NEW ERA Multipplayer Missions (a.k.a. Scripted Maps)

Dear TAK community,
I would like to inform you and especially Sage about the following fact; New Era scripts ARE possible! However, they have some bugs. More accurately:

(1)
In order to create New Era scripts, you must first load and launch New Era from TA:K Switcher as a mod and open the Cartographer after closing the launched game but not the Switcher (not really a bug, but it needs to be mentioned). You will notice that you can now place New Era units and also make scripted orders related to the New Era units (move, create, destroy, heal, damage etc.) much like the OTAK ones. If you want to play a New Era script as a single-player mission, load New Era version X as a mod and the one-player-script-maps-gui as an addon.

(2)
Some units will make the game crash if pre-placed on the map. These units are those who are both OTAK and New Era units. Also, creating scripted commands including these units will fail, though they won't crash the game. Forunately, that doesn't include every OTAK unit (all T1 builders except Beast Handler can be placed without crashing the game and all T3 builders of every race too) and even those units that make the game crash can be later created by the player in-game without any problem at all! Pure New Era units don't crash the game however (not as far as I've tested at least) so feel free to pre-place an army of Efreets in your new era script!

(3)
Maps which include pre-placed New Era units will make the Cartographer crash if opened while the New Era mod is not loaded on Switcher, but that's something that makes completely sense.

(4)
By abusing the 2nd bug (see above) it is possible to create scripts that can be played both as OTAK and New Era scripts, though the script maker must be very careful here not to pre-place any New Era units or OTAK units that make New Era scripts to crash.

So, I ask you, are you interested in New Era Scripts? Should I spend time to create good scripts based on New Era? Am I going to recieve feedback about how to improve them? Please tell me, because I am not satisfied at all by the way the community treated my OTAK scripts and if the community doesn't convience me to make New Era scripts I won't do it...

- Do you have to use the switcher in order to make a script for new era to work? Or,
- Can you simply put the newera.hpi file in the kingdoms folder without the kingdoms.key, and make it work that way?

I'm not sure If I ever played a script made by you Arthan. If I haven't, do you have them available for download?

I'd say definitely go ahead and try scripts for the new era; I'll be the first one to try them

Sage wrote:

- Do you have to use the switcher in order to make a script for new era to work? Or,
- Can you simply put the newera.hpi file in the kingdoms folder without the kingdoms.key, and make it work that way?

I'm not sure If I ever played a script made by you Arthan. If I haven't, do you have them available for download?

I'd say definitely go ahead and try scripts for the new era; I'll be the first one to try them

I don't know if you can simply remove kingdoms.key in order to play the script. I suppose we have to try a script online to check this out.

My scripted maps are on this topic. However, many of them can be improved. They are better if played online but some of them are possible even if played as single player maps. GL & HF!

https://kingdoms.catsboard.com/t771-arthan-tak-maps

Arthan, would you be a dear and make us a very simple tutorial for making map scripts? I've tried a time or two, but without a frame of reference to start from, I'm at a loss.

Holy cow! that's a lot of script maps. I'll give them a try. Thanks for taking your time in doing this.

i quess cartographer gonna "eat everything"

if somebody gonna make many new era script maps i would recommend to make even specific folder for cartographer with new era mod (or any other etc) , and put those files:
Always:
-Cartographer.exe
-newera.hpi  (that mod, or any other if want to mod, use it)

for Aramon,Veruna,Taros,Zhon world:
-terrain.hpi
-section.hpi
-data.hpi (probably only palettes are important dunno sure)

for Creon,caves,volcano
-ipsections.hpi
-ipdata.hpi (terrain, and probably palettes maybe something more dunno)

that folder weight 281mb, dunno if that gonna have "bugs" problems etc (take on own risk xD)
but it might simplifier, and avoid "spam" main folder (anyway i have spam in main also xD)

Edit
forgot about drawbacks,
potetential units from OTAK appear also (they from data.hpi, and ipdata.hpi), so i suggest to "edit" those files and remove unessecary files: (units, unitscb, maps, missions, probably(not sure) also anims,canbuild,  scripts, textures, objects3d )
(dunno what have new era and what not etc don't trust me in this "Edit part")

After a lot of playtesting, I came to the following conclusions:

1) Some of the New Era units, which can be either OTAK units or exclusively New Era ones, make the game crash while loading to play the New Era script. These units, though varying in each of the New Era versions, I strongly believe they either lack some textures (including copses, frozen and stoned statues etc.) or have some false info in their files, that's why they make the game crash.

2) If you open the "All World" or "Corpses" folders of the Cartographer while having New Era loaded on Switcher, the Cartographer crashes. This fact strengthens my opinion about some units missing their corpses as well as their frozen & stoned textures.

3) Though a buggy pre-placed unit crashes the game when the "Use Map Script" option is used, we can still place units in the beginning of the game by using the "game start" condition in combination with the "create unit" action in a single rule. I've noticed that, in New Era 4.1, the 95% of the units/buildings can be placed that way, despite the fact they would have crashed the game if placed directly at the map. Furthermore, via the "create unit" action, a buggy unit is just not going to be placed at all instead of crashing the whole application, so the game is still going to run normally.

4) Every buggy unit/building can be normally created during the game via its respective builder/factory without misfunctioning or crashing the game.

5) I hope I will make a script-making guide soon enough...

For NewEra 4.1, I went through every single 3rd party unit and structure models looking and adding their missing textures. I also went over the otak models that were modified. So too, their corpses had missing textures and those were added as well. Stoned and frozen models don't require the use of textures, somehow, the fbi files read the models and take the frozen and stoned effects from some kind of tdf file. If for some reason NE is crashing, I think some of the new units/structures may have problems with their scripts.

Sage wrote:

Stoned and frozen models don't require the use of textures, somehow, the fbi files read the models and take the frozen and stoned effects from some kind of tdf file. If for some reason NE is crashing, I think some of the new units/structures may have problems with their scripts.

First of all, good work sir! New Era 4.1 is much less buggy (almost no buggy at all) in comparison with previous versions (of course, new era 3.9 and 4.0 were very good too). However, I think stoned/frozen models are probably needed. In OTAK Catrographer, in the "All Worlds" and "Corpses" folders, not any unit has stoned and frozen models and even some buildings have stoned/frozen models; let alone units like Beast Handler have detailed corpses models too, despite the fact they dissapear when they die.
Of course, you know much more about modding than me, but if I were you I would at least take a look at the "Corpses" and "All Worlds" Cartographer folders. But you know better.

On a sidenote, there are also OTAK units having problems too. A good example is the Barracks, Keep and Trebuchet buildings which can't be placed in a New Era script, neither via pre-placing nor by "create unit at position" actions (they are still fully buildable/functionable in-game). Does anyone have any idea of why this is happening?