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Modability?

rhett

By rhett,
in Battlecruiser Millennium

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rhett Ensign

rhett

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I have a question. I know that you can mod the game from what Derek said in his recent update. I just was wondering how this exactly will work and how modable it will be. Why I ask is because I would like to mod it into a Babylon 5 galaxy. Of course, I plan on keeping two versions of the game on my hard drive, one with B5 and the original. Thanks in advance.

BTW I searched all other relevent forums for info before I posted.

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Guest Chimera

Guest Chimera

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[understatement]You're probably looking at a whole lot of time and effort.[/understatement]

First of all, just to get the B5 craft working correctly, you're probably going to have to find/create some 3d models in a format which can be imported (*.DXF is a good bet), make sure the relative scaling between ALL your models is somewhat realistic, and then play around with specs and flight dynamics for each and every one of them to get play balancing somewhere near believable. Don't expect an all-in-one "craft-building" tool to magically appear immediately upon BCM's release, or even anytime soon thereafter.

While I haven't played around with GBS yet (and frankly don't have the faintest clue yet as to what it can and can't do), I'm fairly certain that it'll take you and several friends at least several months to crank out an entire UNIVERSE of systems, planets, moons, stations, jumps, wormholes, planetary zones, and the like, based in the B5 setting. At least to make one that'll be fun after one day of exploring, that is.

You've got your work cut out for you, and I wish you nothing but luck, but I suggest starting yesterday.

[ 07-19-2001: Message edited by: Chimera ]

[ 07-19-2001: Message edited by: Chimera ]

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Guest

Guest

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I believe that basically what you would be doing is replacing the models of the ships and starstations with the new models for your B5 ships, but I believe that is all you are going to be able to do. The BC universe is pretty vast and I don't think that it is very maleable as far as changes are concerned. Sure change the models, but the universe itself is static so to speak, so you would basically be playing around with B-5 ships and starstations in a BCM universe..

You would make the AI NUTS, it's been programmed for the universe built around it, it doesn't care what the ships look like, but the alliances, entities and planetary locations would (I think) have to remain the same or the AI would lose it's fricking mind.

I may be wrong, but I don't think so.

[ 07-20-2001: Message edited by: Jaguar ]

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rhett Ensign

rhett

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Yes I meant BCM.

I think I will get some help and try. We're going to try to mod the whole game (abitious, stupid, and arrogant ). I think a team is going to get together. We'll see...

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Rico Jansen Lieutenant

Rico Jansen

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Well, in that case, the thing you can work on now is patience. As the game is not out yet. I suggest you dig into the GBS section of the forum. That's where all the scripting and mod-ing action is. To get aqainted with it, download the GBS kit from the downloads section. I don't think it's going to be rediculously different from BC3K (in this respect). Neverhteless we can't say anything constructive on moding of BCM yet. We don't know either.

[ 07-20-2001: Message edited by: Rico Jansen ]

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Supreme Cmdr Tacops Commander

Supreme Cmdr

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To do a complete B5 mod using the GBS-II tool included in BCM, would be a piece of cake....you'd just have to wait for me to actually do the documentation

I would suggest that you guys start getting together and creating the assets.

By that I mean the models. For that you need 3DS Max 2.x or 3.x.

I have uploaded the latest version of the BCStudio tool to the BCM downloads page. It requires an installed copy of the E2 demo or current BCM Beta.

Simply unzip it into the folder where you have it installed and check the DOCS folder for the modeling/export guidelines. The MODELSSOURCE folder contains the source of some models in BCM and MODELSPLUGINS contains the plugings for both Max versions.

If you can create a Max model, export it to my .3D format, then load it in BCS and view it OK, then you've covered 25% of the hurdle. BCS uses the same format and rendering kernel as BCM - so, whatever it looks like in BCS, is exactly what it will look like in BCM.

If you guys want me to do an exporter for other modelers, e.g. Milkshape, Truespace etc, you're SOL. If anyone else wants to tackle it, let me know and I will provide the 3D file format specs.

To get B5 (or any space game into BCM), here are the steps.

  1. Design the models and export them to .3D format

  2. Put in the AI control vectors required by the engine (to see what I mean, load the BCRUZMK3 model in BCS, then turn on Model/Tags/Primitives).

  3. Design the world (on paper) and put in the entries in the required script files (e.g. STATICS.SCR). This is optional, since you could very well just use the existing BCM world. e.g. the world used in IA/TA are completely different and separate from the regular game world....and took me about an hour to design and script.

  4. Enter any new models being introduced into the world, in the required script files (e.g. OBJECTS.SCR)

  5. Create a ROAM scenario (this is basically a script template which has NO missions, as the AI will simple do what it needs to do). Later, you can create IA scenarios, ACM etc

  6. Parse the whole mess and copy the resulting files to the relevant folders

  7. Glue hair back on (assuming you've run out of staples)

  8. Run BCM as normal, and say hello to your mod.

Yes, doing this in BCM is a LOT simpler than it ever was in BC3K.

No, I am not going to release GBS-II to the public, until BCM is released. Only the Beta testers have access to it.

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