Antiquity Enterprises:
Offering the finest in Novelty Soldiers and Armaments, from Earth's Ancient History!

Overview:
I've got an idea brewing in my head. It's of Tradestar Dropships filled with Samurai, Pirates, and Cowboys decked to the nines in gear from across the ages. The sort of jumbled mess people of the distant future, who have never seen Earth (or maybe read about it once) might think history was like. I see castle walls, with Arquebus-toting Musketeers standing on the ramparts, as the Viking hordes besiege them with flaming arrows and throwing axes. I see Cavemen hurling boulders at a lone Gunslinger holed up in a wooden ghost town, or Ninjas and Pirates facing off in deadly combat, while the Green Berets parachute in. It will be glorious.

However, though I know my way around basic programming, I've never modded with LUA or in Cortex Command at all, so I'm a bit stuck. I'm quite good with sprites, and pretty good at concepts and design, so if you have ideas that could help me implement any of these actors or weapons, or even better if you think you could help make this happen, either would be exceedingly cool.

For now, I'm doing concepts, starting with Medieval units and weapons. If you have ideas to add, or ideas for other periods, feel free to share them!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Medieval Concepts:
(Assume actors don't have jetpacks, and that thrown weapons have infinite ammo)

Actors:

• Peasant - Actor with no armor, a moderate jump, light mass, and brittle as a Ronin. Cheap soldiers/laborers.
  
• Footman - Actor with light armor, no helmet, a moderate jump, and light mass. Mobile and well-rounded.
• Knight - Actor with heavy armor, a helmet, a moderate jump, and high mass. Tough and armored.
• Grapeshot - Small Stationary Actor which fires several small stones at high speed in a medium scatter.
• Ballista - Medium Stationary Actor which fires large spears in an arc, penetrating multiple actors.
• Catapult - Large Stationary Actor which launches a Boulder (as the weapon) over long distances.

Tools:

• Grappling Hook: Fires a hook at terrain, and quickly pulls the actor toward it. (May pull hit actors toward eachother, depending on mass?)
  
• Pickaxe: Digs slowly in a round arc. Penetrates stone, and even metal.
• Shovel: Digs (erases) small chunks quickly. Only penetrates dirt.
• Smoke Bomb: Bursts in a cloud of mostly translucent smoke, covering a wide area before dissipating.
• Light Shield: A light off-hand round shield made of wood. Provides decent protection.
• Heavy Shield: A medium metal shield. Takes considerable punishment.
• Tower Shield: A heavy metal shield that covers most of an actor. Can also be deployed on the ground to create stationary cover.

Ranged Weapons:

• Sling - Quickly fires small rocks. Variable throwing speed.
  
• Boulder - A medium-large, heavy rock. Flies a short distance, and rolls along the ground, crushing things until destroyed, or stopped by terrain. One-Shot.
• Throwing Knife - A light thrown dagger. Variable thrown speed.
• Throwing Axe - A heavy, weighted thrown axe. Variable thrown speed.
• Shuriken - A thrown weapon which launches several small projectiles at once. Variable thrown speed.
• Javelin - A wood spear. Flies in an arc, impaling enemies. Variable thrown speed.
• Longbow - Fires a shot that travels in an arc, impaling enemies. Variable firing speed, can be arc-shot around terrain.
• Fire Bow - Fires a flaming shot as the longbow, which bursts into small flames on impact, damaging local objects while it burns.
• Crossbow - Fires a high-powered bolt in a straight line. Slower reload rate.

Melee Weapons:

• Hammer - Heavy melee weapon. Slow attack rate. Knocks actors back in addition to hurting.
  
• Longsword - Moderate melee weapon, with a medium rate of attack. Slices and Dices.
• Pike - Moderate melee weapon, with a slow piercing attack. Better reach than most melee weapons. Penetrates shields in close quarters.

Bunker Bits:

• Cave/Pit Bunker Modules: Simple modules that just make holes/tunnels in the dirt for free.
  
• Castle Bunker Modules: Tunnels and walls made of stone and "wood" (hardness of strong dirt).
• Wood Walls: Palisades made of upright logs, two-story houses made of thin wooden walls, etc.

This sounds like an extremely ambitious task for a new modder. Heck, it's a long task for any modder and not something you could get done at any sort of speed. Your ideas are very well thought out, and have given some sensible consideration to the limited abilities of the engine, but a faction of this magnitude is a big ask of anybody.

My recommendation: start small. Pick one actor, or one weapon, or one tool, and test yourself on it. Work out from there, taking into account the difficulty of the remaining tasks, how long it will take you to finish this, and then decide how much you really want to do.

It would be a lot of work for a new modder.
For an experienced modder, however...

The amount of work wouldn't really reduce, it's just the time you use to do it that is reduced.

The well-meant advice about pacing and stating how ambitious this would be is appreciated, but not of a whole lot of practical use. I'm sticking with one era at present, and intend to do what I can, as I can. I intend to start with modifying base actors and materials. More helpful would be talking about what sorts of things seem most fun or interesting to you in the above list, so I can see about prioritizing it as I learn.

Also, allo again Soup! Would you happen to know an experienced modder who happens to find this idea interesting, have some free time, and/or is willing to let me consume his heart and steal his modding powers? If so, feel free to direct this individual my way. I promise to be nice, and/or make it quick.

Any questions you have can be answered - you can even use this thread to ask them.

I'm sure any experienced modders - me included would help you if you ask your questions here and include the problems/or code that your using.

I'd gladly help on anything, answer anything, do anything you ask -- except sprite work or anything of that sort.

For everything else, you can message me and I can help out.

I'd be very happy to help when I have time.

Heck, for all this community is mean to ignorance, we do actually help when it's a valid question.

I can code ini and lua for you, but I am absolutely unable to sprite.

If you want my help send me some sprites and I'll do the coding part.
I think this is a very promising idea. I always wanted to do something like this or the roman empire but I never could since it would have needed someone highly motivated to sprite a whole faction.

Edit: Your sprites will need to be in palette(found in base.rte/palette.bmp)

If you need some low-level sprite help post in the Sprite Help Thread where I'll try to be more active.