Overlays help

[Mechanis]

so, what precipitated this thread is that I grabbed the T3 rapidfire artillery mod[/url] off the nexus, but I've also always been annoyed at Shields.

so I have two problems: first, a static artillery piece that lacks a range overlay, which makes positioning it properly... difficult to say the least. this one's probably the easiest fix, but it's been nearly a damn decade since I touched Supcom modding and most of the reference documentation(Read:tutorials) I used to use when down with the GPG forums. I'm sure it's something stupid like a missing line somewhere or whatever.

the second is a bit more complicated- Shields and Missile Defenses share the 'countermeasures' overlay type, which makes it basically fucking useless to have an overlay on the shield at all since I have to spend extra time and clicks to filter out the ten million TMDS I need because FUCKING SERIPHEM AND THEIR TMLS ON THE EVERYTHING I SWEAR-*Ahem* anyway, my annoyance at my friend's preferred playstyle aside, so I was wondering if there's any way to separate them without inordinate amounts of editing (like, I'm pretty sure I could change 'em to, like, sonar overlays or something since you aren't gonna get a lot of overlap there, but that'd be a huge PITA for something that's more an annoyance.

of course, it's entirely within the realm of possibility that I'm not the first to be so annoyed, so if there's like a UI mod or something that already does this that'd be fine too.

yes, I realize that basically all I ever do in Supcom these days is hand the crappy campaign AI its own ass and play 1v1 on the Clutch with the one friend I have who still plays, but still, it's the principle of the thing!

[Sprouto]

For your first problem, the artillery piece not giving you a range ring;

- you need to add the OVERLAYINDIRECTFIRE category to the blueprint... pretty difficult indeed to use if it's not there.

As for the second problem, you're correct -- it would be quite a bit of editing. Ideally, all the SHIELD STRUCTURES or TMD would have
to be re-categorized to split them. It's not just a matter of changing the OVERLAY category though, since it's also tied to the
weapons' RangeCategory = 'UWRC_Countermeasure',

You need to change that to match the overlay you want to see.

Having said that, when I look at the exising blueprints I see that they are already categorized differently.

TMD are indeed classed as Countermeasure -- but shields are classed as Defense, and already have a different overlay.

On the subject of the crappy campaign AI, I'll assume that you are already using FAF which has the SORIAN AI built in ?

[Mechanis]

FAF for multiplayer, but my stock install was ported from an older computer and has a bunch of mods/dirty edits/things that aren't available anymore in it. the campaign AI's all scripted, so it's kinda pants at beating my slow-moving fortification/artillery creep once I get going. pretty much, if it can't nail me before I hit T2 in full, it becomes merely a matter of time.

I mean, it's sorta hard for a non-human player to deal with someone who's having the Mech Marine problem with Colossi, after all.


mostly because it never uses T3 arty or nukes but eh.

edit: alright, actually did some digging in the files- yeah, Shields have the 'defense' overlay type.

which is... really weird since ingame their overlay behaves the same as TMDs.

which suggests to me that its a UI issue not a code one, and that 'defense' is geting rolled into the countermeasure overlay type before the UI render. and I'll be honest- I have no friggin idea what could be causing that, though it might be one of the (MANY) mods I run hooking the generators somewhere, a situation that would put the problem firmly into 'too much work compared to annoyance level' since that would mean sorting through every single mod I have installed and yeah. waaaaaaay too much work.

[Mechanis]

sweet god the wiki is slow.

I know it can't be the traffic, how many people even need to look at it regularly these days? took nearly ten minutes to load the Blueprints reference page, which I need so I can move the artillery's skirt a bit (Batteryacid, for reasons known only to themself, made the rapidfire arties not 3x3 like Shields but still taking up 3x3 in my firebases because of its skirt offset. this is sorta irritating, since under what circumstance is a T3 structure going to need to play perfectly with T1 defenses?


also, I was poking at some of the unused models and thinking about doing model edits for fancy Siege Shields assuming I can remember how adding visual effects works. the Seriphem admin center model would probably look pretty spiffy with a shield-generator effect centered on its central floaty bit, and the Aeon Temple model (which is quite nice but completely unused lol) is just begging to have a shield and Radiance-style fx at the tip of its spire. not sure what to do UEF wise, but the Cybran network node or mainframe would probably work. eh. anyway, back to laughing manically at my usual "Shut up HannibalGari" antics (Twenty Mavors Mwee Hee Hee. she usually never even gets to finish her first taunt, because 'pause-Controlclick-rightclick'+travel time is usually all it takes lol)

[Mechanis]

for f*** sake.


For future reference, mod-makers, please remember to actually give your weapons a Rangecatagory so overlays show up properly. thank you.


(I spent THREE HOURS of increasing frustration tying to figure out why the damn overlay wouldn't show up before I noticed this)