Armada 1 modding help

[carguy1701]

I recently experienced a resurgence of interest in Armada I after several years. I repurchased the game and began modding it. I have run into some trouble with these mods (my own personal stuff, based on mods I did before, many moons ago). My questions are:

1. Is there a limit to what you can mod? I ask this because, having prepped for modding the game in advance, I edited a bunch of files (and created a few new ones). When I put them all in the addon folder, the game refused to load (all I get is a black screen). This is very confusing to me, as most if not all of these worked years ago, and I have not changed any hardpoints.

2. Regarding the hot keys, can they be changed? Specifically, I wanted to change the hot key for the Romulan Warbid and add one for the Federation Galaxy class.

3. Regarding map editing, do you have to put the new version of a map into the bzn folder? I believed that was the case, but when I modified one of the maps and attempted to play it, the game started to load, then crashed.

4. If you edit the global sprites file, does it need to go into the addon folder? I do not recall this being the case, but I am out of practice.

I have gone over the odf files several times and not found anything wrong.

[Tommygun_BoG]

Hi,

1. As far as I know there is no limit. The most common reason for a black screen is a bug in the tech tree file. For example something like this:

fstation1.odf 0 fstation2.odf

See if you find something there.

2. The can be changed, but I've experienced that no new key or keymap labels can be defined. You can use the existing ones from the Input.map file in the root directory by replacing or adding the certain line to the ship's odf file:

keymapLabel = "ut_burst"

This would give the unit the Hotkey 'U'

3. New maps need to be stored in the addon folder. I had the same problems putting them into the bzn folder.

4. The sprite files need to remain where they are: in the sprites folder. No copies in any other folders are needed.

Hope this was helpful!

[carguy1701]

Hi,

1. As far as I know there is no limit. The most common reason for a black screen is a bug in the tech tree file. For example something like this:

fstation1.odf 0 fstation2.odf

See if you find something there.

2. The can be changed, but I've experienced that no new key or keymap labels can be defined. You can use the existing ones from the Input.map file in the root directory by replacing or adding the certain line to the ship's odf file:

keymapLabel = "ut_burst"

This would give the unit the Hotkey 'U'

3. New maps need to be stored in the addon folder. I had the same problems putting them into the bzn folder.

4. The sprite files need to remain where they are: in the sprites folder. No copies in any other folders are needed.

Hope this was helpful!

Thanks. I added the Galaxy-class to the tech trees, making it dependent on the Federation Advanced shipyard. Seemed logical. Should I not have done that? As for the keyboard mapping, I think I'll leave that alone. The reason for the Warbird was because I changed the label from Warbird Class to D'Deridex-class, so I wanted the hotkey to reflect the change. I haven't made any new maps (I might, later on), and putting new versions of the existing maps in the bzn folder seems to be working. I'll leave the sprites file where it is.

Getting back to the Galaxy-class, here is the line I put in the tech1 file:

fgalaxy.odf 1 fyard2.odf

I'm not seeing what is wrong with it, though. I have modded the other tech trees (for Instant Action/Multiplayer and a few single player tech trees) so that the Galaxy-class can be built. I had only introduced the one (tech1) in at first. Should I put them all in the addon folder?

[MrVulcan]

For the warbird shortcut, you just have to change the 'W' to a 'D' in Input.map as Tommygun pointed out. The keymap line is 'rom_battle'.

If you make a new map, it will be saved in the addon automatically. The one thing to watch out for is the bitmap file that's being generated. The bitmap has to be 128x128 pixels, but the file being generated is usually larger (depends on the resolution you're running at). Just resize the bitmap and it should be fine.

Lastly, I strongly recommend a debugger for quick odf and techtree edits that you've done. The one I use and which has saved me hours and hours of debugging time is the STAUM debugger.

The download I pointed to has the updated version (exe is just a self-extracting zip that also has the Storm viewer.)

Good luck

[carguy1701]

Something else I noticed was that, in the map editing mode, the game would crash whenever I tried to call up the Federation ship list (or it would crash if I tried to open a map with a Galaxy-class ship on it). I traced the problem back to the .odf file for the Galaxy-class, and that is very confusing to me. The file itself has not been modified that much. I bumped up the shield strength (from 700 to 750), reduced the dilithium and crew costs, and added a few names, but I do not understand that would cause the crashing. Can anyone give any insight?

[carguy1701]

For the warbird shortcut, you just have to change the 'W' to a 'D' in Input.map as Tommygun pointed out. The keymap line is 'rom_battle'.

If you make a new map, it will be saved in the addon automatically. The one thing to watch out for is the bitmap file that's being generated. The bitmap has to be 128x128 pixels, but the file being generated is usually larger (depends on the resolution you're running at). Just resize the bitmap and it should be fine.

Lastly, I strongly recommend a debugger for quick odf and techtree edits that you've done. The one I use and which has saved me hours and hours of debugging time is the STAUM debugger.

The download I pointed to has the updated version (exe is just a self-extracting zip that also has the Storm viewer.)

Good luck

Thank you for that link. I'm not finding any errors in the Galaxy-class odf though.

[carguy1701]

I ran the odf debugger on tect1.tt and the only error it could find was on line 182: odf file 'gomegbm.odf' not found.

[MrVulcan]

Recheck the names and make sure that the quotes "" are all balanced. I found that the debugger doesn't always check the names properly when each line is starting with a "tab".

The techtree error should be fine.

Cheers

[carguy1701]

Recheck the names and make sure that the quotes "" are all balanced. I found that the debugger doesn't always check the names properly when each line is starting with a "tab".

The techtree error should be fine.

Cheers

Balanced? How do you mean?

[Tommygun_BoG]

If you make a new map, it will be saved in the addon automatically. The one thing to watch out for is the bitmap file that's being generated. The bitmap has to be 128x128 pixels, but the file being generated is usually larger (depends on the resolution you're running at). Just resize the bitmap and it should be fine.

Hell yeah...forgot about this most annoying bug. Took me years to find out why the instant action screen always crashed when I chose one of my maps...

[Tommygun_BoG]

Recheck the names and make sure that the quotes "" are all balanced. I found that the debugger doesn't always check the names properly when each line is starting with a "tab".

The techtree error should be fine.

Cheers

Balanced? How do you mean?

See if you haven't forgot one of the quotes. Balanced just means when you set a quote you have to close it with a second one. If you forget only one quote the hole game will crash while loading.

[carguy1701]

Recheck the names and make sure that the quotes "" are all balanced. I found that the debugger doesn't always check the names properly when each line is starting with a "tab".

The techtree error should be fine.

Cheers

Balanced? How do you mean?

See if you haven't forgot one of the quotes. Balanced just means when you set a quote you have to close it with a second one. If you forget only one quote the hole game will crash while loading.

Oh okay. Will do.

[carguy1701]

Okay, found and corrected an error with the names. We'll see how it works now.

[carguy1701]

MrVulcan, that was it. One misplaced quotation mark was holding up the show. Thank you for suggesting that I look in that direction.

[tiberius1980]

does anyone know if there is a list of .odf files and what they relate to.

example:

bbattle= borg cube