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Here's what I want. I want to take the patrol settings from the ava4final plugin and make it playable on a bunch of other maps. Can I get a suggestion for the best way to start this? Should this be accomplish-able with just fear and loathing? Thanks

Edit: I got UnTag and I'll mess around and see what I can do
Edit 2: I extracted the ava4final plugin and see the files in the local folder. I tried seeing what I could open with the loathing editor but no file could open. So how do I open up maps so that I can add units to them.

Edit 3: "Why would you wanna do this?" Well ava4final has only 5 patrol maps, and only 4 of them are good, it's my belief that having AvA Patrol on more maps is good.
"Why is AvA Patrol so good?" Because the difficulty adjusts the number of units you have from 2 to 6. With 3 - 4 units being good for 1vs1 and ffa, and 6 being good for 2 team. I've found the AvA units to be pretty balanced allowing for lots of cool tactics and unit combinations when each person is controlling 3 - 4 (In my opinion 6 units per person results in too much rpg spam one sided games but the option is there anyway)
"So what maps you think would work good?" That's a good question, some maps I can think of that would be cool would be Recon, Urban, some bungie maps, any well done realistic maps. I think a group of about 12 - 16 maps that play really well would be cool. Player starts could range from 6 for small maps to 12 for large.

Come on now this shouldn't be too hard right. Does anyone know if a tagset would work that keeps the file size low and lets you play on any or most maps? Help me out here where do I click.....

Edit 4: WOooaahhh this place is slow, like 1 post in nearly 2 week, and it's Christmas time!?

There's no 'easy' way to go about what you're suggesting, in the sense of low plugin size, or in procedure. To have a unique unit set on a map those monsters have to physically be placed or indicated on the mesh.

So for example, if you made a tagset to replace ww2 recon monsters with ava monsters, there'd have to be the correct ratio of the right recon units to be swapped out for the right AvA monsteres to provide the 'Patrol' unitset on a recon map. As you can imagine that's very rarely, if ever, going to work out.

So to accomplish what you're looking for you need to build a full proper plugin and that plugin has to include all the collections and mesh tags for the maps you wish to include in addition to the AvA units.

You have to take those maps in question, extract their files to a local, open them up in loathing and strip them entirely of whatever units they have. When you finish with one mesh, save the local by another name, do the next mesh in question, then merge the next local into the previous one. Repeat until all maps are included in your new local. At this point you'll have to merge the AvA local and all its associated unit tags into the new local with the stripped down meshes. Then you manually place patrol units for X teams, adjust starting observer cameras accordingly, then finally in Fear make sure you've adjusted the 'total teams' to the appropriate value.

Gluck.

Make sure you are using the latest Fear and Loathing (1.7.2). If a map does not load, find the "myth_log" text file located in your Myth II folder. It will show errors that will give you clues as to why a map might not have loaded. This also helps when you try to load a map on Myth2 and it won't load.

So you tried to open the right maps? By the right maps, I mean the ones that specific plugin added and not the default maps already being shown in Fear/Loathing. The only reason you wouldn't be able to load the maps would be if you had missing tags or you have tags conflicting from some other plugin or set of tags.

Editting your post multiple times might not be such a good idea. Once people read it they aren't going to notice it has been editted afterwards unless there was a reply (like graydon's) and then notice the original post is different. I think I had only seen the first edit when I first noticed this thread.

As for your question about tagsets. I take it that there is no existing tagset that uses ava4final or units similar to them? If there was, then you could use such a tagset, otherwise you would either have to make one or just stick with a full plugin as Graydon suggested.

Thanks Graydon gave a lot of good information. Right now I'm able to extract the plugin files and open the meshes (after putting the folders in the correct places) So Im gonna start off making a local folder of each map I want to include, clear each one of units, and add the ava units and I'll see how far I get. If I get into trouble I'll be here to ask some questions.

also, you can use a tool on the Tain called Chaos to help extract meshes from a plugin, most useful if the mesh has a lot of extra tags you dont want.

be careful combining stuff from different plugins, as its very likely to get tag conflicts that you may not even notice at first.

Ok I snagged that Chaos tool. I definitely want the cleanest plugin possible to save on file size, so I'll see how it works.

hey mate, sorry for the delay.
your on the right track, I combined a map with ww2 units and it was a bit strange but it worked. the sqaud ops map and the ww2 1.1 units i combined
so when you get the map open. I am going to assume you can use fear and loathing a bit to open the map... i saved multiple folders for each map type. I took the actual ww2 units from the recon deluxe map, so you want to take out the ava units from the ava4 final plug in. i just dragged the specific folders from the ava4 plugin folder i created after using the extract tool.( i forgot whats its called). i overwrote the existing folders on the map.
go in and edit each map accordingly, oh, the only thing i havent done , that you will do is check the pat options come up....read my tutorial on what i did, i am a noob like you, and i understand what you are trying to do. send me a map so i can try one for ya...I wish i could make a map, i have no idea were to start, and dont have the time, (need the time to hack pro tools, hehe)
k, ic u around
noall
ooops, heres a link...
http://web.me.com/noall666/Myth%202/tutorial/index.html

There is not an AvA tagset that would work by itself because the patrol option uses scripting to determine the number of players in the game. This means you will have to upload every map again with modified starts (as graydon said). In addition you will need to export the AvA scripts and relink the soldiers (not really that hard).

Ah crap I just made a giant post and lost it when I got asked to log in. I'll summarize as quick as I can.

Here's where I'm at so far. Picked out 25 maps I think are awesome, extracted using Chaos Mesh extraction. Then I consolidated all the files into their respective folders (leaving a copy of the original folders). This gave me 22 total folders:

ambient sounds
artifacts
collection references
collections
geometries
local physics
local projectile groups
media types
mesh effect
mesh lighting
meshes
models
monsters
objects
particle systems
projectile groups
projectiles
scenery
sounds
string lists
units
wind

Now I can open each map in loathing, next I'll clear out all the units. Although Chaos Mesh extraction produced files smaller then UnTag it seemed to include unnecessary things like tags having to do with regular units in Monsters and Units folder. So are there some of these folders I should leave out? Should I go back and only pull the necessary folders for the mesh to work, if so which folders would those be?
EDIT: I think I did this backwards of what Graydon suggested. If I delete the units from the mesh, does that remove their tags from the folders too? I'll check it out..

After I get the maps cleared then I'll add in the AvA units. So far for that I've used Chaos Unit Extract for each class unit in the ava4final plugin (engineer, field op etc) but I haven't yet consolidated them into the folders I got from the mesh extracts. When I'm ready to put them in, I'll consolidate all the files into the folders from my mesh extracts, then add them in with loathing correct?

If anyone knows where I can upload the work I've done so far, I'll do that so ya'll can see what I'm talking about and give advice. Thanks

UnTag extracts all tags from plugins (unless you only extract them individually or by type of tag). Chaos takes out specific sets of tags from local folders or plugins. If you removed units (or any other thing) from a mesh when using Loathing, it doesn't delete the tags of those units (or other things). Loathing as no way of knowing if you would intend on having some units on say map 1 but not on map 2, so it doesn't ever delete tags. Fear however can delete tags if you select them and delete them. If a plugin ever contains tags for default things, then they must have been modified by the mapmaker and are not the same as the default ones.

So in Loathing, remove the units, projectiles, scenery, etc that you do not want to keep. Save the changes and then use Chaos to extract that mesh. I don't really use Chaos since I tend to do such things manually instead (out of habit), so I don't know if its mesh extraction feature would take only the tags for the mesh itself or anything linked to it (like units, etc). Place them all into one local and load each of them to make sure no errors due to conflicts come up.

After that you can dump the units you plan on adding to it. Always keep backups of your locals in case something goes wrong and you can't undo it.

As for where to upload, you can get on the udogs hotline and ask an admin to make you an account. With it comes a folder in which you can upload your myth related files. Do a search on how to get on it, since it depends on what OS you have and then which hotline client you can get.

Ok I'm gonna start smaller until I get the hang of this. First I'll do the bungie maps: venice, dead of winter, desert, gimble and demise. I'm having trouble understanding exactly what are the minimum files I need to pull from ava4final to be able to place the units in loathing. For instance when I open ava4final with untag and expand the "units" list, I see
06 garrick
06 warrior
later on
Axis - Bazooka
Axis - Gewehr Granate
later down the list
Class Engineer
Class Field op

So I figured I want all the units with Class at the front (cause those are the names I see in game) So I did: Chaos - Extraction - Extract Unit - Class Engineer
This gave me 13 folders (artifacts, collection references etc) which I consolidated into the local folders I'm working with.

Now when I load up Loathing and double click on the place unit tool (I don't see Class Engineer in the dropdown) This bring up the "marker palette for type unit" Here I edited the archer tag to "Class Engineer" for each team. Now this shows what was "Archer" in the dropdown list as "Class Engineer" yet when I place the units it still looks like an Archer (actually a firbolg, loathing seems to be display TFL units...)

Well I'll keep working with it and see what happens any suggestions are appreciated, thanks

EDIT: I think I'm missing files as when I look in Fear under monsters, Class Engineer it references a collection "soldier thompson smg" so I'll keep messing around, let me know if I'm on the right track...
Edit 2: THEN AGAIN the soldier thompson smg is indeed already in the collections folder

Unit tags link monster and collection reference tags with each other. Just because the unit tag might be labeled say "dwarf" does not mean it is really a dwarf. One way people replace units on existing maps is by editting unit tags and link them to a different set of monster and collection reference tags. So you could switch out all dwarves with archers and the unit tag would still be named "dwarf".

What you should do is the following. Open one of the ava4final maps, and look at the units it has in its marker palette. Then you use those units.

Ok I think I'm making good progress. It is indeed the "Class" units to use. Now I've consolidated all the extracted unit files with the extracted mesh files. I loaded up gimble in loathing, and deleted all "Marker Palette for type: Unit" This removes all the units. Then I went to add, and added "Class Engineer" and there he is on the map. So next I'll add in some more units, build the plugin and test it out. Hopefully the units show up in game. Next will be to add the script that makes the patrol settings work I think...

Another thing to note is this: If you open mesh A in loathing, go to the units palette and change an existing entry to another entry.... the effect will take place, and you can place more of that newly selected unit.... but Loathing has no way of reloading the mesh references once it's loaded and displaying. To update the aesthetic changes like the one described above, you have to do the swap in the palette list, save the mesh, close the mesh, and then reopen it. You should then be presented with whatever actual monster you swapped out, rather its predecessor.

Here's where I'm at I've emptied all 25 meshes of units and renamed the mesh files for consistency. I added the engineer and field op unit to gimble, built the plugin file and can load the plugin file no problem.

I ran into trouble when I added the flamer unit, the plugin would crash (crash to lobby if hosting). To trouble shoot I removed the flamer, then the plugin would work, I also added all other units besides flamer, then I noticed the log file, so I tossed the flamer back in and copied the log error it generates:

Error: Array Out of Bounds in shapes.c, line #1160: sequence #29 not in [#0,#27) for "soldier.raw" collection
Error: Array Out of Bounds in definitions.c, line #591: monster definition postprocess failed on 'Class Marine'.
Error: Array Out of Bounds in shapes.c, line #1160: sequence #6 not in [#0,#6) for "grenade.raw" collection
Error: Array Out of Bounds in definitions.c, line #591: artifact definition postprocess failed on 'Soldier_Incendiary'.

Is there an apparent solution looking at these errors? I don't think I messed up when I was combining folders but I guess I'm not sure since I was moving the files manually. Anyone know of an automatic way to combine the files generated by the extracts (Im on mac os 10.5.8 )? If so I could just redo them quick.

Also what would the different "build plugin" options do, such as "force meshes in this plugin to load last" and "load in reverse order" ?