[EM4] Los Angeles Mod by Hoppah

[Mrtucker555]

hey hoppah is there any way for the stolen car could be a limo that would be kind of interesting or maby a truck?

[Guest Utrechtterror]

It's something that can be changed but.. would it make a difference?

[Guest chevyrulzs2010]

Lets burn it:

The barn is a new model. The smoke is much darker (changed it with the particle editor) too, to make it look better. I am using the map from mission 16 (fire at open air concert) for this mission.

Played a test round too. I needed 28 fire fighters with a hose connected on 7 fire engine's and 3 water tenders to extinguish the barn only, so this one will be quite hard.

I still need to make the drug dealers and owners which must be taken into custody too, so the mission isn't finished yet.

Hope you like it,

Hoppah

nice so im assuming that since the smoke is black we are fighting alot of hydrocarbons lol like oil or brom grass lol

@hoppah i recall u saying u can adjust extingushing powers of different vehicles well can u adjust the fire intensity too so like hydro carbons are harder to fight then trash fires and ect.

[LittleFoX]

@hoppah

Nice barn! I really like it.

@utrechtterror

Nice changes! Keep going!

[Mrtucker555]

cant wait to send my FD in to that fire!

[Guest Mav1701]

Utrechterror, were you looking for more things to do on the freeplay map?

How about an auxiliry truck bay somewhere near the fire station to store some of the trucks we don't use too often (the MCU, or USAR, Brushtruck, etc..)

It doesn't need to be fancy like the main station, maybe instead of spawning them from offscreen, just have a "station" where they spawn out of the door and return to despawn.

[Guest firemen500]

i want snow in the map lol

[Guest Mav1701]

Hah! I found out why the files weren't loading after I edited them. I was using Textpad, and it was saving them with some odd encoding. Not even IE could parse the XML.

So, I opened them in NOTEPAD and re-saved them as plain text and they worked fine. Booo textpad.

I made a few more edits. I also ran command.xml and events.xml through a spellchecker and caught a few more things (don't worry, in commands I only letit change the command text labels - and I tested it, they work!)

So, here's the last ZIP file I hope

infotexts.xml

portrait.xml

quest.xml

events.xml

command.xml

All 5 contain at least some edits and should be ready to plug into your next version (with or without the mission patch files)

I playestested with these files + the rest copied from the original 911FR folder; all the way through the Dam mission and saw no errors or missing text

lamod_files_mav1701_v3.zip

I'll quit bugging you about it now, though if you need anything else written or edited, feel free to call on me

[Guest Utrechtterror]

Utrechterror, were you looking for more things to do on the freeplay map?

How about an auxiliry truck bay somewhere near the fire station to store some of the trucks we don't use too often (the MCU, or USAR, Brushtruck, etc..)

It doesn't need to be fancy like the main station, maybe instead of spawning them from offscreen, just have a "station" where they spawn out of the door and return to despawn.

Building a parking spot won't be that hard. But scripting it IS

[Guest Robbyboy]

i love to see a place where you can put your other vehicles like USAR truck, brush truck, equipment truck, Engineer's vehicle, Crane. Not that you script it but without a script; just a place where you can park your other vehicles because there's not enough room behind the fire station.

[Guest Utrechtterror]

You mean a spot where you can put your vehicles yourself?

That's something I can make, but you have to ask hoppah.

[Hoppah]

I am not going to make whole scripting tutorials to change my mod for personal use. It's not just creating a park script with a single virtual object. You have to combine scripts (battalion chief). You don't want to know how much I've spend on creating the fire station with all necessary commands.

Some things are easy to explain (like this), but creating new parking places or even a new fire station is too much work to explain. People who saw the fire station script (LAFireStation.script) know what I mean. If I want to add a second fire station I need to make a second fire station script AND I need to combine scripts again. (example: vehicles need to 'know' to which fire station they have to go).

You can use the editor to place new vehicles on the map, but they don't have a park command or can be called with a battalion chief.

Hoppah

[Guest Utrechtterror]

I agree with that.

People should respect a modder's work and if they want to have something changed, they have to do it themselves. Especially when it's something hard like scripting.

Anyway, i've been modelling agian for an object for the gate, in front of that big presidential house. It's hard to explain how it looks, but you will see it in 1.4

So patience is a good thing *evil*

[Guest Robbyboy]

I understand that It's really really much work and i appreciate it :bigthump: so i'm going to try to make a parking lot somewhere on the map. So I can place the vehicles there by myself. (without any script just ingame )

[Guest Mav1701]

I'm currently flowcharting the station script + its parts to see which does what. Maybe my 3 years of C++ and Java classes at college will be useful finally. If I can get my mind around it, it shouldn't be too hard to pull out what we need to duplicate the station in a basic way, perhaps just a send home button. If I can I'd gladly supply it to you Utrecht

No promises of course

[Guest Mav1701]

I've had some pretty good luck, I mapped out how to add a "call button" to the Battalion chief so he can call a Light Equipment Truck from a mythical bay 6.

I have a question, though, about what sort of station expansion would be "best"

Type A: Its basically a Parking Space / Open Shed expansion, that simply adds 2 or 3 "spots" to park 2 or 3 more types of trucks. The trucks would just back in and sit there unit called, and the units inside would stay in the trucks - no alarm-loading. They'd work pretty much like the Chiefs SUV, but the chief could call them.

Type B: It is basically a 2nd station, with 3 or 4 doors labeled gate 6, 7, 8, 9. The plan (for realisms sake) would be to replace Engine 1 in the main station with the LightEquip Truck, and have Station 2 hold Engine 1, a USAR bay, and a Mass Cas Unit Bay. The 4th bay might be used for Ambulance 04(The Vanbulance) (just change its script from using the all purpose amby bay to a new bay) or perhaps the yellow one . if we can get Engine one painted that bright lemon color too

I have hopes that, because its coded so well, the station script will just think its all one big station, though I need to examine the alarm script more. They wouldn't need to be close on the map though.

type B is of course a lot more work - is it worth it? It is overkill? Am I just being annoying? (I really hope to be successful so Hoppah wont have to even worry about it, and he can work on the stuff he likes, like those sweet missions

[Guest Utrechtterror]

Did you ask hoppah if he think it's okay ?

[Hoppah]

The problem is that I have to make new models too. A second fire station model. That also a lot of work. I know how to change the scripts, I know what I have to do, but testing the new stuff takes a lot of time. I want to make some new missions first, then we'll see what I do.

[Guest Mav1701]

No no I'm not asking you to do any of it Hoppah, except give me (us?) permission to try, and then add our work in before release

My intent is to supply Utrecht with the scripts so he can add the 2nd station while he's working on the map. It wouldn't get released unless you "approve it" for 1.4

I mean, I'm gonna mess with it for my own use anyway, but if I can help you out by modifying code, which is all this is, I'd like to. You can focus on the truly new stuff, those Missions.

Utrecht made the cool White House thing, so I imagine he can handle the station model, if he's willing. (all I need is the simple building with 3 to 4 bays with the door objects + virtual objects labeled 6, 7, 8, and 9, at the most)

I'll tell ya what guys, don't even worry about it right now. I'll keep messing with the code locally, and I'll post something up when I have something to show off, that way I won't waste your time

[Guest Utrechtterror]

This is how I think about it, I really appreciate all the work you are willing to put in this mod, it's great. But it's hoppah's mod and if alot of people help him it's not really his mod anymore, people are taking advantage of his mod then.

I change the map, yes. But I don't need any credit for it.

Though it's up to hoppah .

[Guest Mav1701]

Oh me either, I don't care about credit, all I would be doing is applying a copy of his code anyway, nothing to credit me with anyway

He just indicated that doing this type of thing (station editing) is too time consuming and he didn't plan to do it, so I figure maybe someone else can contribute in the boring spots, he must get bugged about it a lot, its in the faq

but yeah its his mod

[Hoppah]

Well, just keep ik personal until I've released v1.4. This could be something for v1.5. Ok?

[Guest ComputerCop]

Mav1701 and Utrechtterror,

I posted in the other topic about some fiddling around that I did relating to this idea. Mav, if you need my help, I can try to find some time. I'm also a CompSci student with experience in Java and C.

Here is the post that I wrote in the other topic...

I started fiddling around with the Editor and looking over the scripts to try and add the light equip truck myself. There are a few empty spaces in the parking lot of the fire station, so I thought "hey, why not add a light truck to one of them?"

First, I of course checked how well that truck fit into that space, since it is bigger than the average Joe Civilian vehicle

It fit nicely into the spot, so I started replicating what Hoppah had done for the Fire Chief SUV (and I need to figure out how to rename a virtual object...) so a light truck could be spawned in that parking space and eventually add commands/scripting for it to park in there, and the fire chief command to call it. My god Hoppah, I don't know how you can put up with this!! It is SO much work just to add a vehicle to a parking space, I can't believe I even suggested that you try this, and I even suggested the idea of extending the fire station by adding another bank of garage doors!!!! My extreme apologies!

In the end, I gave up and decided to leave the idea for another day. It's not impossible, but you need a lot of time on your hands to do it. Its much, much easier to just call the truck from HQ, park it in the parking lot manually, assign it to a group number, and call it for any emergencies where a big truck isn't needed. Its not just adding the objects and the scripting for the truck, but also for fire fighters to rush into the truck when the alarm is sounded (and since the truck is OUTSIDE, they have to spawn on the outside door, or if not possible, walk through the garage doors to the truck), and even more complicated, I always like to have a diver in that truck, but thats more coding to add to the alarm script.

So Hoppah, if you would like to go on with adding it to v1.4, (and if you know a faster way than what I tried) then be my guest, I'll even be willing to help with some of the scripting. But seeing as how I can't even figure out how to rename a virtual object, I can't do this little addition myself.

[Hoppah]

Lets wait for v1.4 first. Then we'll talk further about this. For me it's just copy/paste for the scripting part btw. Testing and modelling (2nd fire station) takes much more work. I also need to change the ground texture again.

There is one thing I need to discuss:

So, there are two fire stations, one on both sides of the river. Both fire stations have ambulances (Ambulance 1, 2 or 3). Since it's not possible to calculate the distance from an object to another object, it's not possible to send the ambulance to closest fire station. How do you want to 'fix' this? Create a command called 'Send to fire station 2'? AND the battalion chief can call ambulances. It's not possible to calculate the distance from the chief to the closest fire station. So that's even a much bigger problem. Have you thought about these problems? I did and that's also a reason I didn't add a second fire station much earlier.

[Guest Mav1701]

Hoppah, i wasn't asking you to do any of it.. just to add it in if you like it.

Like I said, don't worry about it, I'll come back with something solid to show if I can.

And yes I did consider those things. Code-wise, I don't think your script cares if Bay 1 and Bay 2 are right next to one another on the map, or on separate sides. The same would work for ambulances

Besides, I wasn't 100% sure I was adding an ambulance to the 2nd station, just the extra Fire trucks we can't park. If I did move an ambulance, I'd redo some Ambulance_04 code to make it work separate from the other 3. Why? Because in the US we commonly have "basic" ambulances and then Larger critical care ambulances.

Anyway, thats way down the road, don;t worry about it til I actually get something done

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On a different note, I started a new campaign today and I noticed I had two of the "mission vehicles" swapped in quest.xml

This line:

<string name="ID_QUEST_M03_TASK02">Buy Engineer's Vehicle (%d Credits)</string>

and this line

<string name="ID_QUEST_M07_TASK02">Buy SWAT Rescue Truck! (%d Credits)</string>

are swapped, the swat truck is bought during Mission 3's "freeplay" and the engineers truck is bought during mission 7. like so:

<string name="ID_QUEST_M03_TASK02">Buy SWAT Rescue Truck! (%d Credits)</string> 
.
.
.
<string name="ID_QUEST_M07_TASK02">Buy Engineers Vehicle (%d Credits)</string>

Not a big deal, but if you get a chance to swap them, it'll make more since when you listen to the Supervisor movie that plays along.

File attached for your convenience, though it's an easy edit

quest.xml.txt

(just remove the .txt after you save it)