And so it begins, I give you the first PA mod.

Cool.

Not quite yet antillie...

This isn't exactly what I'd personally qualify as a "Mod". Not to detract from the sterling work done here, but get back to me when someone is able to add in their own units

This can be changed from the client's side without control of the server software?
Wtf, I would have expected the question of what a factory can build to be server side.

Congratulations, LD

Lol, Nanolathe, don't just change the definition of "mod" to fit your previous statements

Adding a new unit doesn't seem like it'd be too hard, even without mod support in the alpha. There's a file containing a list of all units and where to find them so I suppose adding a new entry to that would be a good place to start. Haven't tried it (yet) though.

I haven't tested it yet with other people so I was hosting the game, not sure if that matters. I'm not sure how the PA multiplayer stuff works. I still have a feeling it won't work if I get somebody else to join, even if they have the same altered file.

Well, PA's server-client architecture should only allow for client-related aesthetic mods. You know, stuff like changing unit textures, possibly unit models, particle effects and (in this case) the text displayed on the hud and the model used for a factory.

Edit: Meaning from the client's perspective. If you own a server, or host your own local server to play a 1-player game, you can do whatever you want. But currently (I don't believe) Uber allows Alpha players to do this. Server software still too buggy.

Hmm interesting. I should be able to test it in a two player game later today.

If you can really build those units and move them around afterwards the server has accepted them as existing. So the client can tell the server what factory can build what unit.

Yeah but it might be related to the fact that I was the only player in the game

I think that's a good thing. Let's imagine you want to make a mod, a unit pack. Do you really want to mod the server software? What if you want to publish that mod and it needs testing. Now you NEED your own online server.

It would be far better to make sanity checks and flag clients as default, UI modded or sim modded. That way you can still play a low profile mod with friends on a regular server.

So start a server on your on machine? The current servers Uber uses are not more powerful than most of ours computers.

The whole concept of PA as far as I understand is supposed to put ALL sim into the server. So having stuff like this in the client is very very weird.

Beaten when I don't even have an alpha key

I'm glad to see uber's extensive efforts to make PA a flexible and easy-to-modify game have paid off immensely

I suspect the sim doesn't have much in the way of sanity checking implemented at the moment, so it may well just create whatever unit the client tells it has been requested. I further suspect that if you were to ask for a new unit whose definition does not exist on the server (trying to add in files on the client), it'll probably exhibit some "unexpected behaviour" (i.e. crash your client, crash the server, send the sun supernova et al.)

You guys with your shiny alpha keys, I hope mine arrives soon...

I am a software computer programmer from Germany, so if you like to have a special mod or software to mod PA, just ask me. If the idea is good, I will maybe create something

I will check the server/client system, if I get my alpha key.

Legion, how did you figure out the UI structure? Or did you just modify one of the unit blueprint files? I've been poking around in the in-game UI javascript stuff, but caught an unpleasant surprise in that the console log stuff doesn't function at all. I changed the Main Menu button to do absolutely nothing when pushed and that certainly changed, so I'm pretty sure my changes are being loaded.

LD, you have way too much time on your hands. Just like in Supcom 2

I just modified the bp file of the factory. Haven't really looked any further to be honest.

Yeah... I shouldn't have fiddled with things. Now I can't play any games. All the menu entries are greyed out. Whoops. Strangely, though, the file verify says that my install is fresh- as in, even if you change so much as the line endings in a json file, the file verify can pick it up and restore the file. It's a neat tool that I wish more games had.

That was an issue with that build, not your fiddling.

The files are very simple, even more so than sup com in a way. I've managed to be able to add additional units to the build entries for the engineers, although the ones that aren't available normally tend to crash the game when built (such as orbital units). I've also changed the model of the commander to ... other things.

Some things still appear to be hardcoded, like I can't find any written mapping between strategic icon IDs and the icons themselves.

Good work. Assuming there are SupCom diehard modders out there, at this rate it's possible to expect more or less complete SupCom+BO+TVg-like modpack in sync with release.