Can any playtesters look at this?

DrPraetorious · #1 December 9th, 2006, 06:42 PM

Well, I can combine small numbers of mods.

Unfortunately, the game can't hold enough custom graphics for all of these units

At least, that's my interpretation - it seems to crap out around unit #2140, which is well below the maximum theoretical length of the unit array.

I've attached the combined mod anyway, just so you can look at it. The combined early and mid mods work just fine, as does the late era mod as long as people don't play nations that need units off the end of the array.

(early era)
Angelic Crusade
Sar Elad
Machaka, Spider Cult

(middle era)
Hoburg Alliance
Horror Scourge
Iconoclasts

(late era)
Reign of the Vampiri
Kharam Dzu
Sanguinia
Sylvania
Stigian Corruption
Teutanion
Blood Elves
Trade Confederation
Themiskyra

(all eras)
Worthy Heroes

-- I removed these mods as part of a debuging effort.
The Ruinous Powers
Risen Emperor

I purposefully did *not* include any of the conceptual balance mods, or any other mods that *alter* existing nations or units, except by adding stuff.

A few comments:
* Perhaps the two vampire nations should be merged into one country? A mix of those units with slight changes could be spread across all three eras.

* Do people mind if I filch their artwork for my own mods? I'll avoid using the same pic in the same era.

I thought I asked everybody, but if I have included anyone's mod without permission, just let me know, I will remove it.

Current Bugs:
* The graphics array is not as big as the unit array, so we cannot, currently, support all of the custom graphics in the late era mods.

Other than the sprite overflow, combining mods with this script seems to work perfectly.

Thanks and Enjoy,
TNDP

HoneyBadger · #2 December 10th, 2006, 02:45 AM

Thanks, DrPraetorious. I mostly like playing in the early age anyway for my own thematic purposes, but it will be nice when this problem gets solved.

By the way, what is the maximum theoretical length of the unit array?

DrPraetorious · #3 December 10th, 2006, 03:19 AM

3000 units - slots 2000-2999 are all availble for modders, and you can use any of them and it'll work just fine. So the "new unit" array is theoretically 1000 units long.

BUT, if you try to add more than ~140 new unit graphics (each new monster takes two sprites, so that's 280 sprites) the game crashes. That's an approximate number, since some of the monsters in these mods are using recycled sprites. The error message it gives is the same as if you try to copy the sprite of a non-existing unit, there are some other things that can give this out of bounds sprite error, so I'm not totally *certain* that is what is happening, but it seems pretty clear.

Johan K · #4 December 10th, 2006, 05:18 AM

Strange, it should be possible to add 1000 new sprites and it shouldn't crash when you do it anyway.

HoneyBadger · #5 December 10th, 2006, 06:42 AM

So it's not that you can't have for instance 12,000 units in the game, except for the fact that the program isn't set up to service 12,000 units. Eh?

DrPraetorious · #6 December 10th, 2006, 01:19 PM

It is of course possible that I'm somehow mangling a sprite reference when I combine the mods, but if so, I can't see where I'm doing it - and it seems to effect all sprites after a certain point in the mod script, not just a few. Obviously I don't know how it works internally. Is there anything I can to get debug info beyond the "ddd" flag?