You read that right
Christmas 2014 Modding Competition
Perhaps you've been bashed on the head with a brick and you haven't noticed that it's time to get fabulously festive.

So, to continue our vague tradition of holding thematic modding competitions we would like you modders to make a mod about... Christmas or generic winter festivity (whatever floats your boat).

We'd like to keep it pretty open, so it could be a mod of any sort really... as long as it's festive.
The deadline shall be somewhere in January, as I don't really expect anyone to pull off a groovy mod before Christmas, as you're all probably busy (or will be) drowning in eggnog.

Entrants will probably receive some kind of shiny award with the winner getting an even shinier one.

In case you thought this looked familiar, above this line was the post last year.  And I thought it was good enough to quote from Unit 33

Anyway, the winner will most likely be decided by a poll or something, and not me, because I've already started working on something.  Don't think of it as a stress... think of it as one way to celebrate the holidays!  So many assets are floating around here as well as creative modders who may be willing to help.  So, get on your sleigh and get going!  Please post to participate.

----This message brought to you by the Ghost of Christmas Future.

Participants:
Dark_Phantom - A Tatooine Christmas
Anyder -  Christmas Stock Map Reskins
Snake - Serpentown

I need 2 people to test a map I'm working on and tell me a few things:

1.) How the map "feels"

2.) Noticable bugs

3.) Things that need improved.

Post here, and later on I will send you the map to try out.

Post here a good book you've read.
The next person to post should post something about a book before, even if they have never heard of it (which means go to google and search the book and post something).  Learn something from the experience
*Note: if there is another book thread, I'm sorry.  Unit 33 wanted a book thread.

George Orwell's 1984.  I thought it was a good book.  So many references in it are used today.

I can set this up next weekend also with a little bit more planning.

It's been a while since I've set up a mod map server so please bear with me.  Please say some maps you would like to see and I will try to accommodate them.

Welcome to Mandalorian Wars Beta 1 official release!
Readme:

QuoteMandalorian Wars - Era Mod by Dark_Phantom - Public Beta 1

This is a preliminary version of my third era mod, Mandalorian Wars.  It is a mod that utilizes a third era button and allows you to play as the Mandalorians against any one of the four teams at random.

This mod is only implemented for Single Player at this point.  For multiplayer, the randomizer has got to be deactivated and a more efficient route of implementing host ability to choose what side they want and for clients to be able to go along with that.  It will be complicated to implement.

To install:
Merge the Gamedata folder with your Gamedata folder in the Star Wars Battlefront folder you wish to install in.  I believe that everything is in the spot they need to be for it to be functional just by merging.  If you don't merge, just copy and paste the UNIV folder into Gamedata, replace the mission.lvl (back up your original, but I left stock missions intact so it should be ok) and replace the shell (I left an original shell in there for you just in case).

There are many bugs in this mod.  Hoth is non-functional in Mandalorian Wars so far (working on it).  A couple other maps crash on start (please tell me so I can fix them).  Sometimes locals do not spawn, sometimes they do.
THE BIGGEST BUG:
You can only play one Mandalorian Wars mission at a time.  Therefore, you cannot have 2 missions of UNIVmando in your Instant Action queue.  The second one will crash on start.  I have yet to figure out this bug.  It makes me angry. >:[

As a bonus, Hoth and Endor are now playable in Clone Wars and Kamino is now playable in Galactic Civil War.  Geonosis will be finished... sometime.

Enjoy!

Credits:
Pandemic-Star Wars Battlefront and Stock Assets
Dark_Phantom-Creator
Psych0fred-stock lua scripts (without them, I would have had to go with my flawed reconstructions)
Battlebelk-IMP.lvl builder
Icemember/Unit 33-Mandalorian Skins and pistol and rifle
Unit 33-LaserCannon gun skin
Sereja- Westar-34 pistol,
Napseeker-General Grievous
Phobos-1.2 Side Builders, Flamethrower odf, consultation
Republic Commando-Elite Sniper Rifle
ggctuk - port of ATRT from BF2

If I forgot anyone, please, don't hesitate to tell me and their name will be added to this list.

Please tell me any bugs you notice, and I am also looking for people to help me with certain respects of the mod that I can no longer do myself.  Like skinning.  I need more variety with the skins.  There are other things that need done, and if you tell me something you want to do, I can accommodate.

http://www.mediafire.com/?3jmrtajogfnq6r1
SWBFGamers: http://www.swbfgamers.com/index.php?action=downloads;sa=view;down=1045

Does anyone have any suggestions for random hard drive crashes?  I get a Blue Screen of Death after a random freeze (really completely random, no pattern)    I know it is my hard drive because after it crashes, my Hard Drive no longer registers to my computer (well, it kind of does.  In BIOS settings it "exists" and has it's name and everything.  When it loads, it states "No Hard Drive found, Please insert boot disk."

If I wait before turning my comp back on, it is usually fine.  But it crashes at the most inopportune times.  I am happy though that I have been printing off school papers beforehand so I'm not too worried about the waiting part.  I imaged my hard drive after this happened the first time.  I have also concluded that this is not caused by a virus because all my data still exists and I ran virus scanners and they all turned out good, and this is not a consistent problem yet.

Toshiba C655 laptop
Windows 7 Home
500 GB HDD
4 GB RAM (I also use a flash drive to get 4 more GB out of it)
Bought in 2010

Any suggestions?  Just get a new hard drive?  Special tricks that I don't know about even after ripping the darn thing apart last month (no loose cords or wires)?  New computer (it's 3 years old... but that is forever in computer years)?  I hate to dish out that kind of money but I'm a college student who kind of needs his laptop to write papers at least.   

I have also considered just taking a portable jump drive or external HDD and keeping that in a safe place and uploading an operating system on it, and when my HD dies I can still do the essentials (the bare essentials, like check my email).  I can probably partition off some of my external hard drive and dedicate it to my copy of Windows 98 that I have somewhere.

Watch the log trap from the Endor assets at work in this video!  You can see this trap on Endor if you ever watched the demo video by GamertagTowellie.

Note: it is unlisted right now so you have to use this link.

Another note:  This video was made due to the fact I have never seen anyone actually use this in BF.  If anyone has other than the demos, please show me.  Thanks!

JAWA DROID WARS!

http://www.swbfgamers.com/index.php?action=downloads;sa=view;down=987

Can anyone make a mouse droid (like from the Death Star) that will work with the "droid" odf class?  (I say that specifically because my original idea is gone because of the incompatibility with the "human" msh files.  If anyone can enlighten me as to why or how to fix, please say so.)

But on failure of my original objective, I had another idea.  I will be using it in a later mod, whoever makes it will obviously get credit.

Thanks!

I have a question(s) about water for a level I'm doing:
Is there an .odf command for one unit to make the unit stay undamaged in water?  I know that there are commands for droideka to take a lot of damage (but I tried them and even tried without "upright" and such).  No, I don't want to use an AddHealth or Effect region if possible.
Also, is there any weapon that can fire underwater?  I know if the flamethrower glitches just right you can, but I don't know about melee weapons.

I have tried removing the jetpack from some skins for my next mod, but whenever I change the texture to alpha and hex edit after ATRB to:
04 00 00 00 04 00 00 00
All I get is black.  Is there a special way to remove them or did I miss something when I was doing this?  I know I'm on the right texture because I moved the 04 over and it made the jetpack shiny.  And just picking a different skin is out of the question at the moment.

I couldn't find a tutorial or any posts related to this... this has been a "silent" problem that kept me from going cross era with mods.  Please tell me if anyone else has already done this.

Ever want to cross your soldiers and weapons across an era?  Really?  An annoying thing that comes along with this is the silence of soldiers and weapons.  Well, the answer lies in the sound files.
 
You see, each side has its own specific sounds assigned to it in the sound files.  In the example I'm going to use, "sound\\bes.lvl;bes2gcw" contains the Imperial and Rebel sounds that the odfs call on.  For example, in the imp_weap_inf_rifle.odf, there are lines like this:
//******************************************************
//*************** SOUND ****************
//******************************************************

FireSound        = "imp_weap_inf_rifle_fire"
ReloadSound      = "imp_weap_inf_reload_med"
ChangeModeSound = "imp_weap_inf_equip_med"
FireEmptySound = "com_weap_inf_ammo_empty"
WeaponChangeSound = "imp_weap_inf_equip_med"

If you were to change FireSound to "rep_weap_inf_rifle_fire" (the Republic equivalent), you would hear nothing and be greatly disappointed, as the Republic weaponry sounds are contained in "sound\\bes.lvl;bes2cw".  Maybe the example will make it more clear.

1.) Go to your mission.lvl builder and pick a lua that you wish to edit.  I'm going to bes2a.lua (The GCW version of Cloud City)
2.) Open it up, you will see a line that says:
ReadDataFile("sound\\bes.lvl;bes2gcw");
3.) Add this line to it:
ReadDataFile("sound\\bes.lvl;bes2cw");
4.) Now to test it, pick a side and add these lines to the lua.  I picked a Clone Trooper to add to the Empire (will work with separate teams):
    ReadDataFile("SIDE\\rep.lvl",
        "rep_inf_basic");
        SetTeamName(IMP, "Empire")
        SetTeamIcon(IMP, "imp_icon")
    AddUnitClass(IMP, "imp_inf_storm_trooper",11)
    AddUnitClass(IMP, "imp_inf_shock_trooper",3)
    AddUnitClass(IMP, "imp_inf_scout_trooper",4)
    AddUnitClass(IMP, "rep_inf_clone_trooper",5)

YaY!  You can hear him and everything.  (EMP Grenade?  Not quite sure what's up with it )  His guns and voice come through though.

I found this out making my newest mod (I had an Imp rifle noise already used, and I wanted a Rep pistol noise for another weapon).  By adding that one line to the lua and changing the odf, I can now hear the Republic and CIS noises. 
I also found out that the sound for the wrist blaster is linked to the sbdroid animation and CW sounds, so you need to have that line to hear it at all ingame.  Changing the odf to another fire sound doesn't work.

Kashyyyk: Docks -- Recovery

http://www.swbfgamers.com/index.php?action=downloads;sa=view;down=915

Mediafire link: http://www.mediafire.com/?55f59f9b0u0tj3z

I'm having an issue with my level... it's very odd.
    ReadDataFile("SIDE\\wok.lvl",
        "wok_inf_basic");

--  Local Stats
    SetTeamName(3, "locals")
    SetTeamIcon(3, "all_icon")
    AddUnitClass(3, "wok_inf_warrior", 3)
    AddUnitClass(3, "wok_inf_mechanic", 5)
    AddUnitClass(3, "wok_inf_rocketeer", 3)
    SetUnitCount(3, 11)
    SetTeamAsEnemy(3,ATT)
    SetTeamAsFriend(3,DEF)

This is just a small excerpt from my whole script.  When I spawn as a Friend, no Wookiees spawn.  When I spawn as the Enemy, 3 Wookiees spawn every time. 
Does the amount of reinforcements on the ally team have an impact on whether locals spawn?  Friendly has 1 reinforcement point in the match.  Its the only thing I can think of for this problem.  I'm going to see what happens when I remove the SetTeamAsFriend and create separate cps for them.

Dark_Phantom's Imp.lvl

http://www.swbfgamers.com/index.php?action=downloads;sa=view;down=897

Imp.lvl by Dark_Phantom

QuoteThis is a modified Imp.lvl that has been in the process since I started modding.  Pretty much just had fun messing with stuff (and I still do to this day) and I realized "Wow, I've messed with every standard trooper in here.  Someone else could have fun just using this too."  Nothing in here is perfect, so sorry if you wanted perfection.

For exact details, read the readme.

Has anyone tried putting two maps together in one (like both Bespins in one) or experimented with it?  I can't seem to find any references to anything like it on here, and if nobody has, I would try.
If anyone wants to see any specific maps put together, just say so.

I have been trying to make native side mods (my favorite is Ewoks).  I have made this work on Endor without much trouble as everything is pretty much clear-cut, just some Ewok odf edits and simple mission.lvl changes.  Moving past Endor though, there have been some hitches in it.

All: Don't know how to localize spawn screen names.  0001af085xx whatever.  Also have problems with skinning.  Only 2 stock skins.  I'm just not good at it    And Ewoks only make noises on Endor.

Cloud City: [NULL] is team name and AI name.  Tried adding "local" add-in like on levels with local teams but I still get [NULL].

Kashyyyk Docks:  Did successfully localize to an extent by changing "Wookiees" team name to "Ewoks" because it really has no effect unless i did Ewoks vs Wookiees, but it's Ewoks vs Rebs with Wookiees. I would like to keep the Wookiees but I don't think that's possible without "Ewok killed %name%" when a Wookiee kills someone.

Hoth: Can't believe it actually worked but did some req editing and added in like half of the imp odf files (Ewoks vs Rebs). Problem: still says Empire when I edit everything in hoth.lua. Only level that this happens with (cps are green instead of typical yellow).

I don't know if anyone could help with these problems but anything would be appreciated. Thanks!

I was interested to see if anyone knew how to make a health recharge (like on BF2 with the Bothan Spy giving health) on BF1.  I've messed around with the "powerup" weapon held by pilots, but no luck.  Maybe combining the health droid with it? I'm not quite sure.  I would look at the BF2 Tools but seeing I can't get them right now I'll have to ask here
Thanks!

Hello all.
I think this is where I'm supposed to put this...
I'm an average (at best) modder. I learned how to do some basic Hex Editing and that's pretty much the extent of any useful modding if I could ever host a server on dialup, but I do it for fun for myself though. I've never really worked with the 1.2 Mod Tools that much until recently. I decided to try using them.  I used them on 1.2, they work obviously.  But on 1.0 it is very... curious.  I used the Common.lvl builder, noting that because of the differences it probably would not work.  Start the game... nothing happens out of the ordinary. 
I tried the Mission.lvl builder, thinking that it may work because they are almost (if not exactly) the same. Knowing that the mission.lvl did work in 1.2, I wanted to try in 1.0. When I place my munged mission.lvl in my folder and just replace it, it's exactly the same as before I used the builder.  So I copied both files back in, checked my custom one (named mission(2)), and then deleted my original.  I closed and reopened my mission file and it was good.  I go ingame... same as before.  I then renamed my custom and checked it... and it went back to the original.  I have also done this with the Side builder.
In the past I've tried to copy my Hex Edited bes2.lvl to my laptop because it was a pain to get it how I liked it, and it reverted to original ingame also.
I know how to Hex Edit to do some of the stuff these builders can do with it, and it will stay intact when I do that on 1.0, but I'm trying to help some of my (few) fellow modders on 1.0, and this would make it much easier if this could be figured out.  So "Just use 1.2" is not an option.
Thanks!