What's up guys!
Listen, I was making a mod for myself, by myself for quite a while, and stopped because I lost all progress when my computer broke. I got the hang of quite a few things in modding, so I've decided to start another one.
The problem is I can't code offsets to save my life, and I'm unskilled in spriting things.
So, in order for a mod to be made, I'll need someone good at both to them for me.

"Why should I help", you may ask? Well, first off it'd get my appreciation, as well as credit if the mod gets finished.
That isn't much, but I have confidence, and will be posting the progress on as I go along, hopefully to entice y'all you guys into doing it for me. That's what she said.

Right now the mod is called Rodrigov Arms. I'd like suggestions for a better name.
The lame back-story right now is a low-tech company run by rich businessmen, that hire only the toughest, and strongest uncloned mercenaries to fight for them, pump them up with strength increasing, and muscle building steroids, then ship them off to battle.

The thing that I think will make it different than the typical generic faction, is that it'll bring some features that aren't modded often, and just a few ones that are new and hopefully somewhat innovative. The two actors I'll describe here would be the main attraction the mod.

LIGHT MERC:
Slightly taller than the average human soldier, the basic clothing these mercs would wear is brown and grey thick woven padding, possibly made of kevlar or leather. Attached to points such as the shoulders or chest they'd also wear small metal armor pieces, some riveted together like scales, and some tied down in plates. A cool attraction I thought of would be the randomization of the basic body sprites, with some examples being legs wearing things like leather boots, a holster, unique armor designs, arms having a symbol stitched to them, gloves, a red bandana tied around them, or even having a bare patch of skin with a tattoo, or scar. Some more examples are having chests wearing randomized items like ammo belts, upgraded armor, a coat or vest, and heads having different hair colors, hairstyles, cigars, cigarettes, scars, tattoo's, facial hair, and things like cowboy hats or eye-wear.


HEAVY MERC:
Heavy Mercs would be like the lights, but encased in heavy modern armor, and have a few exclusive randomized clothing items like decorative shoulder pads, or an ancient bronze spartan helmet with red plume, instead of their usual modern headgear. Due to the violent and gritty atmosphere I'm aiming for, both types of merc would have loud and angry screams and yells when being damaged, or dying. Both would have gory spurting and gushing blood effects, as well as "flesh" looking attachments on the chest and face, so that through extensive damage, the skull, or ribs could be shown. Lastly, both mercs would be able to take much more damage than the average human soldier in cortex command.



Here's a rundown of the weapons I've got, I haven't put much thought into them, so the ideas are kinda crappy so far. All have no official names, but every gun would be fictional.

"PUMP SHOTGUN":
Typical pump shotgun, with a shell saddle on the side, or a modified grip replacing the slide.
It'd fire fast and have low spread, so it'd have long range and be quite powerful.
Firing modes would be Buckshot and Slugs.

"SAWN OFF DOUBLE BARREL SHOTGUN":
This weapon would be full of character, and have different sprites for randomization.
It would have a two round magazine, so if you wanted to "fire both barrels at once", you could simply double click fire. It'd be fast to reload and be powerful, but very short ranged.

"BURST PISTOL":
Three round burst fire pistol, with low power. To balance it out, I would give it a fast fire rate, coupled with the burst firing, so it'd be able to dish out a large amount of bullets at once.

"REVOLVER":
This weapon would be extremely powerful, with such large bullets than the cylinder would only carry five. The reload time would be long, with no speed loader.
It'd have a longer than usual modified barrel, so it'd be very accurate. The enemy would have to ask themselves one question. Do they feel lucky?

"TACTICOOL AUTOMATIC":
This gun would have a telescopic sight, that you'd be able to toggle. It'd also have high-damage bullets, and fire fast. With a dual-mag taped magazine, it'd also reload quickly.
The fire modes would be full auto, and burst fire.

"HEAVY AUTOMATIC":
This would be the tacticool automatic, but with an underslung grenade launcher, instead of a dual magazine.
It's fire modes would be full auto and single shot. It'd also have a working bayonet attachment.

"LIGHT MG":
The light MG would fire fast and have decent powered bullets, but would have low accuracy. It'd be magazine fed, with an working under-slung chainsaw bayonet.

"HEAVY MG":
Heavy MG with a medium fire rate, damaging bullets, low accuracy, and very long reload time, due to being box magazine fed.

"BATTLE RIFLE":
This weapon would be light and compact, as well as fast firing, and get decent damage. It'd have a good sized magazine, and would not be equipped with a scope.

"BOLT ACTION SNIPER":
Bolt action sniper with have a long distance scope, high damage, good accuracy, but a small magazine and long reload time.

"BOWIE KNIFE":
The bowie knife would have two modes, regular slashing, and a throwing knife function. The throwing knife function would be one time use, and stick in the target, doing a standard 100 damage.

"CHAINSAW":
Damaging, and heavy chainsaw for close range last resort use. It'd have blood on the blades, and infinite ammo, but would overheat fast. It'd also be equipped with a side mounted compact flamethrower.

All weapons would be loud and powerful sounding, and very strong, yet not to the point of being overpowered.
They'd have over the top effects, with bright and large muzzle flashes, smoking barrels and shells, and the explosions from launched grenades would have a powerful shockwave and damaging flame.

If you skipped over the whole post, the bottom line is I'd like a good spriter, and someone that can do correct offsets. I would also appreciate feedback on these ideas, and anyone that could possibly test the unfinished versions of the mod. And lastly, if anyone can suggest better names for the faction, or names for the guns, I'd like that.

TO-DO:
- Get sprites for the mercenaries, with all the variable sprites, like different helmets and stuff. Unfinished.

- Get sprites for all weapons and equipment, such as shields. Unfinished.

- Get sprites for larger custom muzzle flashes, and smoke, glows, and wounds. Unfinished.

- Find out a way to randomize the sprites of each part of an actor, that includes the arms, legs, torso, head, headgear, leg gear, arm gear, and torso armor. Unfinished.

- Learn how to code different firing modes. I'm learning this right now, and I'm starting to understand it.

- Get custom sounds for everything. I found out how to edit sounds, I don't believe this will be a problem.

- Code the mercenaries, weapons, equipment, and release the mod for feedback on how to improve it. I've coded a few weapons, yet I'm still far from completing everything.

You have some nice ideas here and there, but many of them don't match up in my opinion.

First of all, many of the features are referring to the newer CoD series, whether they're on purpose or not. This makes me puke.

Secondly,

Based on the description of the mod, they're not. I mean, seriously. When I thought the mod was described overpowered enough already;

Since you are referring to the mod as a -Tech, I'd expect it to be well balanced to fit campaign and metagame modes. I don't think real human soldiers match with such improvised, yet enormously powerful additions. I think the actors should be more of an organic version of Imperatus, like brute aliens, or at least genetically mutated over-muscular humans.

Thirdly, you should limit the extra features on every single gun. This makes it feel like all these weapons are the ideas of some over-excited 10-year old. But then again, it's your mod, so I can't say anything against your ideas, since it up to you to implement all the "attachments".

I'd love to sprite for you, but you need to work on the base of the mod to keep it in harmony.


I love this name, by the way.

Well, out of curiosity, which idea's seem like ones from COD? That's not intended.
Reading over my own post makes me realize that the mod seems incredibly overpowered, that's something I haven't put much thought into. I had been playing vanilla CC, and was just kinda bummed out at how weakly vanilla soldiers and guns preform. Now thanks to you mentioning it, I shall work on balancing out the weapons somehow, and limiting the unrealistic attachments.

I guess the actors I thought of aren't as cool as they were in my head, but if you take a look at some mod like Ballistic Weapons, you can see that the actors have enough features and are well done enough to be at least interesting compared to all the weapons. That's what I'm aiming for. I really would like them much stronger than the average unit, so I'll definitely be taking "Tech" out of the name, at least unless I can figure out some way to tone them down.


The point of the mod is to have overdone weapons and actors, being borderline overpowered, something people have done before, but have enough style and polish for it to be very satisfying, as well as drawbacks so it wouldn't be like DS TECH, where you can just go around as an invincible robot, never having a chance to die.No offense to the creator of that mod.
Anyway, thanks for the input.

I presume you read the stickied guide about all this, but you're still stuck.

Try changing the weapon offsets then reloading CC; probably you've been trying to change them and just reloading the Actor holding the gun, which doesn't work.

If you're not quite sure how X/Y joint offsets work, change one of those things a lot, like 20 pixels or more, and you'll understand it right away. It's very very simple. Also, unless you know exactly what you're doing, always center the SpriteOffset before doing anything else.

The only thing that is even slightly tricky about offsets is the stance stuff, but you'll get it if you play around a little bit and look at existing guns, like the difference between the stance offsets of the Heavy Pistol, Sniper Rifle and Gatling.

Anyhow, tbh, this is something you just need to get yourself through; I think that if you follow the guide and do what I said above you'll have it down in half an hour, tops; it's really not very hard at all and making a gun is, well, the very basics of making anything serious, so persevere

It's OK if the references weren't intended. It's probably my own fault I feel that they're referring, it's just the culture of "firearm knowledge" the CoD series have spread.

Please don't remove the chainsaw bayonet though, the idea is pretty cool. I'd suggest on adding it on an SMG rather than an LMG.

Also - isn't a sniper rifle without a scope just a regular rifle? The name could rather be like "Battle Rifle" or something.

Xeno, I'll put some honest effort into learning offsets, I guess, then perhaps this mod will only need a spriter.

And 4zK, I know the basics of how a gun works and what's realistic and what's not, those ideas are basically springing out of the over-the-top style of this mod. I'm also sure that they all exist, with the exception of instakilling throwing knives. It's not intended to be like COD, and "Battle Rifle" it is.

And I've modded an SMG with a chainsaw bayonet before, I just thought it'd be pretty cool to have a hulking soldier with a LMG that can rip stuff to shreds even in close range.

Right now I'm working on the gun code, I'll share what I've got when I have 4-5 guns finished.

I could do sprites, but chances are someone cooler like Kettenkrad will come along and make better ones. :c
Regardless I would be happy to do them, I do need some practice.

That would be cool, why don't you go ahead and try your hand at spriting a shotgun?
You can use that as a good reference at the basic idea of what it should look like. And take your time, I wont really be needing sprites until I have at least the weapon coding finished.

Also, I'm coding right now, and I really, really need some cool names for weapons and the mod itself.
The general theme I'd like for this mod has taken inspiration from things like wild west cowboys, ancient spartan warriors, and overdone movies like Rambo and Punisher: Warzone, as well as video games like Red Dead Redemption, Gears of War, DOOM, and Rage. I don't know if I should use straightforward titles, or nicknames.

Nicknames are lame and overdone, even for a lame and overdone theme.
Here's your shotgun by the way:

Took a shot at spriting some of the guns:



Let me know what you think and I'll send you the .bmp files and look into making more.

Oh, and you should definitely name the revolver "Volver" (or "Devolver"). I found out it means to return in Spanish, maybe as in returning fire?

EDIT: Volver seems to mean to return, but devolver means to return something.

Those are sweet sprites. Miggles, yours is good too, but I think 4zk's really capture what I was thinking of.
Volver and Devolver sound decent, but to someone that doesn't speak spanish, it seems like I just ripped off "Revolver".

Also, I'm having some errors trying to make a shotgun that fires an emitter with smoke and stuff, I may post the error later.

Double post, but It's my thread and blablabla.

Here's the error:

And here's a link to the mod, which only contains code for a shotgun and some effects, with a placeholder sprite and ModuleIcon stolen from Asklar. I'm messing with a shotgun that fires an emitter, for smoke puff effects.

Try looking into the Pyro.ini in Base.rte\Effects\Pyro for different smoke particles. For suitable smoke effects you could try using "Small Smoke Ball 1" instead, since there's probably no defined MOSParticle titled "Smoke".

I fixed it, and I've finished coding the shotgun and some custom smoke effects now, and I've almost completed the code for two other weapons. I also made myself some cool sound effects. I could've gotten more accomplished in the past week or so, but I'm busy learning how to play some songs on my piano.

WHAT THE HECK, GUYS!
I woke up today, and my brother says he reinstalled windows on my computer because "it broke".
So I lost all my freaking progress on the mod, along with all my other programs.
I'm not even going to try to mod again, sorry. It's too much hassle.