Again, if you have actual suggestions I'd love to hear them. I don't want to just double/triple the price of everything as I'm a rather poor judge of balance at times, so...

I can make a list of all items and actors with my price suggestions for all of them if you want.

By all means. PM it to me and I'll give it a look later.

Ed:

Thanks to Duh102's laser cannons, I've managed to come up with better Las FX!





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Put a copy of it up in the Minor Mods thread maybe? I don't want to add innate health regen since it would stack with the regen provided to UnmappedLands Elites and make them very dangerous. Maybe if there were an easier way to toggle it...

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Ed2: And now thanks to Kettenkrad, random helmets for Guardsmen!

Good day, gentlemen!

Now, before I start rambling on, first I'd like to say two things. One, Mr. Asklar, thank you for compiling all of these fantastic mods into one. It's damned fun I must say. Two, Mr. Arcalane, thank you for taking what Mr. Asklar compiled and improving upon it massively! Now, it's even more fun, and now that I've started faffing about with the Unmapped Lands campaign mod, that's double-more-fun. Which is... Some particularly large sum of fun I can't bring myself to care enough to calculate.

With the sycophantry out of the way, ha ha, I have a few questions and referrals to aid in the mod's creation.

On the topic of the Imperial Guard- and the Space Marines too I suppose- I was wondering if there was any plan to make armored vehicles, you know, Predators and Leman Russes and the like. Maybe the Chimaera, too, because it's more of an IFV than mere APC. Or maybe even some delicious artillery. I did notice that bit where you managed to solicit the aid of Kettenkrad for randomized helmets, and he solicited the aid of another fellow, whose name escapes me, to help him code his Nazi superheavy artillery bunker, and it got me thinking the same or similar code could be used for Earthshaker and Manticore platforms, and maybe a heavy mortar and Thudd Gun pit, though those two might end up looking a bit funny I'd think. Heck, the open-topped nature of the first and latter two of these weapons (Manticores being operated by a guardsmen-manned cogitator rather than a manual mechanism) could leave them even better than the original bunker by Kettenkrad; after all, you have vulnerable, squishy crew to be killed yet also behind a thick gunshield, so one doesn't have to leave the gun entity itself vulnerable to small arms fire for lack of another way to realistically and quickly destroy it. Food for thought in regards to making the Guard more formidable, is all I'm thinking/saying/typing/verbing; without being on the defense and having some fellows equipped with support weaponry dropped in quickly, they're a bit rightly buggered as I've noticed without the majority of their tinker toys. One can't pull a Kubrik Chenkov across bottomless pits and with limited funds & manpower, don't you know. At the moment they have phenomenal range with their lasguns and other weapons, but even on the defense in Mr. Weegee's campaign I've found difficulty requisitioning arms with a bit more oomph before being overrun. They're a bit more like the flashlight joke lasgun in this version. And in the last version they kicked utter ass, oh yes, but perhaps a bit too much ass for a lasgun, a happy median is wiser, maybe. Oh! And before I forget, you might want to give the Guard, or at least the Commissar and Kasrkrins, a higher jumping capability. Just a smidge higher, one-fold greater at the very most. I've found my elite team of infiltrators embarassingly unable to get back up a set of platforms, or reach a vital objective thanks to a raised room with no stairs, on multiple occasions. Leaves a pure Guard force unable to surpass such a simple obstacle as height without bringing in a cement gun or building a pile of corpses, theirs or the enemies', although neither of the latter options work very well and the cement gun simply takes a bit too long.

Oh, and Valkyries, and, ehm, and for the SPEHSS MAHRENZ maybe a Thunderhawk or its cut-down silly-looking cousin the Stormraven, yes. I know that at least the Valkyrie is in the works, however, I'd like to inquire if there are plans to add door guns- and in the case of the SPEHSS MAHREN ships, sponson turrets- heavy bolters and such. Those fellows making Unitec made some rather nice auto-turrets without resorting to a buggy seperate entity stapled onto the main one. At least I think they did; if they did then they did a great job at hiding it. It'd go a long way to making drops more doable if I could suppress the gits in the nigh-impregnable bunker with a hail of gyrojet rounds, if I cannot pound them into the ground with artillery. And the valkyrie isn't going to be very difficult with the asset I have for you in the next wall of text.

Finally, something other than jabbering and ideas and suggestions; a significantly more doable endeavor, in fact. You see, a long time ago there was another Imperial Guard mod in the works. A bit more than two years ago, yes. Some fellow by the name of 'Metal Meltdown' was making it, or at least at the center of it, and doing a damn fine job, but then came the unfortunate circumstance of his banning. Not sure why, and no use digging up festering eccentric modder's metaphorical corpses, yes? But, what he and his project did leave behind, were SPRITES. And maybe some workable code concepts for making bayonets that could actually stab a git like a bayonet should. One, a valkyrie. I believe Ork-Gothic did the initial spriting, and a few posts later, Metal Meltdown posted a cleaned up, nicer looking improved version by Roon something-or-other. Nice fellow, that Ork-Gothic. WAAAGH'S! like a pro and doesn't afraid of his somewhat questionable English skills; can't fault him for it, he's from poor ol' Ukraine. There's also partially-done work on a Sentinel. I believe that Mr. Meltdown only made the cockpit, both open and closed, but it's a great starting point, and that autocannon you've been making, Mr. Arcalane, looks nigh perfect to fit onto it with a bit of recoloring I think. Here's the thread I speak of.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=15071&hilit=Imperial+Guard

Sorry for the tl;dr, but I've really had a blast with this mod, and, rather broken up by the unused and unloved sprites that were effectively lost when Mr. Meltdown's project fell through, thought I'd refer you to them and throw some ideas at you in regards to future updates. Some of which may be quite easy if noone minds the borrowing of the sprites and code I've referred. Please, if these rambling ideas and ancient sprites are of any aid to you, use them, and if not, then I thank you for reading through this incredibly verbose post.

I did lots of testing on all weapons and actor and compared them all to their vanilla counterparts.
This is a complete list with my price suggestions and commentaries to each weapon and actor.
Some stuff costs more than It should some costs less but that's what I would put if I was in charge of this mod.

I shall counter your walls of text (more linebreaks next time, please) with much shorter lines that get straight to the point.



CC is a bad environment for vehicles, nevermind they'd be horribly hacky. Most maps (particularly in Unmapped Lands) are either too small, have unfavourable terrain, or both. Smaller artillery pieces can already be found using Mehman's Experimental Weaponry Pack, and full on IG arty pieces are far too long range for deployment in these kinds of situations.

tl;dr; One mod cannot provide everything. Don't be afraid to mix and match a little.

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They got a bit more formidable when I swapped to the full-on beam, I think, due to the change of basic particle. Hellguns will be worth the pricetag... not as accurate, but their rate of fire more than makes up for it.

I think their old problem was high speed + high sharpness + low mass = massive overpenetration. This is the same problem I had with the Kraken rounds at the start; there was no point in using explosive bolts because they annihilated everything.

Then I changed them to use normal BulletMetal instead of the 40K NoBounce Metal, and so they're not quite so silly.

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Way ahead of you there. It's only a little stronger, which can be offset by the higher weight of their kit. Jump ranges are very fickle sometimes.

I recommend the following; first, make sure you're running B26. When ordering units, get them the Grappling Gun under Tools. Very useful for the IG and SM.

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In the works? No, that's just "what I'd like to see in the future". Don't expect it any time soon unless a much better modder shows up.

As for the existing sprites... front-on, again, no. I was thinking a side-on, more like the Air Support Transports and Gunships.

Sentinel isn't much use to me due to the differing sprite styles (particularly on the pilot), nevermind only the torso exists. Chicken legs would be a pain to do too, and you'd just end up with a bunch of legless Sentinels after a while.

Bayonets... I hear all the ones that can be used as such (without a press-key-to-STAB FACES button via lua) tend to hack your own feet off if you use them wrong. If you're going to charge into melee, use chainswords or power swords. They're much more fun.

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Long story short, I think you're overestimating my ability to code and sprite for this project. I can coordinate with others, I can tweak, and I can maybe scratch-build a few odds and ends, but I've never scratch-made or scratch-sprited actors, much less something as large and complex as a Valkyrie or Sentinel. Sorry if you were getting all excited there.

Also, you doubleposted. Slooooooow dooooown.

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Commented the list with lua-style double-dash, to compare with your ini-style double-slash;


You forgot the melee weapons!

I'll poke at repricing and update the download at some point. Will make sure to clearly announce when it's been updated.

Countering your lua style comments with more *JavaScript* (since that's my primary language) comments.

Download updated!

Looks like that cleaning up managed to shave a little over a megabyte off the download size! Go me.

Changes:
×× Tweaked the Kasrkin sprites and code a little.
×× Removed pilot light from the flamer sprites. They now have an emitter-based pilot light. Not a huge change but it flickers a little instead of being perfectly static, and won't pick up entry/exit wounds.
×× Added a non-canon Autocannon for the SMs. It's pretty much a beefed up Coalition Autocannon, with a lower ROF. Very dangerous. Priced at a fairly low 250oz for now.
×× Off-hand Laspistol/Hellpistol/Plasma Pistol/Bolter/Storm Bolter. You lose the ammo-swap functionality for the latter two. I think it's a fair trade.
×× Pewpew laser effects! They behave oddly if you shoot off the scene but otherwise they work rather nicely.
×× Chaplain-specific VOs.
×× More tidying, unified the wounds into a single file for all Marine Chapters, cleared up redundant Devices.
×× Shotgun now has a drum mag and animated action, reduced rate of fire, now semi-auto.
×× Bolter muzzle VFX beefed up for all bolters.
×× Replaced Heavy Bolter firing sounds with slightly quieter sounds taken from Predator Sponsons.
×× Guardsmen now have random helmets picked from four possible sprites.
×× Price hikes all over the board!
×× Buffed Scout and IG jump abilities a bit.
×× Nerfed the Assault Pack somewhat.
×× Tweaked Krak Rockets. They produce a lot more damaging particles than before, and should project most of it into their target now. Hopefully.
×× Increased Heavy Bolter reload time, decreased rate of fire by 100rpm.

Credits:
Games Workshop - Warhammer 40,000.
Relic - Dawn of War voiceovers and SFX.
Gearbox - Borderlands Sniper Rifle SFX.

ivan21 & Wingwolf - Original 40K mods; [1] & [2].
Mehman & Natti - Original Bolters.
Abdul Alhazred - Lua-scripted AI, small chunk of code from Air Support SAM Crate.
wooden - Mac-compatibility reminder.
weegee - Multi-chapter support.
Asklar - Compiling the modpack.
Arcalane - Flamethrower resprite, Heavy Flamer, Longlas, Shotgun resprite, misc. code.
Coops9753 - Superior Assault Warriors Drop Pod .lua.
akblabla - Acid Sprayer .lua and effect sprites.
TheFanciestOfPants - Original NVC Sabre.
Duh102 - Laser .lua which was adapted for Las weapons.
Kettenkrad - Autocannon/Shotgun Mag Animations .lua. Random helmets .lua.
Some people I'm probably forgetting, sorry.

IF anyone would be interested I could re-sprite the Imperial Guard as Death Corps of Krieg and post the modded sprite folder here.
Also In response to the guy who posted about the various types of tanks, Tanks in CC really aren't terribly practical due to the way the engine is set up / terrain rape etc. Dreadnoughts however could be done.

True, Mr. Glowsticks, true. I've noticed it throughout the many mods that included armored vehicles, they really do have a nasty habit of chewing up dirt. And since the Leman Russ is even more XBAWX HUEG- mostly because it's based around a particularly robust industrial agri vehicle STC template with guns stuck onto it- it would no doubt, without some effort and fiddly gittery, end up sinking through the map like a stone. Not to mention all the coding involved in the hull gun and twin sponsons, one of which isn't actually visible thanks to CC's 2D-ness. And since the Imperium largely has almost no skimmer vehicles heavier than a Land Speeder left in service outside the Space Marines, Skiitarii and Custodes, that pretty much leaves the Sentinel and Dreadnought for armor that won't require supreme amounts of effort to code, and in retrospect, I've been a fool methinks to have the gall to bring up before Arcalane. Bah. Still. Hope that the Sentinel sprites from Metal Meltdown's defunct project can help him on that front.

Now, EXCELLENT work, Mr. Arcalane, and thank you for getting back to me on those many, many, many points. I'm sorry that I overestimated thine capabilities, but it IS a compilation and community work, and if Mr. Glowsticks is anything to go by, it seems like people are getting interested in doing work for it. And sorry for the doublepost, that's a long story. My cat was being a git, I hit submit, ran off to stop the cat from being a git, refresh, no post, reposted- I'd had the foresight to copy+paste, as my internet has been a bit glitchy as of late- and then saw the message, "Your post was submitted, but will require moderator approval before being shown on the forum" or somesuch. WHOOPS. And then apparently the MODERATOR managed to double-approve my double-post. Derp. Terribly sorry those old sprites aren't any use to you, but oh well.

I've tested the new update and found a bug or two in need of squishing and maybe things that could take tweaking.

The new lasbolt is awesome. It looks awesome. It helps with aiming. And it seems like it kills fleshy gits a bit better than it did in the last version. But there's a bit of a quirk. It... Well, it has a bad habit of not working on maps with weather. In Unmapped Lands, sometimes you get light rain. And the lasbolt seems unable to penetrate these single rain drops, causing it to fizzle a foot in front of the barrel.. I think it's a hilarious little glitch, but it does make actually returning fire rather difficult, and cardboard armor can only last you so long while you're trying to get a lasbolt through the drizzle. I think that you got rid of a bit too much of the penetration. The Hellgun has the same problem.

The new autocannon is nice and shiny, but seems a bit too low-velocity. It's less an autocannon and more of a mortar or grenade launcher in my experience. The projectile moves at breakneck speeds at first, and then loses velocity rather quickly. Keep the weapons data on the autocannon and use it for a Guard grenade launcher, methinks, and give the autocannon a bit of a tweak for more velocity and more firepower with maybe six shots instead of twelve. Other than those little things I think might make it a bit closer to the fluff and more like an autoCANNON, it's fantastic and works rather well in the hands of a backline Guardsman. Helps with the lack of high-angle conventional ordance, really does.

I hope the feedback helps, Mr. Arcalane. So sorry for the tl;dr posts. I recall a saying that's a bit relevant. Something along the lines of "the x that coaxes the y to action." I think x was some form of small, chattering, obnoxious bird. Heh.

I do like the effect of the new lasbolts, but I really do think for ease of use it should go back to how it was. I'm playing a match as I type this and the actual beam effect goes through, but the particle always falls faaar short. It barely even goes at all.

The laser particles had very slight mass, so it's possible their trajectory was decaying, but that shouldn't have changed the beam tracing or caused it to go off target. I've thrown in a couple of tweaks that should fix it in any case. Also halved the mass and air resistance on the AC shells.

If the shot is fizzling a foot in front of the barrel, that probably means you're either trying to fire too far (your shot missed but didn't hit a hard surface), or you're firing off the map entirely; if the shot was hitting the rain, it would be of an erratic length depending on which raindrop it hit. I've never seen the rain have a negative impact on any other weapons, and the rain particles themselves seem to be set such that they do not actively collide with other MOs, nor can other MOs collide with them.

Additionally, if anyone wants to sprite up an Imperium Grenade Launcher (with and without 6-shot drum magazine) I'll sort out the offsets and other code. Same goes for a Missile Launcher replacement, and... well, just about anything else. Man-portable Las Cannon? Plasma Cannon?

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If you want to do it, by all means do it and I'll get them added when I have the time. Just make sure as many of the offsets are the same as possible.

The same goes for any other Marine Chapters or Guard Armies that are sufficiently unique*; get the sprites done and I can sort out the code. I recommend avoiding chapters with the Halves/Quarters patterns though. Stick to the basic primary/trim type ones, or ones with camoflage that isn't messed up by the sprites being flipped.

*That is, colour-scheme wise. There's no point adding the Avenging Sons because they're a successor chapter of the Ultramarines with essentially identical colours. On the other hand, the Imperial Fists, with their black trim on yellow main, could work fairly well.

See the Chapter Gallery and Lexicanum A-L M-Z pictorial Chapter lists for ideas. For easy testing I recommend making a backup of the mod and simply respriting an existing faction.

Just a quick IG, GL i done in a few mins.

Not too keen on it but somthing suitable. (hopefully i got the size with the weapon and the other Guard weapons correct)

Very good, m'lord! Looks quite utilitarian. I like it.

Now, Mr. Arcalane, after roving around the forum, I've managed to find a decent looking sprite editor/maker. 'GraphicsGale.' I'm not an artist per se, but editing pixel-by-pixel with a grid for just that- while laborious as buggery- is probably within my capabilities. There's lots of Imperial weaponry to sprite and noone around to do so. If there's anything you need spriting, I'd like to help. In my own personal opinion, I think the Imperium needs some turrets, or, at least one to start with. I was thinking the Tarantula is best to start out with. Relatively compact, plenty of dakka, can aim skywards fairly well I'd reckon. Perfect to fill the turret-shaped hole in the lineup of Guard and Space Marine forces. After that there's all manner of things that I could birth- or rather, methinks, abort- with a bit of free time and this spriting program. But I shan't get ahead of myself. Baby steps, you know.

So, tell me, sah. Would you like my incompetent spriter aid? If so, what do you need done?

Start with guns and work your way up from there, I think. I wouldn't mind seeing a replacement for the missile launcher first. Otherwise try anything you fancy, get feedback from others and see how it turns out.


Here's that 'nade launcher in action. Should do nicely for now! Works pretty much like the Autocannon does now albeit it is much lighter (9 kilos fully loaded to the cannon's 50+!) and easier to wield/aim since it's not in that 'underslung' config. Much lower rate of fire though.