Problems with frontend.wrf

[Olrox]

Hi everyone,
I was just venturing deeper into the modding realm, trying to add new components this time (instead of replacing models only, I mean). Made everything as I think I should, searching in sources of information that had lead me to a successful mod before. By using flaTE, I've modified the .txt files, but obviously had to modify the .wrf's by hand. I've done modifications to the piestats, frontend and vidmem files, mantaining the original pattern and verifying every file, comparing them with the original .wrf's to be sure I didn't make mistakes.

But apparently I did make some mistake I'm not able to identify, checked and tried and failed several times before creating this post. The errors started with the texpages, but I've managed to fix those - no problem. But then, some "Failed to parse frontend.wrf" started to crash Warzone (2.3 b11a) on startup, giving me the errors shown in the attached log.

Thanks from this very moment to anyone who gives attention to this,

~Olrox

[Flail13]

i think the problem is to do with how flaTE exports names.txt. The first entry in your names.txt is "Structure ID", which contains a space. To get it working all you have to do is, in flaTE, delete the first "key" entries that are in body, weapons, structures and research, so that it doesn't try to give them a name. Those entries are just to explain to someone reading the files what each field is so there's no harm in deleting them.
another thing I should add to my other post is that if you reorder the existing entries in flaTE, ZNULL-WHATEVER must be the first entry, and if you reorder the templates, a trunk build of wz will use the wrong ones.

[Olrox]

Now it's mentioning some error in piestats...
I've deleted the "blank entries" from the names.txt, I don't think it'll cause any trouble now. Hmmm, flaTE could search for those and delete them automatically on export, couldn't it? Would surely be nice (avoiding a little repetitive work)!

I thank anyone who can help me identify this problem with frontend.wrf, again.

~Olrox

[Rman Virgil]

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Hey Olrox. Impressive how you jumped in with this and got most of it right without a magnificent txt editing tut to work from. Cool art too.

Here's what I saw right off-

Your stedrr says texture page 99 not loading but in the frontend wrf i have it's page 98

Btw - your OlMod files were nested thrice. Your dl was 1.2 mb - your files .wz should be only 290kb.

I'll be able to spend more time with it after work & theater, late tonight.... if you haven't already resolved by then, that is. Also curious to see how you handled the res-tech tree component.

- RV

[Olrox]

I'll be able to spend more time with it after work & theater, late tonight.... if you haven't already resolved by then, that is. Also curious to see how you handled the res-tech tree component.

- RV

Hey Rman, good to see you here!
Well, probably if I've managed to create something coherent, it was by instinct and that's somewhat hard - I've never edited stats before and couldn't even test it to balance my 2 new items: a Laser Cannon and the multi-turret Boa - Project's Suyper-Heavy Body.
The Laser cannon currently provides a connection between cannon & laser techs, requiring Hi-energy laser emitter mk3 (I think, it's the same as heavy laser PreReq) and Needle Gun. There's not pretty much of an technical explanation, I just felt like making that - it's all-rounder, provides a bit of burn area damage, a bit of splash, but mainly heat direct damage, in form of All-Rounder damage. I fear it's overpowered, as it also has a long range and 75% Accuracy.

The Boa is basically a lower-grade, early Dragon as it is. It currently requires the research of Project, NP and Collective heavy bodies. I may change that in the future, balancing it with the use of graphics with the stats from other Project bodies, following the curves to mantain the pattern, and rather requiring T3 alloys and Python.

It's more of a modding experience to better understand WZ modding rather than a full-scale project (even though I still intend to make other Super-Heavy bodies with more diverse balancing), but I'll post it and discuss it in the showcase when it's working and balanced, nevertheless.

I've already spent some 5 hours trying to figure out myself, so I'll be happy to wait for your availability - please take your time!

Regards, Olrox

[Olrox]

My god, those errors are nasty. Now it's giving me errors with stats.wrf, with the log that's attached to this post. I've fixed some more obvious errors I didn't see before, and deleted some repeated files.

Jeez

[Zarel]

...erm, what kind of mod are you thinking? I can think of very few mods in which stats.wrf needs to be modified...

[Olrox]

...erm, what kind of mod are you thinking? I can think of very few mods in which stats.wrf needs to be modified...

More specifically, I'm trying to add the following:

Laser Cannon:
New turret model, other effects and sounds are used from other weapons. Stats of its own, not a simple graphical replacement or adding. A research entry was added as well, modified from an existing research entry (changed cost, prereqs, name and results).

Super Heavy Body - Boa:
New body model, based on Dragon for stats, research modified as well, in the same way as the Laser Cannon.

Necessary PIE files were added (3 - gnlascan; trlascan; and drhbod15) and their respective texpages (2 - page-98-boa-512.png for "drhbod15"; page-99-lascan.png for "gnlascan" and "trlascan") as well. all the vidmem.wrf files were updated with those additional texpages, piestats.wrf was updated with the new .PIE's, placed under their respective categories, ad frontend.wrf was also modified for pre-loading the new necessary files.

All the stats changes were made using flaTE, and verified in comparison to the original files, but I couldn't find out what could be causing problems with stats.wrf (which I didn't change at all).

This is everything I've done with that mod. I've also deleted the "blank" names that were generated by flaTE on the "names.txt" file.

As I see it, the problem is with the maximum number of weapons specified for the "ZNULLDESIGN" template on "assignweapons.txt", but I've compared that to the original files as well and didn't see anything strange.

~Olrox

[Flail13]

it's another flaTE problem... in flaTE, find ZNULLDESIGN in templates and remove its 3 weapons.
Once I did that your body and laser turret showed up in-game, except with no propulsion, because there are no body-propulsion entries for it yet.

it's because, when importing, flaTE is assuming the assignweapons.txt entry is correct, instead of looking at the number of weapons allowed in templates.txt first.

EDIT: im not sure why that has started causing a problem in your mod though, since it usually works even with ZNULLDESIGN having weapons.

[Olrox]

it's another flaTE problem... in flaTE, find ZNULLDESIGN in templates and remove its 3 weapons.
Once I did that your body and laser turret showed up in-game, except with no propulsion, because there are no body-propulsion entries for it yet.

it's because, when importing, flaTE is assuming the assignweapons.txt entry is correct, instead of looking at the number of weapons allowed in templates.txt first.

EDIT: im not sure why that has started causing a problem in your mod though, since it usually works even with ZNULLDESIGN having weapons.

I've got it working right now. I'll give it a proper finishing and post the results in Showcase

~Olrox

[Olrox]

Oh my god, what a PITA...
Can anyone give me a light on how to make the Laser Cannon have sound? I mean, I've added it to "Weaponsounds.txt", of course, but got the following error no matter what:

Code: Select all

error   |12:19:56: [loadWeaponSounds] Weapon stat not found - 

Laser5CannonMk1error   |12:19:56: [loadWeaponSounds] Assert in Warzone: ../../../src/stats.c:1968 (inc != (SDWORD)numWeaponStats), last script event: '<none>'
error   |12:19:56: [resLoadFile] resLoadFile: The load function for resource type "SWEAPSND" failed for file "weaponsounds.txt"
fatal   |12:19:56: [resLoad] Failed to parse wrf/stats.wrf
fatal   |12:19:59: [startGameLoop] Shutting down after failure
net     |12:19:59: [NETshutdown] NETshutdown

I've searched through the weapons.txt to find the supposed "number", was after some AA gun, numbered 210 in the weaponsounds.txt - 212 was there and there was no 211. My guess - Laser cannon should be entry 211. Tried that, the same error appears. tried to add the sound files to the mod.wz, obviously didn't work...

Spent quite some time trying to figure out, but the exact same error appears. Can somebody help with that?

Thanks.

~Olrox

[Rman Virgil]

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Yea, can be a PITA. Not my fav kinda work by a long shot (plus, for me, after a few hours of trouble shooting my brain gets fried and my analytical acuity turns to mush) but, nonetheless, I learned to do it to be self-sufficient in my exploring changes to the game. Plus back in the day with WZCK it was a cake walk to do.

Still, good things are coming outta the process, I'm sure. Learning yours & for all of us interested in doing this kind of stuff, for Flail13 because this is essentially stress testing FlaTE out of which he will make improvements. PITA, I know... but I really believe it's worth it in the end all the way around.

Anyway.... I see you solved the earlier issues.... moved on to new.

I see you posted an update to your Olmod.wz in the first post I'll DL that now & look at it. Should maybe remove the one in your first post...

That first OlMod.wz I dl earlier today, & looking at right now, does not have a weaponsounds.txt in the Stats folder.

Regards, RV


EDIT: K I dled your last posted OlMod.wz and the weapons.txt does not have your 211 entry so I'm guessing it's not your latest set of files.... if you post those I'll have a look after I get some shut eye. You might want to remove all the obsolesced files above as it could be confusing and just have your very latest file available for trouble shooting the current issue related to it.
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[Olrox]

Yeah, sorry - it was indeed outdated.
I make some obvious mistakes when I spend too much time on trial-and-error, too - always happens when I try to learn something new, but, after I grasp the basic, progress goes alot easier.

Anyway, here's the most recent version (tested 1 minute ago), along with the infamous error log:

OlMod.wz

stderr.txt

Hope that this isn't too much of a trouble to you,

~Olrox

[Rman Virgil]

Yeah, sorry - it was indeed outdated.
I make some obvious mistakes when I spend too much time on trial-and-error, too - always happens when I try to learn something new, but, after I grasp the basic, progress goes alot easier.

Anyway, here's the most recent version (tested 1 minute ago), along with the infamous error log:

..............

Hope that this isn't too much of a trouble to you,

~Olrox

Old sleepy head is up and ready for a challenge.

In a lot of my learning I follow that same course or style and in the end it actually works beautiful. The only thing different with this kind of environment, as opposed to say music or visual art or writing, is that it is so totally unforgiving because the structures are not at all flex, in fact, totally rigid - & with a tiny "mistake" the whole thing won't work. Like with music you make a tiny mistake and it can lead to interesting, fresh, improvisations that work ! But you are right, as you go through the initial newb pains of mastering you are actually learning deeply and getting stronger and it does get easier - you'll reach a point we're you'll feel "I can do anything ! with this game..."

Well enough of my muse on styles of pedagogy..

I'm down loading your latest and it will be a good experience for me because I need quality practice and am always up to learn new WZ stuff - like any other discipline, it's an on going engagement that keeps you sharp in interesting ways. Plus I'm still discovering new things about WZ and it's through this "under-the-hood", get your "hands all greasy", efforts.

Ok... off to investigate.

- Regards, RV
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EDIT: From your stderr I right off noticed you ran as a Global. Since I was already set-up for your OlMod.wz to run as MP I went ahead and ran it as such... here's my stderr.. Now off to begin the real investigation..

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[Rman Virgil]

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Been at it for hours. Can't figure it out. Have to stop now but will try again after work.

L8r, RV
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