New Units

Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2012 9:47 am

My new units. Just to show I am not just talk.

Yep, new unit type, elite infantry. Since SAS are OP, I think other factions should get simliar units. All elite infantry have camo to distinguish them (As seen in some pictures).

I would aprreciate any comments/criticisms or any future reskin ideas. I am currently working on the SS, which will have black uniforms and SS tanks will be darker. I am not sure about the German elite infantry. I was thinking stormtroopers, but I don't think they are as elite as SS troops. Any ideas for a German elite unit?

Also each faction is missing one unit (Like Japan missing the heavy tank). Russia will miss heavy airborne troops, Germany has no marines, GBR?

Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 7:08 am

In the first place congratulations, the mod that you are creating seems to have a great quality, I am sure about this.

Regarding the elite German units. In my opinion the SS troops and Stormtroopers are a very good idea, maybe you can considerer other option as Branderburg Regiments (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburgers) or maybe some kind of update to Germans Paratroops that also was used as elite troops in many scenarios as for example Italy or France.

Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 9:48 pm

they're certainly bright and colorful! I would suggest that you tone down the colors a bit.. maybe have a distinctive armband or helmet marking. but to have the elite units in scorching hot red or bright baby blue seems like overkill. I know they're supposed to stand out-- but this is going to make them a lightning rod for special ops. Razz

I agree that the SAS Regiments are "broken" and that a good counter should exist for every other nation during the infantry stage.

also, is there any way to create invisible layers. I've noticed that for each new unit the color-band identifiers don't work. (they only show up as black). so I have to keep the banner background color close by to ID friend from foe.

I've got a -very- crude Panzer V (aka "Panther") based on the Russian T34 model in the works... but it's difficult getting it to look "right". some folks have used a re-skinned Tiger to stand in for the "Panther" and it doesn't quite convince me. it's too large. since the Germans seriously considered copying the T34 out-right for the Panzer Mk.V using the same .nif model seems logical.

Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 9:54 pm

my biggest challenge to adding new units is to find something that sets them apart. (in terms of abilities, health, or defense value)

Gurkhas, for instance: I gave them weaker rifle attacks than regular infantry units. in exchange I gave them more powerful grenade attacks, which can be launched at faster rates. I gave them an extremely powerful bayonet based attack that allows them to one-shot = one-kill all but the most eliete infantry unit inside of melee range. they are, however, no better than conscripts at longer ranges. sure, not entirely historical-- but I had to think of something.

Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2012 8:48 am

To make armbands for faction color you need to add and alpha channel and then completely erase a the portion on the arm until it is transparent (I use gimp2.0) also, Spetnaz was not formed until 1949 or something like that after the war, in ww2 soviet special forces were NKVD and Naval Infantry (kind of like marines, but carried out more airborne operations than the actual soviet paratrooper divisions)

Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2012 11:24 am

CptKramer wrote:

To make armbands for faction color you need to add and alpha channel and then completely erase a the portion on the arm until it is transparent (I use gimp2.0) also, Spetnaz was not formed until 1949 or something like that after the war, in ww2 soviet special forces were NKVD and Naval Infantry (kind of like marines, but carried out more airborne operations than the actual soviet paratrooper divisions)

Thanks for the skinning tip. Spetsnaz just means special forces, so techinically they did exist during the war, just not with the name.

Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2012 6:18 pm

Finished with the SS units and mine types (4 total). The mines have full build animations and primarily affect one type of unit - ex. anti-tank mines do uber damage to tanks, but not so much to other units. They are also disabled for a few seconds). Also the icons. I have also begun adding new banner icons (the icons above the units, like the SS skull in a couple of the pictures)

Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2012 3:06 pm

The SS units seem very good. The A&A players will enjoy with this mod. Also the mines could give to A&A a more realistic situation. Have you thought to create a news bunkers? Well, I know that many players can think that these buildings are not useful, but it could be interesting.

Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2012 7:10 pm

VKleist wrote:

The SS units seem very good. The A&A players will enjoy with this mod. Also the mines could give to A&A a more realistic situation. Have you thought to create a news bunkers? Well, I know that many players can think that these buildings are not useful, but it could be interesting.

Yes, I plan on making defensive buildings much more useful. Bunkers should be able to shred infantry in no time, artillery should make vehicles shiver with fear. AA bunkers I think are fine, maybe increase the range a little, but that's all.

As for new defensive buildings, I added flame bunkers to Britain and will add chem bunkers to Japan (and Italy, which I plan on adding). I may add incendiary mines to either USA

or Brits (opinions?), but I don't know how realistic that will be. Don' know about Russia. I plan on experimenting with the bunkers that are not buildable, as seen in the normady mission and the special Japanese bunkers in various mission, and see if I can enable them just I did with the mines. I am particulary proud on the mines, as they work great. Only things I don't like is that after they explode, the player gets some money back and the enchantment affects anyone who happens by (I was hoping anti-tank mines would disbale tanks only, for instance), but instead they affect any enemy unit. Still they have full build animations, now friendlies have to go around them, have icons, and are virtually invisble to the ai (though not mp enemies). Plus, since I added them, they can be upgraded.

Posted: Wed Feb 22, 2012 7:59 pm

I have a question! Bit noob I know, but how do you make new units?

Also, for gameplay, the units are fine and look detailed!
Historically though the units wouldn't be bright colours....
that's my 5 cents.

Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2012 7:49 pm

I'm trying to make a British Cruiser Tank, but im not sure how. Also im making a vickers light tank using the t-70

Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2012 12:48 pm

I tried making a Crusader tank, but that was a bit too difficult.

however, modifying the Russian KV1 makes for a sorta passable Valentine.

I also struck on a fun idea a little while ago. take the artillery trailer and reverse the orientation of the trailer. rotate it down so that it's in a firing position. then you can modifiy the artillery half-track model to make a portable infantry field gun. unfortunately,the Japanese and Russian trailer models don't really allow for this method to work-- but by reskinning the Brit, German, or American guns you could get a similar result.

I was thinking about my "Artillery Barrage" special op and thought: "what about games where the player will never have access to arty mechs or tanks?" most of the artillery during the war wasn't self-propelled anyways.

it also makes for a nice "Heavy Anti-Tank Regiment". substitute one of the trailing infantry units with a mobile artillery trailer and it works out pretty well. most artillery pieces would have been capable of moving from one place to another anyways.

Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2012 1:11 pm

since bunkers don't gain experience points... and can't be moved for a flexible defense, a mobile field artillery regiment seemed like a logical next step. I just copied the Mortar Regiment and replaced the mortars with the new field-gun unit.

the artillery trailers have a very low speed (0.5 - 1) so can't be used for big offensives. with their low stats they're vulnerable to enemy counter-attacks... but even so, entrenching one of these regiments near choke points for defending your base has worked well thus far. especially if you hide them behind bunkers and combine them with AT infantry or mechs to stun enemy units while you rain shells on their position.

since they'll rout before getting wiped out-- they work decently for holding cities. entrench them in the middle of narrow city streets and bombard enemy vehicles as they pass through or make an attack.

also tried out an alternate version with four field guns and four regular infantry. it's for those situations when you need a LOT of firepower summoned quickly to one spot. (read, you're being swarmed by enemy armor and there's nothing else that you can do to counter it).

Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2012 2:44 pm

Gizmotron wrote:

I tried making a Crusader tank, but that was a bit too difficult.

however, modifying the Russian KV1 makes for a sorta passable Valentine.

I also struck on a fun idea a little while ago. take the artillery trailer and reverse the orientation of the trailer. rotate it down so that it's in a firing position. then you can modifiy the artillery half-track model to make a portable infantry field gun. unfortunately,the Japanese and Russian trailer models don't really allow for this method to work-- but by reskinning the Brit, German, or American guns you could get a similar result.

I was thinking about my "Artillery Barrage" special op and thought: "what about games where the player will never have access to arty mechs or tanks?" most of the artillery during the war wasn't self-propelled anyways.

it also makes for a nice "Heavy Anti-Tank Regiment". substitute one of the trailing infantry units with a mobile artillery trailer and it works out pretty well. most artillery pieces would have been capable of moving from one place to another anyways.

Can you post a couple of pics? I am not sure what your result would be.

Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2012 11:53 pm

to do the Crusader any justice I would have to create a new model from scratch-- and I'm not ready for that. fortunately with the Valentine, it's turret is so similar to the Russian KV1 that if I plant that turret on a British tank chassis it looks decent enough. have yet to test out the new experimental tanks in game-play.

as for posting pics of the artillery trailers in action-- THAT should be simple enough-- can do that later this weekend.

Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2012 11:57 am

well drats, sad that the crusader is not in the game, but I do remember seeing one i something that looks a a beta version.(on the left side)

Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2012 8:30 pm

most of this is pretty primitive-- but I'll try to clean them up later and make them look better in the future.

I should point out that the German Field Artillery Regiment does NOT have an American field gun in it-- that was just to show that these are the two trailers I've converted to being useful at a regimental level. that specific location is "null" in the regiment. with four field guns packing so much firepower I decided to leave that spot empty. the infantry are of the "recon" type... which means they're not good for fighting. they're mostly meant to act as spotters for the guns: hence the big black stripe on the helment.

Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2012 3:11 pm

Nice. Can you send me the valentine files? I've done my own panther by just narrowing the king tiger body.

Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2012 8:06 pm

come to think of it... I should probably work on a death-model first. tried it out the other day and everytime a unit gets destroyed it turns into a giant red cube! hopefully by the end of the week.

Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2012 8:07 pm

Gizmotron wrote:

most of this is pretty primitive-- but I'll try to clean them up later and make them look better in the future.

I should point out that the German Field Artillery Regiment does NOT have an American field gun in it-- that was just to show that these are the two trailers I've converted to being useful at a regimental level. that specific location is "null" in the regiment. with four field guns packing so much firepower I decided to leave that spot empty. the infantry are of the "recon" type... which means they're not good for fighting. they're mostly meant to act as spotters for the guns: hence the big black stripe on the helment.

These units are very impressive. I assume that it was done in nifscope. If so could you give a brief explanation if how you did this. I was experimenting, but I could not get results like this.

Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2012 10:11 pm

the easiest one was the Sturmpanzer IV Assault Gun. I selected the barrel shape and then right-clicked. then I selected the "Transform" drop-down menu. then I selected the Scale Vertices and cut the length of the barrel by about 60 percent.

for the Field Guns I did the same thing, I selected the body of the gun.
right click
Transform
Edit
Rotation (set on Euler) and then typed in 180 in the R-category)

you have to do this for both the body and barrel of the gun.

once that's done you have to alter the values in the "Translation" menu until everything looks more or less normal.

variants of these first two procedures are how I made the Panther. I had to manually move the turret back using the Tanslation menu under "Edit".
had to make the gun barrel longer. some other stuff like that.

the Valentine was the hardest because I grafted the KV1 turret onto the body of a Panzer IV command tank... and I'm still a bit fuzzy as to how I pulled that off. my results have been very inconsistent. for example: when I tried grafting the turret of a Churchill onto the body of the Panzer IV (to make a Comet Cruiser) the result failed. the new grafted turret is neon green... so I've still got some things to iron out. gonna read some Nifskope tutorials later this month and see if I can make something better.

(having just looked at some of the new in-game models for the "Over Flanders Fields" CFS3 mod everything in A&A looks pretty weak... but it's still a really fun game)

Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2012 2:30 pm

Gizmotron wrote:

the easiest one was the Sturmpanzer IV Assault Gun. I selected the barrel shape and then right-clicked. then I selected the "Transform" drop-down menu. then I selected the Scale Vertices and cut the length of the barrel by about 60 percent.

for the Field Guns I did the same thing, I selected the body of the gun.
right click
Transform
Edit
Rotation (set on Euler) and then typed in 180 in the R-category)

you have to do this for both the body and barrel of the gun.

once that's done you have to alter the values in the "Translation" menu until everything looks more or less normal.

variants of these first two procedures are how I made the Panther. I had to manually move the turret back using the Tanslation menu under "Edit".
had to make the gun barrel longer. some other stuff like that.

the Valentine was the hardest because I grafted the KV1 turret onto the body of a Panzer IV command tank... and I'm still a bit fuzzy as to how I pulled that off. my results have been very inconsistent. for example: when I tried grafting the turret of a Churchill onto the body of the Panzer IV (to make a Comet Cruiser) the result failed. the new grafted turret is neon green... so I've still got some things to iron out. gonna read some Nifskope tutorials later this month and see if I can make something better.

(having just looked at some of the new in-game models for the "Over Flanders Fields" CFS3 mod everything in A&A looks pretty weak... but it's still a really fun game)

Have you moved the skin file for both the tank and the turret into the same file. I've tried it before.

Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2012 9:15 pm

Dang how in the world are u guys making this happen using?

Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2012 8:56 am

Planetshakers wrote:

Dang how in the world are u guys making this happen using?

nifscope. Its free to download.

Skins using photoshop or something similiar.

Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2012 5:47 pm

Guys im make right now a porte anti tank halftrack, the truck still fires foward not backwards, any ideas?