TOTAL CONVERSION

[Ar1z]

Hello Everybody!

First of all I'd like to say thank you and nice job for this wonderful game.

I'm Trying to create a Total conversion of ufo:ai similar to jagged alliance. So far I'm playing with .ufo files and I've managed to remove all allien and future techs. Replace all aliens with humans and all alien equipment with human weapons. (BTW This is done on the latest released version 2.1.1 win32).  I also removed all references to research and made all techs alredy researched... I found the following problems as I was creating this mod:

1) Ammo system: While the ammo system works, it is a little difficult to modify in order to create more than one ammo type, e.g. I created 2 weapons lets say A and B both of them use the same kind of ammo but with a different clip size while I can see both weapons on equipment screen they are red (no ammo clips available) while there are plenty of ammo clips available... in order to test if they can in fact reload I took the red weapon and 2 clips and went on a mission, there I could in fact reload! So there must be some kind of bug. Maybe the ammo-weapon scripting should be changed...

2) Enemy Teams: I tried to create another enemy team (terrorists) so I removed all references for alliens from .ufo files and created scripts for a new team... This was doable but the new team didn't got any weapons (they had only their fists which they can't use) so they run away from my soldiers! After a lot of trial and error I found out that that in order to replace the aliens with humans the only thing I could do was to replace the models with humans models... I don't know if it's a bug or I made a mistake!

3) Player Team: Is it possible to add predefined soldiers (like jagged alliance) and also a player configuration screen in order to customize a soldier for your own avatar in the game?

P.S. is anyone else here interested in creating a TC like JA? UFO:AI game engine seems versatile enough!
Sorry for my english...  :roll:

[Mattn]

to be honest i'm not sure about that inventory stuff - all i know is that it should work :-D

it would be nice if you would share your data (and maybe also switch to 2.2 beta installers (at http://mattn.ninex.info ) and let us see - this way we can even help you more with your issues.

[Ar1z]

You can d/l the modifications I have made from:

http://ar1z.dnsalias.net/base.zip

next uncompress 0models and remove 0models and 0ufos from base dir...

extract base.zip into base folder overwriting as nessecary... This mod is in a very rough state as I was just playing with the scripts in order to have an idea about the capabilities of the game engine.

P.S. this mod is from 2.1.1 win32 version.

[Mattn]

it should also work if you would provide them as 1ufos.pk3 and 1models.pk3

[Czert]

Hmmm, it sounds VERY interesing, but "magic" of JA is with MANY of weapons and conversation/options/missions with NPCs.
How this can be handled with current engine ?

[inquisiteur2]

well i like JA, and sounds like a great idea + it wont harm the current project + it may even bring new ideas to the current project.

Although im far from being the best modeller over there I can contribute by modelling weapons if this may be of interest. Just point me out which weapons you need.

I have no experience in coding unfortunatly.

Count me in.

[Ar1z]

@Czert

      I was thinking a mod like JA... not an exact replication... Like you create a team of mercenaries and doing missions all over the world against thieves, terrorists and other bad people You start with yourself and you hire other mercenaries along the game. Buy better equipment and maybe use the research tree in order to "mod" weapons for better accuracy, damage, clip size etc... It's a little difficult with the way ufo:ai handles weapons but not impossible.
     It's not possible to create your custom character or have mercenaries with predefined stats but I don't think it's difficult to implement it... Maybe with some coding it would also be available npc conversations... My coding skills are a little rusty .

@inquisiteur2

    You are welcome to help create the models for the mod... I'm sure I'm worst modeler than you are   Any models from real world weapons will do just fine... Top priorities would be ak47, m4, uzi, mp5 and some common handguns... thanks for offering to help!

[inquisiteur2]

ok gonna take a look into that, would have done it anyway for fun.

Keep us posted when you will have any news. I guess if u can come up with something would not be that difficult to ask for help for JA fan communities, there must be some people with coding talents that may be willing to help.

[Zenerka]

there must be some people with coding talents that may be willing to help.

Yeah, there must be, we are searching them for some time.

[inquisiteur2]

Yeah sounds like one of my old good friends, when lot his job and while he was seeking for another one he kept saying:

"There must be a easy way to make money, there must be one" like 10 times per day.

[inquisiteur2]

ok take a glance a the artwork section youve got your ak 47.

[Czert]

improving weapons throught research sounds..interesing, but is waym to modifi weapons via sniperscopes, bipods and others ?
If not - how difficult will be this to code ? IMHO from thic can benefit booth - origial game and JA mod.

[inquisiteur2]

actually it wont require a lot of work to add a sniper scope the Ak 47, or a laser sight, i just have to model it and combine it to the existing weapon.

So we may have 2 models, vanilla ak47 and scoped ak47, I dont see any other way to do that.

[Ar1z]

Thanks again inquisiteur2 for the ak47 model.

@Czert

About research: Research will be done at the workshop and it will be called something like "modding" basically it will create a new weapon (like in research from ufo:ai) with the same model of the original with improved characteristics ( like bigger ammo clips, better accuracy,  less TU usage... etc). If the developers have some spare time they could modify weapons code to include weapon attachments slots (now weapons have only one attachment, the ammo clip) where you could attach scopes, bipodes and other mods (from research)

[Mattn]

just model a scope - we have plans to implement the extension slot - the weapon models get tags for several extensiontypes - this way we are able to place scopes and laserpointers to weapons. but keep in mind, that this is future work, and currently not implemented.