Archimedean Dynasty Augmented Mod (1.2 released!)

[trais]

Is AquaNox 1/2 equally worth playing ?

I'd say you can give AquaNox 1 a try. First half of the game is good for what it is, but the ending is really stupid, so be prepared.

If'd ever want to try AquaNox 2, then REMOVE ALL SHARP OBJECTS FROM THE VICINITY! The urge to slit your wrists that inevitably happens when playing that that crap may be too strong to resist.

 

[spekkio]

nice touch with debris appearing around the freighter after dealing with the pirates

Thank the devs, I had nothing to do with this.

@1: I set the timing deliberately, to trick the first-timers (and some oldfags as well).
A newfag should start the mission by destroying squadron A. Then (60 seconds after mission's beginning) he will get:

[Bellingshausen] Hurry up, Flint! The Station is under attack from all directions!

He should spot Squadron C attacking the station and go in its direction.
When this group of enemies is destroyed, the player should finally decide to go deal with the bomber (and Squadron B).
Just when he reaches the area (120s after mission's start), he'll get:

[Bellingshausen] The Bomber sent another attack wave to the chemical tanks!

If he isn't close enough to the tanks, Squadron D will blow them up and fail the mission.



Of course, some players will play this mission differently and if they deal with the bomber fast enough, Squadron D won't show up at all.

So, I think current settings are good for what they are.

@2

BRO, don't even think about fixing "appear at x/y/z/ location" triggers.
I find them weird / wrong in many missions, still I decided to leave them alone (except the most broken cases).
Without an editor you would have to manually change "x/y/z position" settings in mission files for every single enemy.
Looks easy at first, but it requires a godowful amount of testing, since in some cases changing those settings can and will brake the mission.
An example:

Unit A appears at 100/100/0 location (triggered by something) and right away starts patrolling at 100/100/0 location. Everything works fine.
But if you change its "appear at" triggers to lets say 110/110/0, you have 2 choices:
a) change its patrol area to 110/110/0 as well. But this can brake something (for example unit won't be able to attack something) and units can use up to 8 consecutive actions in mission (so you would have to modify up to 8 "perform an action at set location" triggers.
b) leave the patrol area unchanged. In this situation, unit A would appear at 110/110/0 and start patrolling at 100/100/0 (moving there first). As I spotted during my testing, such thing can brake the mission as well, depending on unit's speed (set in mission's file). If its speed is too high, unit is sometimes unable to switch to next action (I fixed this error in some missions - check the readme_mod).

tl;dr

Too much work.

 

[trais]

Weird, I never had that debris appearing before... Does it appear together with autopilot option? That would explain it, because I tend to do this mission in 1) clear stuff near tanks 2) help freighter 3) finish guys near Bellingshausen order. Well, it's nice that the missions are sometimes that flexible.

@rest of stuff
If it's working as intended/to hard to change then ok. I was hoping that changing the spawning distance would be as easy as replacing the value of one variable. If it's as fucked up as you described it, then yeah, there's no point messing with it.

Edit:
Now that I think of it, there might be some misunderstanding here, so I wanna make sure we're on the same page:
I'm NOT saying this:
Pirates are spawning X meters away from the freighter - make them spawn X+100 meters away instead.

What I'm saying (or trying to say):
Pirates are spawning when Player is Y meters from the trigger point - make them spawn when player is Y+100 meters from the trigger point.

In other words: I don't wanna change the position of the pirates, I just want to change the time when they spawn.

 

[spekkio]

What I'm saying (or trying to say):
Pirates are spawning when Player is Y meters from the trigger point - make them spawn when player is Y+100 meters from the trigger point.

Oh, ok.

That's easier to do - we just have to:

1) find the trigger responsible for summoning the freighter and its attackers

It's easy - #2114. It looks like this:

[Movable2114]
typ = 2060
id = 2114
px = 172
py = 162
pz = 0
dimx = 17
dimy = 17
minz = 0
maxz = 300
bccond1 = 10
bcdep1 = 0
bcref1 = -1
bcop = 0
bccond2 = 0
bcdep2 = 0
bcref2 = -1
bcdel = 0
wccond0 = 0
wccond1 = 0
wccond2 = 0
wccond3 = 0
wccond4 = 0
wccond5 = 0
wccond6 = 0
wccond7 = 0
wccond8 = 0
wccond9 = 0
wccond10 = 0
wccond11 = 0
wccond12 = 0
wccond13 = 0
wccond14 = 0
wccond15 = 0

This trigger works like this:
It appears (bccond section) when winning condition #2 is cleared ('wccond2' cleared => 'bccond1/2 = 10' launched).
For future reference, check out the matrix of relations between wccond and bccond triggers:

wccond -> bccond

0	6
1	8
2	10
3	12
4	14
5	16
6	18
7	20
8	22
9	24
10	26
11	28
12	30
13	32
14	34
15	36

In case of this mission, destroying the ANR-Command (the only unit using wccond2 = 2 which means wccond2 cleared when object is destroyed) launches bccond1/2 = 10 which summons the freighter and its attackers.

Now for the funny part...

2) change the "activity" area of the trigger

AFAIK, these triggers work like this:
- every map is a 255x255 square (plus the z axis, but we can ignore it),
- when Flint crosses any of two "lines", criss-crossing in point x=172, y = 162, which are x=17, y=17 "wide", trigger gets activated.

What to do? Well, you have to experiment a bit, since we don't know from which direction Flint will be approaching the area where the freighter is (there's no universal rule, like for example x=0, y=0 is a SW corner of the map and x=255, y=255 is a NE corner - you have to experiment).
So: change the px value from 172 to 182, save the file, launch the mission, check if you got the desired result. If not, change px value to 162, launch the mission, etc...
If you did not get the desired result, leave px value at default (=172) and change the py value (from 162 to 152 or 172).

Repeat >1000 times...

Have fun.

 

[trais]

At first I tried to be clever and tried setting the trigger line to be wider, but it didn't worked. Even when setting dimx and dimy to something like 200 didn't have any effect.
So I did it the proper way and

px = 157
py = 152

does the trick. Even with earlier spawning there's still enough time to kill all pirates with singe Max Impact 2, no torpedoes. I tried few different approach vectors that player may take to Nav B and didn't noticed any problems.

 

[spekkio]

At first I tried to be clever and tried setting the trigger line to be wider, but it didn't worked. Even when setting dimx and dimy to something like 200 didn't have any effect.

Heh - I forgot to mention that it's not gonna work. I tried the same trick a couple months ago... Good times...



I'm gonna test it myself and include it in the upcoming 1.01 file...
Speaking of which... The rest of the campaign isn't going to test itself...

 

[gondor]

I'm gonna test it myself and include it in the upcoming 1.01 file...

upcoming.... some ETA available, oh mighty modder?

PS: *BUMP* this topic!

 

[spekkio]

Well, somebody would have to complete the entire damn game first, using 1.0 version...

 

[spekkio]

Erm. You DO use DosBox?

Regular version should work fine under any version of DosBox.
3dfx version requires special build - Daum's of Gulikoza's:
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...n-dynasty-completed.47006/page-6#post-2369557

 

[trais]

Fuck me sideways, I finished that like 2 weeks ago and I could swear I posted about it I've no idea what happened.

Rest of the missions work perfectly.

One thing I'm not sure about: when going to Red Sea with Cpt. Lopez he says he'll pay 6k per mission there - but you only get the money once or twice when working for him.

 

[spekkio]

Thanks, mang. Will check the files.

 

[gondor]

Thanks, mang. Will check the files.

Checked? (AKA Bump!)

 

[trais]

The latest version of the mod just needs those two fixes (overwrite the files in /VFX/SCENARIO after installing the mod):
http://www.mediafire.com/?lvec9j5mwunfum6
http://www.mediafire.com/?gocc444s77oz249

and you're good to go. You really don't need extra cash from Lopez anyway.

 

[spekkio]

Yeah, I did. Flint should get 20000 for the entire Avalon-Moghs-Shogunate-Red Sea thing. Check \Dat\Mission\m01601.des.

Credits = 20000 (zusammen mit mehreren Folgeauftr„gen bis einschlieálich Kap.18)

I have no idea if anything should be fixed here...
My bet is that the authors decided to balance the financial part of the entire campaign at some later stage of the development and removed some payments (forgetting about modifying the dialogue). But since I don't think that Flint needs EVEN MORE CASH in the campaign... I'm not sure what to do with this. Modify Lopez's dialogue?

*Edit: what trais wrote.
Don't forget that ENG dialogue was translated from GER, so some inconsistencies between the ENG dialogue and the actual game are to be expected. And in such situations I'm not sure what (if anything) should be fixed - ENG dialogue or the game).

 

[trais]

IMHO the English dialogue should be change to reflect the game. But only when it's not too much work.

 

[spekkio]

BROS, updated the mod to version 1.01 / 0.91. This version includes two small fixes made thanks to trais' effort.

------------------------------------------------------------
00903: ATTACK (FLOATING BOMBAY)
- fixed broken trigger concerning NAV B: originally, reaching it was failing the mission,
------------------------------------------------------------
01201: ATTACK ON BELLINGSHAUSEN
 tweaked the final part of this mission a bit (COM, "appear" triggers),
------------------------------------------------------------

That is all.

Archimedean Dynasty Augmented Mod 1.01

Schleichfahrt Augmented Mod 0.91

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Amazing game. Not quite subwar 2070 but in a class of its own. Does it actually run with windows 7?

I just searched for videos from Subwar 2070 on jewtube and there aren't any :/ .

Additionally, I don't know where's my manual and disks :/ .

 

[trais]

It's Subwar 2050, there are some gameplay videos on youtube.

 

[Sinatar]

Well looky what just showed up on GOG: http://af.gog.com/game/archimedean_dynasty?as=1649904300

 

[spekkio]

Repost from GoG forum.

Something grabbed from Underground Gamer years ago, may it R.I.P in peace...
All files are in english, PDF format.

Installation guide

Manual

Weapons manual

 

[SCO]

Can this be installed on top of the gog version? The main menu says 1.115 or something. Not 1.120.
spekkio

edit: how droll, i just installed from the builtin (disguised) cd and patched and it didn't update the main menu version. Goddammit bluebyte.

And the readme says that there is a new executable, how droll x 2. Such confidence in their work.


edit2: LLLLOOOL the AD2 exe simply doesn't work with a install from the cd. This is not so surprising considering that the first error I saw seems to be a:
WE_02-1B.PCM (missing)
vs
WE_02_1B.PCM (in the cd)

Gog's 'solution'? Duplicate all the cd files in the cache folders and change the naming convention of the few that error-ed out to err, triplicate them (they're the same files). No wonder the gogs installed size without the cd is 600 mb (while from the cd is 30mb)

It's a small annoyance because we can't depend on the cd as a baseline to 'redo' the game for upgrades, probably needing to redownload the gog installer.

 

[spekkio]

Thanks for the heads up. I was thinking about buying AD on GoG, now I'm not so eager.
WTF is with GoG and their installers BTW, isn't it possible to just use normal (old) install (~40 MB) + CD image mounted in dosbox? That's what I always do.
I know they have their own (not really) way to make Win games with CD audio work (creating .ogg files from audio tracks and modifying the .exe) but with Dos games it's totally unnecessary...

 

[SCO]

I like the ogg solution (especially because i'm building a humongous zip file of games) but i really dislike games that are modified in the install without a clear path from cd to there.

 

[SCO]

I believe that the patch 1.120 is fucked for the english version, lots of files - sound files can apparently be altered by resource map files (SMPMAP.DES and SMPMAP2.DES) but i don't see those for videos or pcx etc.

Did you test your mod on the english version 1.120 executable (AD2.EXE) spekkio or were you always running AD.EXE? I'm curious if the iso that gog distribute is any different from yours.

Regardless someone (*hint*) should do a 'harmonizer patch' that turns every version into a mod compatible version with the same files and only those files. From what i can tell it's just a question of copying from the cd and renaming and deleting some stuff so it should be legal as all hell. And i bet it would be more space efficient than gogs 'solution' of trying to make both exes work.

Even better would be a exe patch to find where the dumbasses at bluebytes fucked up and replaced a '_' by a '-'
Mmmm it might also be the patches scroll patch version of the patch that is fucked. It's a zip file while other pages that reference the bluebytes (dead) ftp refer to a DOS executable. Maybe it extracted a different exe per version of the cd.

 

[spekkio]

I was always using either Ad2.exe (1.120 software) or Ad3dfx.exe (1.120 hardware). Both work fine with my mod AFAIK.
Ad.exe is for the 1.115 version.
After both patches (1.120 and 3dfx) you have basically 3 versions available:
1.115 (ad.exe, Add4g.exe, Desktop.exe, Fight.exe),
1.120 (ad2, add4g2, desktop2, fight2)
3dfx (ad3dfx, desktop3, fight3).

My "clean" install (cd install + 1.120 patch + 3dfx patch) looks like this:

I've renamed readme.txt 'cuz patches were overwriting it. readme 1.150 should be readme 1.115 ofc.

That's why I prefer keeping clean CD images + original patches instead of some random shit like "portable" versions or GoG installers.

Regardless someone (*hint*) should do a 'harmonizer patch' that turns every version into a mod compatible version with the same files and only those files.

My mod works fine with regular cd install, patched twice. I don't give a fuck about GoG version ATM, since I don't own the game there. If they screwed something up, why should we be the ones fixing it?