File functions, Mods and the Patch Project

posted on April 28th, 2011, 3:01 am

Religiously significant fecal matter!

posted on April 28th, 2011, 3:16 am

Wow, that is just epicly awesome news! This will be very handy.

Quick question: Would it be possible for the directory to consider stock A2 a mod of FO, with all the engine improvements, but still compatible with other versions of A2 engines?

I too would like to know. It would be huge!

posted on April 28th, 2011, 3:34 am

I do not believe that would be the case:

If I am correct, what is possible is to have a "stock" Armada II installation running in Fleet Ops, that is compatible with all other "stock" A2 installations in other FO installations. It is still not possible to have a Fleet Ops' enhanced Armada II running with a true Stock Armada II due to all the coding enhancements without ridiculously large amounts of work. That's why this is a sort of 'successor' to the Patch Project, since it allows you to use "Stock" Armada II without having to use any Fleet Operations material if you so choose, yet you can still build mods of it and use any single FO feature you so choose, unlike the PP .

posted on April 28th, 2011, 3:53 am

Ah ok cool.

posted on April 28th, 2011, 6:54 am

These are very good news. So the new file system would work to optimize reading on the one hand and act as a "plugin-manager/starter" as seen in other games. Very nice! 

posted on April 28th, 2011, 8:56 am

I have actuallly seen this system before and used it in a2, ...

Yes, the biggest difference over the existing mod managers is, that there are absolutely no files being moved or copied at all - and of course the much better load times.

Would it be possible for the directory to consider stock A2 a mod of FO, with all the engine improvements, but still compatible with other versions of A2 engines?

As dominus stated correctly, it won't be possible to play with your FO-A2 port with a player using Stock A2. Various bug fixes to game engine make these versions incompatible.

This is epic. This is what A2 has needed all along. I swear, you guys should have been on the original A2 design team. 

Here's a question: Will this new mod system work like the Elite Force/EF 2 style of file deployment where the files sit in .pk3 (i.e. zip) files which all have the same directory structure that and they're all merged at run time? Or will it be more straight forward. So, for EF, within the .pk3 there is a directory structure

yes, the file structure will be merged, doesn't matter if the file exists as real file or lies in 'archive' format.
so if you got 3 mods loaded in chain:
C - Cool explosions mod (Sub-mod for Best new race mod) (ODF Files in Archive)
texturesawesome_ship_explosion.tga
texturesawesome_newrace_ship_explosion.tga
B - Best new race mod (Sub-mod for Awesome mod) (ODF Files on HDD)
odfsystemraces.odf
odfsystemawesome_newrace_ship.odf
texturesawesome_newrace_ship.tga
texturesawesome_newrace_ship_explosion.tga
A - Awesome mod (Total conversion) (ODF Files in Archive)
odfsystemraces.odf
odfsystemawesome_ship.odf
texturesawesome_ship.tga
texturesawesome_ship_explosion.tga

Will result in
odfsystemraces.odf (B mod)
odfsystemawesome_ship.odf (A mod)
odfsystemawesome_newrace_ship.odf (B mod)
texturesawesome_ship.tga (A mod)
texturesawesome_ship_explosion.tga (C mod)
texturesawesome_newrace_ship.tga (B mod)
texturesawesome_newrace_ship_explosion.tga (C mod)

posted on April 28th, 2011, 9:16 am

Techtrees and sprite files will still have to be personally edited in order to combine mods though right?

posted on April 28th, 2011, 9:27 am

currently yes. however the new file system has been specifically designed with that problem in mind - but first things first.

posted on April 28th, 2011, 10:47 am

Heh, Hey DOCa, Will this break linux support? 

posted on April 28th, 2011, 10:49 am

not at all wine should handle the changes perfectly fine

posted on April 28th, 2011, 10:57 am

Cool. I'd be a beta tester for the utilities and new versions for Linux if you'd let me.

[Anonymous]

posted on April 28th, 2011, 11:46 am

Last edited by Anonymous on April 28th, 2011, 11:58 am, edited 1 time in total.

That sounds really awesome. Great work I'm looking forward to get it and I'm sure so is everyone else..


As for the Loading asset times. Yeah they are annoying. Sometimes it takes only some seconds. Sometimes it takes like 1 minute...

Still I think the biggest issue in FO isn't that. In fact it are the constant lags in multiplayer whenever you get larger fleets or battles going. It makes it really hard giving any unit orders or micromanaging ships at all at some point. Eventually it needs a more GPU friendly graphic framework & a better netcode. (Assuming that no one lags straight on from the beginning of a match) I mean some explosions here & there are dropping FPS drastically & causing lags which causes strange unit behaviour. But I guess those things are probably hard coded am I right?


Anyway great work and keep working on it FO is one fine mod. 

posted on April 28th, 2011, 11:59 am

One question though in the picture the mod manager seems to be accessed from main menu does that mean that you could edit the files without closing FO? Ok one more what will the multiplayer support for the mods be?

it is not ultimately decided where the modifications menu will reside. currently it is accessible from the options menu, as i didn't want to overload the main screen with options too much. i am not entirely content with that solution yet.
to switch between mods, armada needs to be restarted. per default no mod gets loaded when you start fleet operations, however from the mod screen you can also create a desktop shortcut which directly runs armada with a specific mod loaded (a command line switch is added to the shortcut).

I mean some explosions here & there are dropping FPS drastically & causing lags which causes strange unit behaviour. But I guess those things are probably hard coded am I right?

we figured out already why the explosions slow down the game that much, we are looking to improve that at some point.

posted on April 28th, 2011, 12:35 pm

Wow I am really looking forward to this
I will miss my tea break though (no coffee please, we're English)

But still... Stock A2 with Flops graphics or did I misread? 

posted on April 28th, 2011, 12:42 pm

oh wow, this is amazing. nice work