A noob's questions & stumbling blocks.

Hey - This post is likely to see some edits as I learn more. I'm not sure what the best way to go about finding what I need to find, so I'm just going to describe the capabilities/things I want to do & my understanding of how to do it (if I have one). I want to do more than a balance/tweak of the current game. It seems to me I will have to write the armies from the ground up (borrowing where I can of course).



So, without further ado, noob questions are go:

Damage/health model: Where would I go to make big changes? More than say editing weapon DPS or model health? Say I want to come up with a new system for tanks based on deflections & overmatch of enemy weapon (EX, say a sherman is guarenteed 3 defelctions vs an equivalent tank like a P4 but a tiger with it's 88 would count as two deflections per shot.) Or if I wanted to have shields & HP separate VS doing funky HP math.

Writing essentially new armies: I've begun to dabble in creating grouppaks based on cloning stuff from existing armies. Without doubt I need to spend more time learning here. But things I have't found on the forums include editing tech trees entirely. I feel like I'm missing a bit of understanding going from the examples & guides to getting a 'new army with new units & weapons'

Unit models & animations: This is a stretch goal. What kind of capabilities do we have in this regard?

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I have more reading to do. I'll be posting my stumbling blocks here, please comment if you have advice! Sometimes all I need is a bit of conversation to make something click.

I think SCAR (SCripting At Relic) coding will be what you need to do anything really significantly different like that in gameplay. Past that, I can tell you no more for that is basically all I know about SCAR myself.

Damage/health model: Where would I go to make big changes? More than say editing weapon DPS or model health? Say I want to come up with a new system for tanks based on deflections & overmatch of enemy weapon (EX, say a sherman is guarenteed 3 defelctions vs an equivalent tank like a P4 but a tiger with it's 88 would count as two deflections per shot.) Or if I wanted to have shields & HP separate VS doing funky HP math.

I don't know a lot about SCAR either, but I can tell you that what you are planning is most likely impossible with the Attribute Editor. You should have a look at the SCAR documentation: http://fortresseuropemod.com/scardoc/

Writing essentially new armies: I've begun to dabble in creating grouppaks based on cloning stuff from existing armies. Without doubt I need to spend more time learning here. But things I have't found on the forums include editing tech trees entirely. I feel like I'm missing a bit of understanding going from the examples & guides to getting a 'new army with new units & weapons'

The only possibility is cloning one of the existing armies, replacing its base buildings with custom buildings producing custom units. You should start in the AE's 'army' category!

Unit models & animations: This is a stretch goal. What kind of capabilities do we have in this regard?

None, sadly.

Thanks Planet Smasher & Vuther!

I don't know a lot about SCAR either, but I can tell you that what you are planning is most likely impossible with the Attribute Editor. You should have a look at the SCAR documentation: http://fortresseuropemod.com/scardoc/

This seems really cool, and scripting is right down my alley.

Do you have any information about where to find:
- The scar scripts that the attribute editor references (e.g., UKF medic auto-heal references the AE_heal scar function. Through a lucky guess, I discovered that the script acts as a proxy to call the medic heal ability)
- a step-by-step guide about how to create a new scar script and add it to a tuning mod?

Assuming I get to grips with scar, do you think it will be possible to implement some of the following:
- Force a particular <hardpoint> (e.g., Churchill cannon) to attack a specific squad
- Force a particular entity or weapon type (e.g., schrecks) to only auto-fire vs vehicles (i.e., handheld AT prioritisation)

It just didn't register to me that LUA scripting was an option to augment gameplay, in the first place.

As far as I know, the only help Relic provides is their "Essence Engine Wiki", which has about one or two dozen pages in total:
http://modding.companyofheroes.com/

I can't code in Lua, so I haven't worked with SCAR at all yet. If someone can help you with that, it would probably be eliw00d or Contrivance!

Is it possible to adjust the max view height for the camera? Is this a performance or stability limitation? I'd like to add some length to the combat in CoH2 but I don't want to make it hard to see a unit & what it is shooting at without moving your view.

Is it possible to adjust the max view height for the camera? Is this a performance or stability limitation? I'd like to add some length to the combat in CoH2 but I don't want to make it hard to see a unit & what it is shooting at without moving your view.

This is definitely possible, Janne252 made a mod called CheatCommands which adds gamemodes in custom games with testing options and allows the camera to zoom out much farther.

...still can't tell ya how, don't know that.