Detailed info.

[stuffivater]

hello there

so i downloaded the elite mod a couple of weeks ago and holy shit what an epic intro song! i thought this game died out a long time ago, but it's awesome to see a mod community like this keeping it going.

anyways, i want to get back into the game, played a good bit back in vanilla, but one thing that always annoyed me besides the horrible balance patches they made back then was that there is no info on any units, no numbers. i stated this in the chat of dow2 elite and some strapping and probably handsome young lad named grekkers informed me where the changes could be made: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Dawn of War II - Retribution\GameAssets\Locale\English

since it's just txt writing i think it's something someone as noob as me can figure out, but i wanted to check in here if this is something anyone has done/thought of doing before? it seems like it's done some places but definitely not everywhere.

one thing i thought of was looking up every ability on the dow2 wiki, but i'm not sure if that one is up to date with yours? furthermore it's hard to figure out which exact spell is described in the log (except when it's orks..) is there some logic to the list, alphabetically by race and the alphabetically by ability?

i think it would be a great tool for people to get back into the game, one thing is that attacking the right place with the right squad means a lot in this game, but some detailed info would make up for a lot of that.

[Asmon]

Kolaris was keeping the data up to date but he's off the game now. If you want to volonteer for helping in this matter you should pm caeltos or lulgrim. I don't think somebody is actually dedicated to this job atm.

[Lulgrim]

I try to update tooltips when I change stuff, but a lot is retail-generic... Looking up the real stats requires basic modding skills though.

[Lulgrim]

i wanted to check in here if this is something anyone has done/thought of doing before? it seems like it's done some places

Well you answered your own question right there.

one thing i thought of was looking up every ability on the dow2 wiki, but i'm not sure if that one is up to date with yours?

If you mean the Wikia site, not sure... I built it originally and made the retail section(s), but another guy has been putting Elite stats in there after that. We would rather put stats up on Codex instead (the Painboy page is the current draft). Going slowly though.

Pulling current stats from the game requires basic modding tools & understanding. Inserting new strings into Elite (we don't want to edit retail strings and fuck up people's retail installations) requires access to the Elite build. Of course I can insert them if somebody does the stat hunting & writing part.

furthermore it's hard to figure out which exact spell is described in the log (except when it's orks..) is there some logic to the list, alphabetically by race and the alphabetically by ability?

If you already looked at the strings file, you should see that it's obviously not in alphabetical or racial order and that every string has a number code in front of it, seriously now...

[stuffivater]

ok so the real issue is finding the actual information, so i suppose that's where i start.

I think you misunderstand me about the alphabetical order, obviously it's numerical, but a lot of abilities seem to be grouped together on race. Ork's abilities are nearly all in the same place in number.

Anyways, attaching information to the strings seems to be pretty simple if you just have some specifications on the spells, i don't know how far the wikia goes, but i think i will start there, can upload a draft ones i get started. Another way to go would be to get a list from Relic since they are bound to have the information anyways, but you guys probably know better than me if they would be willing to do that.

I think in terms of writing there should be a common language kind of like what you have already done where stats are prioritized over description so first info is:

effect (stuns, buffs slows)
who (ally, you, enemy)
value (dps, % buff/debuff)
type (dps kind) (should be written so it's easy to see which type of dmg it does best av/ai)
duration (time)

then after that include the description