Octopus Rex
25th Aug 07, 10:34 AM
Rating: Newbie
So, another simple one, but hopefully revealing too. We'll be covering squads and their component parts: entities (not buildings this time, just fighting units). The first section will show you a few simple changes you can make to both the right files, the second section is guide to most of the extensions you will encounter on these files.
Tau Crisis Suit Teams: why on earth do they only have one member if they are team? Heh, as modder we can do something about that. Let's go to work.
Assuming you've set up your mod etc. find the Tau Crisis Suits squads. They are in Squad_blueprint - Squad - Tau_squads. Also, go find the entity file for it, it's entity_blueprint - troop - tau_troop - tau_infantry.
The difference?
Each squads has at least these two files. One relates to the actual individual unit/entity/trooper (an EBPS or EntityBluePrint) and has all in the information specific to it; it contains all the health info, the speed, armour class, weapons that it carries etc. The other is a file for the overall squad (an SBPS or SquadBluePrint) and contains all the information like how many troopers in the squad, how upgrades they can make and squad morale, the kind of stuff that doesn't really apply to one single member of the squad. All fighting units have both of these, the vehicles and heroes do too, they are just a squad of size 1. Go browse them and check if you don't believe me! Remember that a squad may also have extra leaders like the sergeant. These have different stats from the regular troopers and so they must have a different EBPS. Both types are linked within the same SBPS but use different EBPS.
There's absolutely tons of really easy stuff to change in the squads and entity files, so I won't laboriously go over all of it step by step, I'm just going to list briefly go through most (not all) of the things you can change without any real hassle, tell you where they are and what to change for a tasty Crisis Team.
SBPS
squad_loadout_Ext
This has the main squad size info and trooper make up.
unit_max: this is the max squad size - for our Crisis Teams we will want to change this from 1 to 2. Squads of two look groovy and just seem cooler to me than 3, so we're having 2!
unit_min: this is the size which the squad starts at. Set this to 2 (you'll find out why later)
trooper_base - type: The name of the squad doesn't have any effect on which entities make up the squad, this drop box (the "type" one) defines it.
async_ability: This is used in the Guard Command Squad, it allows the Priests/PSkyers to all charge up their spells separately rather than having one cooldown for the whole squad (i.e. you can use strip soul twice really quickly with two psykers). All Tactical Marines have Frag Grenade ability, but because async is not ticked only one of them can throw it before recharging. Leave this alone for Crisis Teams.
Changing the loadout max will not make a squad reinforce, it requires the reinfore extension too. eg wraiths: you need to increase the max and add squad_reinforce_ext if you want to turn them into squads.
squad_cap_ext
Obviously lists the cap prices. Units can cost both.
squad_cap_usage: Otherwise know as infantry cap. Change this to 3
support_cap_usage: Otherwise known as vehicle cap. Change this to 1.
squad_reinforce_ext
can_upgrade: If an entity has extra weapons listed on it it will be able to upgrade, but there may be instances where it has extra weapons but you want those upgraded by a research or addon or something eg Rangers. Leaving this box unticked will mean the weapons no longer appear in the squad box.
cost: here is where you set how much reinforcement costs and how long it takes. This is not the squad cost, only the cost of reinforcement. Reinforce cost cannot be modified in game, but reinforce time can. Currently this is a bit inaccurate for Crisis Teams, so change to something a little more suitable like 180 req, 40 power, 30 second build time.
in_combat_time_multiplier: if you want to them to reinforce slower in combat or not at all then use this at say 0.5 or 0 for not all.
max_upgrades: set this to 2 as we now have two squad members. Obviously you could leave it at one and then only one upgrade would be allowed.
Note about upgrades: in a squad each member can only upgrade once, regardless of the fact that the upgrades are on separate arms. If a unit is on its own (like the Tau Commander) then you can use "complex_upgrades" to allow this kind of function (more on that later). There are ways round this though, eg turn off upgrades and then create researches that upgrade each arm globally and permanently.
SQUAD ICONS - IMPORTANT
Upgradeable squads need several icons. You remember how Tactical Squads little icon changes colour depending on which weapons you upgraded right? Well, those are all separate icons that switch depending on which weapons are present. You have a normal icon, then if it can upgrade you must have a version with the same name plus "__weapon_file_name_here" (yes that's 2 underscores) and also one with "__multi" after it for the purple mixed weapons border. If you don't have all the files you will get the dread pink box at some point or other. So for Crisis Suits we need:
tau_crisis_suit_icon - the normal one
tau_crisis_suit_icon__tau_flamer_crisis_suit - flamer upgrade
tau_crisis_suit_icon__tau_missile_pod_crisis_suit - missile upgrade
tau_crisis_suit_icon__multi - mixed upgrade
http://mods.octopusrex.co.uk/content/squads/crisisteamcon.jpg http://mods.octopusrex.co.uk/content//squads/crisisredicon.jpg http://mods.octopusrex.co.uk/content//squads/crisisgreenicon.jpg http://mods.octopusrex.co.uk/content//squads/crisismultiicon.jpg
Actual weapon upgrade button icons
tau_upgrade_xv8_flamer
tau_upgrade_xv8_missile
http://mods.octopusrex.co.uk/content/squads/crisisflamericon.jpg http://mods.octopusrex.co.uk/content/squads/crisismissileicon.jpg
Obviously if you only have one squad member then you will never get mixed upgrades and never need the multi one. Also, units that have complex_upgrades turned on (Tau Commander, sergeants, vehicles) which allow more than one upgrade per entity will not follow this rule, they only need one icon. If your Icon making skills are lacking then you can simply copy the icon file a few times from the data.sga archive and rename them correctly, this way the icon will look like it never changes. Note: because you the only icon that appears on build lists etc. is the basic one you will never see the upgraded icons disabled, therefore you do not need to make disabled versions of these icons, only of the basic one. ;)
Relic have buggered up the icons for crisis suits. The colour coding is wrong (the missiles don't give a green border like every other anti-building gun) and also they haven't provided a multi-purple border which is understandable. So, because I'm a nice chap, I've made a set of these for you, in keeping with the Tau border colour scheme, rather than copying the Marine borders. I've put all six necessary icons in there (two of which are just copies of the game versions) so you can see what the set looks like. Stick the "ui" folder in to Dark Crusade/yourmod/data/art. Download here. (http://mods.octopusrex.co.uk/content/squads/squad_tutorial.zip) (Note for people unfamiliar with icons - they should be in TGA format, those pics above are in JPG so use the download instead of copying them as they are in the right format and folder tree)
squad_requirement_ext
Here is all kind of requirements. Check out the tutorial on researches for information about this. Requirements are the same across the board really. Here we should change the hard cap (required_squad_cap) to 2 as three squads will be a bit over the top.
EBPS
Now we need to have a look at the entity file and edit some stuff there.
cost_ext
The cost of a squad that you see is made up of the this cost section multiplied by the starting units of the squad, so our Crisis Suits will cost twice whatever's in there and will take twice as long to build as the time listed. Hmm, this will probably be a bit much as the moment to change it to 150 req, 30 power, and 22.5 seconds. This will mean the costs you'll see in game will be 300/60 w/45 sec build time.
health_ext
All kinds of really obvious stuff in here.
hitpoints: as it's a squad of two now I think we should reduce the hitpoints slighly, take them down to 2200.
can_be_repaired: just take a look at crisis suits, of course they can be repaired. HOWEVER: repairing squaded units doesn't work, only the first one will get repaired and never the others (hence why DC 1.0 Broadside were unrepairable). Leave this off.
regeneration_rate: Tau probably have some nifty Nano-techonology going on here, bump it up to 4.
max_repairers: there's a limit to how many builder units can repair something, it helps prevent super quick repairing, especailly in team games.
invulnerable: as used by the Nightbringer.
morale_death: this is the morale damage that the squad suffers when this unit dies, usually it's bigger for sergeants and such.
armour: this affects damage taken but almost all units are at 100, and the ones that aren't are in fact bugged eg Tau Shield Drones - they must not be the last remaining squad member otherwise the game crashes, due to a fatal error, so I presume Relic reduced their armour to 0 to make they sure they died first, (ever noticed that?) instead of simply adding the right extension to prevent the error.
type_ext
type_armour and type_armour_2: each unit can have 2 armour types if it wants. The first is the normal one, but it can be modified to the second one using the "enable_armour_2" modifier. This switches it to armour 2 permanently in the case of a reserach (eg Banshees) or temporarily in the case of an ability (eg Curse of The Machine Spirit before it got changed). You can only have two, so choose wisely. Change our Crisis Suits to vehicle_medium as this make more sense.
type_surface: this is tell weapons which surface hit FX to use.
summon_teleport_destination: this is for when using the Necron teleport system and defines which entities (including buildings) can be targeted.
Save any changes you've made to binary and then go see what happens.
http://mods.octopusrex.co.uk/content/squads/crisisteam.jpg
Note the new armour type, squad size, max upgrades in the UI, new total health (4400) and green border.
****
Other Squad Extensions
squad_cover_ext
In this extension you can change the modifier effects that all the different types of cover has on the squad, but only use to effect squad related things...so basically Morale. Better to use the entity file to alter most cover modifiers.
squad_formation_ext
Making custom formations is pretty easy. You'll notice that Crisis Suits already have their own formation, unlike other one-man squads, this suggest that Relic in fact toyed with them in squads at first. You may need to edit this to give your Suits good separation for pathing.
squad_morale_ext
max: Obvious
broken_modifers: again obvious.
morale_armour: morale damage is multiplied by this, so 0.5 means an attacker only does half morale damage to this squad.
rate_per_second: regen rate
squad_jump_ext
All kinds of stuff to change in here. This has its own requirements section for things like Terminator Teleport Research. The main things you'll want to change in here are the jump_distance_max, charge_regeneration, the charge_jump_cost_max and min and the charge_max (total charge when fully charged up).
charge_starting_fraction: is used for Bonesingers among others to allow less full starting charge.
setup_time: is a contraversial one for units like Terminators who have a really long one.
teleport: tick this to change it from jump to teleport, the icon will change accordingly without you doing anything
teleport_summon: this is the Necron Teleport thingy. Tick it to use that system.
Note: min and max should generally be the same. If they are set to different levels the jump distance create a proportional cost in jump charge, however, it messes up the distance indicatot and it thinks they can jump for miles though it won't actually let them.
Jumps will need a new animation for them if you give them to new units, or they will look really weird. Also, note that all orks have this extension, it is just disabled. The teleportation is enabled by the Mek Boy attaching itself - this is important: to use an extension at all in a game it must be present on the file from the beginning, you may just have to disable it at the beginning using modifers and re-enable it later on. Notice that attaching the Chaos Sorceror to a squad does not enable them to teleport, because they don't have the extension.
SBPS extensions not on Tau Crisis Suits:
squad_leader_ext
This can get fiddely and confuses people a lot with its engine quirks. I'll be doing a tutorial on this extension alone showing you how to get Drones on the Tau Commander without breaking your game.
squad_capture_strategic_point_ext
Most infantry has this extension. It's presence allows capture of points. Note that some extensions have hardly any info on them, it's just that their presence is required and means something. In this extension you can set whether units can capture (most) or can uncapture only (sentinels and wraiths) and the rate at which they capture. Orks have the fastest capture rate, with guard close behind, Necrons being the slowest. The number is a fraction of a base time which is set on each strategic-point-type entity.
squad_transportable_ext
nr_spots: this is the number of slots it will take up when transported. Dreadnoughts take 2 for example.
transport_type: Transporters have a corresponding list of which types they may take onboard. These are chosen from a folder of types. You may need to create new ones for your use by copying and editing a file from the "type_transportable" folder in DataGeneric somewhere. Don't worry it's simple. It is this attribute that means Terminators can only get in the Land Raider and not in Rhinos.
squad_infiltration_Ext
Infiltration is set by squad. It has two bits, requirements which is self explanatory, and the modifiers while concealed where you might want to put such things like slowed movement while infiltrated.
squad_modifier_apply_ext
Use this to make the squad have permanent modifiers out of the box.
Adding extensions
You can these extensions to squad that haven't got them (especially stuff like infiltrate)
-right click on some empty space on the right hand part of the AE
-add reference
-squad_extension
-choose from the drop box
-click autoname
-OK
Edit away.
****
Other Entity Extensions
combat_ext
hardpoints: This contains all the info about which weapons they use, how many weapons they use at once etc and all the upgrades. I'll go into this one in more detail when I do my tutorial on how to implement wargear in three different ways (that one's nearly done).
complex_upgrades: tick this for vehicles and such that have various upgrades on various points. If you have this ticked on an entity that is part of a squad of 2 or more troopers max it is a fatal error and the game will not load - this can only be ticked on units for one man squads.
entity_blueprint_ext
animator: this is the line which points to the model the entities uses. So the full path of links is: A Race has a building list (sort of), Buildings list which Squads can be built, Squads say which entities they are populated by, Entitiessay which models they are using Models.
infiltration_ext
This doesn't give a unit infiltrate it simply defines the transperency/visibility setting if it ever does infiltrate (eg veil_of_darkess affects all units)
moving_ext
speed_max etc. in here is about all you'll need unless you get into modelling.
sight_ext
keen_sight_radius: this is the engine name for detecting infiltrators.
sigh_radius: the normal sight and keen sight are separate and each can be modified indivdually, eg having a research or upgrade that gives to the keen sight radius. You can add to 0 by the way, 0 doesn't mean no keen sight ever, it just means current radius = 0.
special_attack_physics
mass: is the most useful thing in here. the heavier an object is the less vulnerable to knockdown it is. A Baneblade has 90, where as a Pathfinder has 10.
ui_ext
ui_index_hint: The most important thing to note is that the position of a squad on the build menu of a building is actually dictated here on the EBPS - no idea why, it just is!
icon_name: leaders will have their own EBPS but not their own SBPS, so they will need their icon listed here. The hotkey for the squad is on the EBPS too.
use_hero_ui: tick this box and the unit will appear on the left of the screen when built like all the commanders and heros. Note, there's only room for four of them on screen.
Note about UI: you will want to have separate UI for both the entites and squads on any new squads you make, you want the squad stuff to say Devastator Marine Squad but when you hover a man it should say Devstator Marine. Stuff like that.
EBPS extensions not on Crisis Suits:
ability_ext
Dead simple this one, just has a table full of drop boxes into which you put any abilities you want the unit to have.
melee_ext
Units which can melee need this. It contains various charge modifiers (different from Grek Knight charge) and also the information for Kroot Melee leap.
builder_engineer_ext
Has no informatino on it, it merely denotes the entity as a builder.
repair_ext
builders have this and it dictates the speed and cost of their repair. The Mek Boy has it also, even though he is not a builder.
modifier_apply_ext
Use this for the entity to have modifiers out of the box.
special_attack_ext
list all the special attacks of commanders mainly but other units too. The time apart from the attacks is set with a randomised factor to it as well. The attacks all have a percentage chance to occur, all the percentages should add up to 100%, eg 4 special attacks all at 25%, or one at 40%, and thee at 20%.
Adding extensions
Much the same as adding them to squads
-right click on some empty space on the right hand part of the AE
-add reference
-extension (not squad_extension)
-choose from the drop box
-click autoname
-OK
Edit away.
There's a whole host of uncommon extensions that activate many of the new abilites, such as direct_spawn_ext, clone_ext, squad_fear_ext and possesion_ext but those will just take exporing your self I'm afraid!
Enjoy.
So, another simple one, but hopefully revealing too. We'll be covering squads and their component parts: entities (not buildings this time, just fighting units). The first section will show you a few simple changes you can make to both the right files, the second section is guide to most of the extensions you will encounter on these files.
Tau Crisis Suit Teams: why on earth do they only have one member if they are team? Heh, as modder we can do something about that. Let's go to work.
Assuming you've set up your mod etc. find the Tau Crisis Suits squads. They are in Squad_blueprint - Squad - Tau_squads. Also, go find the entity file for it, it's entity_blueprint - troop - tau_troop - tau_infantry.
The difference?
Each squads has at least these two files. One relates to the actual individual unit/entity/trooper (an EBPS or EntityBluePrint) and has all in the information specific to it; it contains all the health info, the speed, armour class, weapons that it carries etc. The other is a file for the overall squad (an SBPS or SquadBluePrint) and contains all the information like how many troopers in the squad, how upgrades they can make and squad morale, the kind of stuff that doesn't really apply to one single member of the squad. All fighting units have both of these, the vehicles and heroes do too, they are just a squad of size 1. Go browse them and check if you don't believe me! Remember that a squad may also have extra leaders like the sergeant. These have different stats from the regular troopers and so they must have a different EBPS. Both types are linked within the same SBPS but use different EBPS.
There's absolutely tons of really easy stuff to change in the squads and entity files, so I won't laboriously go over all of it step by step, I'm just going to list briefly go through most (not all) of the things you can change without any real hassle, tell you where they are and what to change for a tasty Crisis Team.
SBPS
squad_loadout_Ext
This has the main squad size info and trooper make up.
unit_max: this is the max squad size - for our Crisis Teams we will want to change this from 1 to 2. Squads of two look groovy and just seem cooler to me than 3, so we're having 2!
unit_min: this is the size which the squad starts at. Set this to 2 (you'll find out why later)
trooper_base - type: The name of the squad doesn't have any effect on which entities make up the squad, this drop box (the "type" one) defines it.
async_ability: This is used in the Guard Command Squad, it allows the Priests/PSkyers to all charge up their spells separately rather than having one cooldown for the whole squad (i.e. you can use strip soul twice really quickly with two psykers). All Tactical Marines have Frag Grenade ability, but because async is not ticked only one of them can throw it before recharging. Leave this alone for Crisis Teams.
Changing the loadout max will not make a squad reinforce, it requires the reinfore extension too. eg wraiths: you need to increase the max and add squad_reinforce_ext if you want to turn them into squads.
squad_cap_ext
Obviously lists the cap prices. Units can cost both.
squad_cap_usage: Otherwise know as infantry cap. Change this to 3
support_cap_usage: Otherwise known as vehicle cap. Change this to 1.
squad_reinforce_ext
can_upgrade: If an entity has extra weapons listed on it it will be able to upgrade, but there may be instances where it has extra weapons but you want those upgraded by a research or addon or something eg Rangers. Leaving this box unticked will mean the weapons no longer appear in the squad box.
cost: here is where you set how much reinforcement costs and how long it takes. This is not the squad cost, only the cost of reinforcement. Reinforce cost cannot be modified in game, but reinforce time can. Currently this is a bit inaccurate for Crisis Teams, so change to something a little more suitable like 180 req, 40 power, 30 second build time.
in_combat_time_multiplier: if you want to them to reinforce slower in combat or not at all then use this at say 0.5 or 0 for not all.
max_upgrades: set this to 2 as we now have two squad members. Obviously you could leave it at one and then only one upgrade would be allowed.
Note about upgrades: in a squad each member can only upgrade once, regardless of the fact that the upgrades are on separate arms. If a unit is on its own (like the Tau Commander) then you can use "complex_upgrades" to allow this kind of function (more on that later). There are ways round this though, eg turn off upgrades and then create researches that upgrade each arm globally and permanently.
SQUAD ICONS - IMPORTANT
Upgradeable squads need several icons. You remember how Tactical Squads little icon changes colour depending on which weapons you upgraded right? Well, those are all separate icons that switch depending on which weapons are present. You have a normal icon, then if it can upgrade you must have a version with the same name plus "__weapon_file_name_here" (yes that's 2 underscores) and also one with "__multi" after it for the purple mixed weapons border. If you don't have all the files you will get the dread pink box at some point or other. So for Crisis Suits we need:
tau_crisis_suit_icon - the normal one
tau_crisis_suit_icon__tau_flamer_crisis_suit - flamer upgrade
tau_crisis_suit_icon__tau_missile_pod_crisis_suit - missile upgrade
tau_crisis_suit_icon__multi - mixed upgrade
http://mods.octopusrex.co.uk/content/squads/crisisteamcon.jpg http://mods.octopusrex.co.uk/content//squads/crisisredicon.jpg http://mods.octopusrex.co.uk/content//squads/crisisgreenicon.jpg http://mods.octopusrex.co.uk/content//squads/crisismultiicon.jpg
Actual weapon upgrade button icons
tau_upgrade_xv8_flamer
tau_upgrade_xv8_missile
http://mods.octopusrex.co.uk/content/squads/crisisflamericon.jpg http://mods.octopusrex.co.uk/content/squads/crisismissileicon.jpg
Obviously if you only have one squad member then you will never get mixed upgrades and never need the multi one. Also, units that have complex_upgrades turned on (Tau Commander, sergeants, vehicles) which allow more than one upgrade per entity will not follow this rule, they only need one icon. If your Icon making skills are lacking then you can simply copy the icon file a few times from the data.sga archive and rename them correctly, this way the icon will look like it never changes. Note: because you the only icon that appears on build lists etc. is the basic one you will never see the upgraded icons disabled, therefore you do not need to make disabled versions of these icons, only of the basic one. ;)
Relic have buggered up the icons for crisis suits. The colour coding is wrong (the missiles don't give a green border like every other anti-building gun) and also they haven't provided a multi-purple border which is understandable. So, because I'm a nice chap, I've made a set of these for you, in keeping with the Tau border colour scheme, rather than copying the Marine borders. I've put all six necessary icons in there (two of which are just copies of the game versions) so you can see what the set looks like. Stick the "ui" folder in to Dark Crusade/yourmod/data/art. Download here. (http://mods.octopusrex.co.uk/content/squads/squad_tutorial.zip) (Note for people unfamiliar with icons - they should be in TGA format, those pics above are in JPG so use the download instead of copying them as they are in the right format and folder tree)
squad_requirement_ext
Here is all kind of requirements. Check out the tutorial on researches for information about this. Requirements are the same across the board really. Here we should change the hard cap (required_squad_cap) to 2 as three squads will be a bit over the top.
EBPS
Now we need to have a look at the entity file and edit some stuff there.
cost_ext
The cost of a squad that you see is made up of the this cost section multiplied by the starting units of the squad, so our Crisis Suits will cost twice whatever's in there and will take twice as long to build as the time listed. Hmm, this will probably be a bit much as the moment to change it to 150 req, 30 power, and 22.5 seconds. This will mean the costs you'll see in game will be 300/60 w/45 sec build time.
health_ext
All kinds of really obvious stuff in here.
hitpoints: as it's a squad of two now I think we should reduce the hitpoints slighly, take them down to 2200.
can_be_repaired: just take a look at crisis suits, of course they can be repaired. HOWEVER: repairing squaded units doesn't work, only the first one will get repaired and never the others (hence why DC 1.0 Broadside were unrepairable). Leave this off.
regeneration_rate: Tau probably have some nifty Nano-techonology going on here, bump it up to 4.
max_repairers: there's a limit to how many builder units can repair something, it helps prevent super quick repairing, especailly in team games.
invulnerable: as used by the Nightbringer.
morale_death: this is the morale damage that the squad suffers when this unit dies, usually it's bigger for sergeants and such.
armour: this affects damage taken but almost all units are at 100, and the ones that aren't are in fact bugged eg Tau Shield Drones - they must not be the last remaining squad member otherwise the game crashes, due to a fatal error, so I presume Relic reduced their armour to 0 to make they sure they died first, (ever noticed that?) instead of simply adding the right extension to prevent the error.
type_ext
type_armour and type_armour_2: each unit can have 2 armour types if it wants. The first is the normal one, but it can be modified to the second one using the "enable_armour_2" modifier. This switches it to armour 2 permanently in the case of a reserach (eg Banshees) or temporarily in the case of an ability (eg Curse of The Machine Spirit before it got changed). You can only have two, so choose wisely. Change our Crisis Suits to vehicle_medium as this make more sense.
type_surface: this is tell weapons which surface hit FX to use.
summon_teleport_destination: this is for when using the Necron teleport system and defines which entities (including buildings) can be targeted.
Save any changes you've made to binary and then go see what happens.
http://mods.octopusrex.co.uk/content/squads/crisisteam.jpg
Note the new armour type, squad size, max upgrades in the UI, new total health (4400) and green border.
****
Other Squad Extensions
squad_cover_ext
In this extension you can change the modifier effects that all the different types of cover has on the squad, but only use to effect squad related things...so basically Morale. Better to use the entity file to alter most cover modifiers.
squad_formation_ext
Making custom formations is pretty easy. You'll notice that Crisis Suits already have their own formation, unlike other one-man squads, this suggest that Relic in fact toyed with them in squads at first. You may need to edit this to give your Suits good separation for pathing.
squad_morale_ext
max: Obvious
broken_modifers: again obvious.
morale_armour: morale damage is multiplied by this, so 0.5 means an attacker only does half morale damage to this squad.
rate_per_second: regen rate
squad_jump_ext
All kinds of stuff to change in here. This has its own requirements section for things like Terminator Teleport Research. The main things you'll want to change in here are the jump_distance_max, charge_regeneration, the charge_jump_cost_max and min and the charge_max (total charge when fully charged up).
charge_starting_fraction: is used for Bonesingers among others to allow less full starting charge.
setup_time: is a contraversial one for units like Terminators who have a really long one.
teleport: tick this to change it from jump to teleport, the icon will change accordingly without you doing anything
teleport_summon: this is the Necron Teleport thingy. Tick it to use that system.
Note: min and max should generally be the same. If they are set to different levels the jump distance create a proportional cost in jump charge, however, it messes up the distance indicatot and it thinks they can jump for miles though it won't actually let them.
Jumps will need a new animation for them if you give them to new units, or they will look really weird. Also, note that all orks have this extension, it is just disabled. The teleportation is enabled by the Mek Boy attaching itself - this is important: to use an extension at all in a game it must be present on the file from the beginning, you may just have to disable it at the beginning using modifers and re-enable it later on. Notice that attaching the Chaos Sorceror to a squad does not enable them to teleport, because they don't have the extension.
SBPS extensions not on Tau Crisis Suits:
squad_leader_ext
This can get fiddely and confuses people a lot with its engine quirks. I'll be doing a tutorial on this extension alone showing you how to get Drones on the Tau Commander without breaking your game.
squad_capture_strategic_point_ext
Most infantry has this extension. It's presence allows capture of points. Note that some extensions have hardly any info on them, it's just that their presence is required and means something. In this extension you can set whether units can capture (most) or can uncapture only (sentinels and wraiths) and the rate at which they capture. Orks have the fastest capture rate, with guard close behind, Necrons being the slowest. The number is a fraction of a base time which is set on each strategic-point-type entity.
squad_transportable_ext
nr_spots: this is the number of slots it will take up when transported. Dreadnoughts take 2 for example.
transport_type: Transporters have a corresponding list of which types they may take onboard. These are chosen from a folder of types. You may need to create new ones for your use by copying and editing a file from the "type_transportable" folder in DataGeneric somewhere. Don't worry it's simple. It is this attribute that means Terminators can only get in the Land Raider and not in Rhinos.
squad_infiltration_Ext
Infiltration is set by squad. It has two bits, requirements which is self explanatory, and the modifiers while concealed where you might want to put such things like slowed movement while infiltrated.
squad_modifier_apply_ext
Use this to make the squad have permanent modifiers out of the box.
Adding extensions
You can these extensions to squad that haven't got them (especially stuff like infiltrate)
-right click on some empty space on the right hand part of the AE
-add reference
-squad_extension
-choose from the drop box
-click autoname
-OK
Edit away.
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Other Entity Extensions
combat_ext
hardpoints: This contains all the info about which weapons they use, how many weapons they use at once etc and all the upgrades. I'll go into this one in more detail when I do my tutorial on how to implement wargear in three different ways (that one's nearly done).
complex_upgrades: tick this for vehicles and such that have various upgrades on various points. If you have this ticked on an entity that is part of a squad of 2 or more troopers max it is a fatal error and the game will not load - this can only be ticked on units for one man squads.
entity_blueprint_ext
animator: this is the line which points to the model the entities uses. So the full path of links is: A Race has a building list (sort of), Buildings list which Squads can be built, Squads say which entities they are populated by, Entitiessay which models they are using Models.
infiltration_ext
This doesn't give a unit infiltrate it simply defines the transperency/visibility setting if it ever does infiltrate (eg veil_of_darkess affects all units)
moving_ext
speed_max etc. in here is about all you'll need unless you get into modelling.
sight_ext
keen_sight_radius: this is the engine name for detecting infiltrators.
sigh_radius: the normal sight and keen sight are separate and each can be modified indivdually, eg having a research or upgrade that gives to the keen sight radius. You can add to 0 by the way, 0 doesn't mean no keen sight ever, it just means current radius = 0.
special_attack_physics
mass: is the most useful thing in here. the heavier an object is the less vulnerable to knockdown it is. A Baneblade has 90, where as a Pathfinder has 10.
ui_ext
ui_index_hint: The most important thing to note is that the position of a squad on the build menu of a building is actually dictated here on the EBPS - no idea why, it just is!
icon_name: leaders will have their own EBPS but not their own SBPS, so they will need their icon listed here. The hotkey for the squad is on the EBPS too.
use_hero_ui: tick this box and the unit will appear on the left of the screen when built like all the commanders and heros. Note, there's only room for four of them on screen.
Note about UI: you will want to have separate UI for both the entites and squads on any new squads you make, you want the squad stuff to say Devastator Marine Squad but when you hover a man it should say Devstator Marine. Stuff like that.
EBPS extensions not on Crisis Suits:
ability_ext
Dead simple this one, just has a table full of drop boxes into which you put any abilities you want the unit to have.
melee_ext
Units which can melee need this. It contains various charge modifiers (different from Grek Knight charge) and also the information for Kroot Melee leap.
builder_engineer_ext
Has no informatino on it, it merely denotes the entity as a builder.
repair_ext
builders have this and it dictates the speed and cost of their repair. The Mek Boy has it also, even though he is not a builder.
modifier_apply_ext
Use this for the entity to have modifiers out of the box.
special_attack_ext
list all the special attacks of commanders mainly but other units too. The time apart from the attacks is set with a randomised factor to it as well. The attacks all have a percentage chance to occur, all the percentages should add up to 100%, eg 4 special attacks all at 25%, or one at 40%, and thee at 20%.
Adding extensions
Much the same as adding them to squads
-right click on some empty space on the right hand part of the AE
-add reference
-extension (not squad_extension)
-choose from the drop box
-click autoname
-OK
Edit away.
There's a whole host of uncommon extensions that activate many of the new abilites, such as direct_spawn_ext, clone_ext, squad_fear_ext and possesion_ext but those will just take exporing your self I'm afraid!
Enjoy.