Updated! Moved some instanttext and buttontext to the loc file instead for people to translate.

No changes. Apparently steam isn't sending the right copy of this out to someone, so I'm re-uploading in case it fixes it?

Fixed game version number requirement in descriptor.mod.

Missed an "!" on the technologies placeholder file.

Updated a debug scripted effect (removed "prev")

Army Attachments 3.0

The day has arrived! Army attachments 3.0 is a major shakeup. The name of the game this release is simplification. There were several experiments I played with in 2.0 that I really haven't been happy with, neither in terms of their gameplay nor the actual event coding underneath. Having learned so much more about UI modding while creating my planet view mod I've found a much happier method to all of this. So here are the major changes:

1. Leader Traits have been removed. While I liked the idea of attachment-based buildcraft (in which you combo traits with policies) ultimately I think that the mod should be simple and flavour oriented. I didn't enjoy the leader trait bloat, it felt overbearing and out of place. Traits were also being used for technology proposals (the archaeotech style tech acquisition system) but this is also no longer necessary as:

2. ALL current Attachment Technologies, and discovery events, have also been removed. In past editions of this mod I'd offered one technology per attachment. That was a LOT of technologies. While it's clear Paradox were going to do the same at some point before launch when a lot of the loc text was written, it's also important to realise that by release they had determined that an entire technology per attachment was too weak and they instead bundled most of their attachment unlocks with other features. Previously I ignored this. Why? Because technologies are a perfect way to provide dedicated art and flavour text! Each tech marks an opportunity for a player to stop and read and learn about each cool story idea. The problem though was tech spam. I tried to resolve this with the leader proposal discovery system in 2.0, but I've never been happy with how complex this was in terms of event coding and gameplay. I now have a much better solution, which relates to the last major removal:

3. Attachment Policies have been removed. Policies were a strong, simple way for me as an amateur to implement attachments but I've never felt great about them: They were very dry (no art), the lists were rather cluttered, and they also didn't hook into the usual things policies should (namely diplomacy). So how does this all come together?

4. Attachments in 3.0 are now equipped using their own UI window! The fancy attachments library lists your attachments, with flavour and shows their art/icons. It's a lot like the relic UI. With this one thing I can clean up all the policies and all the technologies too (as they're also unneeded for providing flavour now).

5. Oh yeah, Army attachments (as well as their empire benefits and their bonus armies) all have proper, formal concepts now.

Reverted the army icons back to vanilla because they were somewhat misshapen. They're just basic assault army icons again now. I might make them blue or something one day... idk.

Having even just a single unique army icon for each category (vehicle, beast, etc) would be so nice. But for now this is what we're stuck with because I'm not a texture artist.


Also fixed a bug with the telekinetic devastators doing one hundred (or even one thousand?) percent more friendly fire damage than intended. Whoops!

OK. So, a matter of weeks after I released this thing GalPara released, essentially breaking it. Then we had to wait most of the year for the custodians to complete a follow up rework to leaders.

And finally I got to looking at the mod (about a month ago).

And basically I decided I really didn't like the very leader-trait oriented version of it that I had implemented before.

So this update is a BIG rewrite! It's essentially a new mod - though the content remains the same. The entire workshop page has been written, new images are up, and I have a dedicated discussion thread for the full change notes which I really recommend you guys have a look at (it is too much text to post here).


Despite all the subscribers and support this mod has had the past year (it's about 1 year old now!) it really hasn't been "playable" for most of that. Hopefully it is now, and much more exciting to boot!

A somewhat experimental patch today!

As you may be aware, a few days after I released this mod Paradox did the whole Galactic paragons thing and totally changed the back-end of how all these traits are set up, making it much more complicated. Then the custodians spent a good chunk of last year tweaking it all again. Only recently has the dust finally settled.

I still do not own galactic paragons and have no idea how the game plays with the new trait picking system, so wasn't really sure how to go forward with the mod.

In Jan I had a message on discord a few months ago from "Nash" who demonstrated some work on coding with the new infrastructure. Many thanks to them! So I've been reading through and added what I can as best as I can and fingers crossed this mod should be totally compatible at last.

That said, it's un-playtested and, not owning the DLC, there is only so much I can do. There are no special interactions or designs around the veteran or destiny traits. This is all a very basic implementation. Traits are common t1 traits, with equal pick chances. They can appear on any general. Their scarcity continues to be designed and balanced through their tech trees rather than the trait system.

I'd love to use the paragons features more. If anyone who has experience wants to brainstorm with me and influence the future of this mod, add message me.

If anyone can help me to get the icons working in the new setup please message me. All mechanics are working, but they show as blank for some reason.

Some other bugs and improvements were made as well, check out the change-log.

Cheers.


A couple of attachment technologies had vanilla technologies as pre-requisites, but the vanilla technologies have recently been removed from the game! (For example nanomechanics)
- This meant that players of this mod had entire tech lines locked off the past few patches
- Prerequisites have been updated/fixed now.


A couple of typos fixed - "Telekinetic" / "Theropod" / "Armoured" / "Planet-Fall" / "Infiltration" .

Cyborg infiltation technology custom tooltip fixed (typo in the code caused it to not appear before).

Beasts are now correctly mutually exclusive with themselves (you had a chance before this patch to get up to 5x of the same animal, woops!)

Fixed a typo in the technology tooltip description for War-Mechs.