Horn of the Abyss

I tried to play new Cove with 0.95. There is something wrong with artifacts - they just don’t spawn on the map.

However, cheat vcmiforgeofnoldorking can create them and they seem to work. Additionally, I figured out that crown of Seven Seas can’t be moved and console recognizes it as a lock - it’s the first artifact after three unused combo artifacts.
Also, I have WoG disabled for now.

That’s strange - they should behave exactly as any other art mod. Will check this out.

Just one thing - Cove creatures are one level higher than they should be. This may cause crash on map launch if level 7 creatures are present.

In my client log there is a messages like

10:46:12 WARN global [13b4] - File CONFIG/HOTA/KULA is not a valid JSON file!
10:46:12 WARN global [13b4] - At line 1, position 0 error: Not a valid UTF-8 file

After recoding files to UTF8 without BOM it worked well (but polish characters got broken). I don’t know polish so I left them corrupted

Updated for 0.96 version here:
dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/223 … s/hota.zip
Note:

  • Requires bugfixes from git to work. Will crash on 0.95d
  • Will be uploaded to repo on 0.96 release.

Changelog:

  • updated using 1.3.3 data
  • converted it into set of submods (note that this will break mods that depend on “cove” mod). Cove is now a submod of HotA.
  • implemented (as a separate submod) new graphics for towns on map (including H3 towns)

In dwellings there are strings “guards”:true
It leads to unguarded dwellings in my test mod.
In my test mod I replaced it with
"guards" :
{ “amount” : 16, “type” : “abodeDruid” }
],
for example,
and now guards work.

Should you not tag the new version of the mod as incompatible with old ‘cove’? Now I have both of them installed, which makes 2 separate cove town avaible in single player scenario settings :slight_smile:

I also noticed some bugs:

  1. Right after downloading ‘hota’ mod you cannot immediately expand the submod list (the arrow is missing). You have to restart the launcher. It would also be nice to add ability to simply double-click to expand the tree as this does not work.
  2. Why do I have to ‘cove’ submods’ (screen)? :slight_smile:

Btw., I guess I should update my mod (Tarnum pt2), therefore I have a question, how do I make it compatible with a submod? In WIKI there is only this (main mod as I assume?):

// List of mods that are required to run this one
"depends" :

    "baseMod"
],

Finally, a question - does the new version of mod mean that in the future all the features from hota will greadually be added to this mod (objects, maps, other towns etc.)? Just curious :slight_smile:


Thanks for report, will fix all of these soon.

One of these was supposed to be new towns for map from HotA (village->fort->citadel->castle->capitol chain). Probably messed up something with release package - it was OK before.

For submods format is .. So what you need is this:

"depends" : 
  
 "hota.cove" 
 ],

Yes. Features ported from HotA will be added to this mod. But I have no intention on copying HotA 1:1. Some examples:

  • Graphical fixes for h3 - won’t be ported. At least by me - I don’t want to distribute half of H3 graphics from vcmi.eu
  • Map objects - likely to be possible in 0.97 but quite useless without working RMG or editor. I will port them once RMG will be more-less stable.
  • Maps/campaigns. Almost impossible to port without converting to some kind of VCMI format. And for that we need our own editor first. So this will take quite a while.

By this do you mean new versions of ie. new Hydra Pond and Efreeti map objects, castle screen fixes/changes etc.?

Would it not just be easier in the future to make VCMI simply HOTA compatible and configurable by JSON files instead of extracting and repacking graphics? In the end it is one of the best things that happend to Heroes 3 in a last couple of years :slight_smile:

I’ve re-uploaded mod on repo although bug with not visible submods will have to wait - it needs fix in the launcher. And since I renamed the mod I guess I should also rename this topic

I haven’t looked on Hydra/Efreeti changes but yeah - things like castle screen fixes. They also have quite a lot of similar fixes for Conflux.

This is not as easy as it looks like. For example they’ve added new frames in H3 files like CrPtSmall. And wog also did that. So there is no way to make both wog and hota work at once. So one of these mods should be repacked for vcmi.
Considering that I have automated conversion updating data with new release takes ~5-10 minutes so this is not a problem.

And even if we’ll do this - there are two ways to make this work:
a) distribute full HotA releases from vcmi.eu. Which contains half of H3 data. Not the best solution for us.
b) distribute only config files and ask players to install HotA manually. Not the best solution for players. And won’t work with our repository that supposed to have mods working as it.

Meh, I just thought that would be easier, but if there is a better method I will certainly not argue :slight_smile:

Well, if I have time maybe I will make something like this one day then + some tweaks/changes in original H3 that I think would be a nice addition :slight_smile:

Moved some posts into a separate topic. Ivan.
forum.vcmi.eu/viewtopic.php?t=935

Using latest nightly build, but this has been appearing since 0.96. When trying to build Citadel in Cove, game crashes with report in terminal:

Resource with name SPRITES/HOTA/CITADEL and type ANIMATION wasn't found.

Yeah and also

Cannot load game SAVES/AUTOSAVE_5. Error: Resource with name SPRITES/HOTA/CAPITOL and type ANIMATION wasn't found.
terminate called after throwing an instance of 'std::runtime_error'
  what():  Resource with name SPRITES/HOTA/CAPITOL and type ANIMATION wasn't found.
Neúspěšně ukončen (SIGABRT)

That means I am probably missing some file /or the file is missing in installed mod/.

Thanks for report - I’ve made an update with fixed paths. You should be able to install it via launcher.

Will the hota mod include graphical nad gamplay mechanic changes to castles like in Kuririn’s mod here? I do not see it included…

Ask Kuririn, he walks his own paths :wink:

I am trying to create a mod that replaces creature defs from those from hota. Either replacing creatures is not supported am doing something wrong (more probable :slight_smile: ). For starters I try to replace Orc and Orc Chieftain. By trial and error i tried to use:

core:stroghold

or

core:creatures

but none of them work, I get:

	 Error: Unknown entry found: orc
At <root>
	 Error: Unknown entry found: orcChieftain
At <root>
	 Error: Required entry faction is missing

Full JSON file:

{
	"core:stronghold" :
	{
		"orc" :
		{
			"graphics" :
			{
				"animation" : "battle/CORC.DEF",
				"map" : "map/AVWORC0.DEF"
			},
			"sound" :
			{
				"killed": "OORCKILL.wav",
				"wince": "OORCWNCE.wav"
			}
		},
		"orcChieftain" :
		{
			"graphics" :
			{
				"animation" : "battle/CORCCH.DEF",
				"map" : "map/AVWORCX0.DEF"
			},
			"sound" :
			{
				"killed": "ORCCKILL.wav",
				"wince": "ORCCWNCE.wav"
			}
		}
	}
}

Could you give a hint what am I doing wrong?

{
    "hota:pirate" : 
    {
        // entries that you want to replace in object "pirate" from mod "hota"
        // Note that hota is submod so you need to write "hota.cove:pirate" (if I haven't missed anything)
    }
}
    "core:orc" :
    {
        // entries that you want to replace from H3 object "orc"
    }
}

Add file with such code in “creatures” section of your mod and it should work.

Excellent, thanks :slight_smile:

Ok, I managed to successfully make a mod implementing all changes and graphic fixes to creatures from HotA. Unless I am wrong, VCMI does not support shooting area attacks at any hex (Magog, Lich) ? I could not find any info on that, so I assumed that it does not, therefore obviously it is not implemented :stuck_out_tongue:

I do not know if it will be helpfull, but I think it can be added as a submod to hota. I managed o quickly test it and fix most obvious errors, but it would be nice if someone looked at it as well. I’m attaching it below :slight_smile:

BTW, does VCMI use graphics from map symbolizing creature attack when hero gets close right before the battle (AVWATTAK.DEF)?

HotA creature changes.zip (3.29 MB)