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Newb Modding Questions

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Blade Skydancer Joined: Fri Feb 06, 2009 4:08 am Posts: 3	Newb Modding Questions Hello, I'm Blade, a newcomer to both Cortex Command and the modding scene. I've downloaded a bunch of the mods here, and I have to say they're all rather fantastic. Now, I'm seeking help on returning the favor to the modding scene here. First and foremost, is there a way to reference pieces of multiple mods, IE, get other mods' units to spawn in using the Activities.ini file? Secondly, what controls the "power" of firearms' ammunition? Thirdly, is there a link to a thread containing detailed tutorials that I should be looking at? Thanks in advance for your answers.
Fri Feb 06, 2009 4:17 am

Duh102 happy carebear mom Joined: Tue Mar 04, 2008 1:40 am Posts: 7096 Location: b8bbd5	Re: Newb Modding Questions Well, the wiki is a reasonable place to start looking, but it's rather incomplete at the moment. The best way to learn is to fiddle with things on your own, perhaps copying (with credit) parts of other people's mods to see how they work. Basic tutorials can be had here by LordTim, who explains them well, and here are some templates with annotations by Azukki for some of the more common mod objects. EDIT: Oh, and welcome. Make sure to read LordTim's guide for new people, it'll help you out. And I forgot your specific questions. 1. Yes. Making activities for single mods is easy, you just copy the Activities.ini from Missions.rte into the mod you want to make activities for, reference it in the index for the mod, and edit away. You have to get more creative to reference multiple mods. For more detail, see the wiki. 2. The particles that are fired. Mass, velocity, and sharpness all play a role, as well as sometimes the material of the particles. Recoil is controlled by mass as well, so limiting it is sometimes a problem if you want really heavy bullets.
Fri Feb 06, 2009 4:29 am

Miles_T3hR4t Joined: Mon Jun 04, 2007 5:55 am Posts: 1627 Location: Ohio	Re: Newb Modding Questions actually there is more that affects the power of a bullet. Mass, Velocity, Sharpness, GibImpulse (MOSRotating only?), and RestThreshold. If you make a low mass object, thats very VERY sharp, AND fast, It will damage actors, but if you mess with the rest threshold correctly, It will Hit its target, do damage to the first pixel, and stop on a dime. I totally forgot about this untill I was working with some people on a mod with tau. I remembered the Tau mod I made a while ago, and thats how I did it, Low mass, high velocity and sharpness, but then I messed with the RestThreshold so that if it hits an object, that resists it MORE than an actor would (terrain) it would stop. I got it to eat up sand, but not dirt and harder, yet it still hurt MOSRs ALOT, and could take off heads if you got the angle right. For the most part, Read some of Lord tim's tutorials as was said. My suggestion though, for now, Avoid the wiki, because its a MESS, and only a few things actually work. The best thing to do, is TRIAL AND ERROR. Download a template, Read lord tim's tutorials, fiddle with the templates a little bit at a time, once you make something thats Unique, THEN submit it. Don't EVER submit something like 'oh great its just another machinegun/pistol/digger/lazer/bomb, Unless its something REALLY special. Like a gun that shoots bullets, that turn into guns, or a gun that shoots bombs that explode into a bunch of guns identical to the one that shot it. Or perhapse a gun that shoots a puff of air and goes 'poof', that actually does nothing else....
Fri Feb 06, 2009 4:53 am

Blade Skydancer Joined: Fri Feb 06, 2009 4:08 am Posts: 3	Re: Newb Modding Questions Thanks again for your help, but now I'm having a bit of a dilemma. I've made my rifle, and I've made a projectile to go with it, but now I have a bit of a dilemma; the projectile bounces off of terrain and actors, and doesn't do much damage. I've based it off of the revolver cannon's projectile. The code is as follows. Code: AddAmmo = AEmitter PresetName = AS-54 Scorpion Projectile Mass = .0025 RestThreshold = 750 AirResistance = 0.002 GlobalAccScalar = 1 OrientToVel = 1 Sharpness = 15000 HitsMOs = 1 GetsHitByMOs = 1 SpriteFile = ContentFile FilePath = DraconWeaponry.rte/AS54Scorpion/AS54ScorpionBolt.bmp FrameCount = 1 SpriteOffset = Vector X = 0 Y = 0 EntryWound = AEmitter CopyOf = Dent Metal ExitWound = AEmitter CopyOf = Dent Metal AtomGroup = AtomGroup AutoGenerate = 1 Material = Material CopyOf = Bullet Metal Resolution = 2 Depth = 0 DeepGroup = AtomGroup AutoGenerate = 1 Material = Material CopyOf = Bullet Metal Resolution = 4 Depth = 1 DeepCheck = 1 AddAmmo = AEmitter PresetName = AS54 Projectile Emitter Mass = 15 OrientToVel = 0.9 HitsMOs = 0 GetsHitByMOs = 0 SpriteFile = ContentFile FilePath = Base.rte/Null.bmp LifeTime = 1 FrameCount = 1 SpriteOffset = Vector X = 0 Y = 0 EntryWound = AEmitter CopyOf = Dent Metal ExitWound = AEmitter CopyOf = Dent Metal AtomGroup = AtomGroup AutoGenerate = 1 Material = Material CopyOf = Military Stuff Resolution = 2 Depth = 0 DeepGroup = AtomGroup AutoGenerate = 1 Material = Material CopyOf = Military Stuff Resolution = 4 Depth = 1 DeepCheck = 1 AddEmission = Emission EmittedParticle = AEmitter CopyOf = AS-54 Scorpion Projectile ParticlesPerMinute = 0 BurstSize = 1 Spread = 0.0 MaxVelocity = 300 MinVelocity = 300 PushesEmitter = 0 EmissionEnabled = 1 EmissionsIgnoreThis = 0 BurstTriggered = 1 AddAmmo = Round PresetName = AS-54 Rifle Projectile ParticleCount = 1 Particle = AEmitter CopyOf = AS54 Projectile Emitter FireVelocity = 15 ShellVelocity = -1 Separation = 5 AddAmmo = Magazine PresetName = AS-54 Rifle Charger Mass = 0.1 HitsMOs = 0 GetsHitByMOs = 0 SpriteFile = ContentFile FilePath = Base.rte/Null.bmp FrameCount = 1 SpriteOffset = Vector X = 0 Y = 0 ParentOffset = Vector X = 0 Y = 0 EntryWound = AEmitter CopyOf = Dent Metal ExitWound = AEmitter CopyOf = Dent Metal AtomGroup = AtomGroup AutoGenerate = 1 Material = Material CopyOf = Bullet Metal Resolution = 2 Depth = 0 DeepGroup = AtomGroup AutoGenerate = 1 Material = Material CopyOf = Bullet Metal Resolution = 3 Depth = 1 DeepCheck = 1 JointStrength = 200 JointStiffness = 1 DrawAfterParent = 0 RoundCount = 35 Discardable = 0 RTTRatio = 0 RegularRound = Round CopyOf = AS-54 Rifle Projectile TracerRound = None
Fri Feb 06, 2009 9:18 pm

Solace Joined: Sun Jun 10, 2007 2:05 am Posts: 426	Re: Newb Modding Questions The top thing needs a mass of more than .0025 if you want it to kill stuff. For a speed of 15, try a mass of, like, 50. Or something. Mess around. Also you might want to make it a MOSRotating.
Fri Feb 06, 2009 10:00 pm

Duh102 happy carebear mom Joined: Tue Mar 04, 2008 1:40 am Posts: 7096 Location: b8bbd5	Re: Newb Modding Questions Solace, look again, the actual projectile is shot at 300 But he is right, you should make it mass more like 1 or 2 for a speed of 300 to do some serious damage. In fact, I would recommend making it emit at 100 and up the mass to 50 or so. MOSRot or AEmitter kinetics do tons of terrain damage unless you give them a GibImpulseLimit, so decide if you want it to possibly hit more than one person or save the terrain.
Fri Feb 06, 2009 10:37 pm

Miles_T3hR4t Joined: Mon Jun 04, 2007 5:55 am Posts: 1627 Location: Ohio	Re: Newb Modding Questions Blade Skydancer wrote: Thanks again for your help, but now I'm having a bit of a dilemma. I've made my rifle, and I've made a projectile to go with it, but now I have a bit of a dilemma; the projectile bounces off of terrain and actors, and doesn't do much damage. I've based it off of the revolver cannon's projectile. The code is as follows. Code: A bunch of code The revolver cannon... Doesn't that fire MOSR's instead of Particles? They can't be sharp, so it WILL bounce. To tell you why its bouncing, Pretend your shooting sledge hammers and trying to cut someone in half with it. Thats basically what your doing with that. FYI It wont work on doors, unless it explodes or gibs into sharp Particles.
Sat Feb 07, 2009 12:57 am

Blade Skydancer Joined: Fri Feb 06, 2009 4:08 am Posts: 3	Re: Newb Modding Questions Okay, I've been fiddling with it for a while now, and I've come to the conclusion that I can't quite figure this out on my own. The goal is to make an assault rifle that shoots bolts of energy, of which I've made a sprite for. I tried making the projectile a pixel particle and adding the sprite as a glow, that didn't do much, and the MOR method I tried earlier had it bouncing off of everything and not penetrating(I want it to be sharp, but MORs aren't sharp at all.) Is there any insight I can get from the community to achieve the result I want, that is, an assault rifle that shoots sprited bolts of energy?
Fri Feb 27, 2009 2:50 pm

Alenth Eneil Joined: Mon Dec 04, 2006 3:34 am Posts: 2378	Re: Newb Modding Questions Using the glow is probably the best idea.
Fri Feb 27, 2009 2:54 pm

Solace Joined: Sun Jun 10, 2007 2:05 am Posts: 426	Re: Newb Modding Questions Yeah, you can't make mosrotating's sharp. What, exactly, is the problem with using a pixel? Assuming you've got the penetratingness down, I'll guess you want it to do more damage. One problem with CC is that it just decides if you do damage on a yes/no basis. So, if you want a bullet that causes more damage, you need to make it several overlapping bullets. Either you make the spread 0, or shoot an emitter with a spread of 0, then mess with the number of pixels to do more damage.
Fri Feb 27, 2009 4:56 pm

Geti Joined: Sun Jul 13, 2008 9:57 am Posts: 4886 Location: some compy	Re: Newb Modding Questions Solace wrote: Yeah, you can't make mosrotating's sharp. did not know that. various tests just proved it, thanks Miles, you're being almost as bad as candlejack. to make sprited bolts of energy give the particle (an AEmitter probably, for trails) a low gibimpulselimit, fire it at a large speed, give it a material that has the characteristic "Bounce = -1" and have it gib into low lifetime sharp bullets, possibly with small glows on them. make sure the gibs are "InheritsVel = 1" and have a low spread and max/min velocity. should work fine. look at Darlos9D's AMSR code for a good application of what i am talking about. note, this will also make your weapon completely sass craft, because every one of those sharp particles will be pulled into the craft at massive velocity. same with actors i suppose.
Fri Feb 27, 2009 11:15 pm

Miles_T3hR4t Joined: Mon Jun 04, 2007 5:55 am Posts: 1627 Location: Ohio	Re: Newb Modding Questions Okay I just re-read the code. Right now your gun creates a 15 mass emiter, which emits a 0.whatever object. You did it backwards. the round has to be a low mass emiter, and the emitted particle has to have high mass. Reverse the mass on each particle and it will work.
Sat Feb 28, 2009 3:30 pm

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