[REL] Cruise Missile/Flying Bomb

Remove the comments. They are the cause of your grief.

What comments in what files? There are no comments in the ent/ammo files.

But I was remarking stuff out for testing as I explained.

I tested the air cyclops files in the skirmish version, including the renamed/copied pfx file. It works perfectly in skirmish.

Vanilla never modifies explosion entities, so they aren't sent to the server. The short answer is don't have a special explosion in GW.

Challenge mode: shadow media/pa/main/game/galactic_war/shared/js/gw_specs.js to process
sim_fire_effect

A solution might be to have the death weapon fire a projectile that uses an existing explosion entity on impact?

But like I said I tried removing the sim effect entirely, I guess I did it wrong. At that point the unit just hovered and did nothing. Since I clearly don't know how to just remove or I guess replace the effect, it looks like I'll have to give "challenge mode" a stab

I copied/created "com.pa.Innomen.CruiseMissileGW\media\ui\main\game\galactic_war\shared\js\gw_specs.js" it didn't have any effect.

Code:

[16:10:27.564] ERROR Error opening struct AudioVisualEffectSpec spec /pa/units/air/air_cyclops/air_cyclops_ammo_explosion_ent.json
[16:10:27.564] ERROR SimAudioVisualEffect::loadSpec failed to load [/pa/units/air/air_cyclops/air_cyclops_ammo_explosion_ent.json]

This is making me angry. How is GW so different from skirmish at this level in this context? Is modding GW intentionally crippled? Do they want it arbitrarily hard to make new units so they can sell them later or maybe to prevent people from playing with pay commanders or something? WTF is the deal here.

It really feels like this is a lot harder than it should be and that it's really quiet in here, like I said something taboo at a dinner party and everyone is standing around looking at their feet and mumbling.

Right, I didn't actually say "and modify"

GW is entirely different server mode/api call. The client loads all units specs (wherein it sees client mod shadows), finds some of the referenced files, applies the card modifiers to get the adjusted army list and stats (including tagging specs as .ai or .player so you can have different stats than the AI you are fighting) and sends all of the specs to the server so it can run the game with the correct values.

I feel like I'm dealing with a genie that keeps twisting/lawyering my wishes into disaster

Let me try a different approach:

How do I make my unit work?

Shadow and modify cards so you can build it. I assume you've already done this since you were testing it.

Change sim_fire_effect to the one from bot_bomb, or whichever other stock effect you like best.

I did both of those things already and shared my investigation notes. It crashes. I can't make it not crash.

Hmm, does arty have a special explosion effect also? What effect could I swap it with that would be most stable in GW?

I was working from the last zip you posted. I added the unit to a shadow gwc_start for expediency, (tried just that and crashed) copied the bot_bomb sim_fire_effect line from my formatted vanilla files, and played an air commander.

The other things with sim_fire_effect are ammo/mine_pbaoe, ammo/nuke_pbaoe, ammo/nuke_pbaoe_air, units/land/bot_bomb, and units/land/land_mine. There may be other entities that would work, but I'd start with the known good ones and look for differences if something else doesn't work out.

Are you saying you got it to work?

I'm pretty sure it worked, yes. ;^)

Sharez!

Got impatient and tried tto use your comments as clues, but tldr I didn't get it going.

Notes:
Created/copied/"shadowed" (not clear on what EXACTLY you mean by that word) the following:
"com.pa.Innomen.CruiseMissileGW\ui\main\game\galactic_war\cards\gwc_start.js"

That worked, now air commander has the missile. (awesome, thanks)

Then I tried swapping the contents of ammo.json to arty.
Crashed.

Then I tried swapping the contents of ammo.json to assault bots ammo, I figured that's gotta be the most basic in the game, I removed the line about the effects trail, air unit just passes over the target over and over, but no crash. Tried various range changes, like maybe it couldn't reach it's ground target from the air? What is the range distance from the air layer to the ground anyway?

Then I tried swapping the contents of the grenadier's ammo verbatim.
Crashed.

Gave up.

Definitely easiest way. Caveat is that advanced air card will now grant access to the missile, when it should only grant the fabricator.

Here is the resulting file; I don't think I need to post the rest of the mod since I didn't change anything else, except gwc_start which you've already got. I had to change the extension to upload on the forums.

OMFG finally it works! Thank you! I'm fine with advanced air granting the missile. Imo, the advanced card shouldn't even exist. It should be basic and complete only.

Ok! I'll clean it up now and take a close look at cost and damage.

I feel like you just pulled a bad tooth.

Thanks again man

I've basically laid off the skirmish version entirely. Here is the GW version I actually play with.

https://copy.com/uEUXrWgxsiSo8rSB/com.pa.Innomen.CruiseMissileGW.zip

Released all three. GW, Skirmish, and the icon mod. Thanks to everyone for your help. Yes I realize this is sloppy. No I don't care enough to clean up

moved to released mods