"Very Difficult Choice" Mod, irc channel: irc.quakenet.org/vdc

[Mustard]

One more note. When you attack antaran homeworkd their starfortress has -28k hp and in result is annihilated after any damage or on start of its first turn. And antaran ship there have mere 1000/1000 hp and low firepower. A bit disappointing after uber Guardian.

Thanks for reporting bug, I will try to fix it. Also will look into defending antaran fleet.

There is an antaran doomstar icon in the game files, perhaps you could make those spawn as well defending Orion?

[angra]

I'll see what I can do with the executables. In the worst case I'll include patcher for each exe.

Why do you need patcher for each .exe? Why stop on halfway? You may just include only one .exe, patch utility, binary diffs and .bat file or instructions for producing all necessary .exe files from main one and bindiffs using patch utility.
Example:
$ xdelta delta VDCREG.EXE VDCGM2.EXE patch.bin
$ ls -l patch.bin
290 patch.bin
$ xdelta patch patch.bin VDCREG.EXE VDCGM2_2.EXE
$ diff VDCGM2.EXE VDCGM2_2.EXE
$ diff VDCGM2.EXE VDCREG.EXE
Binary files VDCGM2.EXE and VDCREG.EXE differ

I created binary diff with name patch.bin between VDCREG.EXE and VDCGM2.EXE using xdelta utility. Size of patch.bin is only 290 bytes. Then I recreated VDCGM2.EXE from VDCREG.EXE and patch.bin and named it VDCGM2_2.EXE. In the end I compared files with diff to prove that VDCGM2.EXE and VDCGM2_2.EXE are same.

[Catalyst_Kh]

Patcher is useful with idea, that player can patch all this files:
orion2v140.exe
orange.exe
goodmap2.exe
goodmap3.exe
goodmap4.exe
goodmap5.exe
vdcgm2.exe
vdcor.exe
vdcreg.exe
Especially if patcher renames files automatically. Much more convenient, than copy/paste blocks inside hex editor (even if it takes only minutes).

And exes themselves needed to make mod archive more holistic, fully ready-ti-use at once.

[Overlord2]

I could do one patcher, which will be applied to the file the name you enter...

There is an antaran doomstar icon in the game files, perhaps you could make those spawn as well defending Orion?

If it ever exists, I mean doomstar, I'll try. However I am suspicious, since no one ever reported seeing antaran doomstar.

[Catalyst_Kh]

Thank you Irakly. Any patcher is good, how it will be designed is up to your experience, to make it more easy for players who are 'bad at computer stuff'. Probably the readme for patch is more important component in this case.

[Mustard]

I could do one patcher, which will be applied to the file the name you enter...

There is an antaran doomstar icon in the game files, perhaps you could make those spawn as well defending Orion?

If it ever exists, I mean doomstar, I'll try. However I am suspicious, since no one ever reported seeing antaran doomstar.

I found a PICTURE in the game files of the doomstar, I think it is just a left over file from a feature removed from the game, or simply a picture added to the game so that antarians had a picture of every ship size for conformitys sake. I found it in the LOD files, I can probably explore the LOD files again to find its location if you'd like

[Overlord2]

I found a PICTURE in the game files of the doomstar, I think it is just a left over file from a feature removed from the game, or simply a picture added to the game so that antarians had a picture of every ship size for conformitys sake. I found it in the LOD files, I can probably explore the LOD files again to find its location if you'd like

What are the LOD files? Would you extract the picture and share with us?
Why it seems suspicious to me is because offensive fleet misses the doomstar.

[Mustard]

I found a PICTURE in the game files of the doomstar, I think it is just a left over file from a feature removed from the game, or simply a picture added to the game so that antarians had a picture of every ship size for conformitys sake. I found it in the LOD files, I can probably explore the LOD files again to find its location if you'd like

What are the LOD files? Would you extract the picture and share with us?
Why it seems suspicious to me is because offensive fleet misses the doomstar.

Uh.. LBX files... LOD files are me just typing the wrong file name like an idiot. And okay i'll try and relocate it now

[Mustard]

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2m4wylh&s=6

This is the extracted doomstar picture

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=5u82&s=6

Starfortress for comparason, they look annoyingly similar. Files were taken from the MONSTER.LBX file and extracted using Grig's tool

[Overlord2]

well, it is starfortress...I'm completely sure there is no doomstar, but you took strarfortress picture as if it was doostar

[Overlord2]

OK, here is the gm2 version of low density maps:
http://www.mediafire.com/?m125m29wcwoo133

[Mustard]

well, it is starfortress...I'm completely sure there is no doomstar, but you took strarfortress picture as if it was doostar

They are similar but different. Though they do look very similar.. which is probably why it wasn't included

[Overlord2]

OK, here is the gm2 version of low density maps:
http://www.mediafire.com/?m125m29wcwoo133

Tried the setting with large map and number of stars as medium (36), well, for competetive mp games it doesn't fit, since there will be restarts almost in every game. So I decided there is no need in this patcher. Who wants to create the exes themselves here is the replacement, which should be made with hex editor:

Code: Select all

FA 01 66 C7 05 0A 1A 02 00 90 01 66 C7 05 92 19 02 00 0A 00 66 C7 05 A0 19 02 00 0A 00 66 C7 05 7C 19 02 00 00 00 66 C7 05 9E 19 02 00 00 00 C3 66 C7 05 0C 1A 02 00 F7 02 66 C7 05 0A 1A 02 00 58 02 66 C7 05 92 19 02 00 0F 00 66 C7 05 A0 19 02 00 0F 00 66 C7 05 7C 19 02 00 01 00 66 C7 05 9E 19 02 00 01 00 C3 66 C7 05 0C 1A 02 00 F4 03 66 C7 05 0A 1A 02 00 20 03 66 C7 05 92 19 02 00 14 00 66 C7 05 A0 19 02 00 14 00 66 C7 05 9E 19 02 00 02 00 66 C7 05 7C 19 02 00 02 for F7 02 66 C7 05 0A 1A 02 00 58 02 66 C7 05 92 19 02 00 0F 00 66 C7 05 A0 19 02 00 0F 00 66 C7 05 7C 19 02 00 01 00 66 C7 05 9E 19 02 00 01 00 C3 66 C7 05 0C 1A 02 00 F4 03 66 C7 05 0A 1A 02 00 20 03 66 C7 05 92 19 02 00 14 00 66 C7 05 A0 19 02 00 14 00 66 C7 05 7C 19 02 00 02 00 66 C7 05 9E 19 02 00 02 00 C3 66 C7 05 0C 1A 02 00 EE 05 66 C7 05 0A 1A 02 00 B0 04 66 C7 05 92 19 02 00 1E 00 66 C7 05 A0 19 02 00 1E 00 66 C7 05 9E 19 02 00 03 00 66 C7 05 7C 19 02 00 03

[Catalyst_Kh]

I believe huge with 54 stars should be far more competitive. Due to extra range defender has additional ~5 turns when facing blitzer, plus blitzer quite often may encounter a gap in the center, so has to make one more outpost to go around, thus plus even more couple of turns. While the same amount of planets keeps the existing balance. In this case 115 turns of piece rule may be reconsidered, maybe only 4 systems before attack would be enough. Had no opportunity to play it myself yet, will post when do.

[Overlord2]

@Catalyst
Too far distances in huge between opponents, because of that this map isn't played in MP.

@angra
Antaran Starfortress bug was localized and will be fixed in a little while.

@mustard
Antaran Doomstar data wasn't found in the code.