Package Mod As Game Type/Mode?

[Ride]

Hello Successful Modders

Please help us play your mods by packaging them as a multiplayer game type/mode like HW Classic Mod was done. This way players can have multiple mods installed and select in gamespy which one they want to host with. Also this prevents the mods from interfering with each other.

At the very least please package mods in .big file format.

I remember seeing a thread in here that explained how to package mods into .big file format. From there I think you only have to change the file extension and install it to a different directory to make it a multiplyer game type/mode.

You guys have made some great mods but it is a bitch to use them since they do not take advantage of the "game type/mode" and .big file format the HW2 uses.

Please, please, PLEASE package your mods.


Thanks


--Ride

[varis]

I very much agree about the .big: any mod that is supposed to be playtested should be available as a .big archive.

However packaging as a game type involves some issues. I briefly tried to get my mod work as a .grm1 package, but no go. Also if you load a mod as a .big, then you can use the game type selection menus to play another game type. For example SSM seems to work with HW2 classic game rules mod, at least with some settings. (Wonder what happens if you play capture the mothership as a goal... since it's not one of the Vaygr and Higgy units, but the station...)

I think the decision depends on which kind of a mod is in question, and what kind of flexibility we want.

[Dpath2100]

Packaging as game types could result in not being able to use a mod in SP. PDS v4.5, for example, just begs to be played in SP.

[typo91]

packaging the mods in game type will cause OUT OF SYNC errors when switching to normal games after playing a mod game...

You have to re run HW2 anyway, to switch back... here is why

In the game mode, if a lets say the Vaygr carrier has 3 factilty points on it, like in HW2 Classic, it still goes into your computer's RAM as "vgr_carrier.ship" and "vgr_carrier.hod", now when you switch back to normal mode, your RAM reports to the game "vgr_carrier.*" is already loaded, and does not need to be reloaded, however, the one in memory is still the mod... and the very FIRST second when you enter a normal game, you get "OUT OF SYNC" be cause your computer thinks your carrier has 3 open slots, and everyone elses computer is dissagreeing with your computer, because they have a 2 differnt files loaded into RAM, from the original game.

And thus you need to RErun homeworld2 to go back to normal anyway.

Some of you with less then 1gb of ram, probably havn't noticed this bug, cause you dont have enough ram to hold the exploded version of the homeworld2.big file while playing the game, and your exploded version is in your SWAP file, and when your game gets out of SYNC you probaby just chalk it out to something else, when in fact it was whats in memory or Virtural memory that set you up for failure.

Bottem line, you can do more with .big mods and make them more OFFICAL looking.

[Mikail]

Only package gametype mods as "gametype mods".

[Ride]

Hello Modders

From the poll it seems that people would prefer the mods be packaged in the .big file format. Are you planning to package your mods this way?

--Ride