[Warhammer Dark Omen Forum]

Warhammer Dark Omen Forum

Don't add new units to the files in 1pbat.
The game expects a fixed size for this file and it will crash or not work. Same applies for savegames.

12 years of Dark Omen Fansite! (funded 5 Feb 2007)

Interestingly the following CTL commands are never used:

Code:

#24 add_global_r_i
#26 (called automatically each time the CTL script executes)
#27 (called when #26 set the true-flag)
#31 wait_unit_flag2_clear
#32 wait_unit_flag2_set
#37 wait_unit_flag3_set
#42 send_event_to_self_if_label_exists
#56
#57
#67
#68
#6f broadcast_event_to_enemies
#8a
#90 nop_90
#91 nop_91
#9a
#9e
#a0
#a4 find_enemy_simple
#a5 find_enemy_simple_visible
#a8 find_enemy_nth
#a9 find_enemy_nth_visble
#aa find_enemy_unittype_nth
#ab find_enemy_unittype_nth_2
#bb
#be
#c8
#c9 clear_last_event
#cb
#ec test_other_unit_r_eq_i
#f0

The following are only used in the tutorial (SPARE9):

Code:

#d9 test_user_action
#da ui_indicate
#db (this seems to check if you attack the training dummies)
#dc
#dd set_unit_r_direction
#de test_unit_at_node
#df test_unit_attacking
#e1 test_other_unit_flag3
#e2 test_unit_selected
#e3 test_any_spell_selected
#e4
#e5
#e6 test_mapmode
#e8
#e9
#ea test_sound_playing
#eb test_other_unit_flag1
#ed end_mission
#ee test_event_from_unit

Which means the following used opcodes have unknown purpose:

Code:

#14
#2b
#3c
#45
#46
#47
#48
#49
#4a
#4b
#4d
#4f
#50
#51
#5e
#5f
#60
#61
#62
#63
#64
#66
#6c
#7a
#7b
#7c
#7d
#7e
#7f
#80
#81
#83
#84
#85
#87
#88
#89
#8b
#8c
#8e
#8f
#95
#96
#9b
#9c
#a1
#ad
#b0
#b1
#bc
#c5
#c6
#ca
#cc
#d6
#db
#dc
#e4
#e5
#e8
#e9
#ef

Unknown OpCodes by popularity (funcs >= 100 are only counted once because they are always the same):

This means these are useful for map scripting in general.

Code:

406 #14
374 #3c
252 #d6
157 #50
145 #2b
101 #48
 86 #47
 78 #43
 60 #7e
 59 #9b
 45 #51
 34 #89
 29 #64
 26 #80
 24 #87
 15 #7f
 10 #e8
 10 #a1
 10 #5e
  9 #62
  8 #dc
  7 #81
  6 #7d
  6 #46
(rest omited)

When counting including all funcs >= 100 in all maps (shows which unknown opcodes the standard library uses alot)

Code:

990 #14
 813 #9b
 580 #2b
 536 #48
 461 #3c
 389 #50
 300 #5e
 282 #43
 270 #62
 252 #d6
 210 #81
 180 #7d
 180 #46
 176 #7e
 155 #a1
 150 #9c
 150 #8f
 150 #7a
 150 #6c
 150 #4d
 120 #ca
 120 #8e
 120 #8b
 120 #7b
  90 #c5
  90 #95
  90 #8c
  90 #60
  90 #4f
  90 #4a
  90 #49
  86 #47
  84 #80
  60 #bc
  60 #b0
  60 #ad
  60 #85
  60 #83
  60 #66
  60 #61
  60 #5f
  60 #4b
  60 #45
  45 #51
  34 #89
  30 #ef
  30 #cc
  30 #c6
  30 #b1
  30 #96
  30 #88
  30 #84
  30 #7c
  30 #63
  29 #64
  24 #87
  15 #7f
  10 #e8
   8 #ee
   8 #dc
   5 #db
   2 #e9
   2 #e5
   2 #e4

Also merry christmas from me!

I found a backup of old Dark Omen websites on one of my old harddisks and there is no reason to keep this for me: Download

- www.ovotech.com (The oldest known Dark Omen forum)
- darkomenworld.freeforums.org (This was basicly our rival, but in the end we are the only website that survived)
- lazydog (still online, an old DO website)
- warhammer.alfaspace.net (Russian DO website)

Most pages can be navigated by opening the index.html with your webbrowser.

To view the Dark Omen Ovotech forum use the index.html in www.ovotech.com/Forums/DarkOmen/

Some folders are likely not reachable by simple browsing, so go on treasure hunt!

Wow, a new mod? this is unexpected

Maybe this gives me a reason to play Dark Omen again next year

Also happy holidays to you!

Recently a friend got Ancestors Legacy, the game looked inspired by Total War & co. (but also some very casual base building).

It gets some stuff right, e.g. it has real line of sight, like Dark Omen and a concept of cover (in high grass...). Also night mode which reduces the line of sight, that's also well done. When you charge from the side or the rear you cause extra casualties.

When in Close combat other orders are ignored, thats also good.

There are also indicators for different unit states but they are not as obvious as in Dark Omen where you have this colored arrow (simple but good) instead you have complecated pictograms which have no tooltips, so I still don't know what some of them mean...

At least it has the concept of regiments with banners and formations but there are only 5 different types per nation and there are archers and balistas and even friendly fire by them.

But then the disadvantages start:

- This super useful showing of banners at the scren corner so you know the relative direction is missing.
- All infantry/cavalry units play the same, you usually just attack
- All characters are boring, you don't care about losing troops, death is not permanent. Dark Omen just has the best story telling.
- Usually the best strategy is just spamming as many units as you can have and doing close combat, no tactics needed because there is no reason as in Dark Omen to keep casualties low.
- There is a retreat option but it is never auto-invoked, they all fight until death.
- The archers have no button to hold fire when you give a manual shooting command, you must give a move order to stop them...
- The game runs too fast (or the line of sight is too short). Usually everything is just a mess because 5-10seconds after seeing the enemy close combat already starts, so the archers are in most cases useless because they are in CC before they can shoot twice...


Therefore I would call it "Dark Omen for Casuals". The basic concept is there but they stopped half-way to make it amazing :/.
Maybe I'm too skilled because of my DO-experience, my friend told me he already has problems on Easy and I rushed through the first missions on the highest difficult with no issues...


About the link to reddit:
I agree with this user, I found Total War battles really boring, I never had real tactic in there.
This game can be only so popular because not all know Dark Omen

Die deutsche Dark Omen Version wird nicht unterstützt. Die ganzen Texte sind fest in der EngRel.exe reinkodiert, daher wäre es ein Riesenaufwand, den Mod Selector mehrsprachig zu machen.

Du kannst aber die Deutsche Sprachausgabe bekommen, dazu musst du im Sound-Ordner SP_DEU nach SP_ENG umbenennen.

That darkpatch.dll won't work with the German version. You have to take the EngRel.exe provided in the mod package of which converts the game to English. But the sound samples should still be German, only the text will be English.

Do you also see entries of ".CUR" or ".ANI" files in "Dark Omen\Graphics\Cursors" redirected? FindFirstFile is usually part of the "Your DO install is incomplete" check.

Looks like Cursors are created with "LoadCursorFromFileA" and if this doesn't go indirectly through CreateFile or MapViewOfFile it's not redirected.

And looks like the cursors are only initialized on Dark Omen startup, so changing the mod would not change them back.

Actually I like that they aren't redirected because this is imo a user decision which kind of cursors they want.

Ah, thats a side effect of too many maps? Okay, because my test file contained 100 .
Good then I will know that I fixed it ^^

Should work now. I updated the "latest version" link in the 1st post of the topic.


https://github.com/Ghabry/Dark-Omen-Mod-Selector/commit/0ab78f307a240db003055328ee02863916a2561d

About the Battles.ENG size issue. Looks like the buffer where the map list is copied to has a fixed size but the application doesn't check it and the additional map data is written into other Dark Omen data structures and corrupting them o.O

No idea why but I can't get the pre-battle scene (where you select army and map) to open. It automatically closes and returns me to the first multiplayer-scene (Play/Edit Army). So I will try to fix this blind.

In theory I know what must be modified . Will increase the limit to 200 entries.

First isolate if it's ddraw.dll or darkpatch.dll. Does original PRG_ENG start with ddraw.dll in the folder?

Does modded PRG_ENG work without ddraw.dll in the folder?

Otherwise it must be darkpatch.dll. Though no idea what the problem is then, have no Windows 8 :/

I analyzed this error two weeks ago because I had no setup available and the same issue.

Go to "Programs and Features" and click "Add/Remove Windows Features".
And under "Outdated/Inherited components" (No idea how it is called in English) tick "DirectPlay".

Accept the changes and DO should start.

Global CTL functions sounds interesting. Conviniently Dark Omen has one function to do the function number -> address mapping so in theory it should be feasible to simply parse a 2nd CTL file which contains "global functions" and then to hook this lookup function... Will check how hard this is.

Aaah, yeah. That stuff. Was documented here: http://wiki.dark-omen.org/do/Talk:DO/ARM#Unit_Type_Bitfield

Okay so CTL had only a unit type but no race check. good.

Olly your requests are probably too complex for single opcodes. That should be achievable through smart ctl usage I assume.

Cuthalion: proper random is easy to add
Guess I could also provide old opcodes which take a register argument instead of only constants, will add more flexibility (e.g. for addmagic)
How is the unit race specified in wh32edit?