New "standard" sides

[Led]

Hi SWBFgamers,

Given the size of the gaming community, I think we can make some new "standard" sides.
These files would not overwrite the standard sides, but they can be located in a side folder that exists outside of the Addon server.  Therefore, it won't interfere with the addon limit, and once it's installed addon maps could call it just like regular standard sides are called.

In order for this to be meaningful, we would need to figure out everything that we want in updated sides so that it done in a one shot update.

They could be small tweaks to tilt the balance of a game, or big wild and crazy tweaks.

Anyone care to list what they want and/or contribute to making them?

[SleepKiller]

Pick Me, pick me. I have a grotesk amount of free time on my hands at the moment. I'll gladly help make them either completely or with someone else.

My thoughts on what should be in them.
New jet pack effects for IMP and REP the current one sucks.
New Droideka shield effect... again the one we have at the moment not doing any favours for me.
Some new weaponary, i.e. Flamethrower.


Thoughts?

[Led]

Cool!  I would greatly appreciate working with you on it.

I think it would be really neat.  Maybe some skin color changes too.

I've seen a neat purple deka shield.  (is that in side?)

Thanks!

[jdee-barc]

i may be able to give you the source for my era mod's stock sides patch, but only if i can get it off my dead computer 

[SleepKiller]

Mm, skin changes are a must. Give people some eye candy, like making the B2 blue(I always liked it meltalic blue.).

I've seen a neat purple deka shield.  (is that in side?)

I've seen people on GT make some really nice looking ones to. So yeah hopefully we can get one to look like it is from the movies.

I'm ready to start working on it once the community decides what they would like in the sides.

[Led]

i may be able to give you the source for my era mod's stock sides patch, but only if i can get it off my dead computer 

what kind of hard drive does your computer have?  SATA? 

I will send you a USB data drive reader if that would help.

[jdee-barc]

I think, Laptop-sized IDE/ATA but I think i can get it working again if my dad swaps back the original 512MB of RAM (it died with 1 GB of RAM from another laptpop, same model, crashed a few years before under my dad's use as a work laptop.), or if he swaps the disk into  another laptop with similar specifications.

That also means, i could resume modding on a more regular basis, as opposed to editing a bit every few days.

[Led]

OK, to get started:

Here is the location of the of the standard sides
C:\Program Files\LucasArts\Star Wars Battlefront\GameData\Data\_LVL_PC\SIDE

I suggest locating the new ones at
C:\Program Files\LucasArts\Star Wars Battlefront\GameData\Data\_LVL_PC\ADDSIDE\modderid
where modderid  is sleepkiller, jdee, etc
to give some built-in credit to the modder

the standard side names are:
all
cis
des
ewk
gar
geo
gun
imp
rep
wok

but can be anything.

To be useful, the side should be documented and the req and odf files should be archived in a name that can be cross referenced on SWBFgamers.

To be used in a mod, the mission file would be edited to read, for example:
ReadDataFile("ADDSIDE\\Led\\des-mod1.lvl",
        "tat_inf_tuskenhunter",
        "tat_inf_tuskenraider")

[Led]

what to put in the modded side:

here is a draft idea for small changes to have players feel like the game is more balanced:

CW era:

-add a playable count dooku that can fly like a jet as a replacement for deka (no one plays deka online)
to balance out the jet trooper

-give CIS sniper the same pistol as jet

-maybe force CIS AI rockets to be the primary weapon, with a lock onto player units

--------------------------------

GCW era

-give something to rebels with an area affect to take out flying darktroopers (flamethrower to regular infantry?)



any more ideas?

[SleepKiller]

what to put in the modded side:

here is a draft idea for small changes to have players feel like the game is more balanced:

CW era:

-add a playable count dooku that can fly like a jet as a replacement for deka (no one plays deka online)
to balance out the jet trooper

-give CIS sniper the same pistol as jet

-maybe force CIS AI rockets to be the primary weapon, with a lock onto player units

--------------------------------

GCW era

-give something to rebels with an area affect to take out flying darktroopers (flamethrower to regular infantry?)



any more ideas?

I'm more thinking instead of Duko we put the Darktrooper jetpack on a Superbattle droid give it weapons that are about the same of a jettrooper (Wrist rockets that are radiation maybe? And a shoot gun type primery weapon? Pistol like secondary weapon?).

And yeah the flame thrower works great as Anti-Infantry it'll deal a lot of damage at first but if they survive this the flames will deal one last bit of damage that will kill them. The key is to make sure we do not have too much ammo for it.

I'll start getting to work on the CIS, if anyone starts working on ALL and wants the flamethrower tell me.

[jdee-barc]

My idea (i say, we get as many reasonable ideas as possible, a poll of people's ideas, and wich ever one or combination of ideas is the most popular, becomes the standard side mod). if you want the stock sides not overwritten and you want it in one addon map folder, the only easy solution is doing it as an "era" mod.


Planned out now

main classes (soldier, heavy, sniper, pilot): default weapons, but everything a bit more powerful (like a 4-hit kill rifle, instead of a rifle that takes like 7 or 8 hits to kill someone, and one-hit kill sniper rifles)

Special Units

-add another class of special units, the ones cut from the game, and in place of the droideka, add a custom cis unit. -----choose which one appears where, to your preference.

Jet Trooper: EMP Launcher (slightly lower speed, wider blast radius) x8 (stock amount), Commando Pistol, EMP Grenade x6, Time Bomb x3
Clone "Commander" (It was cut from the game, have slightly higher health): Blaster Rifle x300, blaster Pistol, Time Bomb, Binoculars

CIS Special Units
"Tactical Droid" (IG-88 Droid): AV Rocket Launcher x7 (shoot the unused "AV Rocket" rockets, could basically be the droid counterpart to the EMP launcher), Commando Pistol, Time Bomb x3, Thermal Detonator x3

Commander Droid: the unused weapon "assault carbine" x300(a tri-shot variant of the cis rifle, but it should be like the bf2 award rifle, 3 shots = kill), Commando Pistol, Orbital Strike, Health/Ammo x3

Empire Special Units
Jump Trooper: Blast Cannon x300. it should fire like a rifle, but the shots should be more lethal (3-hit kill) and inaccurate, Commando Pistol, Thermal Detonator x4

Imperial Officer: T-21 Repeating Blaster x300, Commando Pistol, Orbital Strike, Health/Ammo x3 (i can find the lvl file for this, if need be)

Rebel Special Units
Wookiee: Bowcaster (how bout this: uncharged, it fires multiple shots, and charged fully, it fires a single powerful blast that kills in one hit, and slightly damages normal vehicles, or take out a speeder bike in two hits)

Bothan Spy: Seeker Bullet gun x50 (made by psych0fred?, shoots bullets that will follow an enemy at a certain range), Disguise Kit, Thermal Detonator (grappling hook makes it too easy to cheat) x3, Remote Charge x2 (make the devastation worth the drawn out explosion: big blast radius, tons of damage)

Thats my suggestion.

this above is my suggestion.

i've got a neuro-poison carbine, if anyone wants it? it works on the same principle as a flamethrower, except: it fires a large quantity (15 shots) on one click, and will cause the units hit by it to convulse (twitch, seizure, fall, it is a poison against the nervous system) about and die after a short waiting period. The effect is a green gas effect that disappears quite quickly, making it impossible to tell where the poison has landed or who it has struck (it will strike multiple people) (the poison gas is emulated by a series of model-less grenades fired rapidly). IT'd be a good weapon for the rebels. Players can wreak havoc with it.

to see how it works, get my old era mod, and find a map that has the Storm Commando unit (in gcw era).


Another suggestion: new vehicles? (just relatively bug-free cut ones: trooptrans shuttle, at-xt, Light Attack Speeder, Flash Speeder, N-1 Starfighter, MTT, other oddities from psych0fred's site)

and if you need skins, i can make some.

[SleepKiller]

I reckon we should kill da wookie and replace it with a bothan. Does the disguise kit work in multiplayer?

[jdee-barc]

i have absolutely no idea. i think it does

[SleepKiller]

Hmmm, I wonder. Because if the player sees the stormtrooper does it appear to be a friend or enemy???

[jdee-barc]

if its rebel with a disguise kit, the rebels (including players on that side) see it as friendly. it was mainly intended for the rather predictable ai to be tricked easily (i mean, on easy, they're stupid => IQ=1, on medium, they're quicker to react, and on hard, they will use every weapon they have, unless they have a disguise kit, in which case, they will leave untouched

so, depending on how careful an enemy player is, they will have a chance of being able to shoot down the disguise one, before it causes too much trouble.

and a player's going to notice something's wrong when his "friendly" teammate starts throwing grenades and detonators at him.

and human players have name tags above their heads in multiplayer mode, so it would make you look bad, or colorblind if you couldn't tell that one of the tags of a player on your side, was red, and not green (like how it normally is)