Mods?

[pad152]

Will you be able to mod Distant Guns?

If so, please explain what can be moded?



Thanks

[timetraveller]

Will you be able to mod Distant Guns?

If so, please explain what can be moded?



Thanks

The devs have said no, due to the structure of the files. I do hope that at least something can be tweaked. Ability to mod and scenario editors are what keeps a game interesting.

TT

[Bullethead]

The devs have said no, due to the structure of the files. I do hope that at least something can be tweaked. Ability to mod and scenario editors are what keeps a game interesting.

Long, long ago, there was a DOS game called Dreadnoughts. It didn't have an editor but all the data files were text, so you could edit them and make your own. The really cool thing was its ship graphics were composed of a wide variety of "Lego" blocks of ship components. Thus, not only could you tweak ship stats, but you could add new ships to the game, whether real or imaginary, just by specifying the code letters for the various components you wanted, arranged along the ship's length. Your new ships would appear in the game looking like themselves, and worked just as well as the stock ships. And all with just a text editor! It was ingenious.

One of these days, I hope somebody will make an updated version of this game, so it will run on modern PCs. That "Lego" ship-building system especially made the game infinitely replayable.

[ETF]

Long, long ago, there was a DOS game called Dreadnoughts. It didn't have an editor but all the data files were text, so you could edit them and make your own. The really cool thing was its ship graphics were composed of a wide variety of "Lego" blocks of ship components. Thus, not only could you tweak ship stats, but you could add new ships to the game, whether real or imaginary, just by specifying the code letters for the various components you wanted, arranged along the ship's length. Your new ships would appear in the game looking like themselves, and worked just as well as the stock ships. And all with just a text editor! It was ingenious.

One of these days, I hope somebody will make an updated version of this game, so it will run on modern PCs. That "Lego" ship-building system especially made the game infinitely replayable.
Haha I had that program. Didn't realize it was modded though. Damn that would have been great!

[Bullethead]

Haha I had that program. Didn't realize it was modded though. Damn that would have been great!

I made a big scenario for 1939 Italy vs. France, with a mix of modernized WW1 ships and whatever modern ships were around then. It was kinda Jutland-esque in that each side had a powerful scouting group ahead of their main battle line, with the French having the advantage in the former (Dunkiques, light CAs, CLs and 40-knot super DDs vs. modern CAs, CLs, and regular DDs) and the Italians the latter (faster and longer-ranged modernized WW1 BBs), at least while the sun was up. The challenge for the French, therefore, was to delay the main fleet action until after dark, when it would be more of a toss-up. The Italians, therefore, had to fight through the French forward force and close with the slow French BBs before dark. Needless to say, with few ships having much armor, it was very, very bloody :).

[Rhetor]

I made a big scenario for 1939 Italy vs. France, with a mix of modernized WW1 ships and whatever modern ships were around then. It was kinda Jutland-esque in that each side had a powerful scouting group ahead of their main battle line, with the French having the advantage in the former (Dunkiques, light CAs, CLs and 40-knot super DDs vs. modern CAs, CLs, and regular DDs) and the Italians the latter (faster and longer-ranged modernized WW1 BBs), at least while the sun was up. The challenge for the French, therefore, was to delay the main fleet action until after dark, when it would be more of a toss-up. The Italians, therefore, had to fight through the French forward force and close with the slow French BBs before dark. Needless to say, with few ships having much armor, it was very, very bloody :).

The above post proves that a "Naval TOAW", ie. massive ship database with powerful editor, would be the best naval game ever.

[timetraveller]

Very cool on the Dreadnoughts game and its moddability. I hadn't come across that one. The two guys who wrote Take Command: Battle of Bull Run (US Civil War) did the same sort of thing. They made it specifically for the modder. Most all files are text files that can easily be modified. By the way, phase 2 of this game is about to come out next month. I know, the game is not naval related, but it is another example of what can be done even on a small developer scale. It has a good following and a great, friendly forum.

Tweakable games keep the game alive and on the shelf longer. Translate that to more sales.

TT

[Bullethead]

Very cool on the Dreadnoughts game and its moddability.

If you've got the game and can still run it, take a look at the data files. Each ship is either 1 (usually DDs) or 3 rows (everything else) of 3-4 character code blocks, sometimes prefaced by a number. These codes are the "Lego" blocks. Having 3 rows allows broadside stuff like 2ndary and wing turrets. IIRC, you could specify the shape of the bow in the main ship data section, and then you used the blocks for the turrets, masts, funnels, cranes, and superstructure you wanted. The number sometimes used was the number of gun tubes in a turret or torp tube mount. There were several shapes and sizes of turrets, and you could also have casemates along the sides. It's been years since I messed with any of that and I don't have it handy, but it's a pretty easy code to figure out. Most codes are abreviations that make sense. Just look through all the ships in the stock scenarios, make a list of all the codes used, and see how they look in the game.

As for adding weapons, those were in separate files from the ships IIRC, so you could easily add new guns and torps to those files, or tweak the stats of existing weapons. When you made up ship files, you called out what guns it had in which locations off of the weapons file.

The only thing I was unable to mod was maps. The maps were some sort of compiled thing. Although I played with them in a hex editor, I was unable to make any changes work. Thus, I was stuck using existing maps, but that was OK because there was a decent variety.

[timetraveller]

Thanks for the detailed info, Bullethead. If I come across the game sometime I'll give it a try.

TT

[pad152]

When games go 3D like it or not graphics become a big deal, and not very one has the same system/graphic systems, making games look like crap on hi-end systems. Will the game allow you to change things like textures (improvded hi-res)?

[timetraveller]

When games go 3D like it or not graphics become a big deal, and not very one has the same system/graphic systems, making games look like crap on hi-end systems. Will the game allow you to change things like textures (improvded hi-res)?

Can't find the thread now, but I got the idea that the devs have locked all the files, including the texture mapping process.

TT