Design Window re-do

[Dio]

The addresses 00433066 and 00433074 control the labels for weapon and equipment respectively on the weapon design window.

[Dio]

The whole shaded area controls the label weapon on the main design window. Why it is taking up so much more space than the other labels?

[Geo]

Their is a single base chassis for human infantry equipment (land unit with 1 movement). The equipment that use this single chassis are terraformers, colony pods, supply transports, and Troop Transports. All of these equipment pieces use the same base chassis except that each of them add one or two unique caviar piece to that base chassis. You can view the base equipment chassis in game by changing a weapon or equipments offense mode to 4.

Let me tell what caviar files are used to make each infantry equipment (Land movement 1):

Base Chassis: VB.CVR + VBp.cvr + VCL.cvr + VCLT00.cvr + VLIGHTS.cvr

Colony Pods: Base Chassis + Drop.cvr + Droplet.cvr

Terraformers: Base Chassis + VT.cvr + WVNTu.cvr

Supply Transport: Base Chassis + VWNST.cvr

Troop Transport: Base Chassis + VWNTT.cvr

I know all that. I checked with a .cvr viewer what all these files look like.
My point is that the human (infantry/crawler) colony pod uses the Base Chassis + Drop.cvr + Droplet.cvr, but the aliens only the ACOLPOD.cvr file.
What I'd like is the aliens using base chassis + droplet as well so I can switch around.

[Buster's Uncle]

We really, really, need someone to crack the .cvr format and whip up an editor.  That would be HUGE.

[Dio]

Their is a single base chassis for human infantry equipment (land unit with 1 movement). The equipment that use this single chassis are terraformers, colony pods, supply transports, and Troop Transports. All of these equipment pieces use the same base chassis except that each of them add one or two unique caviar piece to that base chassis. You can view the base equipment chassis in game by changing a weapon or equipments offense mode to 4.

Let me tell what caviar files are used to make each infantry equipment (Land movement 1):

Base Chassis: VB.CVR + VBp.cvr + VCL.cvr + VCLT00.cvr + VLIGHTS.cvr

Colony Pods: Base Chassis + Drop.cvr + Droplet.cvr

Terraformers: Base Chassis + VT.cvr + WVNTu.cvr

Supply Transport: Base Chassis + VWNST.cvr

Troop Transport: Base Chassis + VWNTT.cvr

I know all that. I checked with a .cvr viewer what all these files look like.
My point is that the human (infantry/crawler) colony pod uses the Base Chassis + Drop.cvr + Droplet.cvr, but the aliens only the ACOLPOD.cvr file.
What I'd like is the aliens using base chassis + droplet as well so I can switch around.

I will see what I can do for you.

[Dio]

This is the code for the alien colony pod. Note that it has a special animation.

[Dio]

Interesting fact. It appears that each faction starts a new game with the highest level of ground unit that does not have a pre-requisite techonology. For example, lets say that hovertanks are available from the start of a game. Then each faction starts out with a scout hovertank.

[Dio]

The best I can do without re-writing both the chassis and weapons section is give you a colony pod equipment without the tread and body for aliens.

[Geo]

The best I can do without re-writing both the chassis and weapons section is give you a colony pod equipment without the tread and body for aliens.

Mmm. That might work too. Because when switching aliens to humans, I have the colony pod weapon in the 'alien body' and tracks underneath them, though the latter are nearly invisible because of the size of ACOLPOD.cvr

Interesting fact. It appears that each faction starts a new game with the highest level of ground unit that does not have a pre-requisite techonology. For example, lets say that hovertanks are available from the start of a game. Then each faction starts out with a scout hovertank.

Interesting indeed. Jarlwolf's initial planet busters may not be so far-fetched after all. 

[Dio]

A test of changes I have made in the code.

[Dio]

I want to try and get offense modes and defense modes to appear where the labels weapons and armor are. Also, I would like the single letter to appear behind the weapon strength on the design labels.

[Dio]

So after inserting the address for defensemodes, this is what I get.

[Yitzi]

The whole shaded area controls the label weapon on the main design window. Why it is taking up so much more space than the other labels?

Because it's not a hardcoded label, but rather from the text files, so the program code uses a pointer to a pointer to the label, and dereferencing pointers takes up space in the code.

[Dio]

It is odd that all VW weapons except for the resonace bolt, resonace lasers, lasers (VW01) and hand weapons (VW00) are only referenced in the caviar section of code

[Yitzi]

VW?