a way around hex editing

[edwinomarshall]

I have been working on a mod and recently decided that instead of having my custom race replace an existing one, I would like to add it to the starcraft line up. After hours of research I found out in order to do exactly what I wanted, I'd need a hex editor, assembly compiler, possibly a decompiler, and a lot of time to learn the language and memory locations allocated in starcraft. I have most of those, however the Army doesn't afford me that much time (any time for that matter).

I instead decided that I should just do as so many others are doing and compile a new race replacing unused units/doodads with my own. The problem with this is, everytime I've seen this method implemente, the new units were appended to the original three. I would rather have them have their own slot (eg put my new race against the other three).

What I'd need to know to accomplish this would be one (not all) of the following:

a) a way to add my races name to the dropdown list that appears when you create a multiplayer game.

b) a way to make a pop up menu that appears after holding the mouse over a marine in the campain selection screen (ie hold mouse over the marine for two seconds and it'll show you "play as marine" on one line, and "Play as custom race" in a menu)

I don't want to just have my race auto-load when a certain map is loaded, because that'll limit their usability. Any help I could get would be greatly appreciated. By the way, thanks to all of you who posted tutorials, I've learned a lot because of them.

[U-238]

Interesting project you're undertakeing there. I'll try to be of as much help as I can.

a) As far as I know there isn't a way to add races to the game. Only new units. However I'm attempting to do the exact same thing in a project that I'm working on so if I come across any developments I'll let you know.

b) A menu? No. Impossible. However there are some ways that you can get aroung this in mapping and I know there are some very talented mappers arounf here that can tell you just how to do that. I'm not a huge UMS mapper but I can tell you that beacons are often used to select things like that. Threr would be four beacos (for the four races) and you controll a civilian. Simply move the civilian to what ever beacon you want to select that race/team. Thats one way of doing it however I don't remember the triggering right off hand but if I get onto my SC computer where I have my mapping tools I'll do it up and let you know if no one else does.

[edwinomarshall]

A) in this method, I don't wish to create a new race, but rather group together unused units and add the collection as a selection in the race selection unit (where it usually says random and lets you choose). I'm beginning to think that even this is impossible. As such, I've all but decided to make it soley a 1 player mod and have the story go in the direction as to say my race irradicated the terrans.

B) I've found a way to edit menus using BinEdit, but find it cumbersome to use for the following reasons:
1- I can't get the graphics to show up. I've added the image (in bmp AND scx) format to the binEdit director as was instructed to do in the readme file. I've also done it the other way around and appended the mpq file to include BinEdit. Though I can edit the menus, its very hard to do without visual aid to asist me.
2- the controls dialog box is absolutely useless.
3 - takes a really long time to figure out what files do what. I think Im going to make a Folder of named pointers that organize these files better without actually changing their file names.

All said in done I guess I can't complain (though I just have) because its a better program than I could program myself.

Off topic--
how far is your project? Any chance I could have a peek at it...not the code ore anything, just like to admire others work and get inspired, if you know what I mean.

[U-238]

A) in this method, I don't wish to create a new race, but rather group together unused units and add the collection as a selection in the race selection unit (where it usually says random and lets you choose). I'm beginning to think that even this is impossible. As such, I've all but decided to make it soley a 1 player mod and have the story go in the direction as to say my race irradicated the terrans.


Thats pretty much what I meant.

Off topic--
how far is your project? Any chance I could have a peek at it...not the code ore anything, just like to admire others work and get inspired, if you know what I mean.

Well I actually have two projects going. The one I staed earlier has just gotten underway and there's really no official beta or anything yet. Me and my team members are just getting started on it.

[Confuzed_Person]

actually, a friend of mine has been makin some of the races unavailable, if i can, ill try and get him to post how he does it and then u can try to reverse the thing or have it changed some how, at least it would b a starting point

[Voyager7456_MM]

Nah, I'm afraid I just used a cheap .DAT trick to make them "unavailable".

If you wanted to get around this, you could maybe have each of the races' starting buildings have the ability to morph into a new any start building?

Ex. Generic Start, then pick a menu and choose Zerg, Terran, Protoss, Custom Race, etc.

[mongoose41]

Nah, I'm afraid I just used a cheap .DAT trick to make them "unavailable".How did that work?

[Echo_8]

If you wanted to get around this, you could maybe have each of the races' starting buildings have the ability to morph into a new any start building?

Ex. Generic Start, then pick a menu and choose Zerg, Terran, Protoss, Custom Race, etc.Wouldn't you have the problem of allowing players to suddenly switch races halfway through the game? You could try a variation of that idea where you only change one of the starting buildings to do that and nothing else, copy that start buildings stats to an unused building, edit every single requirement to use that building instead, and force everyone to start as that race. Though in that case, the 4 starting peons would be a problem...

[edwinomarshall]

See...this is why this board owns...intuitive minds going around a problem they are having to come to solution. I'll try it.

Is there a scripting language that dictates triggers in starcraft? I want to make it so that if the player chooses to play my mod, the game haults all progression until each player has chosen a race from said start building. What I mean is...actually I'll just show you how I want the game to flow:

Main Menu:

1) Player choses Multiplayer

2) Player chooses "my mod" (which will require me to use a modded .bin file)

3) Player chooses any map and number of players. Since they will be picking races in-game, they might as well keep the settings to custom.

4) script tells game to hault timer until all users select start building and choose a race from it.

5) script then decides which races buildings are selectable, game timer starts, etc. All neccessary files are then pulled from memory and put into use. Ex. Only certain fuctions (can you have functions) in the iscript and table files are implemented.
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I'm starting to believe that programming something from scratch is easier than modding. God I miss my c++ and java (sometimes visual basic). Aygoo!