I think your main description may be too long. I don't know at what point you run out of space, but you don't have a huge amount of room to work with. It's a shame they didn't spend less time putting in angry glasers and more time making the interface, you know, not suck.

Yeah, I'm afraid it might be just a bit too long. I'd have to check in game to be sure though: there are descriptions in the game that are 6 words shorter and that do display properly, but those come awfully close to filling the whole description box.

It is kinda weird that the coverage .exe is that much smaller -- well, it's only 80kb but still. It was apparently done by inserting a bit of extra code into a revision that's only a few days old, but it's smaller than even those .exe's. The wonders of compiling, I guess. Anyway, as ShadoWarrior said on the other forums, it's safe: I'm currently playing with it, at any rate. The xml's you've got from me might not be, however: I had typoed a space into a format line in one version of Armours.xml, I'm not sure if you have that one. I'll update Armours and Items at ja2dumpshock.wikispaces.com anyway.

[Edit]Seems ShadoWarrior already included the coverage bit into his newest release, so better get that one here (1.3Mb .rar).[/Edit]

Arethusa: I haven't done anything big on Weapons.xml for days, and the stats I've got there now are a bit boring, so if that's something you might be interested in then by all means, I'd love to see what you can do with it.

I've also since realized that effects of inbuilt scopes, sights, bipods, foregrips, telescopic/folding stocks, etc. are all included in Items.xml so Weapons.xml can be edited without worrying about those at all.

Alright, cool; I'll take a look through weapons.xml tonight and see what happens. If you could set up a MoonEdit server, I think it would really help make this work.

I tested the flak jacket description, and it's actually just fine -- there's still room for 4 words or so on the last line of the description box before you'd run into trouble.

D'oh! I already shortened it. That being said, I think I just made it more condensed and thus better writing. I'm still working on this, in any case. Last night I got a pretty bad case of diarreah and stomach pain probably because someone at the place where I ate my lunch didn't wash their hands before working in the kitchen, so it cut my writing short a bit. But, I'm still working on it with great enthusiasm and will get it to you as soon as I'm done. How do I upload to the wiki?

Hmm, I have a question. So far I've been working on the assumption that uiIndex 16X in items corresponds to uiIndex X in armours. However, when I reach uiIndex 170, it looks like it should correspond to uiIndex 9 and not uiIndex 10 in Armours. Am I reading the file in the right way?

Lastly, for interest and commentary, here are the descriptions I've written so far, with main desc coming first and BR coming second and the C18 and crepitus jelly descs following:

For flak jacket:

This 20th century incarnation of plate mail is made from DuPont ballistic nylon and steel plates. It was designed to protect Word War II servicemen from shrapnel but is ineffective even against direct fire from a handgun.

A true collector's find! This Vietnam-era flak jacket is constructed with DuPont's original ballistic nylon. The perfect gift for the military historian in your family!

This historical artifact was dipped in Compound 18 for anti-ballistic type protection. The World War II era concept of DuPont ballistic nylon and metal plating was not very effective so hopefully now it will actually protect a little better.

This Vietnam-era jacket of ballistic nylon and metal plates was dipped in Compound 18 to improve its durability. It's a perfect gift for the military historian in your life who also has destructive toddlers at home.

This historical artifact was coated with jelly from the queen Crepitus to improve its protectiveness.

"Kevlar Vest" was renamed to NIJ level 2 vest:

This turtleneck style vest was tested by the NIJ and found to protect against multiple hits from 9mm, 10mm, and .357 magnum handgun cartridges.

This turtleneck style NIJ level 2 vest will provide ample protection for aggressive slumming activities in Detroit, New Orleans, and Baltimore.

This turtleneck style NIJ level 2 vest has been improved with compound 18.

If you thought NIJ level 2 was good, it's even better when it has been treated with Compound 18.

This NIJ level 2 vest provides even better protection since it has been treated with Crepitus royal jelly.

The Spectra Vest was renamed to NIJ level 3 vest:

This turtleneck style vest provides protection from multiple hits against 7.62 FMJ bullets and may accept a ceramic plate for even better protection.

This turtleneck style vest provides good coverage and protection from even the almighty NATO 7.62mm FMJ cartridge. Don't go to war without it!

This turtleneck style NIJ level 3 vest protects even better since it has been treated with C18.

If you felt safe wearing a turtleneck vest rated as NIJ level 3 you'll feel like Superman now that it's been treated with C18.

This NIJ level 3 vest offers even more protection with its coating of queen Crepitus jelly.




That's where I stopped because I was confused about which entry on Armours corresponds to Kevlar Pants, which was next on the list.

Ahh, maybe my diarrhoea this morning was out of sympathy.

The way it should work is that, as long as it's an armor item, the value <ubClassIndex> in Items.xml should correspond to the <uiIndex> value in Armours.xml. For example, the <ubClassIndex> of Kevlar Pants is 9, so its attributes can be found under <uiIndex>9 in Armours.xml. One way to check you're not looking at the wrong entry is that <ubArmourClass>0 in Armours.xml is a helmet, <ubArmourClass>1 is a vest, <ubArmourClass>2 is leggings, <ubArmourClass>3 is a plate insert and <ubArmourClass>4 is a creature skin (I think) -- and the C18 and Treated options of a piece of armor are usually (but not always) the 2 succeeding <uiIndex>es in Armours.xml.

I was thinking of even the best flexible armor vests (ie. Spectra and Dyneema and their upgraded versions) as still being level III-A. For reference here's how much armor is necessary to stop cold with zero damage certain weapon/ammo combinations (note: protection of a plate = its own protection + the protection of the vest underneath it):
9x19mm handgun FMJ: 23
9x19mm SMG FMJ/.357 Magnum handgun FMJ: 25
.44 Magnum handgun FMJ: 30
12 gauge slug (assume this is a non-deforming brass or other harder metal slug): 40-42
5.56x45mm and 7.62x39mm assault rifle FMJ: 48
7.62x51mm/7.62x54mmR rifle FMJ: 59
5.56x45mm M995 AP: 80
7.62x51mm M993 AP: 98
Note that the highest rating armor combination possible in the game is Ceramic Plates (uiIndex 22 in Armous.xml) + Field Ops upgraded Spectra or Dyneema vest (uiIndex 112 & 113 in Armours.xml, I think), which provide 82 (50+32) armor.

I really like the flavor, especially on the BR descriptions. Nice work.

You can upload into ja2dumpshock.wikispaces.com/ if you first become a member of wikispaces.com (which was very simple, IIRC) and then ask for permission in ja2dumpshock. Someone also suggested Savefile.com for uploading files, and that seems like an easy enough option to use.

I'm really wondering about how rates of fire are handled. Having played through a bit, it seems like the only drawback from high rof is ammo consumption. Does the game have any balancing factors like controllability?

Also, I haven't look at the items.xml yet, but I'm pretty sure none of the attachments make any sense at all (well, maybe the foregrip). I'm not even sure what a battle scope is (I'm guessing something like an ACOG or an ELCAN), but it seems to do exactly the same thing as a reflex sight, which is not good.

Nope, there's no built-in balance there. A high <bAutofireShotsPerFiveAP> needs to be balanced with <AutoPenalty>. That's something I might not have done very well originally, even though I tried to keep it in mind.

A reflex sight and a reflex scope reduce the AP cost of readying and firing, while the battle scope only allows for more accurate aiming. Those would be pretty easy to fix, but I haven't touched them yet. I should probably do a bit of testing on them.

I'll think of something smart to say about how the different sights should be handled later today.

Yeah, I meant reflex sight and reflex scope. I am up way too late. And I have class tomorrow. Augh.

An ELCAN is hardly a reflex sight. While it's got a nice big field of view and a clear picture even when your head isn't perfectly aligned, it's not going to provide you with the same kind of advantage as a reflex sight in terms of quick firing at close distances.

At "medium" distances (the kind where a 3.4x scope comes in handy), they certainly make shooting faster and easier.

Hm... don't scopes have some sort of "minimum distance" in JA2, where when you use them inside of that range, they apply a penalty? If this was tweaked properly, things like the ELCAN could be represented reasonably accurately. At close ranges, you've got a penalty from it, but at mid-long range it makes life a lot easier, and has certain advantages over a high-mag scope (namely, that it's easier to engage a moving target with and you can see a lot more in it's field of view).

I think they simply do not give their bonus inside the minimum distance. Doesn't mean a whole lot, since the bonus they provide is to allow cutting down the effective range by using the aim action -- not something you'd need within 5-10 tiles.

I was thinking of giving a non-magnifying reflex sight the same bonus it does now, reducing the AP cost of readying the weapon and firing it, but providing no particular bonus to accuracy, while reflex scopes might reduce the draw cost but not firing AP cost. I haven't tried it, but I imagine it's not easier to re-acquire the target after a shot through a 4x ACOG than it is through ghost ring iron sights.

That seems pretty good. That way, you don't necessarily "rapid fire" any more accurately, but you could "aimed fire" to the same degree of effectiveness in a shorter period of time, or (with the same amount of time invested) more accurately.

Crikey, they do. Now that's weird. Makes you wonder what they were smoking.

Looking more closely at the scopes, a sniper scope reduces tha AP cost of firing by 9% while a battle scope does not. A sniper scope also increases the damage dealt by 2. You can't make this shit up.

You see, the sniper scope doesn't make any sense. In fact, it make so little sense that the bullet gets really confused and angry, doing more damage.

I think they wrote somewhere on the wiki that the sniper scope makes your shot placement more accurate and therefore raises damage. Obviously, though, if we start working with armor coverage that damage bonus can be nixed since the abstraction of the shotplacement would be more directly handled by the armor bypass probability.

EDIT: You guys are starting to think a lot about t3h mechanics. Here's my suggestion, since probably most of the 1.13 guys wouldn't totally agree with the things you wanna implement. Make your edits, do you thing with the scopes (minimum ranges and so forth), and just make a product designed to work with the basic September release, and don't worry about subsequent releases. Hell, I'll be happy enough not updating my 1.13 and playing the "realism" mod instead.

OK, I'm going through the armors and I'm noticing, like you pointed out, how most of the "good" armor items are basically providing a ~IIIA level of protection.

Given that the "twaron", "dynema", "guardian" etc items are all providing similar levels of protection, how do you suppose I should describe them differently?

Also, what about the EOD and SWAT outfits? Those descriptions probably don't need revision, do they?

EDIT:

Just making sure I've got the right idea here...let me know if this description and revision for the "titanium plating" is good or not:

I think the SWAT outfit could use renaming and redescribing. Not like there is such a thing as a standardized "SWAT outfit".

Also, can someone explain to me why the SG551 and SG552 have integral reflex scopes? Please?

[edit]

How shall I describe the SWAT equipment, then? I must confess my SWAT-fu is weak and I don't know much about them. My understanding is that they flash you and then empty MP5s into you which dosen't let me know much about their armor.

OK, for what it's worth, here are the descriptions I've written so far. I haven't addressed the things I'm a bit confused about, which are:

*All the special armors added by the 1.13 modders, like the zylon, twaron, SWAT gear, and so on. I'm not sure what to call them because in terms of protection a lot of the pieces of gear are similar.

*The ceramic plates give 50 protection...should I classify that as Type III or not? It's not quite Type III but for now I'm classifying the crappier plates as Type IIIA already, so I'm not sure where that leaves me for the ceramic plates. I suppose we could always upgrade the ceramic plates so they are a true type III...

Anyway, here are my descs:

Flak Jacket

http://img392.imageshack.us/img392/8131/sh...dowrunja6dg.jpg

I thought about Jagged Alliance Shadowrun mod (that was in february 2006).

I even tried to sell this idea to polish JA fans (modding is group work: you need scripters, mappers, illustrators...).

But they're hate the idea of "elves + AKs" so I surrendered.

EDIT: Image is REAL screenshot - it took me whole 5 minutes to modified appropiate grapic game file (modding is easy).
I don't use trainers - The stats ARE real - it took me whole 433 in-game days to max most stats of my custom merc. From time to time I like to kill some red shirts in Arulco .
If you really need that, I can send you save game (NOTE: I've cracked Urban Chaos mod files. Dunno how save game will works with orginal JA. NOTE 2: you probobly should change one of graphic files. I changed LAW image iirc - sorry, but i did 6 months ago, before format of my HDD.).

If you looking for similiar games:
Recentlty, I've discoverd Silent Storm. TBS with full 3D environment. Shadowrunners during WWII.
Great fun!!!

That would be awesome!

I neither have the skills nor the time to help with the project, but I'm sure others here can and will.

Don't forget to include a hot elven chick ki-adept

Grinder - imho, if you want Shadowrun mod with turn based mode, it's better to:
- mod Arcanum (magic included, firearms included, easy to script = you can change story ad get real RPG game. BUT - some graphics are hardscripted into core).
- mod Silent Storm (it's fuckng awesome. Really - if you loved UFO, Fallout Tactics or JA you must try THIS game. Demo is avaible in the net)
-
SR JA mod:
-you can include fireballs (fireballs=granades),
- dragon - you can modified look and script of queen.

Negative sides of JA mod:
- lack of story interaction - it is possible, but very, very tough to add dialogs option for player (same thing, or even worse with Fallout Tactics - there's no dialog options in FT! According to author of "Awaken FT mod" (yes, Dargh is from Poland) you can't add dialogs to FT).

Yeah, I have Silent Storm here, but so far didn't have the time to play it.

I don't have any skills needed to do modding, so I have to hope that other people will do it In the end, I don't care which game is used, as long as the result is a nice round-based SR mod.

Creating it on JA2 would be way beyond anything I've got the skills or the motivation to do. Right now what we're mostly doing here is change the attributes and descriptions of items in the game, and even that is only really possible because the people doing the 1.13 mod have made modifying their work so easy.

Yeah, good luck finding people up for doing a serious mod of a game over a decade old. I'm not sure why you'd even want to try.

As for 1.13, is there a way to make these launched grenades explode on contact? I haven't looked at them in the .xmls yet, but the way they're handled now is spectacularly stupid.

Also, any word on the possibility of a MoonEdit server?

Can't think of a way to make a MoonEdit server stay online 24-7. Haven't tested it yet in my computer -- until I reconfigure my new ADSL modem I've got a feeling there'll be trouble -- but at best that'd mean it being online 8-6 or so...

Arright, the old computer room is really empty for a Friday so I'm back at work according to the suggestions.

There's a rainstorm going on right now so I could lose satellite, in which case you won't hear from me for maybe 2 or 3 more days due to an upcoming holiday. September 11th is actually FSM Liberation Day, in which they celebrate their political independence.

I wish I could do better, but my current living situation means I can't leave my computer on overnight, and I'm using a borrowed laptop right now with a really restrictive firewall I have no control over, so that's even more useless. So, uh, anyone out there who could help us by running a small program to host some text, please feel free to volunteer.

Here's my Guardian vest desc:

<szItemDesc>This concealable NIJ level 2 vest is made of Kevlar by Guardian Armories, Inc. It is fully adjustable and has a pocket for a ceramic armour insert.</szItemDesc>
<szBRName>Guardian Vest</szBRName>
<szBRDesc>This concealable NIJ level 2 ballistic vest is manufactured from Kevlar by Guardian Armories, Inc. Also available in tuxedo style for those especially dangerous formal occasions.</szBRDesc>


Here's my field ops description. Do you think it's on the ball? (for the guardian vest; I guess it could be the same for the other field op vests)

This vest seems to be upgraded for purposes of longer field operations and missions and provides extra plastic plating and a groin flap to better protect the operative.


Twaron helmet:

OK, I ended up describing the SWAT gear as NIJ level 2. I'm uploading the file now to savefile.com...

Lol, it's taking a while due to my slow connection...

Here we go:

www.savefile.com/files/45862

EDIT: Anyway, I'm probably signing off for the weekend. Ciao.

Before you go too far, remember that you can add slots for other things. One of the mods I run (Dedreanna returns I think it is) has a vest with space for the plate, wire cutters, a lockpick kit and... something else. Either way, FYI.

I was going to finally DL that file and patch it into my current Items.xml (I think I've changed things in on my own computer since then), but Savefile.com seems to be down.

Sooo... I thought I'd start doing something with the explosives. First off, I expect there are no objections to me replacing "Stun" grenades with offensive/concussion grenades? Basically, decent physical and relatively high stun damage in a small radius. Also, I figure I might as well change all the thermobaric explosions to use the basic HE animation instead of the "napalm" explosion type -- seeing a big temporary fireball with tb explosions would be nice, but that's beyond my abilities and I have to get rid of the "sea of flames" crap.

I'll have to do some playtesting with the damage and radius figures to see if I can't make same-tile grenade explosions quite deadly without making them always kill people tens of meters away.

...and I think I'm done. Most grenades now do quite a lot more physical damage and stun damage -- even frag grenades are now quite likely to completely take the wind out of you if they go off at your feet or right next to you.

One quite serious problem caused by this is that because of the very low structure armor/hitpoint limits, any explosive device capable of causing critical damage to even unarmored humans will breach some walls when going off right next to them. Hence though a "mini grenade" even now does only ~35-40 damage on average to flak-jacketed/kevlar-vested&steel-/kevlar-helmeted when going off at their feet, it is capable of rubbling some walls. At least the Frag Grenade, even though it usually did over 50 damage to such enemies in my testing, doesn't rubble walls unless they are right next to it.

I also increased the durations of most gas grenades -- tear, "mustard" (I didn't rename/re-describe them yet) and smoke -- so that they now remain on the battlefield for up to 15 turns. This way the damaging gas grenades work better for area denial and better allow first gassing a room or building and then assaulting in while the gas is still airborne and effective.

I was thinking of turning "napalm" grenades into incendiary/thermate grenades, but apparently they point to the same Explosive effect as the thermobaric grenades of the same caliber and I'm not going to create new explosions just for them. I cannot completely remove them either (grenade launcher ammunition choices are hardcoded so enemies would be carrying "Nada" ammo for them), and pasting over them with the attributes of the thermobaric rounds is a bad idea on two accounts: it would create two identical entries at Bobby Ray's and elsewhere, and it would make it twice as likely for enemies to carry thermobaric grenades as any other type of grenade launcher ammo. Don't really know what to do about it. Fortunately it's a non-issue when you're playing in non-scifi mode, since both "napalm" and thermobaric ammo is scifi-only.

I also slightly re-described HMX, C-1 and C-4 and removed the TNT+RDX=HMX and RDX+C-1=C-4 merges. 1,3,5-trinitroperhydro-1,3,5-triazine won't turn into 1,3,5,7-tetranitroperhydro-1,3,5,7-tetrazocine by sticking methyl-1,3,5-trinitrobenzene into it.

I will shortly upload the new Explosives.xml, Items.xml and Merges.xml at the ja2dumpshock wiki.

Here's my new Ceramic Plates desc.

Zounds, I'd also missed the camoed helmet. Heh.

Ke ke ke, I found the Stealth Ops Helmet, which I've never encountered in the game. Here's the description, because it appears to suck.

The thermobaric rockets are a possible exception. The RPO-A has no entry that I could find in the Explosives.xml file, and I can't remember how I changed the Thermobaric Rocket entry. A unmodded 1.13 25mm Thermobaric Grenade, however, conjures an approximately 100-meter diameter sea of flames for a minute without any noticable detonation -- now the smaller thermobaric munitions cause explosions that appear and sound just like small HE charges, while the bigger ones (ie. 40mm thermobaric grenades) look like large HE charges.

I really like the flavor of all your descriptions. I might edit some of the details a bit -- as I thought, it is extremely difficult to convey what type of armor I had in mind when I put down the coverage and protection attributes, but that's really only a question of adding and substracting some Roman numerals. Since I apparently only have a grand total of 6 hours of lectures per week for the whole autumn semester, and I can't read academic books for more than 3-4 hours a day without going mad, I'll also quickly test the names and such to make sure they fit into the alloted spaces and then copypaste them into the newest Items.xml.

Heh, the Stealth Ops stuff is much like the "napalm" GL rounds -- I wouldn't mind if it was simply "lost in translation", but I can't think of a safe way to remove so I just restatted it and kept it scifi-only as damage control.

OK, here's the revised items.xml:

http://rapidshare.de/files/32786643/Items.xml.html

Let me know how it goes.

I can hardly wait to try out the new explosives. My current 1.13 game has reached Meduna so as soon as that's done I'll start over with the revised files. Hopefully it dosen't CTD out again.

I'm also pretty pumped about "mustard gas" becoming "chlorine gas". I think this is especially necessary given how in 1.13 they stopped NPCs from running into the gas cloud even though mustard gas is invisible and odorless and dosen't actually look like a giant sulfurous cloud. Want me to bang out a description for chlorine gas paraphrased from Wikipedia?

The changes really aren't too radical. Since the only variables for non-duration-attacks are damage (physical and stun) and radius, with no control over how damage drops over radius, no ability to separate the different damages over range nor to separate effects of physical damage on people vs. structures, there's only so much you can do. The figures are still very much open to suggestions, just like with Weapons.xml.

There might be a problem with tanks as well. I really ought to test what happens when throwing one of my boosted frag grenades at a tank -- not that I'll be hugely concerned if a small amount of damage results.

Sure, describe away. It really is too bad the animations are so hard to edit, though I guess we can handle the off-yellow color of the gas as an abstraction. The to-hit and spotting penalties from tear and chloring(/mustard) gas are a bigger problem, but I'm pretty sure those aren't externalized.

OK, here goes. I believe that for the mustard gas mortar and launch grenades the descriptions would be okay with a simple find and replace. However, the mustard gas grenade has the hot dog garnish description and so needs to be revised:

Bobby Ray's desc:

When getting medieval on someone's ass isn't good enough, it's time to get World War I on their ass. This malodorous blast from the past causes incapacitating coughing and agonizing death. Um, sold for pest control purposes only!


Item desc:

Chlorine gas, a mix of C2 and H2, was one of the first chemical agents used in World War I. It causes incapacitating coughing and excruciating death in unprotected personnel.

BTW, what do you think of this thread, regarding realism?

http://www.ja-galaxy-forum.com/cgi-bin/ubb...44;t=000216;p=2