Supreme Commander Talk

Mods are flourishing right now in Supreme Commander, and it’s only going to get better. The next patch is going to be amazing for the mod community, including improvements to the way mods and maps are handled, an official map editor, and the continued promise of help and support from the GPG team. The mod handling changes are being announced and, to me, they look great. Cleaner implementation of the hooking system can only lead to more and more possibilities. Already, from reading these, I know I can greatly reduce redundant lines of code in a mod I’m working on once the next patch comes out. This means I can put more time into making the mod work and making it fun. While I’m not a huge fan of needing to generate a UID (Unique ID) for each mod I make, UIDs will make for much better handling of mods with the same name, such as different versions of the same mod.

A very cool new feature thats been announced in the above thread is the first OS call to be turned back on, OpenURL(string). This allows a mod to send a command to the OS to open up a given URL in your default browser (or other program associated with the specific protocol). Only safe protocols that can’t easily be used to spread adware, malware, or viruses can be used, specifically: HTTP, HTTPS, mailto, Ventrillo, TeamSpeak, Dapp, and IM protocols. The ability to add a help page or a feedback email right into the mod’s code is great though. Instead of needing a separate plain text readme to make sure people can find information on your mod or give feedback, you can just add a UI button.

In another thread, “O”, a GPG employee, released this information about the Map Editor:

“The map editor, which you don’t yet have (but will have soon hopefully), has a ‘marker’ editor which mass deposits are placed with. MarkerTemplates.lua specifies the available markers and can be modded to add your own marker types and attributes. The way to make this mod is to add a field to the mass deposit marker called something like “OwnerArmy” which you can then fill out in the editor you don’t have.”

This is great news. Basically, the Official Map Editor will have very detailed support for custom markers, which are key to scripted maps, especially scripted encounters such as campaign missions. As a modder who works mainly with map scripts myself, I’m really looking forward to this. I think some really interesting template map scripts will be popping up to be put in new custom maps, and scripted encounters, such as Warcraft III Tower Defense style maps, won’t be too far behind.

And as always, there is no end to the amazing support GPG employees give on the Mod Developer Support forums. They consistently answer questions about the Lua scripts and the game engine, and provide the best customer service and mod support I’ve ever seen. Calling Supreme Commander the most moddable RTS ever isn’t just marketing fluff; they’re serious about it!

This entry was posted on Friday, April 13th, 2007 at 11:36 pm by Jotto and is filed under Maps, Mods, News. Keywords: . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.