Multiple Enemy Carriers

[azrapse 10]

I'm pretty sure that only one island gets loaded at a time was to get it to fit on an xbox 360 :(

It absolutely sank without trace on that platform, maybe the devs have a PC codebase from an earlier build that would allow full-archipelago interaction suitable for multiplayer that we could use.

Are you sure the limitation is because of that? It could be, but it also makes the game simpler to make, I guess.

I still believe the game shouldn't be too hard to modify (having access to the networking code, of course) to allow for full archipelago multiplayer, even counting with the limitations of a console (by the way, there are chunks in the code pointing at definitions to make it compile for DirectX, X360, PS3 and OpenGL. I guess if the game would have been successful they would have released it for PS3 and Mac/Linux... Sad it didn't happen).

It could be done like this:

• Every client (human player computer that connect to the game server/host) keeps two chunks of data.
  
  • The position of every carrier in the strategic map and the name of the island each carrier is at. (This is already being kept in memory in the current version of the game)
    
  • The whole island map where the local player's carrier is at. (Like it is being done right now).
    

  [*] While two carriers are in different islands, they only keep in sych (through the network) their strategic position and vector. The local client doesn't need to know anything about what is happening in the other islands other that the ownership of them and if they must blink because they are under attack.

  [*] When two (or more) carriers are in the same island, then they need to keep in sych the position and vector of all units in the local island, like in a simple Deathmatch or Capture the Command Center multiplayer map.

In this way, only one island is loaded at a time per game client. The problem would be that there is not a single "server" keeping track of all data in the game, but there is a delegation of responsibility to the clients. It would certainly be interesting to implement. :)

However it still leaves us with the problem of what we do with Timewarp. It would need to be replaced with something else, like carriers travelling faster while in open sea, and production times being shorter.

The only thing that couldn't be done with the current limitation of only-one-loaded-island is the communications pod for the Manta, that would allow it to extend telemetry to another island. I cannot find any workaround for that.

Edited August 14, 2013 by azrapse

[Antares 1]

Hi there, I downloaded your last update. I tried it with the highest tech rate for me and very few islands for them. ( 2 each and a lot of neutrals.) Pretty soon, both sides began to conquer the neutrals first. Green had not a really great chance, because it was surrounded by my islands with only 1 Island neutral that it could include into his network, to establish enough resources. (I had more than 12 islands already operating, hehe. ) Red on the other side, had more neutrals in its vicinity. So I crippled first the green, taking his last Island, he conquered the neutral, as I arrived at the green HQ the carrier was not there. So I turned to the red, which meanwhile was trying to conquer one of my defense Island, I arrived before red had success, and the battle between red and me began. You can see where it is going: I sank the red carrier, but the program crashed and I could not finish the game.

Here my last crash report: ------------------------------------

DELL-PC, 13.08 2013 23:57:25

Unhandled exception

Program: D:\win7_giochi\Bohemia Interactive\carrier.exe

Reason: Access violation. Illegal read by b8fcc2fc at b8fcc2fc

SymGetSymFromAddr:126, addr:0xb8fcc2fc

SymGetSymFromAddr:126, addr:0xb8fcc2fc

(Press Retry to debug the application - JIT must be enabled)

Runtime mode

CLI params: mod MultipleEnemies

[azrapse 10]

So you defeated Red but not Green and still got that?

...Weird...

I guess I have to go back to check what it might be.

Thanks a lot, Antares!

[Antares 1]

So you defeated Red but not Green and still got that?

...Weird...

I guess I have to go back to check what it might be.

Thanks a lot, Antares!

Just a wild guess, maybe it has something to do with the autosave, this time. But I am not sure. It would be helpful, if someone else would join, the test team. So we can narrow down the problem faster and the mod becomes more stable for all.

Addendum: I tried again, starting a new game with "restart game" in the strategy game section. The settings are similar like before, and I nailed the red carrier down very quickly, as the red carrier could not repair itself anymore, because I did not cease my fire, it did not retreat and no autosave started, and the scene with the sinking carrier did not start either.

---------- Post added at 01:38 ---------- Previous post was at 00:56 ----------

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

DELL-PC, 13.08 2013 23:57:25

Unhandled exception

Program: D:\win7_giochi\Bohemia Interactive\carrier.exe

Reason: Access violation. Illegal read by b8fcc2fc at b8fcc2fc

SymGetSymFromAddr:126, addr:0xb8fcc2fc

SymGetSymFromAddr:126, addr:0xb8fcc2fc

(Press Retry to debug the application - JIT must be enabled)

Runtime mode

CLI params: mod MultipleEnemies

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

Log C:\Users\DELL\Documents\CarrierCommand\crash.log started at 15.08. 00:30:26

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

DELL-PC, 15.08 2013 00:30:26

Unhandled exception

Program: D:\win7_giochi\Bohemia Interactive\carrier.exe

Reason: Access violation. Illegal read by 589898 at c2e559e9

SymGetSymFromAddr:487, addr:0x00589898

SymGetSymFromAddr:487, addr:0x00589898

(Press Retry to debug the application - JIT must be enabled)

Runtime mode

CLI params: mod MultipleEnemies

Edited August 14, 2013 by Antares
after finishing the game described

[azrapse 10]

Firstly, thanks a lot for your support, Antares. I'm really honored to have such an enthusiastic tester as you are.

Unfortunately I bring bad news, and worse news...

I'm quite clueless. Mainly because those crash messages don't report any script line that might be the cause of the error, but internal engine exceptions with just vague memory references. I don't have the possibility of debugging that because we lack the source to the game, so I will need to try out something different.

My first thought is to try to find out if it is a problem with the animation itself, or with something else. So I will disable the carrier sinking animation when the carrier is destroyed and we will try. If the game keeps crashing, then it's not the animation and we can put it back. If it doesn't, well, then we have to find out why it crashes with Red and not with Green.

The worse news are regarding the further development of this mod. I have been checking the database where the different textures are bound to every player. There are textures defined for Player Neutral, Player1, Player2 and Player3. Player Neutral is for the neutral islands. Player1 is the UEC, and Player 2 and 3 are both APA with same textures bound. I'm not sure why there are two clone APAs, but maybe the game uses that during the Gaea campaign. Who knows.

The fact is that I could rewire Player3 to act as Green for us in the mod. But the idea was to add more than one extra faction, like 5 or 6.

Well, it's not going to be that easy. The database could surely add several more columns for Player4-8, but those won't be read by the game.

I was scanning the carrier.exe program with an editor and I found some discouraging facts.

It seems to read info from the database with plain normal SQL queries (the database itself apparently being some modded kind of Firebird database?), and those queries are hardcoded to read only Player1-3, and no more.

In the same way, I have not found any reference to AutoAim in the script files, however there are several in carrier.exe.

Sadly, much functionality isn't exposed to the scripting system, and we cannot modify it until they make it possible somehow, if that ever happens.

So all of this means that, unless someone comes and points out some obscure part in the scripts that I have overlooked, the autoaim won't work with Green, and I don't see a way to add additional factions.

The game could totally support it, but they hardcoded it to 3 plus neutral, and that's it.

Any suggestions?

[harbinger 1]

You obviously have the coding ability to make something work, but it does seem like CC:GM has run out of possibilities to mod what you, I, and I'm sure many other people wanted it to be.

Here's an idea - write a new game with just absolutely basic AI. Have the same idea, but instead of taking over islands with Carriers and Walruses and Manta's and anything else impinging the IP - have lillypads and send out dragonflies to destroy nasty enemy toads ;)

Or something! This whole game just screams for multiplayer - yet it will never be delivered. Years and years of promise down the crapper.

[azrapse 10]

You obviously have the coding ability to make something work, but it does seem like CC:GM has run out of possibilities to mod what you, I, and I'm sure many other people wanted it to be.

Here's an idea - write a new game with just absolutely basic AI. Have the same idea, but instead of taking over islands with Carriers and Walruses and Manta's and anything else impinging the IP - have lillypads and send out dragonflies to destroy nasty enemy toads ;)

Or something! This whole game just screams for multiplayer - yet it will never be delivered. Years and years of promise down the crapper.

I want to give the devs a vote of confidence. The game seems to have had a long sad life, with a lot of love and effort put on it. The original developers went to bankruptcy while making it, then BIS saving it, finishing it and releasing it with a lot of pomp and it crashing and burning because of glaring bugs.

Many many many other games have had much more success and earned much more money with much less than this game has. If you and me are still here writing mods and browsing through hundreds of lines of code and reverse-engineering pak formats and databases it's because we see the inner potential this brute diamond has.

Today, I believe the only thing that could save this game is for it to get his own "DayZ". And I don't mean zombies, but a mod that reuses the engine for a totally new and attractive concept.

The concept is there already, a seamless realtime X4 strategy game plus first person action vehicle simulation. But the game underdelivers on it. No multiplayer, no researching, no diplomacy and alliances between several factions... Even when the engine would support it.

Quake spawned TeamFortress, that became the most popular multiplayer game in it's time. Half-Life did the same with Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat and TFC. Warcraft3 with DOTA, etc. People kept buying the games for the mods, that had become more popular than the vanilla game.

I understand that CC:GM was made still in the time when everyone believed that PC gaming was dying and the way to go were consoles. The code totally suggest a PS3 release that never happened. And a game that focuses itself so much on consoles won't focus at modding because you cannot easily apply mods to games in a console.

We need more in this game to be scriptable or moddable. I think what Species is doing in Deadly Islands is the maximum that can be done. Dram said that we could mod the game into something totally different, but we cannot really do that with what we have. At most, it's just tweaks to values and cosmetics. We cannot mod the gameplay basics.

Keep the sources for the Enforce3 engine closed. We don't need that and that's the most valuable piece of code. But open up those for the carrier.exe that contain the gameplay logic. We need to access the multiplayer API, the faction limit, the aiming shouldn't be hardcoded to wotk only with player2, etc.

About writing our own game for that.... It would be a lot of work, even if we make it use the CC:GM graphics, sounds and resources (and make it require you to have the original to access those resources). We would need to write the engine even if we use something like Unity3D. It would take years.

Something simpler, maybe. But it would lose the appeal of Carrier Command if it's the strategic Pikmin you have described there. :D

There was one guy developing a Carrier2 game, and he stopped when heard about this game was to be released.

[species1571 64]

I have an idea that might help you with the autoaim problem. When your third carrier is at the same island as the player's carrier, have it swap locations with the second carrier, so that whenever the player is fighting against an enemy, it is always really the APA carrier. Optionally, you could also switch the assignment of enemy islands (player 2 islands become player 3 islands and vice versa) and reverse the two colours just in case the two enemy carriers were on opposite sides of the map.

[azrapse 10]

That is actually quite genious, Species! :) Thanks I will try that.

[species1571 64]

The code for this is pretty much already done in Deadly Islands' role reversal function. My code uses variables from elsewhere in the mod, but it should be fairly straightforward to adapt it to switch two enemies instead of player and enemy.

[Antares 1]

Comment: I do not know if some of you, are in Flight Simulation. Maybe its out of context. But there was a little program, AirEd, which read the flight dynamics of any airplane and decoded the hexaddresses into some valuable information for the user. AirEd was freeware, but deserved a lot of money as support. Modding is a very difficult thing. That´s why I like to help if I can. (I did not made AirEd. I used it a lot. Main programm was Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004.)

Maybe it would be nice to have a "AirEd" for the Carrier.exe. Altough I do not like to tempering with the carrier.exe, copyrights issue aside, it would make the program unstable.

I downloaded the Patches with the SDK, but I never got the programms delivered running. Or I do not know how to use them. I wrote at the beginning that I was sceptic that it would work, I was glad that I was wrong. We should take what we already got and be happy. To complain about things which are not even implemented (multiplayer), is just a waste of time. (no offense intended.)

For me, Multiplayer is not an issue, I would like it, but my internet connection, is slow (surfstick). Therefore, I do not play multiplayer. I would mod the game, if the developers support it, but if they changed their mind, than I continue play it as delivered. Bistudio, made an outstanding Job, and delivered a super game if you compare it with other products (if you find something with the same theme...nowadays). It has problems, yes, show me one game which hasn´t been patched during its release and after. We should give the devs, the benefit of the doubt, and trust them. Modding is a thin line between infringment of copyright and making the game a little better.

And the coded errors, could be a hint, that the developers do not like, under pressure of the sales managment, that the game is moddable. Because modding could mean a loss in sales, if you would ask the sales managment. Well I could add more... but I do not want to bore you to much. I am sure you know that all, too.

[azrapse 10]

Nah, I wouldn't like to have to reverse-engineer a compiled exe and then patch hacks into it. A hack like that is... well... a hack of a job. Any patch would render everything useless. If the devs want us to be able to change the stuff we cannot change, they must provide. If they don't provide, then I am not into that.

However I cannot believe that modding can lead to less sales.

[quiet_man 8]

BI is not known for having issues with moding, with Arma being the most modable engine out there.

As people are just peaking into the code, would it be possible to have more than 4 mantas or walruses per carrier?

[azrapse 10]

If it is not hardcoded in the binary program, it would at least require extra UI controls to display the status and select those extra vehicles. Are you thinking on a variable amount of mantas/walruses? Like having a collection of them of arbitrary size? Or maybe you mean being limited to the 8 vehicle count, but being able to use 6 slots for mantas and two for walruses, for example?

[disorder 1]

I want to give the devs a vote of confidence. The game seems to have had a long sad life, with a lot of love and effort put on it. The original developers went to bankruptcy while making it, then BIS saving it, finishing it and releasing it with a lot of pomp and it crashing and burning because of glaring bugs.

Many many many other games have had much more success and earned much more money with much less than this game has. If you and me are still here writing mods and browsing through hundreds of lines of code and reverse-engineering pak formats and databases it's because we see the inner potential this brute diamond has.

Today, I believe the only thing that could save this game is for it to get his own "DayZ". And I don't mean zombies, but a mod that reuses the engine for a totally new and attractive concept.

The concept is there already, a seamless realtime X4 strategy game plus first person action vehicle simulation. But the game underdelivers on it. No multiplayer, no researching, no diplomacy and alliances between several factions... Even when the engine would support it.

Quake spawned TeamFortress, that became the most popular multiplayer game in it's time. Half-Life did the same with Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat and TFC. Warcraft3 with DOTA, etc. People kept buying the games for the mods, that had become more popular than the vanilla game.

I understand that CC:GM was made still in the time when everyone believed that PC gaming was dying and the way to go were consoles. The code totally suggest a PS3 release that never happened. And a game that focuses itself so much on consoles won't focus at modding because you cannot easily apply mods to games in a console.

We need more in this game to be scriptable or moddable. I think what Species is doing in Deadly Islands is the maximum that can be done. Dram said that we could mod the game into something totally different, but we cannot really do that with what we have. At most, it's just tweaks to values and cosmetics. We cannot mod the gameplay basics.

Keep the sources for the Enforce3 engine closed. We don't need that and that's the most valuable piece of code. But open up those for the carrier.exe that contain the gameplay logic. We need to access the multiplayer API, the faction limit, the aiming shouldn't be hardcoded to wotk only with player2, etc.

About writing our own game for that.... It would be a lot of work, even if we make it use the CC:GM graphics, sounds and resources (and make it require you to have the original to access those resources). We would need to write the engine even if we use something like Unity3D. It would take years.

Something simpler, maybe. But it would lose the appeal of Carrier Command if it's the strategic Pikmin you have described there. :D

There was one guy developing a Carrier2 game, and he stopped when heard about this game was to be released.

It does need a full sequel with multiplayer. Remember when SOTS2 came out and its only now, after a year its anywhere near the devs wanted it to be.

[quiet_man 8]

it was just a generic question, but a concrete idea I was thinking about was to have 8 mantas and 8 walruses using the same number keys to control but with an additional key to switch between mantas and walruses. So you would also switch the UI between 8 mantas and 8 walrusses and then select single vehicles via the according number key.

Edit: of course it would need a larger carrier or some advanced space management ;)

[azrapse 10]

Actually, I don't know.

The game specifically loads 4 mantas and 4 walruses into the carrier (and it calls them "assets"). I can see that in the code. And what we can see, we can change.

I also can see some UI glue code that relates each of the graphical unit buttons with their corresponding unit.

I guess we could modify the amount of mantas and walruses loaded, and add new buttons for them and wire them to their units. I actually have not touched anything with the UI so I don't know if that is moddable or is also hardcoded.

Unless we totally rework the model and animations of the carrier to graphically accommodate 8 walruses and 8 mantas, we would need to reuse every "physical" docking slot for two vehicles, and they would glitch into each other when both are docked. I would look bad, but the alternative, editing the models and animations, is a huge amount of work.

All of this is in theory, as always. You never know when you are going to find a sudden hardcoded roadblock that renders everything impossible.

[quiet_man 8]

I hope that BI is still working to release a more mod able version