactive one) We have plenty of historians. A few skinners. (Most members seem to be able to skin, not all, but some). We also have a campaign mapper. He can also do coding. We also have a few text-file editors.

1) Troop formations. How are you planning to handle this? Everything as a 'horde' or are you going to accept the unrealistic and daft looking lined up formations?

Of course they won't be in line formtion. We have a private forum we work in. Someone there posted how we will do it and a picture of it. I'll post back with that picture.

2) Volley fire. How are you going to work around this? Or are you going to accept every tropp in the unit firing together. There is also the question of firing rates along with the tendancy for archers to 'avoid' shooting at close range.

Well with the 1.2 patch, archers now seem to fire in "waves". This is to our advantage. Also, when two units get close to eachother, they will fight melee. There will be exceptions on a few units...possibly.

3) Map size. RTW battle maps are small compared to the ranges of WW2 weapons. How do you plan to cope with this? The bulk of artillery would NOT be present in the immediate vicinity, but would provide fire support from behind the lines. Are you going to ignore this ?

I'm sorry, I'm not exactly sure what your asking here.

4) Heavy weapons. Replacing siege weapons?

Huh?

5) Armoured vehicles. Tanks I have done myself in a limited way. How do you plan to implement both main gun and hull MG's ? Using a 'horse archer' is out, so you are limited to Elephant based units. I found it impossible to restrict the arc of fire for any given weapon. You can't animate the tracks either.... nor could I find a way of making the wheels turn! Then, of course, there is the ordinary trucks and armoured cars etc. How do you plan on making a 4-wheeled vehicle? I have not been able to make one. Chariots seem stuck as 2 wheeled, and siege weapons require troops to push them.

We thought of horse archers and elephants, but they would only fire either the MG's or the main gun. Chariots, have you tested them? Onagers could accually work. The onager itself would be the tank gun, and the soldiers that push would be the MG gunners. Get were I'm going here?

6) Destroyed tanks. You cannot change the external model or texture to indicate the 'brewing up'. I ended up just making a variant of hte 'stand idle' animation, which just meant they stopped.....whats your approach?

When onagers are destroyed, you see the broken down onager. If onagers are tanks, then we have a winner right there.

7) Aircraft.... on the start map only...or not at all ?

There will be in-battle planes, and campaign map planes. I have to go to lunch soon so I'll explain when I get back.

8) AI ... will the AI be able to cope with your new units, or will it just use htem exactly as if they were Romans with new bodies.... your mod is too different to the Romans to work like this.

Ever heard of the Darthmod from TWC? He modified the AI. If it has a hard time coping with these new units, then we'll do as he did.

Did I answer everything?

[Bwian]

Ok clarification.

A soldier fighting with a rifle or SMG does not engage in melee when the enemy gets closer. Use of bayonets was limited, and largely psychological by this period. Do you have a way to keep the archers using missile weapons up close? This is what I meant by the archers 'not firing up close'. When caught at close range, an SMG equipped soldier just isn't going to pull a knife.....

As far as battle maps go, RTW battle maps do not cover a large area. They are small. They are geared to foot soldiers. All the units present in the battle have to be on the map. In WW2, combat did not take place like that. You cannot use 'off-map' type artillery. You cannot fire a proper artillery barrage because your artillery would have to be in close proximity to the soldiers. This is unrealistic. Tanks need space to operate. Are you planning on just working in the space available?

Heavy weapons.... heavy MG's, Mortars, Bazookas, grenades, that sort of thing. Not fixed, enmplaced artillery, but the kind of heavy support weapons used at platoon level by all armies. They need firepower and mobility, but would look stupid if there was 40+ of them......

Now...as far as Onagers go....you are planning a tank with a maximum speed of around 4mph, with a single main gun and 40 non-firing machine gunners....You also cannot have all the MG crew lined up behind the tank.... Have you actually tested this or is it still guesswork? As far as making a tank work, you are going to need a whole new animation set, and may need a new skeleton ( which isn't possible yet ) I tried making the arm animate as a tank gun-barrel and had some limited success. This was with a horse archer.....and only used a single weapon. It produced too many in a single unit....but it worked after a fashion. Very much a bodge-job though.

Intrested to see how you plan to do planes on a battle map.... so they

a) Never stop moving
b) Don't have a direct impact on ground troops when they fly over
c) Are able to climb and dive....

Broken down onagers......have you tried to apply this to a vehicle? Tanks don't 'break' apart. Turrets may get blown off, wheels and tracks break...but hulls seldom do. Have you tried making the onager 'break' in a controllable way?

You will have to excuse the 'third degree' interrogation here, but I have seen too many people try and build mods that don't fit with the basic layour of the game engine. Every one so far has failed. The guys doing it just expect people to 'work around' the obvious failings and give no thought to how they will overcome the issues. when they do post their thoughts, they never actually TRY the things, and just assume they will somehow magically 'work themselves out' or someone will 'find a way to do it'

They don't solve the problem. The mod becomes just a bunch of soldiers running around like futuristic Romans, and the mod dies of natural causes.

[ultimatekhmaster]

A soldier fighting with a rifle or SMG does not engage in melee when the enemy gets closer. Use of bayonets was limited, and largely psychological by this period. Do you have a way to keep the archers using missile weapons up close? This is what I meant by the archers 'not firing up close'. When caught at close range, an SMG equipped soldier just isn't going to pull a knife.....

Have you ever noticed that when some of the archers are attacked by melee units? If they are not set to (forgetting the name, its when they don't run when an enemy aproaches) then the archers not being attacked still fire, while the ones being attacked pull out the melee weapon. The melee weapon will be the same gun they were carrying. Understand?

As far as battle maps go, RTW battle maps do not cover a large area. They are small. They are geared to foot soldiers. All the units present in the battle have to be on the map. In WW2, combat did not take place like that. You cannot use 'off-map' type artillery. You cannot fire a proper artillery barrage because your artillery would have to be in close proximity to the soldiers. This is unrealistic. Tanks need space to operate. Are you planning on just working in the space available?

I don't think were playing the same RTW. Maps have plenty of room for soldiers, tanks, mortar, etc. Though there will be no "off-map" artillary.

Heavy weapons.... heavy MG's, Mortars, Bazookas, grenades, that sort of thing. Not fixed, enmplaced artillery, but the kind of heavy support weapons used at platoon level by all armies. They need firepower and mobility, but would look stupid if there was 40+ of them......

Yeah, there won't be a unit of 40+ panzerfausts. That would be weird. Units will be scaled as we see fit.

Now...as far as Onagers go....you are planning a tank with a maximum speed of around 4mph, with a single main gun and 40 non-firing machine gunners....You also cannot have all the MG crew lined up behind the tank.... Have you actually tested this or is it still guesswork? As far as making a tank work, you are going to need a whole new animation set, and may need a new skeleton ( which isn't possible yet ) I tried making the arm animate as a tank gun-barrel and had some limited success. This was with a horse archer.....and only used a single weapon. It produced too many in a single unit....but it worked after a fashion. Very much a bodge-job though.

Crank up the onager speed. Though you did bring up a good point, about the MG gunners. Let me talk to someone and I'll get back to you.

Intrested to see how you plan to do planes on a battle map.... so they

a) Never stop moving
b) Don't have a direct impact on ground troops when they fly over
c) Are able to climb and dive....

A)We won't be doing them by putting a bunch of alpha channel below them.
B)What do you mean here?
C)They won't.

Broken down onagers......have you tried to apply this to a vehicle? Tanks don't 'break' apart. Turrets may get blown off, wheels and tracks break...but hulls seldom do. Have you tried making the onager 'break' in a controllable way?

This is the only way to destroy a tank. Unless you have a suggestion.

[Bwian]

Thanks for the replies :D

You need to be careful with unit sizes....since there is a minimum.

I will have a play with Onager speed as well...might be fun.

Just to clarify the plane thing....

Most of the suggestions I have seen for planes have involved making a unit and just translating it upwards (+z) so it is off the ground. This is sort of OK...but the ground troops react as if the thing was on the ground. There was also the issue of keeping a unit moving. You would have to find a way of preventing the unit ever stopping.

You could try taking the animation and replacing the 'stand' anims with 'march' anims. I did this by mistake messing about with the anim editor, and I ended up with a unit which never stood still! It was halfway across the map before I had finished setting up my army!!!

As far as wrecking tanks go, it depends how you set up the model parts. If the wheels and arm etc. are going to 'fall off' that just won't look right. Cop an AP round and you may see a turret seperate when the stowed ammo goes up, but usually it was either a clean kill ( Ballistic Cap or Tungsten cored rounds ) punching straight through and damaging crew, or striking sparks and 'brewing up' the tank. Contrary to some belief, it was rarely the fuel that caught fire to 'brew' a tank... usually it was the propellant charges from the ammunition getting hit and igniting. Maybe the anti tank weapons could use flame ammo (with a non-flaming model ) to burn out the target?

There is also the issue of the lack of 'turret traverse' on an Onager. OK for somthing like a Jagdpanther or Sturmgeschutz. The model would also work quite well for a Priest SPG. I will ponder.....

[Zharakov]

Well , when registered here I was told there are no russians here and I am the first one.

Well there is me... Vlad1...*He's from Ukrain... but hey, noone is perfict*



I'll make you a deal, I'll help you'r MOD out when I get back from vacation in 2 weeks.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Re: tanks.

I've read that they didn't "brew-up" that much, and certainly didn't explode too often like in the movies. You would hit the tank with a shell, and nothing would happen. You would have to look for the crew exiting the tank to know it was dead. That or shoot it again. I'm not sure how accurate that is, but that's what I've read.

[therussian91]

Yes, we got one! Now we need more

[Bwian]

'Brewing Up' certainly DID happen quite a bit. Shermans were renowned for it. The Germans called them 'Tommy Cookers' and the American nickname was 'Ronson'

If you want to read a good book on the dangers of tank warfare, I can recommend Ken Touts books... 'Tank' and 'Tanks Advance'. Tank warfare in the aftermath of D-Day told firsthand. He desrcibed the after effects of brewing up when he inspected a destroyed Panzer. They didn't always explode though. He had to go forward to check on the missing crewman of a Sherman that had been hit. The driver was still in the tank. An AP shell had gone clean through the armour and neatly removed the drivers head.

If a solid shot AP shell penetrated the fighting compartment, what happened next depended purely on luck. It could enter the engine bay and start a fire. IT could hit the ammo stored inside. Now...HE shells warheads are actually fairly inert... but the propellant charges were not. Later marks of Shermans employed 'wet storage' to reduce this tendancy. Panzerfaust rounds were more likely to cause trouble...they used a shaped charge to blow through the armour....you can guess why the tank crews feared them!

Different tanks went up in different ways. Ken Tout described a night action, where you could see tanks brew up. The German tanks went up more slowly, glowing redly. The Shermans went up like miniature volcanoes....glowing white.

Now....of course, tanks were often disabled by fire and not destroyed.

[therussian91]

So, do you feel like joining? You would be a great asset to both planning and creating the mod.

[Bwian]

I can help out a bit. My own mod has to take priority...but I can turn out a few bits and pieces.

What do you need?

[therussian91]

Models. PM Ultimatekhmaster, telling him you'll join the team. He'll then tell you everything you need to know

[irish_own]

Platoon

Was this what you were talking about?

Made it myself

[therussian91]

Recruiting is still going on guys. Join the Cause!!

[reaperrs]

Join up everyone! (well not everyone, just those with useable skills)

http://www.stratcommandcenter.com/fo...showtopic=9728

[nic_vee]

Mmmmmm....... This is gonna be a hard one guys. All the other WW2 mods have died and this one probalbly will to. Sorry about the negative waves but the RTW engine just wont hack it.

[shenrougu]

why dont you just buy combat mission? its like total war but specifically for ww2.

[therussian91]

Because that is worth money. We can give it to you for free

[Bwian]

Well...that was short AND unpleasant:

Day 1: Into private forum, find out how desperate the need is for models and good reference material. Find little by way of concrete plans and try to fix a definitive list for AFV's. That thread is closed

Day 2: Open another thread coz this matter needs resolving before I start building. That thread has vanished.

Day 3: Get a PM from one of the 'senior' members titled 'so, are you modelling or not' followed by a list of models demanded. No discussion. 5 models. No discussion.

Sheesh. No wonder you guys are finding it hard to get experienced modders to join your team. You would think someone who can model, UV map, import to RTW and do new animations would have been considered useful....and get listened to when making suggestions. Apparantly not.

This mod will not be receiving any further aid or involvement from me. I have PM'd the leader, and tendered a formal resignation. Irrevocable. End of story. I hope this will teach them a lesson on how to manage their assets.

[reaperrs]

When were your suggestions not listened to?

You only made 8 posts, and was only on the team for 2 days.

[Bwian]

Reaperrs ... the demands I received were through PM's not in open forum.

The posts showing on the forum are several fewer than those I actually made. Short by one thread and a couple of other posts. I have to consider censorship as 'not listening'.

I also asked to have the list of tanks to be built discussed and properly agreed. I also wanted this balanced with the proposed troop units. That was just before Berserker closed the Tanks thread.

Follow that up with a 'demand' via PM couched in a 'we hired you so why aren't you busy modelling NOW' kind of way...well...I volunteered to help, I wasn't hired. That offer of help has been withdrawn. I don't think the attitudes and approaches of some members of the Mod team fit with my way of doing things.

I feel it's best all round to just leave it at that. I only posted my resignation here to make sure it was clearly understood and didn't vanish like some of my other posts on the AATW private forum. Nothing personal.... there was a clear personality clash and it would have led to nastiness sooner rather than later. Now it won't.

[Duke John]

IMO it's a beginners mistake when you expect coders and artists to do alot of work for you without questioning. Instead expect teammembers willing to have an influence on the end result. If you cannot accept that, then you would be better making the mod on your own.

For a bit of "fun" go to the Torque game-engine forum and search for requests for coders and artists for MMORPG.
Just 5cents...