Starwars EAW Anti Bugs Thread

I had alot of Ground buildings to export, and each of them has a few Damage states, which needs this suffix at the end of the name of each model _ALT0, 1,2 ...

I just spend the.. whole... fucking day to find out that the goddamn motherfuckin bitch Gameengine usually isnt Case sensitive except for the goddamn sunuvabitch _ALT suffix of the damage states.

So it refused to change from _ALT0 to _ALT1, or to any other damage state because of that.

I usually wrote them as Alt0, Alt1.. and so on, which was wrong.
For alamo proxies of Damage particles writing them small causes them to stay all the time on the map (even if the building isnt damaged), or to not show at all.

Did Starwars EAW display a weird button like Retreat in the middle of the screen for you as well?

This just happend to me, I thought it might be because I messed with .xml instances in Commandbarcomponents.xml
but this wasnt the reason for the annoying button in the middle of my screen.

It happend because I miscllicked and saved my modified I_GALACTIC_CONTROLS.alo as I_TACTICAL_CONTROLS.alo. This resulted in the game having no legitimate I_TACTICAL_CONTROLS and displaying that damn button.

I guess the game loads always both, the Galactic and the Tactic Dashboard all the time but the one that isn not neded is set to be hidden, at least this is what I suppose.

This could happen for the Skirmish view as well if you do anything to the I_GALACTIC_CONTROLS although it isnt the model that contains the skirmish dashboard!

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And another bug:
The EAW user Interface wont react to clicks on any button. I figured out it was caused by a story event that had no parameter2 specified for "TUTORIAL_CLICK_GUI", so the dumb game simply disables ALL buttons

<Event Name="Disabling_Button">
<Event_Type>STORY_TRIGGER</Event_Type>
<Prereq>Universal_Story_Start</Prereq>
<Reward_Type>DISABLE_EVENT</Reward_Type>
<Reward_Param1>TUTORIAL_CLICK_GUI</Reward_Param1>
<Reward_Param2></Reward_Param2>
</Event>

Currently trying to export some models.
Lightmashes can flicker in a very weird way. Sometimes only by a tad but sometimes really badly.

We know it causes issues if the Model and the dummy model (doesent necessarely need to be the same as the Model) for the light meshes are not fitting their border sides more or less exactly. Or especially if one of the mashes have leaks.

The leaks can be solved if you apply something similar to the "cap holes" modifier that closes them. If that isnt precise enough you need to detect the leaks using the STLCheck modifier (if you use 3DS Max) and closing it manually.

Sometimes it helps to decrease or increase size of the Lightmesh by only 0.01% so it doesent conflict with its mesh.


Yesterday I noticed that if the Model object has sides inside of it (that dont disturb the closed mesh itself) they might disturb the lightmesh object, although the models are identical except that the lightmesh doesent have that obstacle inside of it. Adding the same obstacle into the light mesh (using the attach modifier) solves this issue, which is strange.

Additionally I just used a exact copy of the Model for my Lightmesh, I just modified the UV map and changed the resolution from a 2048x2048 pixel map to a 1688x1688 map. This difference in the two meshes seems to be enough to cause the lightmesh to flicker around like crazy, damn it.

Using 100% identical meshes and UV map for both model and lightmesh copy makes sure no flickering lightmeshes are likely to occure, the drawback then is that the lightmesh copy need to contain all (unnecessary) polys that increases the size of the model and the ingame loading times! And thus has bad infulence on the performance. I hate the alo engine so much.

Just trying to add a other line of starbases, which starts right at Level 2 and has no Lv 1 base.

I wondered all the time why all later versions can be built normally but just Level 2 wont show up in the planetary menu.
Then I thought abit about it and then I got it!

In <Required_Star_Base_Level> it had 0, I thought everything should work fine because 0 < 1, so I should at least be able to build that Starbase with <Base_Level> set to 2 after the normal Level 1 (from a other starbase line) was built. But that wasn't the case.

The reason was, the game takes this really semantically. It expected exactly 1 and no 0 for <Required_Star_Base_Level> of level 2.
Additionally neither was it buildable as Starbase Level 1 when no starbase exists, because <Base_Level> is set to 2

I really hate this game engine so badly for making my life harder just like that.


Another thing I learned from Locutus is, that sometimes Spaceships you code get 30 to 50% damage to ALL Hardpoints after it takes some first damage (to the shields). This happens because the sum inside of <Tactical_Health> of all Hardpoints together dont equal the value inside of <Tactical_Health> from the Unit.


And another one:
In Lua coding Repeat states always freeze the game if you dont use at least Speep(1) anywhere inside of that state.

Sometimes it happens that after exporting of your Model and Dathclones the brightness of the texture changes dramatically in the moment when the engine replaces the model for the Deathclone or Damage states or Build animations and similar stuff.

This happens if the parameters for the used model shader in 3DS Max have not the same values before exportation of both models.


I have some standard values I (approximately) use for each meshbumpcolorize and meshgloss model I export:

Emissive = 0,222, 0,222, 0,222
Diffuse = 0,222, 0,222, 0,222
Specular = 0,222, 0,222, 0,222
Shininess = 30

The shininess parameter decides how glossy the model is.
That in combination with the contrast between Emmisive/Diffuse and Specular.
Please notice; sometimes your exports might have a too high Specular value, this need to be reduced.

However these values should (if possible) match between Build Animations, Models, Damage States and Death clones.
It is quite a work to keep them synced in each model file, but I'd say its worth.

I can recommend you a little trick to keep the right values for each model:
Make a (empty) template Max file with a lot of BumpMeshColorize and MeshGlow shaders in 3DS Max, and set all of their parameters to the (in your eyes) perfect values and save that.

Now, if you are a artist, you whether can start each of your new models in a copy of this file (without overwriting) or you could import/merge your final model file into that template file and apply all textures to the shaders.

Never type anything into the
<Prev_Level_Base></Prev_Level_Base>
<Next_Level_Base></Next_Level_Base>

Tags of a Spacebuilding with the <Behavior>DUMMY_ORBITAL_STRUCTURE</Behavior> that is no Starbase, or it will cause the Skirmish mode game to freeze as soon that unit spawns or once a map tries to load them.

I just coded a GroundVehicle unit and wasn't happy to see it just won't move its walker legs or play any move animation, though the unit accelerated properly. It just played the idle animation only.

The reason was <Walk_Transition>Yes</Walk_Transition> somehow overwrites or disables it.

Also; Having a Deploy ability but no Deploy_00 and Undeploy_00 animations in the Art directory caused the Unit to not accellerate or play animation at all.

A modder comrade made the mistake to leave a Collision Mesh Model inside of his Deathclone export.
That caused the game to instantly crash when that Deathclone is loaded.

So never use collision meshes for death clones please, it also may cause a crash if the model itself has the "collision" checkbox checked in the alamo utility.

Also if a Deathclone causes a crash, it could happen because it tries to load a alamo proxie with the name of a non existing alo particle model in your mod directory.

Took me 2 hours to find out that Object.Hide(true) crashes the lua script if called inside a foreach loop for multiple objects.
The good thing is there is an alternative; Hide_Object(Object, 1) works!

Issue: You can't see your savegames when trying to load

Solution: Locutus found in Steam forums:

Steam has a problem with usernames that contain spaces.
If his user name on PC contains a space (i.e. C:\Users\Space in name) then the save game will not appear in the selection list. This is not the fault of our mod.

Also users have to make sure that the save game folder is not protected. I have seen some topics on Steam where this is the case, making it impossible for that person to save and load games.