Editing The Emperor Units & Stuff

[Apollyon]

Hi I was wondering if anyone can help me

im making a mod and ive made several new units and i can begin a skirmish game with no problem but then within say 10 minutes emperor simply closes without any error message or anything. i cant work out whats wrong. Please any help would be greatly appreciated.

:'(

[Frodo]

what do you do when it closes out? It could be an error in one of your modifications.

[jacobdouds]

eep, i hate this, when you make a lot of changes,m and it goes wrong. It will be a clash of the game engine somewhere. Either, you made a unit do something it didn't like, the units entry clashes with another copy, or maybe you accidently changed an XBF, or XAF setting, these always cause game failure.

[Apollyon]

the .xaf and .xbf would be from the artini.txt yes?

well im certain i did that file correctly as there was not much room for error. I havnt changed the actual .xaf and .xbf files one bit tho. Here is one of the units in question if u could just analyse this and see if there are any glaring errors I'd be much obliged.

[TLFace]                                                                                                            ///////////////////////////////////

AdvancedSardaukar = TRUE

MaxRange = 8                                                                                                      //////////////////////////////////NEW UNIT

House = Tleilaxu

StormDamage=10 //only damages is never picked up

PrimaryBuilding = TLFleshVat            

UnitGroup = FromTLFleshVat

UpgradedPrimaryRequired = TRUE

Terrain = Rock, Sand, NBRock, InfRock, Ramp

Cost = 250

BuildTime = 60

Stealthed = TRUE

Size = 1

Speed = 10.0                  

TurnRate = 0.9                        

Armour = BPV, 50, InfRock

Health = 3000

Infantry = true

CanBeSuppressed = TRUE

//SoundSelected = Selected

//SoundOrdered = Ordered

ViewRange = 7

AiSpecial = TRUE

TechLevel = 1

Crushable = TRUE

ChaosEffect = SmallChaosFX

HawkEffect = SmallHawkFX

TastyToWorms = False

WormAttraction = 3

TurretAttach = IXSlaveKnife

CanMoveAnyDirection = TRUE

GetsHeightAdvantage = FALSE

CanBeDeviated = FALSE

CanBeRepaired = FALSE

Score = 6

AIThreat = 40

// LEVEL 1 ----------------------------------

VeterancyLevel = 4      // Score required

ExtraDamage = 90            // 50% more damage - applied to all weapons

// LEVEL 2 ----------------------------------

VeterancyLevel = 14

ExtraArmour = 50            // Takes 50% less damage

CanSelfRepair = 1

// LEVEL 3 ----------------------------------

VeterancyLevel = 20

CanSelfRepair = 1      // Should have 0.5?

Its modeled on the IXian slave. It basiacally runs fast w/ a knife and its cloaked.

[Apollyon]

The other thing is it seems to crash randomly even if i dont even build a new unit. I guess it could be the AI stuffing up when they try and build it or something like that.

[jacobdouds]

Yes, if you removed or changed any other default units, that can happen.

[Apollyon]

i havent changed any of the base units at all

this is really annoying me

anyhow i shall endeavour to continue with the mod

[nemafakei]

Remove all new units, then add them back in, one at a time, testing before each one. Then, you'll find the fault.

[jacobdouds]

After a bad experience with Airstrike, I made the rule that I do small changes only. And check every time.

If it works, make a back-up.

If not, try again.

[vidiware]

I always make 1 unit test

if it work copy to last working version folder...

If something goes wrong. just get the old one

[jacobdouds]

Mine too. Withen my data folder. I have every mod im working on. Each with it's own folder. Inside each is, a test folder, a working folder, and a keep folder.

Ideas that haven't been tested go in test.

Working files go in working

Keep folder includes workiong files at a good point. Not half way thru a unit, for example.

[vidiware]

You have a better organization than me  ;D

[Apollyon]

ok i redid all the units and have got it working and so both harkonnen and ordos work but if atreides are in the game it crashes (reminds me of the problem with kwizatz haderach that means u cant play against corrino)

and whats even odder is that i havnt even made any new atreides units yet! Most strange...

[leech13]

maybe im wrong but i dont think it can be infantry = true and aispecial

i think it has to be aifoot or whatever it is for infantry

but you got it fixed so i guess im wrong

what does aispecial do?

[Frodo]

yeah i think it needs to be aifoot. I just checked 3 infantry units in the rules file and they had aifoot, not aispecial.

[jacobdouds]

That would make sense.

But, you say the game crashes playing as or against atreides?

[leech13]

also:

1) i think that stormdmg is 5 for buildings, 10 for units and 70+ for infantry

[vidiware]

Thats useful to know

But why dont we do so Buildings is taken up in the air

[jacobdouds]

Not sure if the XAF will agree. But, it would look funny i agree.

[nemafakei]

Only inf can go flying. It's an xbf sequence.

[jacobdouds]

you say XBF, I say XAF, whats the dif?

Thought so though.

[vidiware]

As i understand. The xaf is the whole combination of xfbs

since the art ini ueses xaf and the files are named xfb

[jacobdouds]

XAF are objects like Infantry rock, XBF are image chains, am I correct?

[Adrian_Messecar]

The XAF files are not used (probably remnants of early versions of the program).  In the Artini.txt file, it doesn't matter if it's XAF or XBF, the XBF file will be used.

[jacobdouds]

XAFs are used in the map editor.