BF2-Can't find editor's extra vehicles in GPO...

[Konan]

hello guys, im new here... you have very good info, help and tutorials on bf modding, congrats.
but i've searched all over for a solution for my problem, but couldnt find it, so please i need direct help.

i have 1 problem and 1 mistery...

the problem: i have some old crazy modded maps, made by someone using bf2 editor. i need to make some changes on (spawntimes and number) of the vehicles (like i did dozens of times before, starting from default maps), but when i edit the game_play_objects.con i only find the default vehicles. i cant find the extra vehicles created in the editor... i've serched all server.zip and cant find them.
is there any pro that can give an hint?

the mistery: i've modded many many deafault maps, all by changing lines in game_play_objects (i dont know how to use the editor),
i usually reduce spawntimes of vehicles and raise their numbers using this lines:

ex:
"ObjectTemplate.minSpawnDelay 5
ObjectTemplate.maxSpawnDelay 5
ObjectTemplate.maxNrOfObjectSpawned 3"

but now im trying this for the first time in kubra_dam 64, and the number of vehicles in the map stays default (1)... i double and triple the vehicles and nothing happens. i've started from original kubra_dam gpo in root server, and didnt work. then i tryed with the default gpo in my game folder, the same, nothing happens. like i said before, i've done this dozesn of times, in oman, dalian, sharqui, etc... but what's happening in kubra?

does anyone has any ideia aboout this?

thank you for your attention and best wishes to all.

.






my server is online, multiplayer ranked server.

[Senshi]

Difficult to help you there, as most certainly the error lies with you. As you said yourself, there's no reason this shouldn't work.

However, you are not really clear on what you actually did: Did you alter the map with the editor or did you add the vehicles directly in the GPO.con? If the first: The changes are not done to MAP\Gamemodes\gpm_cq\64\GPO.con, but MAP\Editor\GPO.con . If you want the settings to apply ingame, you have to move that GPO.con to the correct folder.

However, if you only want to make small alterations to individual vehicles or add new ones, I strongly advise you to copy the required paragraphs manually into the correct GPO.con. Why? The BF2Editor to this day has a wonderful concept of "layers" that allows it to store all objects in a central GPO.con, but you still can toggle entire layers on/off in the editor. In the default maps this is used to differentiate between the gamemodes, each gamemode gets its unique layer. Usually there are 4: "Basic" (for generic stuff that's the same for all maps), 16, 32 and 64. However, if you do not recreate the original vanilla editor files (which are not shipped with the game, and have to be created manually with quite some extra work ), all layers will be "merged" into a single GPO.con, confusing the editor and game somewhat.

[Konan]

senshi thanks for so quick reply...

yes i know it must be my error or noobishness, thats why im asking for help.

i dont know if i explained myself clearlly, probably not.

the 2 problems are not connected.

1º problem- cant find in gpo, or any other location in server.zip the extra vehicles, added by the bf2-editor by other people, not me, cos i dont know how to use the editor.

2º problem- kubra_dam_64 default server gpo doesn't behave like the other default (original) gpo's... the vehicles remain allways single, cant double or triple them.
(but this is not so important, and im still gonna triple-check my steps and repeat the process...)

-but the 1º one is very important to me... i've allready red that about the layers and the MAP\Editor\GPO.con, but i dont understand much cos i never used the editor, and i was not interested on using it.
-the question, is that i have server.zip files of maps modded by other people, using bf2-editor, i have them working in my root server (they are online), but i cant find the extra vehicles anywhere in that server.zip files, so i can make changes on spawntimes and nº of vehicles spawned... they are not showing in the gpo... any ideia where?
-from what i understood, MAP\Editor\GPO.con its placed in the pc of the people who is modding with the bf2-editor... so when he passes a map to someone to be uploaded to the root server, he passes a server.zip file, correct? so i have those server.zip files, they are working, and extra vehicles added in extra control points (not default) are appearing fine... but i cant find them in gpo to make changes to them... example: i have 3 essex's (wasp_defense) in the carrier. i can find the 2 default (original) essexs (front and rear), but i cant find the third (new) one... where is it? in MAP\Editor\GPO.con? isn't that in the pc of the guy who modded the maps? im lost... must i unzip the server.zip files before editing the con files? could it make a diference?

.

[Senshi]

Okay, now things become more clear . It's always a bit tricky trying to ID specific elements in all this mess, I know.

If you have server.zips that have implemented changes to the GPO.con, then the Editor\GPO.con is entirely irrelevant. That one is exclusively being used by the editor (as are all files inside the "Editor" folder). This is also the reason why most mappers do not ship their final maps with that folder included, as it only takes up space in the archive and is not needed by the common player.

However, you correctly assume that all spawners and gameplay stuff is situated in the Gameplaymodes\xxx\GPO.con. However, it is theoretically possible to launch code from other files in the archive as well, though why any modder would do this is beyond me. If you use a good text editor like Notepad++, you have the option to "Search in Files..." for a specific word/term. I'd suggest extracting the server.zip locally and trying to find the term "wasp_defense" in all files in that folder. If you see it spotting up somewhere outside the GPO.con in the results, you found it.
How this "run-stuff-not-from-GPO.con" works? The engine doesn't actually care in what file you add your code, it only matters that the file is being read and parsed somewhere along the map launch process. E.g. you could create and add a spawner right in the "init.con", as that file always gets loaded by the game.
Alternatively, you can also use the "run/include" commands to point to other files. If you take a look at the init.con, you'll notice that most of the code in there are simple "run" calls that load all the other required files. The file&folder layout in the level archives is just some sort of standard used by DICE, but the engine really doesn't care about it .
So it might be that a modder - for whatever reason - decided to not place his alterations in the usual places, but maybe an additional file or in another existing file.

Problem no 2 simply does not make any sense, I really don't know how to assist there. Kubra Dam really is no different from any other vanilla map in terms of editing it, so I'd really suggest you start over from scratch on that one, taking particular care of what you do on every step. Alternatively you can try fiddling with the debugger (bf2_r.exe) to see if that helps figuring out the underlying issue. But the debugger is best used for crash debugging, not these kinds of things...