Questions from an old school modder :)

[Serlestain]

Hey guys what's up I stumbled across your site because I saw a video on youtube of Galuzza mineshaft and I just had to know the where and why.

I along with a few people started modding netmech way back in 1998 with Team NXP. We had a mod with adjusted weapons tables, the Battlemaster mech patched in and a mostly complete map based on the Devon mission from the single player. Unfortunatley we were more or less told our version would never be supported for tournament play by the Grand Council (who was the only active ladder by that time)

It's fantastic to see people rediscovering how to hack the prj files and I'd be more than happy to toss my input in.

So I've got an interest in doing this again and have a few questions...

Did anyone ever figure out how to break down and rebuild PRJ files? The main problem I ran into with modding netmech is I couldn't rebuild the PRJ files and modding maps was limited to overwriting OBJ files of the same size or larger. I tried for a long time in vain to get the tools that came with mercs to work but never had any luck.

And the big one, did anyone figure out how to activate Ghost Bear's Legacy's Multiplayer mode? At some point the Ghost Bear Legacy exe DID have mutliplayer via Netbios command line we just never figured out what the command line parameters were. Bieng able to use GBL Engine in netmech would be a lifelong dream.

[Sir MMPD Radick]

Hey welcome Serlestain!
Glad to have ya here!

Yes, there has been some modding done in the weapons ranges and damages. Highlander put his hand to trying to make a decent mod for that. You can find it in his section on the forum.
Battlemaster we also already have, but it is just a replacement of the marauder.. so its not used much since the spheres are still located in the same spot if I remember right .. let alone the criticals.
Rebuilding the PRJ, that matter well no it has yet to be done completely. As you said OBJ replacements and level replacements are the only way to actually do anything atm, but with Skyfaller and a few others there has been discovered a way to add some external content similar to what is done in mercs. Skyfaller created a tool which allows for easier map modding for the most part.

Now GBL, yes I am aware of its multi mode but I have not looked into activating it.
Skyfaller does have some plans for the GBL engine if ya read the mechvm section.

Anywho check out the mechvm section for more information.
I am sure Sky or Kell would love extra help

[npsbre]

It's really neat that you're here! I remember reading your site a few years ago and pondering how far you guys had gotten, and what knowledge might have been lost, as who would have thought you'd have the chance (or desire) to revisit it nowadays.

[Sir MMPD Radick]

yah really, I echo npsbres sentiments exactly.
Your guys work influenced alot of work on this site.

[Col.Kell]

Hey modder!

I wonder if you're one of the guys Sir MMPD Radick said beat me to netmech modding.... As you may know, I have been working on a netmech mod for dos. but up til now when my hex editor trials expired and lifes taking its toll on me, i was working on revising it and doing other mods. mainly I have been a map modder in addition to the custom missions i made.
But by far my greatest achevment has been KAM


cool, eh?

You can visit and enjoy my whole other mods here at Kell's Workshop: viewforum.php?f=28

The main problem I ran into with modding netmech is I couldn't rebuild the PRJ files and modding maps was limited to overwriting OBJ files of the same size or larger.

ah that. a problem in the early days of my modding. Fortunetly, I came across the possibilities of the "FE FF" OBJ tag. It allowed me to create mods that made the game look for BWD files outside the PRJ file. you can look at that here: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=511&start=0

hope you enjoy your stay!

[Serlestain]

I'm really happy someone picked it up again.

The most frustrating thing about the work was noone was interested in it at the time since the League wouldn't support it.

You guys have really got it down. Most of our work was hex editing to find what the OBJ data was it took us a while to find the x y obj type and that's ho we really got started. Looks like that knoledge has been recovered plus a little more with the EE EF tag which is fantastic. I struggled so many nights trying to force netmech to load external files and never thought to check for a load tag like that. I had a few interesting emails with Dan Kegel who gave me the unfortunate news that the MW2 31CC tools had been lost to the ages. The Merc toolset seemed to not be able to manipulate the 31stCC PRJ files either which was a huge dissapointment as well.

I really wish I had been able to find how to invoke GBL's multiplayer as the GBL engine I beleive was the pinnacle of all the MW2 engines.

Looks like about the same problems have been run into. Galuzza mineshaft was interesting the biggest problem still remained for us .. the fact that in-game the OBJs that made up the mineshaft tended to have colission issues that caused missles to blow up in your face which was why I concluded that it was not included in the final game. The engine seems to have problems dealing with "indoor" bulding types with the player mech is inside as far as collision detection. Don't even get me started on mechs falling through floors...

We did manage to complete most of an Urban map based on the planet Devin from the single player game but simply ran out of desire to continue when we were told it woulnd't ever be used for league play.


I guess what intrigued us most about using the GBL engine for netmech was the possibility of using the AI in multiplayer games. Based on the executable sizes we pretty much assumed that NETMW2.EXE had it's AI coding stripped from it but never really tested to be sure.

Still reading through there's a LOT of knowledge here so HOPEFULLY I'll be able to think of something that got missed as I look through. Great work so far though!

[Serlestain]

Hey modder!

I wonder if you're one of the guys Sir MMPD Radick said beat me to netmech modding.... As you may know, I have been working on a netmech mod for dos. but up til now when my hex editor trials expired and lifes taking its toll on me, i was working on revising it and doing other mods. mainly I have been a map modder in addition to the custom missions i made.
But by far my greatest achevment has been KAM


cool, eh?

You can visit and enjoy my whole other mods here at Kell's Workshop: viewforum.php?f=28

The main problem I ran into with modding netmech is I couldn't rebuild the PRJ files and modding maps was limited to overwriting OBJ files of the same size or larger.

ah that. a problem in the early days of my modding. Fortunetly, I came across the possibilities of the "FE FF" OBJ tag. It allowed me to create mods that made the game look for BWD files outside the PRJ file. you can look at that here: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=511&start=0

hope you enjoy your stay!

Your work is quite amazing and I'm still trying to soak in everything you've reverse engineered it could take a while lol

[Col.Kell]

Looks like about the same problems have been run into. Galuzza mineshaft was interesting the biggest problem still remained for us ..

oh don't get me started Sir MMPD Radick tried that some time ago, unfortunetly without success. And then later, I pursued this for myself. It seemed like it was going great! I was able to assemble the entire map correctly in just one test! All the original files were in place to play! But, when him and I tested it, we discovered that the netmech engine did not support negative alltitudes. So we couldn't go in the good parts of the map.
Skyfaller is working to where it may be possible to play maps like these on MechVM. Sounds cool.

I guess what intrigued us most about using the GBL engine for netmech was the possibility of using the AI in multiplayer games. Based on the executable sizes we pretty much assumed that NETMW2.EXE had it's AI coding stripped from it but never really tested to be sure.

>_< did that too... I have little faith that netmech (our DOS netmech at least) supports AI. I tested this with someone (notsid I think) roughly the same time MMPD and I tried the Galuzza map. It kept saying "waiting for remote players". Now Mercnet is a whole other thing. Mercnet mapmakers were able to get vehicle and aircraft AI to function on online play. I have tested singleplayer missions on Mercnet (which were awesome!) and Mech AI's worked right. I don't know why mech AI they claim would not behave correctly when there were online players...

We did manage to complete most of an Urban map based on the planet Devin from the single player game but simply ran out of desire to continue when we were told it woulnd't ever be used for league play.

ouch. Sorry to hear that. I know how it feels to have poured blood sweat and tears and people not care (no, not here guys ).

Your work is quite amazing and I'm still trying to soak in everything you've reverse engineered it could take a while lol

well, thanks! my future in mechwarrior modding is looking unlikely because of real-life stuff I'm doing now, and because... well... what else is there to mod? But maybe should you find out how I made these things (PM me if you want to talk about making mods. I'd enjoy to teach you things), you might be able to make some pretty awesome things of your own. I hope so

[Serlestain]

I ended up having a little more success with Galuzza by changing the structure to be entirely on the ground so it didn't go into negative altitudes. I never managed to get around the missles exploding in the face while inside it except by making the pieces destroyable objects

[Skyfaller]

I may be a bit late to join this discussion, but anyway ... We're on a good way to replace the MW2 shell. A lot remains to be done, but I'm confident we'll manage. The next milestone involves creating custom MEK files and displaying mission briefings, then it's essentially playable. I'm still relying on using the good old MW2 sim. I had plans to create my own MW2 sim, but I'm just not sure if I can find the time, so I'll finish the shell part first.

Let me know if there is anything else you want to know.