Moding Tactical Ops 2.2

[MartiniPL]

Hello, I have few questions, semi related to UT99, so I will ask here. I want to mod this old mod (inception!). Few small changes, and 1 big one - its because.. I always wanted to create my own game, and since I know a bit about mapping, and its totally free, I want to play around with this version (besides, I like it most).

1. Weapon stat changing - where and how? I have used search and viewed "mod" section, but could not get straight answer.
For example, I want to change granade time explosion... and AK47 rof

2. STATS PANEL (health, ammo, ect) collours - I know there is a UTX file for that, in TO2.2, but changing texture will not change colour... I mean, there must be stat for red/blue colour...right?

3. If I change texture of weapon (make it darker - as example). I can replace it in UTX package... but it wont change in game... There must be something more to do, right?

Thanks in advance for any helpfull reply

Ach, and last question...

Is that correct thinking? I will install UT into new directory, with new Tactical Ops, like UTMOD>TOMOD> where I will be doing changes and tests (so oryginal install wont be damaged). Then, after I will do them (if succesful), I shall pack moded file and put them to download, right? So everyone will be able to play same, moded, version? (excause me for this lame question, but I am middle aged guy with NO clue about moding Yet, I am swift learner... with free time.

[papercoffee]

First ...wrong section.
This here is for the SDK development.

Second... It is still UT related
I'll move it to "Modifications".




Moved!

[Feralidragon]

I don't know TO structure, so I can only somewhat answer to a limited extent:

1 - That question is very TO specific. Each weapon gets implemented in it's own way, so there's no universal way to change those. All you can do is to check those weapon classes code and properties yourself, probably under Actor > Inventory > Weapon (> TournamentWeapon ?).

2 - Generally HUD elements are drawn with an engine function which takes as arguments the texture itself and the color that it will multiply against.
So, if there's a texture rendered and the multiplied color is red, then the texture will only be rendered as red.
Having that said, I don't know where exactly the HUD is rendered in the case of TO (it's probably a class from TO itself under Actor > HUD).

3 - Probably you're not changing the right texture. Furthermore, generally the textures of models are stored in the same package as the model itself, in other words, not .utx packages, but .u packages (in the System folder). So if you save the texture package from UEd, it will save into a new .utx package but it won't get loaded, since probably the weapon package will look into the texture saved in itself instead (which should be a .u package).


As for putting it for download, I don't know what's the TO policy so I don't know exactly what's right or wrong in that sense. But if it was a mod for UT, you shouldn't do that. Assuming that the permissions stuff is clarified and all, and thus not even going that road (the road of copyrights and such), modifying packages directly will cause version mismatches against servers already using said packages. Meaning that old players will break when joining a server with your version, and vice-versa as well. Generally the way to go is to rename the package, but the problem with that is that by renaming it something may break (depending on the mod architecture: dependencies, dynamic references, int files and some other things).

One of the things you will quickly realize is that the Unreal Engine 1 is very very bad for direct package updates mainly because of that (to not mention other little binary incompatibilities and glitches which sometimes happens because the compiler "assumes" certain things on its own despite forcing them yourself).

Anyway, this is a UT1 forum, so when it comes to TO specifically, there's probably no one around here which can help much in it. Any questions that are generic enough between UT and TO may get answered (like I did above), but TO specific you probably won't get many answers unless you take them to a TO specific forum (which there might be one somewhere, given that there are still one or another server running it last time I checked).

[MartiniPL]

all in all your reply was very usefull, thanks!

Well - I am trying to mod it only for my own purposes - and test it with few friends. Its rather for "learnic curve" then entertainment.

I thought models are in .u package - It clearly load when I load any TO map, then I can see those textures, and changing them must write new file .utx and thus this there is no chage.
Atleast I can say... aps made for my server are just great to play on

Regards,
M