File functions, Mods and the Patch Project

[DOCa Cola]

posted on April 27th, 2011, 11:54 pm

Last edited by DOCa Cola on April 28th, 2011, 1:54 am, edited 4 times in total.

With Fleet Operations steadily growing over the years in complexity, we as developers and you as players more and more feel the age of Armada 2's underlying structure. This gets especially obvious if you want to play a multiplayer game.

Click here to read this article!

posted on April 28th, 2011, 12:04 am

Woah.  This is the coolest [censored]ing thing I've ever seen.  You're commitment and hard work know no bounds!!!!

Thanks again, Doca.   And thanks to all FO staff for all your hard work!

posted on April 28th, 2011, 12:04 am

Awesome!!! Nice work, I cant wait!

Will this effect in-game performance, with relations to lag, and borg textures?

posted on April 28th, 2011, 12:09 am

The ability to activate mods at will? I've been wondering if FO would get that some day...

posted on April 28th, 2011, 12:09 am

sweet mod manager finally

[The Undying Nephalim]

posted on April 28th, 2011, 12:12 am

Last edited by The Undying Nephalim on April 28th, 2011, 12:18 am, edited 1 time in total.

The announcement of these features (as well as that nice screenshot of my mod  ) has really made my day. You guys deserve a medal and a vacation to Risa. 

posted on April 28th, 2011, 12:21 am

This is a very cool development indeed.

posted on April 28th, 2011, 12:35 am

This is awesome. Thank you 

posted on April 28th, 2011, 12:53 am

I have actuallly seen this system before and used it in a2, but the fact that it is being standardized, plus the whole compression thing...  Well, this is one of the best surprises I have had in a long time!  Thanks Devs, you da' best.

posted on April 28th, 2011, 1:03 am

Legit! I'm definitely excited for this! Now I just need to figure out my own mods so I can make some use of it...

[Megaman3321]

posted on April 28th, 2011, 1:23 am

Last edited by Megaman3321 on April 28th, 2011, 1:24 am, edited 1 time in total.

Looks like the victim got... ... partitioned.

YYYYEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH


Awesome job!!!
Quick question: Would it be possible for the directory to consider stock A2 a mod of FO, with all the engine improvements, but still compatible with other versions of A2 engines?

[Atlantisbase]

posted on April 28th, 2011, 1:49 am

Last edited by Atlantisbase on April 28th, 2011, 2:08 am, edited 1 time in total.

This is epic. This is what A2 has needed all along. I swear, you guys should have been on the original A2 design team. 

Here's a question: Will this new mod system work like the Elite Force/EF 2 style of file deployment where the files sit in .pk3 (i.e. zip) files which all have the same directory structure that and they're all merged at run time? Or will it be more straight forward. So, for EF, within the .pk3 there is a directory structure
mod.pk3
----->maps
----------->map1.whatever
----------->map2.whatever
------>textures
----------->texture1.tga
----------->texture2.tga
.
.
.
mod2.pk3
----->maps
----------->map3.whatever
----------->map4.whatever
------>scripts
----------->script1
----------->script2
------>textures
----------->texture5.tga
----------->texture6.tga
.
.
.
When the game starts all the .pk3s are loaded and the file structures get "merged". If there are duplicate file names the one loaded last is the one referenced.

So for fleetops this might look like
mod.archive
------->odf
----------->shipr1.odf
----------->shipr2.odf
-------->sod
----------->ship.sod
-------->textures
----------->ship.tga

Is that what it will be like? The only issue I foresee there is how to handle the merging of techtrees and things like fleet caps. build lists, weapon interactions, etc. across multiple mods.

Or will it be more simple, like so:
DataMods
--------------------------------->Mod1
-------------------------------------->odf
------------------------------------------>foo.odf
------------------------------------------>bar.odf
-------------------------------------->textures
------------------------------------------>foo.tga
------------------------------------------>bar.tga

But even then you'd still have the problem of having to merge build items, fleet caps, weapon interactions, etc.

posted on April 28th, 2011, 2:37 am

Religiously significant fecal matter! I don't have any idea how you guys pulled this off but it's certainly impressive.

posted on April 28th, 2011, 2:47 am

Awesome. All that needs to be done with the ODFs now is to merge each ship's ranks into one. Would cut down on a lot of the rank-related bugs and help modding.

posted on April 28th, 2011, 2:48 am

News feed overload..............
Awesome love the idea of storing the files in a 'zip' file for faster loading time. Also i like the idea of having a mod manager, this will likely attract all of the people from the A2 community to finally switch to FO. One question though in the picture the mod manager seems to be accessed from main menu does that mean that you could edit the files without closing FO? Ok one more what will the multiplayer support for the mods be?