Blood Oil Remastered?

[Jack Wachter]

So, an idea has come to my mind for another project after Cloak-and-Dagger v1.3 is released. Simply put, it would be a version of Blood Oil with the feel of CENTCOM (and dependent on it as well). Since Blood Oil is on the Sharing is Caring list, this should take care of permissions (if you know otherwise, please let me know). I would look at adding some new content as well to keep things fresh. Mod structure would look something like this:

• Desert Siege
• Island Thunder
• CENTCOM
• Blood Oil Remastered (or w/e I end up calling it)

Features I would look at:

• Blood Oil weapons with CENTCOM feel (if you feel there's a mod that has more realistic weapon handling, let me know. I just figured CENTCOM is a great base for this)
• AI using full-auto almost exclusively (no AK snipe)
• Adjusted cmbtmdl.xml file to better represent armor (highlest level would still let M4 and AK rounds through, but stop weaker rounds)
• Weapon kit compiling so that I fully know what weapons are available and can redistribute
• SP characters would be CIA SAD, specialists would be from CENTCOM
• Play around with the sounds (supersonic bullet crack, weapons, etc. Some of the sounds in Blood Oil could be improved and I know that CENTCOM has some great sounds)
• Add some new maps (at least GRS Map Pack v3)
• Any fixes for both mods not already implemented (I know Blood Oil has a few)
• Some new weapons (flashbangs, M4A1 SOPMOD with different skins, already have the groundwork there done with Cloak)
• New textures (realistic wounds for instance)
• Look at using unused content (supposedly CENTCOM has some unused characters, all I could find was some SAS guys)

Overall, would should have a different feel than both regular CENTCOM and regular Blood Oil. Plus the advantage of having most of Eskwaad's characters in a single, compatible package. Not looking to add insane amounts of content, want to do something more focused and easier to manage. So, what do you all think?

[SKIP]

Great idea Jack! Maybe some new missions and new kits such Hk416 and Mp7 for the seals, M4A1 and Javelin for Centcom standard characters. 

[Jack Wachter]

I'll have to see what I can get access to. As for the weapons, I'm not overly concerned with maximizing the weapon selection to crazy levels. CENTCOM + Blood Oil weapons already gives a decent selection to work with, but can supplement it some. Also remember that most of the skins represent an early 2000s look to them and may not fit the best with super modern weaponry. Definitely will look into it though. Though upon further investigation, it appears I can make desert and woodland versions of most of the M4 variants since they use the same set of textures as from the M4A1 SOPMOD Mod.

Another thing I want to address with CENTCOM is the fog in the missions. Going to get rid of that where appropriate since deserts have long lines of sight (usually). Hopefully won't break how the missions work (fog was probably used since CENTCOM is an older mod).

What else do you guys want to see?

[wombat50]

Have made a mission(see attached) that shows Eskawaad's characters from the "MP Actor Files" folder and which .kil file they are in.
I have placed waypoint labels that show on the command map in front of each group. 
If you wanted a different look for the standard ghosts in Centcom you could probably make use of these. 
Not sure they have the proper desert and jungle .chr and associated textures set up correctly in the .atr files but that is doable if needed.

I think there are more Eskawaad characters to be had in the Mods \ Centcom Mod \ Actor \hero folder but I can't get them to appear in the actor list in Igor. Hope you get your game to launch.

Character mission will appear in Quick Missions as **Eskawaad Characters.
Needs GR, DS, IT and Centcom to work. Drop the .mis file in the Centcom Mission folder.

=c02=character.mis

Edited February 15, 2018 by wombat50

[Jack Wachter]

Sweet, will play with it.

As for making desert and woodland version of all the "M4s for days" in CENTCOM, I would have to save the model files with new names and put them in the new mod. The mod would still be dependent, but not sure if that would violate permissions.

[nyleken]

That woodland guy with the bump helmet would make an excellent replacement for the Heroes Unleashed Ghost models.

[Jack Wachter]

Agreed, but I'm 99.9% certain that it isn't going to happen since the material in CENTCOM is exclusive to it.

 

As for reskinning the different M4 variants in CENTCOM, may be best to simply load one of the M4 SOPMOD texture mods on top of it to get skins. Actually need to test that once my game is working properly.

[nyleken]

Bit of a pity. Even with the updated UCP in HU they still look like regular grunts rather than a CIF unit with more funding.

As for the fog on the CENTCOM missions you might want to consider how that'll affect the balancing.

[Jack Wachter]

Good point. I was already going to make the enemy use full-auto exclusively if their weapon has it. Should prevent a lot of AK-snipe moments. I'm pretty sure it'll work fine, something to test though.

[Jack Wachter]

This is a thing I still want to do, probably going to shift my focus from Cloak-and-Dagger to here. Some of the ideas I'm looking at:

• Keeping the original CENTCOM and Blood Oil weapons handling as-is and leave the kit restrictions from both as-is.
• Making new .gun files for all of the weapons from both mods. The handling will be based on HU and the tweaks I made for Cloak-and-Dagger since they play well. As for the sights, will try and incorporate CENTCOM's sights for all weapons as applicable. With the original weapons left in, this allows the original MP kit restrictions to effectively be "legacy" settings.
• Complete kit overhaul. Expand options for SP and MP similar to what I did in CaD.
• Adding flashbangs.
• Weapons sound overhaul. Supersonic bullet crack + thales100's Real Weapon Sounds covers most of them except for suppressed weapons. Will investigate options for suppressed weapons.
• Removing fog from CENTCOM maps and adjusting enemy view distance accordingly.
• New weapons, but something that would come towards the end. CENTCOM and Blood Oil combined already have a large selection to work with.
• Add various maps. Could even go as far as making a winter expansion.
• Make some missions. Probably going to be simpler missions based around CQB since I feel there's a lack of missions that explore this thoroughly. First would be modifying the GRS Killhouse missions to have randomization for enemy number and placement. Then add some hostages. Then make a version in which there could be various non-combatants. That's just for training.

Not sure what I want to end up calling it. Don't want to limit this to a simply making a Blood Oil compatible with CENTCOM but feel like something new.

[Kyle_K_ski]

I'm very excited to see this.  Having tried out your superb Cloak and Dagger addition to Heroes Unleashed, I anticipate only greatness.

Thank you again for all of your very generous hard work. 

By the way, the videos you post are a real treat.  I enjoy watching them.

[Jack Wachter]

Going to be a lot of work, but should be a lot of fun to play.

Haven't settled on a name for this yet. Thinking "Break Contact" or something long along those lines right now. Feel free to post suggestions.

Other ideas:

• First Contact
• Contact Front
• Violence of Action
• Move, Shoot, Communicate
• Violent Resolution

Edit: "Close Contact" is what I'm going with for now.

Edited April 23, 2018 by Jack Wachter

[Jack Wachter]

Lots of work this will be, possibly more than in Cloak-and-Dagger. Even though I'm currently working with less content (2 smaller mods compared to HU), the big difference here is that there isn't a lot of infrastructure to use. In the case of Cloak-and-Dagger, it was mostly editing existing files.

Here? Just for weapons, here is that I have to do given my current goals:

• Edit the existing weapons (which will be saved as completely new files to preserve the originals as much as possible for "legacy" options in MP) to adjust handling and change sounds
• Set up said weapon sounds (most of this is already done, but suppressed weapons could use some improvements)
• Make completely new kit files to make things more well rounded (more work than simply tweaking ammo values)
• Make new kit icons... not looking forward to this (will need to collect each weapon and setup a base file, then save every single combination that I wish to use)
• When done with kits, will copy them over to a MP folder to create the MP kits. Then I actually need to go and put them into kit restriction files... welp.

Focus for now will be setting up SP, then working on MP once that's mostly done.

EDIT: here's what most of the weapon list looks like, this is mostly to give me an idea of what's already there to work with and could use some reorganizing

Edited April 26, 2018 by Jack Wachter