Free Allegiance Forums

Been awhile since I was last here.

I'm interested in building a core, however I don't quite know how to get started. I know that Apochboi had a guide for how to work with ICE up, but I can't find it. I was also wondering if there was a place that the old update/release notes for the other cores were stored. I'm mostly interested in those so that I can see how those cores were balanced with damage modifiers and suchlike.

Also, I know that there are a number of people who built their own cores here, so is there any advice that you may be able to give someone wanting to start in this?


I should also ask, can I use any faction or am I restricted to certain factions without getting the creator's permission? I'd like to use the DN 4.50 factions if possible. Possibly without the Phoenix, but I'd really like to include the TF if I can.

I'll leave others to answer the ICE questions (try the wiki though).

DN is a tricky area as Noir, the core creator has, in the past, threatened legal action against people who used his work. Phoenix especially is a dodgy area as they were licensed for use by another party. Noir is now inactive but it may not be worth the risk.

However the CC is very much based on DN but with nix removed so you'd be pretty much fine using that.

What Raveen said about the legality. I based my training core on CC and have stayed away from everything phoenix with no problems.

On to actually working on cores:

I don't have the energy to do a detailed guide so I will touch on the basics here.

ICE is located on the Downloads Page (link) found up at the top of the forums here, or by clicking on the link I just made.

Its in a .zip folder so you'll need to open it with WinZip or similar program. No install is necessary, just copy everything out of the .zip into a directory. It does not have to be in your Allegiance folder either.

Core files are .igc so thats what you're looking for. I prefer to copy core files out of my allegiance directory and work on the copies in a separate folder so I don't accidentally save or tamper with the cores used for playing. You could alternatively just leave everything in the allegiance/artwork folder and make sure to save the core you're making under a different name that isn't being used right now (like "guivre_core01").

As for using ICE, its all pretty straightforward (fighters are under ships, max speed is clearly labeled max speed, etc.) except for pres & defs and a couple odd quirks here and there. The best way to learn to use ICE is to get into it with a core and just start experimenting with what changes what.



Quick guide to Pres & defs

"Pre" is shortform for prerequisite. On an item of tech it is everything that item needs to be available.
"Def" is shortform for definition. Its usually found on factions and development items (devels, or researched tech). These are the pre slots that this item fills out.

In ICE all of the pres and defs are listed for items. On each pre slot, only one item in the pre must be available for the tech to be available. However all of the individual preqs must be met.

Here's an example for pres & defs based on CC_04. I suggest you open up ICE to follow along as it makes what I'm saying much clearer.

Go into Parts and down to PW Gat Gun 2. Click on it, then go to the "Tech Tree" tab on the top right. This is where you find the pres & defs for any item of tech. For PW Gat2 to be available, it requires the items from pre #s 118, 157, 230, and 356. Thus it requires 4 separate items for the tech to be available to a team ingame.

118 is the weapon tech itself. Its made available by any faction with devel off (meaning in DMs) or by having researched Gat2 under supremacy, or by picking up a PE or PW Gat 2 that was floating around. This is what makes floating tech work in game - picking up Gat2 fills out the requirement in the core to make 118 available.

157 just defines the different factions, with both devel on or off. A team on any one of these factions will have gat2 available if it meets the other pres as well.

230 is the techbase, since Gat2 is mid level tech and generally requires a techbase to be available. If you look at the pre itself you'll see all the factions listed with devel off (so gat2 is available when development is turned off in settings) and all of the different supremacy stations. Remember that only one item in each pre has to be met to enable it, so just having a supremacy station will enable 230. As a side note, notice that Belters is also listed in 230 with development on, meaning a Belters team doesn't have to have a supremacy station for gat2 to be available.

356 just defines the factions again, except TF, meaning that PW gat2 is not available to TF teams. This is because TF gets the PE version of Gat 2 instead.


Also note that in each of the four preqs that the factions are listed with devel off. This is what makes gat2 available to teams in DMs or any other game with development off in the settings. If even one of the preqs didn't have the faction(s) with devel off then they wouldn't get that tech in a DM (or other non dev game).

One more note: You'll notice that 118 is also in the "def" list. This is because we're looking at the actual PW gat 2. By defining 118, any team that picks the gun up and docks it at a base will fill out #118 for their team, and if they have a sup (or are belts) then the weapon is made available. In simpler terms, this is the mechanic that allows floating tech ingame to be picked up and used.


Hope this helps. If you have specific questions after playing around with ICE I'll try and answer those.

Thanks for the replies ^^ Lots of good info there.

Just so that I'm 100% sure on this, factions that I can use are:

Belters
Bios
Dreghklar
Ga'Taraan
GigaCorp
Iron Coalition
Rixian (yay!)
Technoflux

My next question is... Getting ICE to work. I have ICE and Allegiance installed on an external hard drive. I also have a copy of the artwork folder for Allegiance in the ICE folder that I will be using as my mod folder so that I don't do something bad to the original. When I hit the ICE button to start it, I get a message saying, "Allegiance server not found in registry !!!"

Is ICE looking for the Allegiance folder in some other place or something?

Sorry for the delay.

All of the factions you've listed can be used in your core without any issues, yes.

I'm not aware of ICE requiring the server files to be installed as well, however I have not run ICE without also having the server installed so I'm not certain.

The server files are on the downloads page I linked above as well, you can find them near the bottom under "Allegiance Server Setup". Downloading and installing that will probably solve your issues, however you won't be able to use that server on its own for testing. Having the ability to start and run a LAN server on your own machine helps greatly in core testing though, so you might as well get it working too.

Go and read this article (link) on the wiki. It explains how to set up the R4 server. Some notes to make the installation from that article easier:

1) Make sure you download both links in the first section (the core files and the binaries). You will need to use a program (such as WinZip) to unzip the binaries, but don't worry about that just yet. Go ahead and install the server, then worry about the binaries (follow the article).

2) It doesn't seem to mention it in the article (I may be blind, or it may not be required anymore) but I believe you still have to copy your allegiance/artwork folder into your server/artwork folder. Do this after following the guide in the wiki, and let it overwrite any old files in the server's artwork folder. Make sure you aren't copying the other way around (copy from allegiance/artwork to allegiance/server/artwork). This makes sure the server files are in sync with the game files.

3) If you want to run your new core on your LAN server, you'll have to update your registry. Open regedit (Start menu -> Run -> regedit) and go to the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft Games\Allegiance\1.0\Server

Change the "value data" on the entry "Core1" from where it is (probably zone_core) to the file name of your new core. Note that you only have to enter the name (test_core) not the location or extension. The server will automatically look for the .igc file in the server/artwork directory called "test_core.igc" if you put "test_core" into the registry.


4) There should be a new link in your start menu to "AllSrvUI". Run this and wait for the server to load up. Go to the Allegiance Game Manager window, make sure "Game visibility" is set to Private, enter any name you want (it doesn't matter) and put the file name of your core into the "Core" field. This should be the exact same as you put into the registry (just "test_core" or whatever you named it). Then hit Create Game to start the server.


That should let you run on a LAN. You don't need ASGS to test LAN games so you can just open allegiance.exe, go to LAN games and into your server. If you want to test with multiple teams then run the Allegiance (NOT ASGS) exe with -multi in the command line. Do that by going to the shortcut, right click and go to properties. Put -multi at the end of the "Target" line. Should look something like this: C:\Allegiance\Allegiance.exe -multi

That will let you start multiple versions of Allegiance which you can then connect to the LAN server. You will need a different login name for each copy, just change that when you connect them to the server.


Again, if you have questions please post them here. I'm not sure how easy the server is to set up now, I spent 2 days figuring out how to get mine working because there wasn't any accurate documentation on it like there is now (Thanks wiki team!).

ICE runs fine if you don't have the server installed.

In fact, ICE runs fine if you don't have Alleg installed. However, you require the Alleg registriy entries

The R4 version of AllServUI allows you to select the your core without messing with the registry.

It's also worth noting that the uninstaller that comes with the server package DELETES EVERYTHING IN THE FOLDER. DON'T install the server directly into your allegiance folder, and don't do all of your dev work in alleigance\server\artwork.

^^;

Also sorry for the delay, the time before finals can get pretty darn hectic.

That is incredible info on running the LAN games by yourself. That'll be great for testing ship weapon/shield/armor levels.

I'll download the stuff you guys have mentioned and give it a try when I get a chance.

Thanks for the advice!