borg Posted December 10, 2014 Share Posted December 10, 2014 Hi all... not sure if this makes sense. No matter how many mods (folders and files) i put in the z folder in DATA folder.. i can't seem to see/get any of them working. I am up-to-date with 3.11 patch, running on OS X machine. For instance, i've tried 2ndbattalionranger helmets, plenty of EZ mods for uniforms.. any feedback please ? Of anyone had this problem too? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boekie Posted December 10, 2014 Share Posted December 10, 2014 have you put the correct files in the z folder?most mods are ziped files and you must unzip them before you put them in the z folder. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
borg Posted December 10, 2014 Author Share Posted December 10, 2014 oh yes i have. The only perhaps 'dilemma' i had is whether i put a folder obtained AFTER extracting the zip file.. or Empty the contents of the extracted folder into the z. I just don't get it... Is here someone who is patched up with the latest Game Engine, and runs mods fine ? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
borg Posted December 10, 2014 Author Share Posted December 10, 2014 i have a suspicion its because i am running on Engine 3.0... most mods I'm seeing are 1.0 and/or 2.0 :-/ Could this be ? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sburke Posted December 10, 2014 Share Posted December 10, 2014 i have a suspicion its because i am running on Engine 3.0... most mods I'm seeing are 1.0 and/or 2.0 :-/ Could this be ? I am on the latest and I haven't had any issues with my mods. Some of them were from 1.0. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
borg Posted December 10, 2014 Author Share Posted December 10, 2014 So they go under Contents/Resources/Data/ in there i create a z folder.. and dump all in it ? And thats it ? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
borg Posted December 10, 2014 Author Share Posted December 10, 2014 And.. would u be kind enough., as to send me just two examples.. to try them out and compare. 10x 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Canadian Cat Posted December 10, 2014 Share Posted December 10, 2014 Yep works fine for me - on both of my machines: On my secondary machine I have things setup with a z folder that contains a sub-directory for each mod and inside that sub directory is the mod's files: C:/Programs/Battlefront/CMBN/Data/z /CatTacticalIconsCMBN -> which contains the files and sub directories for the mod /Juju's TweakedUIv3 -> which contains the files and sub directories for the mod On my home machine - where I really use mod it looks like this: C:/Programs/Battlefront/CMBN/Data/z / a bunch of sub dirs for miscellaneous mods C:/Programs/Battlefront/CMBN/Data/u / a bunch of sub dirs for UI mods C:/Programs/Battlefront/CMBN/Data/t / a bunch of sub dirs for uniform mods (yeah I know t - crazy right:-) C:/Programs/Battlefront/CMBN/Data/v / a bunch of sub dirs for vehicle mods C:/Programs/Battlefront/CMBN/Data/zz / a bunch of sub dirs for overrides for a few things above All working happily 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Steppenwulf Posted December 10, 2014 Share Posted December 10, 2014 Ensure that the mods you have selected are for the version you are playing. Some of EZ's earlier uniform mods became outdated by later versions by virtue of simple file name changes. Therefore a version 3 game will no longer read them. In case of doubt you just need to check them against the latest stock ones. I always find the best thing to do, to prevent any doubt with files is to explode all mod brz compressed material. I also have exploded all the stock brz and store the exploded stock material elsewhere so I can cross reference modded files with the stock one - if required. As an aside, you do need to pack files for them to be loaded so long as the files are named right and put in a z folder so they will overide all other stock files they will work. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sburke Posted December 10, 2014 Share Posted December 10, 2014 So they go under Contents/Resources/Data/ in there i create a z folder.. and dump all in it ? And thats it ? I assume you are on a MAC as that looks nothing like what I have. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
borg Posted December 10, 2014 Author Share Posted December 10, 2014 Yes. AND, i just followed the steps AGAIN, and it appears that i DO have a small number of mods that are being visible... so. ok ! managing. DO i i need to rename 'files' with a z letter too. Or the fact that they're in a z folder is enough ? And.. let's say a particular mod has uniforms and patches for the 1st, the 2nd, the 3rd Inf etc etc.... the mod only assumes one of them ? Or are all of them taken into account by the game ? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Steppenwulf Posted December 10, 2014 Share Posted December 10, 2014 DO i i need to rename 'files' with a z letter too. Or the fact that they're in a z folder is enough ? The individual files themselves must be named the same as the stock game files. Putting a z in front of them would not enable them to be loaded thus. The idea of putting them in a z folder is to ensure the game loads the material in that folder before it loads the stock material, which you will note are located in the various brz compressed folders in the data folder. The next files to be loaded (after the z folder contents) will be the brz stock folders, i.e., Normandy v301.brz, Normandy v300.brz then Normandy v212.brz and so on... And.. let's say a particular mod has uniforms and patches for the 1st, the 2nd, the 3rd Inf etc etc.... the mod only assumes one of them ? Or are all of them taken into account by the game ? I'm not entirely sure what you mean here, however you might be alluding to the fact the textures and sounds are named ...1, ....2, ....3, etc.. ??? The reason for this is that the game (following the loading of the first texture, which is not normally numbered) will load all subsequent numbered textures and sound files too (e.g., ...1, ...2, etc..) displaying each version randomly, with the effect of adding variation to the sounds and textures seen/heard in game. As far as I am aware there is no upper limit on the number of sequenced files that can be loaded. Hope that helps 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilM Posted December 10, 2014 Share Posted December 10, 2014 The individual files themselves must be named the same as the stock game files. Putting a z in front of them would not enable them to be loaded thus. The idea of putting them in a z folder is to ensure the game loads the material in that folder before it loads the stock material, which you will note are located in the various brz compressed folders in the data folder. The next files to be loaded (after the z folder contents) will be the brz stock folders, i.e., Normandy v301.brz, Normandy v300.brz then Normandy v212.brz and so on... I'm not entirely sure what you mean here, however you might be alluding to the fact the textures and sounds are named ...1, ....2, ....3, etc.. ??? The reason for this is that the game (following the loading of the first texture, which is not normally numbered) will load all subsequent numbered textures and sound files too (e.g., ...1, ...2, etc..) displaying each version randomly, with the effect of adding variation to the sounds and textures seen/heard in game. As far as I am aware there is no upper limit on the number of sequenced files that can be loaded. Hope that helps I think this - my bold bit of your post - is the wrong way around ... the programme uses the LAST version of a file it is instructed to load, this superseding those before it ... So, the idea of mods in a "z" folder is it gets to those last, and anything in there replaces any file of the same name in the "stock" folders which it would otherwise use ... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erwin Posted December 10, 2014 Share Posted December 10, 2014 I would request that something be done to help customers figure out what mods are still functioning with the latest versions installed. As a mod slut from the earliest releases I must have thousands of mods in my Z folders by now. And I expect maybe 50% (but who knows) may not be working any more. However, it would take hundreds of man-hours to test each of them. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
borg Posted December 10, 2014 Author Share Posted December 10, 2014 I would request that something be done to help customers figure out what mods are still functioning with the latest versions installed. As a mod slut from the earliest releases I must have thousands of mods in my Z folders by now. And I expect maybe 50% (but who knows) may not be working any more. However, it would take hundreds of man-hours to test each of them. THUMBS UP ! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Steppenwulf Posted December 10, 2014 Share Posted December 10, 2014 I think this - my bold bit of your post - is the wrong way around ... the programme uses the LAST version of a file it is instructed to load, this superseding those before it ... So, the idea of mods in a "z" folder is it gets to those last, and anything in there replaces any file of the same name in the "stock" folders which it would otherwise use ... Actually it was guess on the loading process - and that's what happens when you guess things . Thanks for clarifying the detail though Phil. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sburke Posted December 10, 2014 Share Posted December 10, 2014 I would request that something be done to help customers figure out what mods are still functioning with the latest versions installed. As a mod slut from the earliest releases I must have thousands of mods in my Z folders by now. And I expect maybe 50% (but who knows) may not be working any more. However, it would take hundreds of man-hours to test each of them. Who are you expecting to do that? Just a question as BF certainly is not going to invest it's resources nor should they. Some mod creators may not even be around any longer so the reality is, you are responsible for any mods you add to the game. Unfortunately I don't see a way around that. As you noted it is a huge time sink. As they are a community created item I can't see BF being held to check it. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sburke Posted December 10, 2014 Share Posted December 10, 2014 I think this - my bold bit of your post - is the wrong way around ... the programme uses the LAST version of a file it is instructed to load, this superseding those before it ... So, the idea of mods in a "z" folder is it gets to those last, and anything in there replaces any file of the same name in the "stock" folders which it would otherwise use ... Correct that is the whole point of naming it z. It loads after all the BF brz folders overwriting the existing file in memory. Once in the z file you can name your folders anything you want. I have various folders to define types of mods and in some cases unit folders that would contain for example all the mods I want for the game to represent the 352nd ID, uniforms, UI pics etc So I have a sound folder, a terrain folder, a building folder etc etc. keeps it organized so I can verify what I am modding and what mods potentially overlap. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baneman Posted December 10, 2014 Share Posted December 10, 2014 I would request that something be done to help customers figure out what mods are still functioning with the latest versions installed. As a mod slut from the earliest releases I must have thousands of mods in my Z folders by now. And I expect maybe 50% (but who knows) may not be working any more. However, it would take hundreds of man-hours to test each of them. Why would they stop working ? The obvious one that does is Vin's animated text, so we know that if a mod mucks about with strings.txt, it will stop working each time the game version updates, but apart from that, all my mods are eye-candy based and I can't see them stopping working. A couple might be redundant because I've replaced them with something else and didn't remove them, but that's down to my mod management slackness. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sburke Posted December 10, 2014 Share Posted December 10, 2014 Why would they stop working ? The obvious one that does is Vin's animated text, so we know that if a mod mucks about with strings.txt, it will stop working each time the game version updates, but apart from that, all my mods are eye-candy based and I can't see them stopping working. A couple might be redundant because I've replaced them with something else and didn't remove them, but that's down to my mod management slackness. I don't know of any that have stopped working, but as an example once bump maps were introduced mods that didn't take advantage of them become less desirable. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilM Posted December 10, 2014 Share Posted December 10, 2014 Actually it was guess on the loading process - and that's what happens when you guess things . Thanks for clarifying the detail though Phil. No problem ... sorry if it seemed a bit sniffy to correct you, but given the OP's problem with mods working or not, and the order they are loaded in being material to that, I thought it was worth making the point more precisely, just in case the load order of them was an issue for the OP ... The same point would apply re named subfolders within "z" that others have mentioned (and I use too): if by any chance you have two mods for the same original file, but in different subfolders within "z", then the same "last in" principle applies ... the one that would be used would depend on the names, and thus the order of reading, of the subfolders ... and one you think is active may actually be being replaced by a later-named subfolder version of a mod for the same file. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Steppenwulf Posted December 10, 2014 Share Posted December 10, 2014 No not sniffy at all. Actually I use zz and zzz folders within data in order to test certain files against my mod files so I think it is a good point to indicate that there is indeed plenty of flexibility for adding modded files and removing them. Since I don't have version 3, I wondered if you might be able to illustrate how tagged maps/mods work? It has occurred to me that this is now an indispensable tool for customising scenarios eg, for RT to BN transfered special flavours, featured unit insignia, tank unit decals, the list goes on... I realise a script reads the tags but what about the mod folder? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Artofwar Posted December 31, 2014 Share Posted December 31, 2014 One important thing to consider doing is to - well let me first say that my Z folder is pretty Generic I put a bunch of mod type tweaks and things in it then I have not added anything else to it the point is I do not change my z folder that much - having said that I think one important thing to consider doing is to SAVE YOUR Z FOLDER - especially when you get it like you want it. I found tweaking the Z folder a complicated undertaking but a welcomed endeavor because of how it can change the game to where I actually wanted to play it - I got rid of all the background combat noise, the LOUD wind noise, and the in my opinion silly repetitive verbal comments from soldiers by replacing them with voice mods and EVEN putting in a silent sound file to get them to shut up and even edited out some of the cussing. But what I do when I reinstall the game is to install the game then the updates or whatever then I copy my backup of my Z folder and place it in the correct location of where the Z folder is suppose to be and instantly I got the game all tweaked back like I want it. The Z folder is located in the DATA folder it is a sub folder of the Data folder so right mouse click the Z folder and copy it to another place on your computer or to a CD ROM this is assuming you have a Z folder configuration that you like --- then if you screw up your z folder or uninstall the game and reinstal it like if you take a break for 6 months and you deleted the game for some reason or whatever .... you don't have to relearn how to manipulate the darn Z folder just copy your back up of it back into your DATA folder of your new install. It is quite interesting how actually computer savy we all have to be to enjoy pc gaming but it is worth it. It may be worth reviewing Mods, Rezexplode, Repack, and Mods in Action these are listed in the table of contents of the 2.11 manual and probably similiarly placed in the I guess newer released 3.00 or 3.11 manual. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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