Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
 

This is a placeholder for now but I'm proud to say that I've come far enough in development that I can now officially announce the Foxhole mod for Steel Panthers WWII. It's still a WiP but I'm hoping to have the most basic version of it out by mid-November.

Right now every Warden vehicle before the newest update has been added and the Colonial vehicles are being drawn up and added. I'm also working on the heightmaps for every map at the moment and the OOBs of both nations. Once this is done I'll post it up on here. For now enjoy an image of every Warden vehicle currently in the game.

https://i.imgur.com/1IKFzkq.png

I'll post more pictures as we get closer to completion. For now enjoy the wonky, too-big scale of Foxhole.

Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
 

Are there dimensions for these vehicles for LxW or are you just estimating?

Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
 

There are, but the problem is that the developers fudged the numbers big time. The Silverhand was listed at being !!9!! meters long by 3.9 meters wide so I went with that. It was only about halfway through the vehicles that I was informed that the developers corrected this relatively recently, but I'll be damned if I'm starting fresh. Foxhole also has a scale that makes things appear larger than they actually are, so I'm just sticking with what I've got now.

Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
 

Yeah, I can relate to that. There are ways to slice things down without rescaling that work well but it's something you do when it's one or two icons not them all

Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
 

Fortunately most people that play Steel Panthers don't really know that the game has an official scale, so it'll buff out in post right?

Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
 

Question Sir. What is the Foxhole Mod?

troopie

Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
 

https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/s...f?t=1680030081

https://store.steampowered.com/app/505460/Foxhole/


https://foxhole.wiki.gg/wiki/Vehicles

Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
 

Thanks DRG! See what I mean about the vehicles looking massive though? The developers managed to nail a huge sense of scale in that game, even if the actual ranges are.. Forty meters at best. It's fun, though the community can be highly toxic at times.

Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
 

That tanks shown isn't so much big as tall compared to the scale of the troops, it looks about M3 / Char-B1 sized with a hint of Neubaufahrzeug. There is a lot of French 1930's influence from what I have seen but that is limited

Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
 

The tanks in this game are joyfully scattered in their styles. For the Wardens (the blue guys) you get a LOT of French and German influence with the tiniest dash of British. For example they have a cruiser tank, the Outlaw, which is clearly inspired by British examples but with an odd turret. The Colonials (green guys) take a lot of influence from Britain and America themselves, but they also for some reason have some Swedish mingled in too, and plenty of Russian. It's great, but also funny how some vehicles just look incredibly non-functional at times. The weapons too tend to look non-functional as well, if only because of how the developers made the receivers and bolts and breeches.

Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
 

Here's a brief update while I'm dealing with a hernia, lack of sleep, and a busy work week in that order. The Colonial vehicles are going well. Once those are all done I just have to balance them.. Which is a lot harder than just drawing pixel tanks or commissioning a far more skilled artist to draw pixel tanks. As you can see the scale is, as the youth say, 'hecking chonky', but it still looks damn fine (even if a tankette is roughly as big as a PZIII here). https://i.imgur.com/vjfmtRx.png

Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
 

Tiny update for those still waiting:

Good news: all the vehicles are in the game (except the Warden bus, but shhh). Bad news: I'm still balancing things. Even more bad news: I was injured on the job and have been having to take things slow while waiting for a surgery the government refuses to admit happened. So that's delayed the initial release date a fair bit, but it'll still be coming soon(tm). In the meantime, have a little vignette of all the units in the game.
https://puu.sh/JTN8v/f937a30d7b.png

Right now I have three major steps to getting this out.
1-BALANCE. Balance everything. I've been doing this as I go, but that made me realize that a sort of power-creep has settled in.
2-Infantry sprites. Right now the Wardens have green helmets. That just won't do.
3-Maps. The first release will have two or three non-canon maps. I'll release all the actual maps later down the line.

After that we'll be golden.

Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
 

Easily fixed

https://forum.shrapnelgames.com/atta...1&d=1699220667

Also, there were a couple of WW1 mods done and you might be able to find them and although I do not know for certain there MAY be a blue uniformed infantry SHP already done.

That said creating a new set is not the least bit difficult if you have worked with SHP files and you have

Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
 

Thanks for the quick and dirty fix! I've been fiddling around with SHPs quite a bit, it's just another one of those things you throw on the pile of 'it'll get done eventually'. The guns for the Wardens are complete now. Just gotta' get the Colonial field cannons and finish this balancing act that is, well, balancing.

I'm also 100% debating whether to add custom buildings or not. A part of me wants to, since there's a massive stone wall in Foxhole that plays a pivotal role in the lore and I'd love to have that represented in game.

Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
 

Small update to start off the month of December. Balancing is fun. Really fun. Really, if I had a choice between a colonoscopy and balancing I'd pick the colonoscopy twice, because I feel like I'm having too much fun. For starters, I've realized that despite my best efforts there's no real way to make these play 'authentically' and have them be a match against real-life tanks. Instead of worrying about how a Silverhand would face a Sherman, or what year these tanks should come out, I've been focused on keeping it how it would act in Foxhole. That means each year is a tier, and each tier brings new goodies to keep the war churning. https://puu.sh/JVZGJ/fbcc41125b.png
Secondly, I've found it best to keep a spreadsheet of all the weapons so I can balance things like vehicle armor around them. There are a lot of weapons. https://puu.sh/JVZFJ/1a69867c24.png
Thirdly, in an attempt to keep my sanity I've started doing 'stream of consciousness write-ups'. As I balance a vehicle, squad, or weapon I write why I'm balancing it, how I'm balancing it, and how it'll react to the other vehicles / weapons. This'll allow me to go back later and violently chastise myself for not thinking as hard in the past.
https://puu.sh/JVZH3/04e8938a44.png
Overall progress? Pretty good, I think. I just have to sweep over everything with the magical balance fairy, and then.. Do the maps. Oh boy. Alright, maps, let's talk about that real quick.

When I initially started the mod I wanted to add each map from Foxhole as a 120x120 map, one going E-W and one going N-S. Now I realize this is incredibly time-consuming even with a heightmap generator, so instead my plan is simple: Take core locations from each map and turn them into big areas. Abandoned Ward in the Deadlands, for example, or Jade Cove or the islands of Godcrofts. Eventually I hope to transmute the actual maps, but for now I think this is a fair compromise that'll allow me to actually push this mod out before I'm putting candles on my birthday cake.

To wrap up this blog / newsletter / rant, apologies for the delays. My work schedule up until last week was hellish, but I now have a whopping -2- days off in a row, which is nice. Additionally having to deal with worker's comp over an injury I sustained at work has been keeping me on my toes, as is working around said injury. I'll try and expedite this mod for the whole five people actively waiting for it. I hope it'll be worth the effort.

P.S: Is there a way to change the name of a faction? I know the Civil War mod did it.

P.S.S: Thanks for this awesome game. After playing it for thirteen years I can't believe I'm getting close to actually releasing a mod for it.

P.S.S.S: Yes, I know the HE kill / accuracy values for handheld guns are odd. That's part of the balancetm

Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
 

You "can" change the names of factions / countries but this requires a proper hack of the exe and ini files using a hex editor and substituting "Germany" or what ever for your faction (They MUST however be the same number of letters ie if you sub "Red" then a 3 letter name, "Germany" then 7, etc)

Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
 

Twelve days, an almost medical emergency (Thought my hernia became entrapped), and an actual emergency (Co-worker's girlfriend has cancer, which means I'm managing everything while he's tending to her like a good fellow) later, and I'm back with some updates and questions.

First off, spreadsheets are amazing. I can see why people get paid the big bucks to manage them. I've set up quite a few spreadsheets to help keep track of stuff, which I've already detailed in the previous post, but those spreadsheets only keep growing as I keep piling more onto it.

Right now I'm working on penetration. As a relatively young, spry fellow I should be quite skilled at this sort of thing, but unfortunately the opposite appears true. SO! Here's my biggest question of the week. Penetration: what determines it the most? Is it purely decided by warhead size, or does the maximum range, AP, and some sort of random fairy dust help to decide the average penetration of a shell?

I ask this because I'm attempting to make sure every gun has a purpose. What's the point of having the monstrous 94.5mm if the 68mm can penetrate every vehicle in the game? I want to break vehicles down into different levels, to ensure that only certain guns can penetrate them from the front at certain distances so no gun feels pointless.

Finally, a new update for Foxhole released recently and, as of typing this up, the vehicles are being sketched out. Hopefully this'll release before Foxhole's next huge update.. Whenever that is.

Thanks for your patience. Hopefully I'll have something soon-ish that isn't just babble, images, and vague promises.

Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
 

Short answer: it all factors in. WH size range, AP vs He pen AND randoms....... always some randoms. This is why we built and included an Armour Penetration calculator with every game. Experiment with it. That's one reason why it is there

Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
 

Oh I have, don't you go worrying about that! My one complaint is that I have to close it all down every time I change a value. It's tedious, which is why I was asking before I begin the long, long process of fiddling with one number at a time to get it -just- right.

Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
 

Build an entire series of variations of a weapon then check the results and pick the one you think matches whatever data you have then you have it all laid out

Also, you do not need to shut it down and restart it if you change the OOB weapon. Just make your change in the OOB then load another OOB then go back and load the one you are working on and the change will show in the APC.......... APC does not have to be shut down to see a change show up. There is no need to exit the entire program

Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
 

APCalc is not a "live" programme - it does a snapshot of the saved OOB file and so knows you are working on say OB 007 so doesent reload it unless you manually change OOB and subsequently reload OB 007.

So do as Don suggested, and it will pick up your just-made changes without requiring a complete closedown and restart of the programme.

Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
 

Depending on what all changes with the upcoming (FINAL?!) patch I should be good to finally drop this in June. Unsurprisingly distractions (health and battletech related) have kept me from finishing this, but sitting down and grinding away at the balancing I've come to really enjoy balancing the numbers. No new pictures, just.. Well, a lot of number crunching to do.

Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
 

I'm running into an issue that hopefully Don or Andy can help me with. I just reinstalled Paintshop Pro 7 after having a harddrive issue, and now whenever I try to load up the Steel Panthers Palettes it states that these are not valid palettes. Any fix for this?

Update: I am a spectacular moron. I forgot that going into the lbm file itself will generate a palette that I can save. Ignore me!

Re: Foxhole Mod for Steel Panthers WWII
 

IDK why your new install of PSP7 would reject your old Palettes as I have never had that problem and I use PSP 7.04

BUT......... those palettes are in the game

Game Data/ Design/Palettes

and they should work for you because they were made with my copy of PSP7

That said an LBM WILL give you a palette from the game but it is not the Icon palette. There is a palette in the game that gives the full game palette that includes the colour cycling ones used by water and smoke and a slightly different one for colour photo LBM's where we do not want the cycling colours and another for regular B&W LBM's and a different one for Icons and they are all slightly different as their intended purpose is different. We do not want the full palette used for icons and risk getting a colour that is coded as part of the water or smoke animation

If you use the LBM pallete for your icons you may see they do not display in the game the way you expect ( as well the palette I use to create B&W LBM's is different than the one included with the game ...it has fewer colours I don't want than the standard B&W LBM palette

The palette that PSP reads is a series of numbers in a TXT file that is saved as a .PAL

This is the master Icon PAL. Copy this and past it as is and save as a TXT file (like Notepad ----do NOT use Word for this !!! ) then rename .TXT to .PAL
\
IMPORTANT...... LEAVE ONE MORE SPACE after the last 255 225 225 or you WILL get the "Not a valid PAL" message
Like this
https://forum.shrapnelgames.com/atta...1&d=1716901212


JASC-PAL
0100
256
0 0 0
23 23 23
43 43 43
67 67 67
91 91 91
115 115 115
139 139 139
159 159 159
183 183 183
207 207 207
231 231 231
255 255 255
75 75 151
43 207 51
255 200 0
195 0 0
227 203 147
231 191 147
219 195 135
211 183 127
219 175 131
207 171 119
211 163 115
211 159 111
195 155 107
179 159 103
187 171 115
195 183 131
183 139 95
191 135 87
195 139 91
171 147 87
159 135 75
151 123 63
159 103 71
171 111 67
167 99 59
143 87 55
135 87 51
131 103 51
235 226 165
115 79 39
111 83 39
91 67 35
91 67 35
91 67 31
75 55 27
71 51 23
63 39 23
47 31 15
35 27 15
39 35 27
23 15 7
0 31 0
7 63 0
11 87 0
7 111 0
7 135 0
7 163 0
87 107 23
99 103 15
98 103 21
113 118 36
129 134 52
133 138 56
147 152 70
164 169 87
178 184 108
183 119 79
175 123 83
115 127 23
99 119 35
75 91 27
71 83 0
67 67 0
84 89 7
55 11 0
231 227 219
199 195 191
167 163 159
135 131 127
99 99 95
67 67 63
35 35 31
243 241 245
227 223 231
199 191 207
171 155 179
143 123 155
200 110 70
48 64 0
54 70 6
63 79 15
72 88 24
79 95 31
92 108 44
99 115 51
110 126 62
123 139 75
144 160 96
151 163 199
139 155 187
131 143 171
119 131 159
107 119 143
99 107 131
87 99 115
75 87 99
67 75 87
55 63 71
43 51 59
35 43 43
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
151 135 99
151 127 99
143 127 91
139 119 83
143 115 87
135 111 79
139 107 75
139 103 75
127 103 71
119 103 67
123 111 75
127 119 87
119 91 63
127 91 59
127 91 59
111 99 59
103 91 51
99 83 43
103 67 47
111 75 47
111 67 39
95 59 39
91 59 35
87 67 35
107 87 67
75 51 27
75 55 27
59 47 23
59 47 23
59 47 23
51 39 19
47 35 15
43 27 15
31 23 11
23 19 11
27 23 19
15 11 7
0 23 0
7 43 0
7 59 0
7 75 0
7 91 0
7 107 0
59 71 15
67 67 11
71 67 0
77 82 0
91 91 0
95 95 0
103 103 0
109 114 32
123 128 46
119 79 51
115 83 55
75 83 15
67 79 23
51 59 19
47 55 0
47 47 0
59 59 0
39 7 0
131 127 123
111 111 107
95 95 91
75 75 71
59 59 55
39 39 39
23 23 23
151 147 151
135 127 139
119 111 123
107 95 111
91 75 99
144 75 44
25 37 0
37 49 11
49 60 23
60 71 35
71 82 47
82 93 58
93 103 69
119 129 95
142 152 118
165 176 141
99 107 131
91 99 123
83 95 111
79 87 103
71 79 95
63 71 83
55 63 75
51 55 67
43 51 55
35 43 47
31 35 39
23 27 31
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
255 225 225


Which version of PSP7 does your copy show?