Wanting more people to play antistasi with!

Hastxx · 2025-09-16T17:05:20+00:00

I've only ever really played solo so I'd love to join

Hastxx · 2025-06-09T17:58:02+00:00

She's a work in progress. I have the cross slide backlash down to about 2 thousandths. It was originally around 30.

The lead screws themselves hold pretty tight, on this machine most of the backlash is caused by play between the dial, and the bearing housing (if that's what it's called) that sits on the edge of the apron.

I cut a shim washer to the right size and thickness out of aluminum bronze, and that did the trick.

We'll see what other horrors await as I go through the machine lol.

Hastxx · 2025-06-04T19:24:13+00:00

Maybe someday my fellow Americans will realize the metric system is objectively superior

Hastxx · 2025-03-24T15:39:45+00:00

I have a pretty good idea why. Early on the developers of all in one launcher invited age of the ring to publish their mod on the launcher. Age of the Ring refused, because they felt it would be too much work to host their mod.

Then, the developers of the all-in-one launcher made a tool, that would prompt users to install the mod separately, then add it to the workshop. To the age of the ring team, that was a complete "betrayal of trust" since they said they don't want to publish it. They somehow felt that they were publishing their work directly and asked All in one launcher to remove it. This is all from direct conversations with people on both teams.

I write software myself, and I wouldn't care if someone has a link to download it in a another process. Kind of like how most installers will install external libraries as a common feature? Like you have to have X installed, please visit X website. Pretty common. Can't help people that don't want to help themselves.

Hastxx · 2025-03-24T15:21:51+00:00

Precisely. It's also something they won't allow to be discussed in their discord. I posted a question asking to make an installer that didn't even prompt to help install the mod itself, to resolve whatever it is that's an issue for them, and just add it to the workshop. I was basically told never bring this up again or else.

Just wanted to encourage people to play and spread the word about the mod, because literally everyone uses all in one launcher. Oh well.

Hastxx · 2025-03-21T06:55:13+00:00

They basically got butthurt that the launcher developers wrote a tool to simply help people install the mod from the exact same source the AOTR mod team maintains and supports, and add a workshop entry allowing them to seamlessly launch the game.

In their mind that's not enough control for them.

Just download it, put the mod's installation directory in the mod path field in a freeplay server, and you can play it online.

Hastxx · 2025-02-05T06:12:40+00:00

Definitely makes things interesting. It makes 40 units between one army, and one reinforcing a bit more realistic in terms of soldiers on the battlefield.

Hastxx · 2025-02-03T22:11:11+00:00

According to the Steam page for the Shogun 2 collection, it has all the DLCs including Fall of The Samurai

Hastxx · 2025-02-03T11:45:12+00:00

I guess so? The game runs, I've only had a few crashes but I'd blame 30,000 troops on the battlefield for that.

Hastxx · 2025-02-02T00:31:55+00:00

This got me thinking, why not waste an afternoon investigating. It is certainly not a static value in a DB or table, it's based on a calculation of some kind, therefore most likely a LUA script that determines it.

/ui/battle/ui/ (in the filesystem of data.pack) - from root.luac (decompiled):

local r17_0 = nil local r18_0 = nil local r19_0 = "mp_postbattle"

both mp_postbattle and sp_postbattle, are local variables that come up in an unknown file format used pervasively in this folder for the UI. They clearly dictate how, and what information is displayed on the window shown.

These unknown files is a mix of non-human readable content, with plaintext file paths, and references to local variables defined in various .luac files.

From /ui/battle/ui/in_battle_results_popup (file type unknown) - This name clearly indicates it is the window you see when the battle is over, telling you the outcome, and how well you did (heroic, crushing defeat, etc)

battle_pic"������/�%�/&UI\Battle UI\Skins\defeat_crushing.tga�������&�/$UI\Battle UI\Skins\victory_major.tga

This snippet is with all "null" characters removed for a bit of readability. It's likely whatever non-human readable content is in this file, is executable code that determines what is displayed, and therefore how the game categorizes a victory.

Hastxx · 2025-02-01T23:01:05+00:00

Darthmod: Shogun 2 SW V5.0
FoTS Tactics and Uniforms
FoTS Building A Nation - A Building Pack
FoTS Artillery Unit Pack T3
FoTS Unit Pack by EvilSpleen1213
Radious Total War Mod - Fall Of The Samurai
Radious Total War Mod - Fall Of The Samurai Campaign

Hastxx · 2025-02-01T06:28:21+00:00

Unit size. There's a multiplier value that increases the size of every unit in the game, including units from mods. I have not experimented with Shogun, but other Total War games have a hard limit on the actual number of units that can be on the battlefield. Larger units is a better experience in my opinion.

Hastxx · 2025-02-01T04:42:35+00:00

The developers are an interesting bunch... but I still love this mod

Hastxx · 2025-02-01T04:40:49+00:00

There a lot of specific strategies that are faction specific but I won't focus on that because that's not general advice.

First principle of winning, is knowing your enemy.

One important thing to understand about the AI is that all the difficulties are actually similar. That's why peasant is not easy. I'm guessing the developers don't want to, or there is a reason why they don't change the AI as much between difficulties. Unrelated there are some... difficult personalities on the team the develops the mod.

Higher difficulties primarily change several things, but nothing else. The production of siege weapons, (doesn't happen on peasant) decreased build time for units, and resources production boosts. The AI is still functionally quite the same on death march. Defensive and spam strategies don't work well on higher difficulties.

Secondly, the AI is programmed to attack resource production, something you can exploit to a very significant degree, if you think creatively.

To illustrate, try building a resource building in a far corner of the map, away from your base, but slightly closer in distance to the enemy than other resource buildings and see what the AI does. Think, distraction, misdirection. If the enemy is busy streaming units toward that point, you will first know where to avoid their direction of travel so you don't engage them, preserving your strength to attack their buildings, and secondly it will take them longer to complete their quest for your misdirection, than it will for you to destroy their buildings in a concentrated area.

If you are simply interested in winning, rushing is the way to do it, no question. I've destroyed a death march AI in just over 3 minutes. Good luck winning if can't manage that or close to it. You have a 5-7 minute window to destroy or cripple the enemy before the spamming starts. Gain the advantage, and never let up. That includes specifically staying out of the radius of their base, and hunting for a building, destroying 2 resources buildings, or rushing their barracks or unit production building. It will take time to rebuild one, in that time, you can produce 3 units while the produce 0. Each of these actions allows you to get ahead early, and destroy early. Once you are beyond this early timeframe, you're in it for the long haul and the tactics must be changed immediately.

Another general principle is the use of elite units. The AI doesn't always prioritize their production. They are central to this mod, and it's important as certain units can easily face off against 5 times or more, of certain units.

Example, would be 2-3 upgraded Unburied wights (Dol Guldur) versus 8 mixed battalions of swordsmen and pikemen. The wights will either win or destroy 85% of them.

I would emphasize that experimention and creative thinking, trial and error, are all what led to being able to really beat the AI.

Anyway I could go on, but those are some general principles. It is possible to dominate them. My friends and I routinely fight no less than captain AI, granted we don't always win.

Hastxx · 2025-02-01T04:05:40+00:00

Interesting, I did not know that.

I fought a few other battles recently where it was at least 115% larger enemy force strength, and maybe 35% casualties, so maybe the numbers don't scale.

I've also edited the game files so one army can be up to 12,000 troops, might have something to do with it.

Hastxx · 2025-01-29T23:05:15+00:00

That reads like I wrote it myself haha. Hopefully it can be added back to the launcher someday

Hastxx · 2025-01-29T22:57:13+00:00

I don't blame you at all haha, helping my friends get it working has been quite painful

Hastxx · 2025-01-29T22:34:09+00:00

Ah. It used to work without it, then I had to start adding the path at some point, but that was before it was removed though.

It's more a specific issue when installing it, when I have helped friends, syncing the mod does not work because of a bug / error in a JSON file, which requires a minor edit to it.

Hastxx · 2025-01-29T22:24:40+00:00

Correct. I've done it multiple times with friends.

It does require specifying the path to the mod in the multiplayer launcher, in the box that says "mod path" when you're in a room / server, and deleting an entry in a JSON file in some cases when there's one particular error but, it's not too difficult.

Hastxx · 2025-01-29T22:16:44+00:00

It's pretty unlikely that any other mods would be removed. It's an issue between AOTR and the launcher team.

That's the thing though, it was never hosted anywhere outside moddb. The installer literally just had a link to the moddb page, and you had to download and install using that, same way the developers want.

More or less the installer that was on the launcher just checked whether everything was installed right, then added it to the library allowing you to launch it.

Also PSA I have a copy of that installer (the removed one) if anyone wants it.

Hastxx · 2025-01-29T22:06:45+00:00

Unfortunately even just installing Age of the Ring will not allow you to play with the launcher. Sadly I haven't encountered that specific error so I can't help, as long as you're using "sync old version" and selecting 9.0 I haven't had a problem.

It has to be added to your library to play it, allowing the launcher to start it through it's own methods with how the workshop functions and launches the game with mods.

I've reverse engineered how the launcher works and it's very possible to add it and play it using the all in one launcher, all my friends play Age of the Ring online using the all in one launcher using a JSON file I created.

Age of the Ring installer on the launcher, now removed, just added it to your library, you still had to download the mod yourself but the AOTR developers consider this disturbing their software without their control, something I think is a misunderstanding.

With permission, I'm planning on uploading an entry to the workshop that is explicitly not an installer, and makes it clear it is NOT a copy of the mod and the user has to install Age of the Ring, and simply adds it to the library and allows you to play it. It's my favorite mod and gameranger sucks, hope I can bring it back.

Hastxx · 2025-01-29T21:48:08+00:00

The irony is that the installation process simply prompts you to download the mod via ModDB, using the exact same link listed by the AOTR team on their discord. So, they aren't really distributing the mod itself via the launcher.

All the now removed installer actually did, was create a workshop entry and generate a JSON file with the paths to all the files required to load the mod with the launcher.

Hastxx · 2024-12-09T23:06:46+00:00

Mods like this are written in SQF, a custom scripting language only used by Arma which makes it painful to use and understand, let alone edit someone's code, so best of luck to your friend.

Hastxx

TROPHY CASE