Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII

[lukerduker123]

Here's a brief update while I'm dealing with a hernia, lack of sleep, and a busy work week in that order. The Colonial vehicles are going well. Once those are all done I just have to balance them.. Which is a lot harder than just drawing pixel tanks or commissioning a far more skilled artist to draw pixel tanks. As you can see the scale is, as the youth say, 'hecking chonky', but it still looks damn fine (even if a tankette is roughly as big as a PZIII here).

[lukerduker123]

Tiny update for those still waiting:

Good news: all the vehicles are in the game (except the Warden bus, but shhh). Bad news: I'm still balancing things. Even more bad news: I was injured on the job and have been having to take things slow while waiting for a surgery the government refuses to admit happened. So that's delayed the initial release date a fair bit, but it'll still be coming soon(tm). In the meantime, have a little vignette of all the units in the game.


Right now I have three major steps to getting this out.
1-BALANCE. Balance everything. I've been doing this as I go, but that made me realize that a sort of power-creep has settled in.
2-Infantry sprites. Right now the Wardens have green helmets. That just won't do.
3-Maps. The first release will have two or three non-canon maps. I'll release all the actual maps later down the line.

After that we'll be golden.

[DRG]

Originally Posted by lukerduker123

2-Infantry sprites. Right now the Wardens have green helmets. That just won't do.

Easily fixed



Also, there were a couple of WW1 mods done and you might be able to find them and although I do not know for certain there MAY be a blue uniformed infantry SHP already done.

That said creating a new set is not the least bit difficult if you have worked with SHP files and you have

[lukerduker123]

Thanks for the quick and dirty fix! I've been fiddling around with SHPs quite a bit, it's just another one of those things you throw on the pile of 'it'll get done eventually'. The guns for the Wardens are complete now. Just gotta' get the Colonial field cannons and finish this balancing act that is, well, balancing.

I'm also 100% debating whether to add custom buildings or not. A part of me wants to, since there's a massive stone wall in Foxhole that plays a pivotal role in the lore and I'd love to have that represented in game.

[lukerduker123]

Small update to start off the month of December. Balancing is fun. Really fun. Really, if I had a choice between a colonoscopy and balancing I'd pick the colonoscopy twice, because I feel like I'm having too much fun. For starters, I've realized that despite my best efforts there's no real way to make these play 'authentically' and have them be a match against real-life tanks. Instead of worrying about how a Silverhand would face a Sherman, or what year these tanks should come out, I've been focused on keeping it how it would act in Foxhole. That means each year is a tier, and each tier brings new goodies to keep the war churning.
Secondly, I've found it best to keep a spreadsheet of all the weapons so I can balance things like vehicle armor around them. There are a lot of weapons.
Thirdly, in an attempt to keep my sanity I've started doing 'stream of consciousness write-ups'. As I balance a vehicle, squad, or weapon I write why I'm balancing it, how I'm balancing it, and how it'll react to the other vehicles / weapons. This'll allow me to go back later and violently chastise myself for not thinking as hard in the past.

Overall progress? Pretty good, I think. I just have to sweep over everything with the magical balance fairy, and then.. Do the maps. Oh boy. Alright, maps, let's talk about that real quick.

When I initially started the mod I wanted to add each map from Foxhole as a 120x120 map, one going E-W and one going N-S. Now I realize this is incredibly time-consuming even with a heightmap generator, so instead my plan is simple: Take core locations from each map and turn them into big areas. Abandoned Ward in the Deadlands, for example, or Jade Cove or the islands of Godcrofts. Eventually I hope to transmute the actual maps, but for now I think this is a fair compromise that'll allow me to actually push this mod out before I'm putting candles on my birthday cake.

To wrap up this blog / newsletter / rant, apologies for the delays. My work schedule up until last week was hellish, but I now have a whopping -2- days off in a row, which is nice. Additionally having to deal with worker's comp over an injury I sustained at work has been keeping me on my toes, as is working around said injury. I'll try and expedite this mod for the whole five people actively waiting for it. I hope it'll be worth the effort.

P.S: Is there a way to change the name of a faction? I know the Civil War mod did it.

P.S.S: Thanks for this awesome game. After playing it for thirteen years I can't believe I'm getting close to actually releasing a mod for it.

P.S.S.S: Yes, I know the HE kill / accuracy values for handheld guns are odd. That's part of the balancetm

[scorpio_rocks]

You "can" change the names of factions / countries but this requires a proper hack of the exe and ini files using a hex editor and substituting "Germany" or what ever for your faction (They MUST however be the same number of letters ie if you sub "Red" then a 3 letter name, "Germany" then 7, etc)

[lukerduker123]

Twelve days, an almost medical emergency (Thought my hernia became entrapped), and an actual emergency (Co-worker's girlfriend has cancer, which means I'm managing everything while he's tending to her like a good fellow) later, and I'm back with some updates and questions.

First off, spreadsheets are amazing. I can see why people get paid the big bucks to manage them. I've set up quite a few spreadsheets to help keep track of stuff, which I've already detailed in the previous post, but those spreadsheets only keep growing as I keep piling more onto it.

Right now I'm working on penetration. As a relatively young, spry fellow I should be quite skilled at this sort of thing, but unfortunately the opposite appears true. SO! Here's my biggest question of the week. Penetration: what determines it the most? Is it purely decided by warhead size, or does the maximum range, AP, and some sort of random fairy dust help to decide the average penetration of a shell?

I ask this because I'm attempting to make sure every gun has a purpose. What's the point of having the monstrous 94.5mm if the 68mm can penetrate every vehicle in the game? I want to break vehicles down into different levels, to ensure that only certain guns can penetrate them from the front at certain distances so no gun feels pointless.

Finally, a new update for Foxhole released recently and, as of typing this up, the vehicles are being sketched out. Hopefully this'll release before Foxhole's next huge update.. Whenever that is.

Thanks for your patience. Hopefully I'll have something soon-ish that isn't just babble, images, and vague promises.

[DRG]

Short answer: it all factors in. WH size range, AP vs He pen AND randoms....... always some randoms. This is why we built and included an Armour Penetration calculator with every game. Experiment with it. That's one reason why it is there

[lukerduker123]

Oh I have, don't you go worrying about that! My one complaint is that I have to close it all down every time I change a value. It's tedious, which is why I was asking before I begin the long, long process of fiddling with one number at a time to get it -just- right.

[DRG]

Build an entire series of variations of a weapon then check the results and pick the one you think matches whatever data you have then you have it all laid out

Also, you do not need to shut it down and restart it if you change the OOB weapon. Just make your change in the OOB then load another OOB then go back and load the one you are working on and the change will show in the APC.......... APC does not have to be shut down to see a change show up. There is no need to exit the entire program