At long last...
...I have finished and released my Factory Mod Set and the Bitvagorod map.
A heavily damaged industrial town, based on a large set of modded buildings and other files.
Get it here, at GreenAsJade´s wonderful site: http://cmmods.greenasjade.net/mods/5371/details
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In short, this is a set of mods that allows you to play in a town that looks a lot more heavily damaged than anything you can get with the stock building and terraing textures. And thanks to CM´s new scenario specific mod tags system, these mods will only show up in the maps that have been designed for these mods (unfortunately, there is one exception: The additional flavor objects in this mod set will work in all scenarios. But that shouldn´t be a problem. More on this later - or read the pdf in the mod set).
Included is also a map created for the mod set: The fictional town of Bitvagorod - with a large factory complex and an small industrial river harbour.
This mod set and map has taken nearly six months to create - and is 351 MB large (zipped). It includes 409 BMP files and 24 MDR files. The modded textures are mainly:
Buildings
Bridges
Flavor objects
Roads
Terrain
And a few vehicles turned into flavor objects (a railcar and an old GAZ truck)
This is primarily a map:
The btt file Bitvagorod is first and foremost a map - meant for CM players to create their own scenarios/quick battles on.
There is an axis vs AI scenario included as well, but this scenario is very, very rough and unfinished. It is not at all ready for general release - and I have only included it to give players who don´t have the patience to create their own scenarios a chance to play right away. But play at your own peril!
I am currently working on a proper scenario for the map, but this will not be finished for probably two months at least.
A few words of caution:
The Bitvagorod map has been thoroughly tested with the kind help of several members of this forum, and the tests show that these mods will probably slow down your game - or maybe even make it crash. This is probably because of the large number of files involved. The only way to find out how it will affect your computer is to load the game in CMRT. If the game crashes, it might help to remove some of your other (non scenario specific) mods.
Also, the use of these mods do have some minor negative effects on gameplay. So to avoid frustration, I strongly advice you to read the PDF file "The boring stuff you need to read to avoid unpleasant surprises" included in the mod set.
A bit of background
I have aimed to create a damaged town that looks realistic - more realistic than is possible to make with the stock damaged buildings. Consequently, the core of the mod set project has been to turn some of the current stock buildings into heavily damaged buildings. I had to make this mod set as the damage shown on the stock CMRT buildings didn´t allow me to create a heavily damaged town. A bit simplified the damage on the stock buildings could be described as: Either a large hole in the wall - or completely flattened.
However, I would like to stress that I don´t think this is due to bad or sloppy work from BFC, but because they have to deliver a game where all the little pieces fit perfectly together. As a modder, I have the luxury of being allowed to make texures that will work in some situations but be completely useless in others.
I ´ve tried some of this before: Six or seven years ago I made a "Stalingrad-ish" mod pack with damaged buildings for CMBB. I´d been considering doing the same for CM2 ever since the release of CMBN, but I decided against it for several reasons: Firstly, because the way textures are used and displayed in CM doesn´t go very well with making damaged building mods. But more importantly: Making these mods would affect the buildings in all the player´s scenarios, not just the ones they were intended to be used in. That meant that the players using the mods would have to move the mods in and out of their z folder, depending on which scenario they were currently playing.
Fortunately, that is no longer an issue since the release of CM2 3.0 and the introduction of scenario specific mod tags. The mod tags make sure that the mods will only show up in the scenario that are made for these mods (except for flavor objects, unfortunately). So I thought I´d give it a try.
Enough words - the rest for now will be pics
Enjoy
PS:
I am very grateful to the following for their invaluable help and advice in creating this mod set and map:
Juju
TanksALot
EarlofGrey
The same goes for the guys that helped test the map:
Sburke
AlexUK
Erwin
Buzz
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