Best posts made by waxfingers

Hi @barnee

I figured out a way to launch my fleet carrier and battleship hulls. What I did was make the hulls an air unit which lets them go over the sea zone. Then I also have either a permanent infrastructure unit (drydock) or one that just stays in the buy menu (0 IPU cost, consumes something that it can never replace so stays in the buy menu). This drydock has a carrier capacity property so it allows for the hulls to fly over to the sea zone as if it will land on them during production phase. Then because they are in the sea zone they convert into the actual fleet carriers or battleship for the respective hulls.

What I need some advice on is how to make this type of thing an option and how to get it to replace all of the carriers and battleships. Also how to make it compatible with the other mods for battleships and carriers, if possible. I was looking at things like the different unit cost options which remove and replace the units for setup after the changer phase. It looks like I need to put triggers under every nation though? Another example looks like the BBs carry Japanese elite option.

<attachment name="triggerAttachmentCAsCarryEliteJapan" attachTo="Japanese" javaClass="games.strategy.triplea.attachments.TriggerAttachment" type="player">
  <option name="trigger" value="conditionAttachment_Japanese_Elite"/>
  <option name="unitType" value="cruiser"/>
  <option name="unitAttachmentName" value="UnitAttachment" count="unitAttachment"/>
  <option name="unitProperty" value="transportCapacity" count="4"/>
  <option name="unitProperty" value="isCombatTransport" count="true"/>
  <option name="when" value="before:japaneseCombatMove"/>
  <option name="uses" value="1"/>
</attachment>

It looks like this type of trigger adds properties to the unit because of the option selected.

Anyways, heading to bed. Please let me know if this looks like the right path to go down and just copy these examples.

@barnee

I also found another bug which was that the Chinese artillery cannot be placed after purchasing them. Not sure if it is related at all, but all of the BM rules were on. What happened was the production window only showed the infantry to place on the territory. But the buy history window showed the artillery there as purchased and waiting.

@barnee

6753ef00-9c28-415a-a103-fd9a170367e3-china artillery bug.tsvg

Here is a save game with it at China phase.

@barnee

I have the 2 round purchase option working for battleships and carriers. I also added a 1 movement option for escort carriers.

Can you help with graphics through your contacts?

I got a hull from TWW but I only used it as a BB hull since it has that shape, it also has TWW aspects to it (flag attached). Since I have separate hulls for carriers as well, are you able to get someone to make those up for each country, and fix/modify the BB hull for each country.

There was a navy anchor I took from your expansion mod which I used as the drydock, this worked out fine, but again if someone wants to generate a drydock type of graphic that would be cool.

There is also one new unit called a “carrier2RP_BB_Hull”. Due to it consuming the BB hull it had to be a different unit, unless you know how to make the code so that the carrier unit can consume a carrier hull or a BB hull. When I tried adding the property it wanted both items available to consume as an AND not an OR. Anyways, this is just the usual carrier graphic but with the new name as well.

So overall 3 new graphics, 1 existing copied and renamed.

@barnee

Windows, I downloaded the Paint.net program now. The issue was I was not able to make the transparency before on just regular MS Paint.

I will play around with the graphics then. I only need the hull, not the actual CV itself as it just uses the regular CV unit. The build unit is called and priced differently but produces the regular CV.

Thanks for the suggestion on the program.

@barnee

I got this. I already fixed the German BB hull by removing the TWW flag. No grey spot, fully transparent.

I have fun with MS Paint so this is my thing.

@barnee

Just copy and paste stuff together. I just copied the other hull and placed it overtop of the carrier graphic. Looks different enough to me.

@barnee

@barnee

Ok, I made all of the units. How do I provide these to you for the map unit folder?

By the way, with the Paint.net there is a tool called recolor. You just identify a color and then paint over top and it changes it. Was pretty easy. You do undo a bunch to find the right color but yeah, great tool.

@barnee

I sent you the zip file via email. It looks like it went through, but idk, it was just over 30mb.

@barnee

Yes, updated version, added game notes. Tested what I could. Went through rounds, tried edit. Seems to be all good.

@barnee

No problem, I did do it for the BB right? I think it was easier to do it at the same time because the code is fresh in mind. I will send you that as well. Do I just need to send you the game file then? I will need Canada units too actually. How do you want to go about this?

@barnee

OK, the zip file is on its way to you.

You will need to add in your China fixes again, or at least just for the Canada one, I did not touch the Regular XML file.

Haha, this stuff is all new to me, but I am pretty good at just playing around with things and figuring out problems. A lot of analyzing existing code and seeing how I can manipulate it.

@barnee

Hi barnee,

Yes, the drydock is really only needed to accommodate the battleships. The drydock is basically a carrier because the hulls are air units. It was the only way to get a land unit to water.

Also, drydocks are not placed, they are bought and kept in buy window forever, never consumed. It makes the game engine think you have a carrier waiting to be placed.

The notification while moving the hull into water is not an error, just telling you there are air units (the hulls) that would have to be placed on a carrier. Perhaps explaining the notifications and all of this would be good though.

The drydock is a sea unit, and I made it consume an inf so that it basically could never consume anything.

You have the logic all figured out, but not why I did it =p

@barnee

I didn’t want the drydock to be floating in the water, and it being on land doesn’t accommodate the game engine problem of moving a land unit into water to be consumed.

@barnee

Here, you can add this in/replace the notes.

Capital ships require an existing Hull from a previous round in order to build the finished sea unit. Carriers can be built from either a Carrier Hull or a Battleship Hull (albeit more expensive by being built from Battleship Hulls), but Battleships can only be built from Battleship Hulls.<br><br>
During the purchase phase of the round that you want to place a Carrier or Battleship you must also have a Drydock in your purchases. Only one Drydock needs to be purchased per game as it stays within your purchases and cannot be consumed. The Drydock is required specifically for the game engine to launch Battleships.<br><br>
The Hull(s) that you intend to convert to finished unit(s) need to be moved to the chosen sea zone during non combat. If this step is missed then one needs to edit in the complete unit(s), remove the hull(s), take note of purchases remaining, and perhaps reduce PUs by the purchases remaining that could not be placed properly.<br>
<br>

@barnee

Another issue with the game setup is the axis vs allies buttons on the right hand column. They don’t match up with the actual factions.

@barnee

No it happens with any new game, local or bot. It seems that the Changer faction is messing it up since it it was missing all of the alliances would work out. Can you maybe make Changer be at the bottom?

@barnee

OK I found a fix. I made them Axis (could also be allies), and then it populated correctly. I think there is something about the bots or some code not recognizing your “Changer” alliance, and so because it is blank it bumps up the other alliance buttons.

@barnee

I am not sure, but I think that alliance button is just for setting up who plays what more easily.