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Warhammer Dark Omen Forum | Modifications | Troops
Undead Chariot as player regiment

[Flak]

Hey guys ive been wanting to use the undead chariot in an undead campaign as a player regiment

thats all fine i can add it and it doesnt seem to make the singleplayer unstable BUT when i win the battle and go to troop roster i see some insane price for each troop in the chariot and then the game crash's

If i change the class from Undead Chariot to Undead Cavalry then there is no problem but ofcz then the chariot losses all its special values and is no better than skeleton cavalry and they suck as we know.

Does anyone have a clue if theres are solution, i know Olly was playn with the chariot and modding it

[olly]

Good Topic and the original Chariot (4th Edition Rules and Dark Omen) use 2 sprites (Horse and Charriot) and since it also has Magic(Nagesh), it is more likely to Crash the Game when "too much is going on, for the Stats/game to calculate"  such as Charging/mmoving at high speeds, whilst Casting Magic and being hit at the same Time, may cause the game to crash sometimes in Multiplayer but better in single palyer as you know. Therefore after discussing with Grend, how in 7th Edition Rules, Chariots and Steeds (boars/Horses etc.) are 1 Unit and Sprite it could be base on Undead Cavarly. However, as you already point out, that changing the Unit Type to be an Undead Horse (weak but 1 sprite) isn't ideal, it maybe the only way, to make stable and its stats could be adjusted to compensate, or even base it on a Vampire Stats/Sprites for Nagesh and in Sprite Editor paste the Horse onto Charriot to make 1 Sprite etc..


Very good topic and i will refresh my knowledge on this Topic and investigate more...

[cuthalion]

I'd like to recall this topic 2,5 years after it died away My question is for an experienced coder  to the most part

I played with the Chariots in a single player campaign and found them very interesting and broadening game interest.

1. They behave good in battle, never crashed within 2 first battles of Campaign.
2. In troop roster we can read Book Profile, we can even give them artifacts to use in future battles. Neither of that crashed my game.
3. Thing that does crash it is when I select the unit in the Troop Roster. Why does it happen?

I have a grounded suspicion it is because of a simple thing - icon indicating Unit Type to the right of a regiment name.

There is also price for reinforcements and price for armor that is unique for the unit.
But let's take Dread King.
He behaves and bugs exactly the same way as Undead Chariots: OK in 1st mission, crashes on select in troop roster. But as he's 1/1 unit (no quantitty), he shouldn't have reinforcements price.
Check this out by setting an ordinary human infantry regiment quantity 1/1: there won't be any price/armor in that window, but only unit type icon.

So the question is, is there a way to put any icon into game and link it to the Chariot unit type in EngRel or in some other space? To check my idea.

[olly]

Sadly even a "stabliased" Chariot is more likely to cause random multiplayer crashes like the Banner of Wrath's Lightning Bolts = too many calculations going on at once, especially with Hand of Nagesh casting magic whilst traveling. However, with all our newly gained knowledge of CTL etc and your icon idea.. then hopefully there maybe a solution. In the short term I would make the Chariot and horses into 1 sprite to reduce the amount of battle calculations (Darkmancer's Black Prophecy does this successfully). Not sure if the orginal chariots/Nagesh does this but once I played a version where the Centre Lead Horse of 3, was much larger and had a sprite animation of biting at the heads of enemy troops. There was also a possible multiplayer fix by creating a portrait for chariot to use/call.

Black Prophecy Chariots as 1 sprite instead of chariot and horse, to make more stable and reduce battle/melee calculations

[cuthalion]

Yes, in Multiplayer it might work, especially with Mods like Darkmancer's one where you needn't select the Chariot in Troop Roster.
I'm still concerned with my SinglePlayer campaign
I found those icons in ./graphics/books/bookbut.spr, but that's about all I managed to discover by myself.

[cuthalion]

Lol it's funny: 3 years ago I posted on this thread 3 years after previous post. And I have to resume it again now

My main concern is: Dark Omen unit engine is very limited compared to SoTHR one. Many things that were planned remaind only in developers wishlist. For example, impossibility to make flying units, many useful flags are missing etc.

1 thing that somewhat broadens modders resources is chariots: army type that definitely has its own hardcoded behaviour (e.g. it has a huge charge bonus, no cavalry can do the same regardless of speed) but that was impossible to be used in singleplayer campaigns: it always crashed when troop roster is opened and a chariot is there (set by army editor).
I recall some investigation done from my side with help of Ghabry (as coder). Crash may happen because of a relatively easy-to-fix problem: a missing icon for chariot as a separate unit type or something.
You know, when you open troops roster between missions, each existing unit type has its own icon:
infantry
cavalry
artillery
wizard
monster (claws are displayed)
No such icon exists for chariots
Could someone find a solution and add chariots as unit types for campaigns?

[olly]

I think with the new xSlots Additional Sprite mod the chariot appears to be fixed in single player. I have replaced Gotrek with the Undead Chariot for you to test more, in the latest Mod template (all our tools combined to allow all Warhammer Races to be added on new maps)

http://forum.dark-omen.org/campaigns/how-to-create-new-mods-and-campaigns-t1251.0.html;msg12898#msg12898

[cuthalion]

I think with the new xSlots Additional Sprite mod the chariot appears to be fixed in single player.

Unfortunately not. I used Olly's link to download Skaven template mod. Chariots behave the same way they did before:
1. I can open troop roster where chariot is present
2. I can give them artifacts.
But when I attempt to select the unit or pass its artifacts to another, the game crashes.

It happens because chariots - as a unit type - miss a piece of information about them that is displayed in troop roster.

- Either unit type icon
- or armor price
- or reinforcement price
- or Something is buggy with their armor. You can see on the attached screenshot: When I hover mouse over armor of any other unit but chariot, a tooltip appears saying 'unit's armor level'. However when I hover mouse over chariot's armor shield, no tooltip appears.

I believe such experienced developers that decode sprites, game scenario scripts and add room for sprites and banners, will solve the problem if they look at it
pretty please.