Comments - zahaqiel

Not without a bit of work.

It actually breaks the EULA on Soulstorm for us to modify the existing campaign (it requires extracting their assets for repackaging, reuploading official game assets is bad, etc etc), so we (or some enterprising other person) would need to make an entirely new campaign to include Nids in campaign mode unfortunately.

UA needs to update to be compatible with us. Our mod doesn't need "fixing", the reason it's doing that (as has been spelled out in detail in earlier comments) is mostly that UA assumes that files we no longer use are present and also attempts to make units do things they can't do.

So you've just got to wait for them to update UA to accommodate the changes in our mod.

That suggests that files may be missing and you may want to uninstall/reinstall?
(I've seen that error back in the day with some Eldar units, the black-and-pink-checkered box is truly a terrifying foe).

I *believe* (although a lot of the testing was done while I was out of commission, so don't take my word as definitive) that it has been PvP tested in more than just 1v1 games.

From what was passed on to me, I'm pretty certain that our testers got a bunch of friends together to test it out pretty thoroughly. Playtesting is pretty much what 99% of the last year of mod work has been for our guys.

That's a little odd. The obvious first place to start is... have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling the mod?

That is both weird and interesting. Does it happen if both allied players are Tyranids?

Unification are in the process of setting up their next version which will be 100% compatible with b3.

Correct - this is due to file changes between b2 and b3 and UA still expecting files we no longer use. Correcting the issue does not make them compatible however as there are further file compatibility issues beyond this particular issue.

This has been gone over in relative detail in the comments of the actual b3 installer download page.

It's not the detail/volume, it's just the overall quantity of them. Tyranids are more FX heavy than other races due to the amount of clouds (from buildings) and aura markers (from Synapse generators and units within Synapse range) they have.

We did stress tests to see where the upper limit really was, and we've optimised as best we can... but it's kind of unavoidable unfortunately.

Download files to desktop. Open files. Choose the "Extract" or "Extract to" option and extract them directly into your Soulstorm directory.

You should extract both of them directly into your Soulstorm main directory. Objective Points is in a 7z archive and the FreeUI Mod is in a rar archive, both *should* be openable with WinRAR.

Sounds like you're trying to use it with another mod - UA perhaps? If you are, you're unfortunately going to have to wait for those other mods to update to adjust for compatibility with what we've changed.

There is a way to fix it so you don't need to do this, it just requires some manual tinkering.

While you have either mod installed (dealer's choice):
Step 1. Rename "Tyranids.module" to Tyranidsx.module" (x being whichever one it is - b2 or b3).
Step 2. Change the "Tyranids" folder to "Tyranidsx" (again x being whichever one it is).
Step 3. Open that module file and change the "UIName" entry to include the mod version and change the "ModFolder" entry to match what you changed the Tyranids folder to. Save and close.

So if you have 0.5b2 installed and want to install 0.5b3 without losing it, change the module to "Tyranidsb2.module" and the folder to "Tyranidsb2", and the UIName to "Tyranid Mod 0.5b2" and the ModFolder to "Tyranidsb2".

That will prevent it from being uninstalled by the other installer and make sure it is clearly identified in the in-game mod manager. If you do rename b2 and you need it for intermod compatibility reasons, just remember to also update the module file of those other mods that you want to use it with so that the RequiredMod entry matches the new module file name (minus the .module part) of the altered Tyranid mod (ie, "RequiredMod.y = Tyranidsb2" or what have you).

What language do you have the game set to?

Sorry about the late reply. Are you using the mod with any other mods at the same time?

Sorry about the late reply - busy month, moving house.

So you are right, once a Tyranid hivefleet makes landfall everyone is screwed and there isn't much you can do to remove them without just burning the whole planet to ash. But that's a scenario where (to use DoW terms), Tyranids have near-infinite Requisition to work with (all that biomass they bring with them).

So in the mod's case you're playing as a small splinter that made landfall somewhere far from a full hivefleet. Under those circumstances, if you kill the Tyranids early then you *can* prevent them from coming back.

But even under those circumstances I think you're probably right, a low grade Influence tick might be accurate - Catachan and other worlds have low-grade Tyranid influence going on after all. I'll add it to the list for 0.6 (assuming 0.6 ever happens). :)

So fun story there:
The license agreement for the game doesn't allow us to modify the existing campaign. Which means would have to entirely write our own one.

<insert obvious joke about how slow we are to make things here>

UA has yet to be updated for compatibility with the changes in 0.5b3. If you check up in the comments (starting with WackyModder's comment) we've gone through multiple steps of potential fixes with other people chasing up this issue but it appears that even when the necessary steps are taken to resolve the errors, UA will still need updates to actually be compatible.

For now it works with b2 but not b3.

It's the third beta in the 0.5 series. If we were going to entirely overhaul the whole mod, it'd be its own version. As has been said elsewhere 0.5 was intended to finalise the baseline "vanilla" Tyranid tech tree, so that in later versions we could add different playstyles. We've just been working with very few people and with a whole lot of RL issues delaying us.

Not a problem. If other people are still interested in chasing this issue I'll still be on to give advice.

UA's a pretty popular mod so if we can work out a relatively simple way for re-establishing compatibility then that's always going to be a plus. If we sort the issue out before UA next updates I'll do a news post with the details.

*le sigh*
That's the thing I thought was an outside possibility. A blank file means an invalid file apparently.

So... as I see it there are two avenues for an actual fix - and I'm not sure either is really doable for the average user.

The first is we develop a valid-but-unused tyranids_squad_gargoyle_max.rgd for UA to block out our mod's file. This is where I'd have to defer to Miros (or someone on the UA team) to develop such a file.
Edit: Or, yes, it's possible another creature's copied-and-renamed RGD (like the gargoyle squad RGD that's already present in the UA folder?) could work here, but I think that might be a bit risky. Then again... it only has to be parsed correctly... so yeah, I guess that's the next thing to try!

The second is replacing UA's gargoyle files entirely with ours... which seems more likely to cause errors. They'd be consistent with each other, but I'm not sure they'd necessarily be consistent with the rest of the UA Tyranid files.

And short of the UA team releasing a new update for 0.5b3 compatibility (which would likely involve something akin to either of the above fixes) I don't see any alternatives.

I genuinely have no idea.

Ah, that one's curious. So in 0.5b2 we did have the Gargoyle model as a hidden extra, and it appears UA must have capitalised on that to implement their own version of the Garg. So I'm going to give you a guess-work answer because rather than it being us having removed a file in 0.5b3, I *think* this is due to us *adding* files and our new files expecting different things to the way UA set their custom Gargoyle files up (easy rule of thumb: always assume the Tyranid Mod did it different, we're weird like that).

UA has a Data\attrib\sbps\races\tyranids folder in their mod, so open that folder up and take a look through it.

I'm going to guess they *don't* have "tyranids_squad_gargoyle_max.rgd" and consequently when their mod loads our mod, the lack of equivalent means their mod loads this file from our mod along with all the other base files they haven't made their own versions of to override ours with... and obviously our file expects our basic Gargoyle to work a specific way, and their basic Gargoyle doesn't do the same things ours does. Hence why it's getting weird over the melee stance - our Gargoyle does melee scratchy-scratchy, UA's doesn't.

If you can confirm that their folder doesn't have this file, the solution may be as simple as creating a blank txt file in the UA Data\attrib\sbps\races\tyranids folder and renaming it "tyranids_squad_gargoyle_max.rgd" just so that way the UA mod can blank our file out. If they don't have a file with this name, then I'm pretty certain their mod doesn't need our version of it because we didn't have this file in 0.5b2.

...Of course it's vaguely possible that this may create a different error (oh no, a file with no instructions!), but I don't believe it will.

That's good information to know!

Oh, that's interesting. I don't know what Tyranid-specific stuff UA has done code-wise, but that error is due to a changeup in the way we handle building auras - it's looking for a file we don't have in 0.5b3.

But at least it's not a UI conflict!

(The fix should be pretty easy though - if you take the following file from a 0.5b2 install:
Tyranids\Data\attrib\abilities\tyranids_building_depression_aura.lua
and copy it into the same location in a 0.5b3 install, it should start working again. There won't be any conflicts because our mod will never call for that file, and you're not going to overwrite the b3 version 'cause we don't have that file in 0.5b3).

1 & 2: That's... odd. Are you combining with another mod?

3. Ah, that was "GDM" - Great Devourer Mode. Unfortunately for management simplicity we had to drop it, just so that there were less things to keep track of. It would be super easy for someone to remake though so chances are someone will remake it.

4. I'm not sure we've ever had a wings upgrade for the Tyrant - we were saving that for a specific line of upgrades in 0.6 (see my response to oyunpapağan below).

5. Hrm, also seems odd that it takes that long to reinforce. But Nids are meant to be weak to start with - the sooner someone deals with a Tyranid infestation, the more likely they are to succeed. Once the tyrannoforming really gets underway, then planet is screwed. That's the vibe we were aiming for... but it does seem like you've got some quirks going on there.

1 & 2. The UI issue definitely seems like an uninstall/reinstall issue.

3. Reinforce the units? Tends to make them bigger and swarmier.

4. We definitely don't have Hive Guard in. Yet. So that may be a poor wording thing. If memory serves you may be able to reinforce the Tyrant with Tyrant Guard though?

5. Tyranid strategy has a heavy focus on expansion - cap things quickly, expand quickly. They're weak to start with but get harder to deal with the longer they're there.

Yeah that sounds like Tarsis Ultra. I believe it was designed to be a siege map to hold the line against the Tyranids - not exactly how the canon battle of Tarsis Ultra went down, but c'est la vie.

OH right, yes.

I'd have to check, I know we had a tutorial map in the works... it may be some version of that?