Soul_RiderMod BeanJoin Date: 2004-06-19Member: 29388Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
Making you wait so long? HAHA, you do realise this is a full code re-write, not a half-assed mod? I am beginning a total code re-write for proving grounds, but I will keep the normal mod running too, I estimate the re-write to take maybe 18 months or so.
Some things are worth waiting for, this will be one of those things. I don't know why you are still complaining Electr0. It is how it is. If you are so dis-heartened about NS2 and it's chances of mods working, then stop hanging around and go find another game to play.
If you want to stick around, then please use words of encouragement, rather than being rude.
Factions is a cool mod, but it is like TF2, and as TF2 is free to play, I can't see why people would bother playing the mod when they can play a full game released by Valve doing the same thing..
McGlaspiewww.team156.comJoin Date: 2010-07-26Member: 73044Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Onos, WC 2013 - Gold, Subnautica Playtester
*sigh*
*sssiiigghhh*
Electr0, you remind me of the Angry German Kid. The nativity, ignorance, and unreasonableness of your posts is nearing the dumbfounding barrier. See, there is this thing called Real Life. It's an amazing place. Filled with wonders, adventures, and amazing people. You should visit it more often. I'm not some broke college kid. I have a fulltime job/career, a family, and I don't just sit my ass in front of a computer 24/7. If you don't like that, well, that's your problem. How about instead of being a whiny little cuss, try contributing something positive for a change. I won't get into a flame war, so I won't dignify any more of your responses.
@Soul_Rider *brofist* Thanks. You're awesome. I hope PG is going well for ya.
For all you cool ppls out there; I finally got to spent a good bit of time on the mod over the holidays. It was nice to do nothing but work on it. There is one big problem left (power nodes are broken atm), and the rest is basically tuning, balance, and polish. I'm going to be making another pass at the problem Saturday. If the fixes I've got planned work out, all that will be left is a tuning/tweaking pass and it will be release worthy. I'll go ahead and say this, I fully expect it to be imbalanced in some way or another. So, please don't expect from super refined polished mod when I do finally get it out the door.
McGlaspiewww.team156.comJoin Date: 2010-07-26Member: 73044Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Onos, WC 2013 - Gold, Subnautica Playtester
@CyberKun Cool, thanks for posting that. I'll definitely be looking at this sort of thing soon. I can say this, general (and if at all possible), I will NOT be modifying HP/AR values, just damage values. The overall design goal of MvM is "Familiar but different". In other words, I'm going to push it towards combat timing/feel values of vanilla NS2. I want it to seem/feel very similar to NS2, but under a different context.
I got all of the janky power node problems sorted out. They now do NOT appear on the minimap or visible to commanders UNITL they have been visually scouted (by scans or LOS from Player-Units [not ARC, structure, etc]). They also show on the minimap as green icons and correctly shows the disabled state as red colored. This solves a BIG problem from previous versions, which is commanders could tell exactly where the other team spawned. This change is also laying the ground work for future changes of programmatic map customizations (a separate mod I've been working on).
I'm going to attempt to get the RR player skins to show what team they were previously on at game end (this was a planned feature long ago), and then just double check everything and polish/tweak a few things. Long story short, we're stupid close to a release.
Also, I won't be splitting the art assets and code into two separate workshop items after all, the entire mod (zipped) is just 15.6MB so not much gain in having two WS items. It's just not worth the hassle.
I will make a half decent mini-essay for you to think about. I need some time, but it is good to know that you will not change the HP/AR values on the Marines.
I do have a question though. Is damage whole numbers only? How would a 15% increase in damage do to 10 base damage? 11, 11.5, or 12?
I will make a half decent mini-essay for you to think about. I need some time, but it is good to know that you will not change the HP/AR values on the Marines.
Cool. Please shoot it to me as a PM once you're done with it. I should mention, that I WILL have to change structure's HP/AR values and the Exo as well. Aside from that, I want to keep all the HP/AR values familiar. Essentially, the idea is to try and match the timing for something to be killed as it is in NS2. This WILL take a ton of fiddling to get right though.
I should also mention that some maps will have balance issues. That will be because LOS issues, power node locations, etc. I'm working on a sub-system to address these problems, but it is still in the rough experimental stage. So, for the immediate future, some maps won't be very MvM friendly. From the looks of it, and what I've play tested so far, Eclipse is looking like the perfect map for MvM. Time will tell of course.
Soul_RiderMod BeanJoin Date: 2004-06-19Member: 29388Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
@McGlaspie - That is great. I would just like to say with my implementation of your colored skins mod, the players re-spawn in the ready room at game end with the same characters as they were last in game, as in NS2. So players have their skins and movement abilities, although when they first join the server, they have black skins in the ready room. I am yet to create a skins code for ready room players though..
@McGlaspie - That is great. I would just like to say with my implementation of your colored skins mod, the players re-spawn in the ready room at game end with the same characters as they were last in game, as in NS2. So players have their skins and movement abilities, although when they first join the server, they have black skins in the ready room. I am yet to create a skins code for ready room players though..
That makes sense with what I recall how you're handling teams and player classes. I'm working within the restrictions of NS2 base-code, so the pieces I have to work with are a bit different. Mainly, because I need special handling cases for Player.Replace(). Also, if you use the ColoredSkinsMixin.skinColoringEnabled property (a boolean value), you can set it to false when a New player join and that should solve your black color issue.
Electr0, you remind me of the Angry German Kid. The nativity, ignorance, and unreasonableness of your posts is nearing the dumbfounding barrier. See, there is this thing called Real Life. It's an amazing place. Filled with wonders, adventures, and amazing people. You should visit it more often. I'm not some broke college kid. I have a fulltime job/career, a family, and I don't just sit my ass in front of a computer 24/7. If you don't like that, well, that's your problem. How about instead of being a whiny little cuss, try contributing something positive for a change. I won't get into a flame war, so I won't dignify any more of your responses.
Excuses and presumptions, can't take anything even slightly negative can you?
I don't think my posts are unreasonable considering the length of time that has passed, plenty of mods have been created and maintained in that time, ns2 had a short window of opportunity for good mods to become popular and stick around, sadly this one failed because you couldn't seem to find even a few hours a week to work on it.
You can make all the excuses you like but nearly a year has passed and nothing, while others with jobs etc managed fine, if help was needed you know there are people here willing to but really i think the community should have come together and made a single game mode mod covering the standard ones everyone hoped for, id still love to play mvm combat or have a build menu in combat but that will never happen now.
Soul_RiderMod BeanJoin Date: 2004-06-19Member: 29388Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
You don't think your posts are unreasonable, but that is the point, you are being unreasonable, as I explained previously, Mcglaspie is not just modding NS2, he has rebuilt the game from scratch. What makes it so hard for you to understand this? It took UWE at least 6 years to write the game, McGlaspie has re-written the game in a lot less time than that. His progress and work rate have been tremendous, you need to stop being so negative.
Excuses and presumptions, can't take anything even slightly negative can you?
I don't think my posts are unreasonable considering the length of time that has passed, plenty of mods have been created and maintained in that time, ns2 had a short window of opportunity for good mods to become popular and stick around, sadly this one failed because you couldn't seem to find even a few hours a week to work on it.
You can make all the excuses you like but nearly a year has passed and nothing, while others with jobs etc managed fine, if help was needed you know there are people here willing to but really i think the community should have come together and made a single game mode mod covering the standard ones everyone hoped for, id still love to play mvm combat or have a build menu in combat but that will never happen now.
My dear fellow,
I must say, you are quite mistaken in your assumption that this mod received but a little work and then was hung out to dry. When he has had time, McGlaspie has worked tirelessly on the mod; and I dare say he can certainly take criticism of his work. I would request that you avoid making such assumptions in the future, and I bid you good day.
Excuses and presumptions, can't take anything even slightly negative can you?
I don't think my posts are unreasonable considering the length of time that has passed, plenty of mods have been created and maintained in that time, ns2 had a short window of opportunity for good mods to become popular and stick around, sadly this one failed because you couldn't seem to find even a few hours a week to work on it.
You can make all the excuses you like but nearly a year has passed and nothing, while others with jobs etc managed fine, if help was needed you know there are people here willing to but really i think the community should have come together and made a single game mode mod covering the standard ones everyone hoped for, id still love to play mvm combat or have a build menu in combat but that will never happen now.
My dear fellow,
I must say, you are quite mistaken in your assumption that this mod received but a little work and then was hung out to dry. When he has had time, McGlaspie has worked tirelessly on the mod; and I dare say he can certainly take criticism of his work. I would request that you avoid making such assumptions in the future, and I bid you good day.
And you've put in a fair amount of work on the mod yourself Ulmont, your contributions cannot be diminished
I think you will be shocked at the quality of this mod when it comes out Electr0, this is without doubt going to be the biggest mod out there to date, in terms of completion and customisation.
McGlaspiewww.team156.comJoin Date: 2010-07-26Member: 73044Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Onos, WC 2013 - Gold, Subnautica Playtester
Quick Update:
We're making solid progress on the final pass for all the team color maps (skins). I recently changed how the early game works in a significant way, so I'm just fixing all the bugs associated with this change. The plan behind this change is to create a more interesting element to the early game recon and make power nodes less janky. I'm fairly certain B263 is very close and will likely break all the mods out there (call it a hunch). So, I'm going to keep crushing bugs and hopefully get this updated shortly after B263 is out. When I do get this out the door, I'll post a big-ass changelog for all those curious.
Excuses and presumptions, can't take anything even slightly negative can you?
I don't think my posts are unreasonable considering the length of time that has passed, plenty of mods have been created and maintained in that time, ns2 had a short window of opportunity for good mods to become popular and stick around, sadly this one failed because you couldn't seem to find even a few hours a week to work on it.
You can make all the excuses you like but nearly a year has passed and nothing, while others with jobs etc managed fine, if help was needed you know there are people here willing to but really i think the community should have come together and made a single game mode mod covering the standard ones everyone hoped for, id still love to play mvm combat or have a build menu in combat but that will never happen now.
My dear fellow,
I must say, you are quite mistaken in your assumption that this mod received but a little work and then was hung out to dry. When he has had time, McGlaspie has worked tirelessly on the mod; and I dare say he can certainly take criticism of his work. I would request that you avoid making such assumptions in the future, and I bid you good day.
Can I vote this as best dismissal of 2014, or do we really need to wait all year?
On Topic:
Glad to hear this is so close to the Official Badass Release™!
I only got to play a couple rounds of MvM previously, but that only makes me that much more excited! I will definatly be on one of the MvM servers as soon they are up!
McGlaspiewww.team156.comJoin Date: 2010-07-26Member: 73044Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Onos, WC 2013 - Gold, Subnautica Playtester
edited February 2014
Now that Beta-B263 is out, I'm going to get these last items fixed (see the mod tracker) and get this out the door. Hopefully, there will be a decent play-time window before B263 gets released (likely after NS2WC), because it will break this mod once it is live, I'm certain of it. I'll be using the beta release to hopefully get a leg-up on B263 compatibility. I really want to get some feedback on the early-game changes, because they're fairly significant. As a result of these changes, I think Power Nodes are going to be a whole lot less problematic. I'm not going to give anything away, because I want some kind of surprise for you guys.
Folks, please keep in mind I am the only person actively working on this. Ulmont has done fantastic work on the art side of things, but those tasks are all wrapped up now. It's all down to code at this point. With that being said, I can only work as fast as RL allows. I am the only person working on the complete rebuild of this project, and it's big (we cracked the 430 files mark last night). Combine that with limited time, and metric crapton of code, the significant changes, and as a result you get a long development cycle. It just can't be helped.
I can't give you guys much immediately, but to hopefully satiate some of your MvM cravings, here are a few ( admittedly cheesy. Yay group photo! :P ) shots of what the new Team skins and the main menu (it's a placeholder).
McGlaspiewww.team156.comJoin Date: 2010-07-26Member: 73044Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Onos, WC 2013 - Gold, Subnautica Playtester
edited February 2014
Welp, B263 most certainly shredded this mod. I'm going to have to pick up the pieces and see where things stand. Hopefully it won't be too bad. *fingers crossed*
Recently I've been trying to figure out how to get custom music in-game recently. The idea being, a new MvM Themed track will go along with a shiny new menu cinematic. But, that won't happen until I can get custom music working. And no, I won't hold up a release just to get this in-game. For anyone who's curious, here is the rough draft of the new MvM Theme. This might not even get used, or it could end up being an entirely different track all together, who knows at this point:
(Alternate)
Go easy please. It still needs a lot of work (especially the transitions). Constructive feedback is always welcome.
McGlaspiewww.team156.comJoin Date: 2010-07-26Member: 73044Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Onos, WC 2013 - Gold, Subnautica Playtester
edited February 2014
@Soul_Rider Thanks for giving it a listen. I'm leaning that way too. I need to clean it up a lot though. Have to rebuild my sound samples sadly, they're low quality and I botched the composition and loop (on beat) of a few of them.
@xDragon Ha! Nice hack. I might end up using that. A bit of a downside though. That approach prohibits being able to have menu music and bypasses a user's music volume setting. Still, good short-cut either way.
@[AwE]Sentinel Yeah, that's the consensus so far. Kind of funny you say that because it's 14 second longer
Well, I did some digging, and a metric-fukton of tinkering/testing and it turns out you cannot add custom music to NS2 via FMOD's music features. I am not talking about Sound Effects/Events in any way. Music: Using Themes, Cues, Timelines, Beat-based-loops and transitions, etc.
I duplicated the values, parameters, cue names, theme names, etc in a New fev file and it would either cause Spark to crash, or give the wonderful message: "couldn't open sound/bla.fev" ...which is bloody useless information.
Just based on the information I've deduced, the only way to add custom music is by naming your FEV to NS2. Apparently, Spark ONLY looks at the NS2.fev file for FMOD Music (Cues, Themes, etc). I suspect this is because they're dependent upon the header (.h) file FMOD designer generates when building a project. The stupid thing is, you can add New music (not just overwriting the names of NS2 music cues) to the custom "NS2.fev" file. However, there is a huge catch...doing so makes the music work just fine, BUT...ALL NS2 sounds and music are then broken. Fuked...big pile of SOL.
Oh, and yes I am aware you can create a local (to the client) SoundEffect in the main menu and play music that way...however, this bypasses all of the client's volume settings for Sounds and Music. Not too mention could potentially introduce a memory leak if the sound object isn't properly handled.
I'm left just scratching my head at the moment, and I don't see a non-time consuming alternative.
Sad, so sad...
Soul_RiderMod BeanJoin Date: 2004-06-19Member: 29388Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
I've encountered similar problems with trying to add my custom menu music too, which is why I was asking for people with experience to help me, but it looks like it is not just my noobness that is causing the issue, it is a genuine fault. Thanks for confirming it's not just because I'm an idiot.
McGlaspiewww.team156.comJoin Date: 2010-07-26Member: 73044Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Onos, WC 2013 - Gold, Subnautica Playtester
@Soul_Rider No problem. Here is the shitty part...the only way I see to add new music, and keep all the NS2 sound valid...is to reconstruct the NS2 project completely. That would mean extracting all of the sound files from the FSBs. Rebuild the folder structure for all of the FSB, with the sounds in the appropriate places. Then open the NS2.fdp located in the assets directory, update all the references, and then add any customization for the mod that's required. And finally rebuild the entire project. The dumb thing is, you wouldn't need the FSBs, excluding a custom one, that are generated.
I'm going to try and find a code way around it, I know I can but it's going to be tedious at best and a massive headache at worst. Rebuilding the NS2 project would be hugely time consuming.
Actually setting up the music in that way seems to still have it use the music volume slider, afaik the volume slider is based on the category in fmod, not how the sound is played. As for having it play on the main menu that may also be possible, but I never did test that.
McGlaspiewww.team156.comJoin Date: 2010-07-26Member: 73044Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Onos, WC 2013 - Gold, Subnautica Playtester
edited February 2014
@xDragon Damn, you're absolutely right. That works. You have to manually control the sound playing, but that's no big deal. Thanks Dragon! I think I'll whip up a step-by-step guide on this soon(ish).
Comments
Some things are worth waiting for, this will be one of those things. I don't know why you are still complaining Electr0. It is how it is. If you are so dis-heartened about NS2 and it's chances of mods working, then stop hanging around and go find another game to play.
If you want to stick around, then please use words of encouragement, rather than being rude.
Factions is a cool mod, but it is like TF2, and as TF2 is free to play, I can't see why people would bother playing the mod when they can play a full game released by Valve doing the same thing..
*sssiiigghhh*
Electr0, you remind me of the Angry German Kid. The nativity, ignorance, and unreasonableness of your posts is nearing the dumbfounding barrier. See, there is this thing called Real Life. It's an amazing place. Filled with wonders, adventures, and amazing people. You should visit it more often. I'm not some broke college kid. I have a fulltime job/career, a family, and I don't just sit my ass in front of a computer 24/7. If you don't like that, well, that's your problem. How about instead of being a whiny little cuss, try contributing something positive for a change. I won't get into a flame war, so I won't dignify any more of your responses.
@Soul_Rider *brofist* Thanks. You're awesome. I hope PG is going well for ya.
For all you cool ppls out there; I finally got to spent a good bit of time on the mod over the holidays. It was nice to do nothing but work on it. There is one big problem left (power nodes are broken atm), and the rest is basically tuning, balance, and polish. I'm going to be making another pass at the problem Saturday. If the fixes I've got planned work out, all that will be left is a tuning/tweaking pass and it will be release worthy. I'll go ahead and say this, I fully expect it to be imbalanced in some way or another. So, please don't expect from super refined polished mod when I do finally get it out the door.
Here's hoping *fingers crossed*
I can even get the old charts I used for bullets to kill. See! https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3376005/Images/Helpful/NS2modchart.JPG
I got all of the janky power node problems sorted out. They now do NOT appear on the minimap or visible to commanders UNITL they have been visually scouted (by scans or LOS from Player-Units [not ARC, structure, etc]). They also show on the minimap as green icons and correctly shows the disabled state as red colored. This solves a BIG problem from previous versions, which is commanders could tell exactly where the other team spawned. This change is also laying the ground work for future changes of programmatic map customizations (a separate mod I've been working on).
I'm going to attempt to get the RR player skins to show what team they were previously on at game end (this was a planned feature long ago), and then just double check everything and polish/tweak a few things. Long story short, we're stupid close to a release.
Also, I won't be splitting the art assets and code into two separate workshop items after all, the entire mod (zipped) is just 15.6MB so not much gain in having two WS items. It's just not worth the hassle.
I do have a question though. Is damage whole numbers only? How would a 15% increase in damage do to 10 base damage? 11, 11.5, or 12?
I should also mention that some maps will have balance issues. That will be because LOS issues, power node locations, etc. I'm working on a sub-system to address these problems, but it is still in the rough experimental stage. So, for the immediate future, some maps won't be very MvM friendly. From the looks of it, and what I've play tested so far, Eclipse is looking like the perfect map for MvM. Time will tell of course.
I'm using the default NS2 base code to do it, nothing special, but as you are aware the code is in Player.Replace() .
Excuses and presumptions, can't take anything even slightly negative can you?
I don't think my posts are unreasonable considering the length of time that has passed, plenty of mods have been created and maintained in that time, ns2 had a short window of opportunity for good mods to become popular and stick around, sadly this one failed because you couldn't seem to find even a few hours a week to work on it.
You can make all the excuses you like but nearly a year has passed and nothing, while others with jobs etc managed fine, if help was needed you know there are people here willing to but really i think the community should have come together and made a single game mode mod covering the standard ones everyone hoped for, id still love to play mvm combat or have a build menu in combat but that will never happen now.
My dear fellow,
I must say, you are quite mistaken in your assumption that this mod received but a little work and then was hung out to dry. When he has had time, McGlaspie has worked tirelessly on the mod; and I dare say he can certainly take criticism of his work. I would request that you avoid making such assumptions in the future, and I bid you good day.
And you've put in a fair amount of work on the mod yourself Ulmont, your contributions cannot be diminished
I think you will be shocked at the quality of this mod when it comes out Electr0, this is without doubt going to be the biggest mod out there to date, in terms of completion and customisation.
We're making solid progress on the final pass for all the team color maps (skins). I recently changed how the early game works in a significant way, so I'm just fixing all the bugs associated with this change. The plan behind this change is to create a more interesting element to the early game recon and make power nodes less janky. I'm fairly certain B263 is very close and will likely break all the mods out there (call it a hunch). So, I'm going to keep crushing bugs and hopefully get this updated shortly after B263 is out. When I do get this out the door, I'll post a big-ass changelog for all those curious.
Can I vote this as best dismissal of 2014, or do we really need to wait all year?
On Topic:
Glad to hear this is so close to the Official Badass Release™!
I only got to play a couple rounds of MvM previously, but that only makes me that much more excited! I will definatly be on one of the MvM servers as soon they are up!
Folks, please keep in mind I am the only person actively working on this. Ulmont has done fantastic work on the art side of things, but those tasks are all wrapped up now. It's all down to code at this point. With that being said, I can only work as fast as RL allows. I am the only person working on the complete rebuild of this project, and it's big (we cracked the 430 files mark last night). Combine that with limited time, and metric crapton of code, the significant changes, and as a result you get a long development cycle. It just can't be helped.
I can't give you guys much immediately, but to hopefully satiate some of your MvM cravings, here are a few ( admittedly cheesy. Yay group photo! :P ) shots of what the new Team skins and the main menu (it's a placeholder).
Team 1 - Blue Team
Team 2 - Gold Team
New (Placeholder) Main Menu cinematic
Enjoy
Recently I've been trying to figure out how to get custom music in-game recently. The idea being, a new MvM Themed track will go along with a shiny new menu cinematic. But, that won't happen until I can get custom music working. And no, I won't hold up a release just to get this in-game. For anyone who's curious, here is the rough draft of the new MvM Theme. This might not even get used, or it could end up being an entirely different track all together, who knows at this point:
(Alternate)
Go easy please. It still needs a lot of work (especially the transitions). Constructive feedback is always welcome.
Good luck McGlaspie, i'm glad you haven't given up on this mod despite UWE breaking it over and over again, lol
@McGlaspie - My vote is for the Alternate mix
@xDragon Ha! Nice hack.
@[AwE]Sentinel Yeah, that's the consensus so far. Kind of funny you say that because it's 14 second longer
Well, I did some digging, and a metric-fukton of tinkering/testing and it turns out you cannot add custom music to NS2 via FMOD's music features. I am not talking about Sound Effects/Events in any way. Music: Using Themes, Cues, Timelines, Beat-based-loops and transitions, etc.
I duplicated the values, parameters, cue names, theme names, etc in a New fev file and it would either cause Spark to crash, or give the wonderful message: "couldn't open sound/bla.fev" ...which is bloody useless information.
Just based on the information I've deduced, the only way to add custom music is by naming your FEV to NS2. Apparently, Spark ONLY looks at the NS2.fev file for FMOD Music (Cues, Themes, etc). I suspect this is because they're dependent upon the header (.h) file FMOD designer generates when building a project. The stupid thing is, you can add New music (not just overwriting the names of NS2 music cues) to the custom "NS2.fev" file. However, there is a huge catch...doing so makes the music work just fine, BUT...ALL NS2 sounds and music are then broken. Fuked...big pile of SOL.
Oh, and yes I am aware you can create a local (to the client) SoundEffect in the main menu and play music that way...however, this bypasses all of the client's volume settings for Sounds and Music. Not too mention could potentially introduce a memory leak if the sound object isn't properly handled.
I'm left just scratching my head at the moment, and I don't see a non-time consuming alternative.
Sad, so sad...
I'm going to try and find a code way around it, I know I can but it's going to be tedious at best and a massive headache at worst. Rebuilding the NS2 project would be hugely time consuming.