After making my first modded weapon, I can definitely say it was very complicated process, mostly because of all the paths. So, something that lets you build weapons easily for different units in PA would be awesome. I'm have no where near enough experience to develop something like this myself, and I imagine that it would be very difficult to create. But, who knows, maybe it's easy to make and no one has thought of the idea... Anyway I think a program like this (a dedicated UI would be even more awesome) would help SO much with modding
It isn't so hard. C&C Renegade, had a dev released program, that was a graphic interface, that changed the objects.ddb file, which you can think of like a super package of all .jsons. Imagine, if PA had a PA.ddb instead of a PA folder with units and weapons. Then, imagine that all the .jsons were placed end on end in that .ddb. Then, imagine if there was a program to read that .ddb, list out each individual .json, decipher if it were "unit" "weapon" "ammo" ect (the package actually also contained models too), and list them under "catergories" like units>a-z weapons>a-z ammo>a-z... Then, when you select, the right half of the program, lists the values of the units (first written text fields like name and description, then numerical fields like health, then list-answer fields with the list of available answers like unit type and a dropdown menu of valid unittypes, then yes/no fields at the end like friendly fire) That would actually be pretty badass. You can't have the best of all worlds, in matter of fact while we currently lack a GUI for this it is handy that it ISN'T packaged. But, just something to consider in legacy @scathis @neutrino @bgolus and other devs. Anyway, yes, it is something someone like Raevn can make out of atomshell, that bulk-reads .jsons, list them categorized, and reads the .json themselves to display easy to fill out blanks as if it were an internet tax return form. You could even more easily create new units this way, as it would create the folder, the jsons, and link to models and weapons, without any unsure missing anything. Don't give up hope, this is an excellent mod idea down the road. If I know a single damn thing about GUI and text editing through them, I would totally do it. I won't even try though, because while it is plausible I could do it, I would reverse engineer "renegade leveledit", the aforementioned gui that loads lists and edits every unit weapon ammo armortype model ect for Renegade, to load .jsons... but it would be HIGHLY LEGACY compared to a cutting edge Atomshell applet that would work on linux and be pluginable to PAHub, and I have no knowledge of Atomshell programming. PS: I would post a youtube video showing what I am talking about with the Renegade Leveledit, but I think I guess I suppose it supercedes youtube dating (2004?) so I would have to make my own video (I do have it on my computer atm too).
