Battlezone II Remodeled 1.0.8 released 2/21/17

[coxxon]

Aww, no Braddock?

Didn't you see his bust image - no legs. It wouldn't be a fair fight.
Plus, he was a late edition, and I didn't want to go through fully modelling and animating him.

[coxxon]

boy, we have hostiles is a lot harder now due to, what appears to be, faster (but beautiful) tugs?

Yup, I gave'em a little get up and go. It can be helpful to arm the scout with the laser powerup, and then get out far ahead of the artifacts to intercept the Haulers early. I've beaten it three times on hard so it's very doable. One issue I did notice with that mission is that it is still winnable even if both the artifacts are destroyed. I thought that was a bit odd.

[General BlackDragon]

Here's another bit of "too shiny"



I suppose, if you wanted to get janky with it, if you wanted some parts shiny and some not, you could separate those panels and make them a separate piece with a different shinyness value. Though, that might A: Be a lot of work, and B: Make the High Shadow messed up similar to how ibgtow is, and the top tip of the nose on that scout in the pic.

Might be easier to just dumb down the shinyness to 0.

[Red Devil]

that's not shiny - just lighted by the various lights in the sun/sky/fog/dome, etc.

yup, i used the laser, but i lose every time :-/

[General BlackDragon]

Yes, That is "shinyness". That's what Shinyness is, and what it does. It uses the lights from the sun/sky/dome, but it's a shinyness value in the model.

BZ2 models look like crap with it, as it's lighting specular stuff uses per-vertex lighting. Newer games use per-pixel lighting and use the normal textures to determine the lighting.

As I said, that shine level on the model faces is controlled by that number in the XSI material. Setting it to 0 would eliminate the shine. In my opinion, "No shine" is better then "Shine that shouldn't be there".


In ISDF mission 2, the 2nd jammer is raised up and makes a big warp up on the terrain.

[Red Devil]

everybody likes the shining...

[General BlackDragon]

Playing IA as Scions:

When I deployed my Matriarch, it spun around 180 degrees really quickly. Is something backwards?

Your scion models don't use si_envelope animations. This is ....wierd, and makes them not silvery shiny when morphing.

Do you need help making si_envelope animations?

Why does the scion Spire play it's deploy animation over and over?

Yup, Gonna have to say remove the arcstreams from Scion Gun spire. A: it's rediculous, and B: When they fire, sound channels get full, even at max 32 setting. PS: C: They're shooting it's own Lung. Overall, neat idea to protect spire's lung, but very OP and poorly designed.


On the Titan, where are the lights on it's cannon arc emitters coming from? it looks...odd just beaming from empty space. Maybe make those a point light instead of a spot light?

I love your dower.

The SAVior's rocket HPs are in a wierd place. Also you and I need to sit down and talk about the meaning of SAV. "Super Advanced Vehicle ior" doesn't make sense. Cute pun tho.

At full speed, the Mauler's run animation looks weird, like it's getting cutoff before it finishes? Also it's back legs don't help push like they're supposed to. (something Vertex animations can help with that webbing in between them)

Sometimes, when spinning around in a Sentry, the tips of the 4 fins disappear momentarily? ?? Might be an animation issue. Managed to snag a couple of SS's:

[coxxon]

- from all his <-- posts today

Well, when I started this mod, I wanted to be able to have some (hopefully, objective) reason to make any of the changes I was making and be able to justify, defend, or explain them, and General BD, you’ve certainly put me to task for that. Below is my responses to all of your comments, sans some of the same issues brought up earlier by mAce.

Everyone grab a cup of joe, and a magnifying glass, this is some long reading, but hopefully it clarifies many of the points GBD brings up.
You’ll have to read his earlier posts to know where some of my answers are coming from.

- Crash model code - Yup I’d seen the Ken kode, kool, but since my models all use their own crash explosion file (since many of them used more than 5 unique pieces), which were pretty much completed before I had seen the Ken code, I just stuck with what I had. I’m still not sure what I would need it for, but I might go back and look at it again.

-Solar flare – True, but since it took 2 seconds between shots, and 2 more seconds to activate, and had such a small affect radius, it seemed to be of little use in an immediate combat situation against heat-seeking missiles. So, I chose to reduce the activation time, and increase its damage, and affect radius, so that it would be more useful against vehicles. The AI only ever used it as an anti-vehicle countermeasure and not an anti-missile one, so I worked to make it more useful to them against vehicles, and as a more useful weapon against other players – same for my proxmine and splinter adjustments.

On a similar note, I increased the ranges for plasstream and gmbolt to make them more effective.

- Cons anim – I deliberately didn’t mess with the animRate for them. Since they move faster – 10m/s up from 6.5m/s, their animation should reflect that. Now that said, my animations for them may not be as smooth as Pandemic’s originals, but any fast walking bi-ped is not going to look too graceful. Also since the anims are for a single full step and are looped, it also made the arm animations harder to make realistic, which might be adding to the funny look of the cons animations, since we people don’t take every step with our arms swinging in perfect rhythm with our legs.

- Blast Range – My main reason for the change was noted in a previous post, so I won’t go through that again. I’m not too keen on having it be 250m even for just human players. I don’t want them using the default walker as a full on assault tank replacement any more than the AI. For example, in the AAN mission, the player (assuming they stayed in the walker) was clearly supposed to use the assault tank to take out the gtows. As I recall the voiceover even says as much. But with the 1.3 change to ivwalk, the assault tank in that mission becomes borderline useless, and the player in the ivwalk can singlehandedly take out the AAN base without ever being fired on directly. I don’t have to be a mind reader to know that was not the original intent by the designers. Also, by reducing the range of the blast by so much, it returns the plasma gun’s, and the assault tank’s, reason for existing.

I also lowered the Assault Tank’s turret rotation speed since it’s supposed to be a long-range shooter and not fight individual vehicles, and raised the Titan’s turret rotation speed, since it’s supposed to be a mid- to close-range shooter (like the ivwalk) and should be able to better fight vehicles – as its armed with combat, not assault weapons (original, not just my mod).

- Thunderbolt and FAF – Adding to BlackDragon’s comment, since the weapon is the same, and the ammo is the same, I’m inclined to leave it as is. The only place where I see this as being a problem is if someone used my mod in conjunction with another mod and the other mod is using the inheritance system, and has a thunderbolt with only new specified special in slot 4, which is now taken up by hp_rocket_2. Not impossible to be a problem, but it seems like a very limited one. Also, thunder vs thunder they’re equal, and fvscout now comes with ion gun, so they could spread more fire on a Thunder that’s attacking them with FAF than plasmaball, so it would seem to be reasonably balanced as is.

-Specular Highlight (too much shininess) - On this, I did get to eventually where I was using Max’s default ambient (grey), diffuse (grey), and specular (almost white) values in the material (in the specific version I was exporting the XSI’s from) as my base value. BUT, to actually get SpecHigh to show up in the game I had to edit each of the model’s base/skel/anim/root XSI files, and each part in the XSI file so the game would show them. In Max I would set the specular level to 100, and leave the gloss at 10 in the material. The result of all of this was that it would export out as 1.000000 in the XSI “shininess” entry. No new XSI value much below 80.000000 would show spec high in the game, and values of 200 or more would show them even with SpecHigh turned off in the game – or something weird like that. And everything in between ~80-150 in the xsi made no appreciable difference. So I went with 80.123456 so I could recognize the value as it seemed pretty unique across hundreds of xsi files. I think I might have tried to raise the gloss setting in Max which shrinks the shininess on the model. At the time I don’t think it made any difference in the actual xsi. Also as BDragon notes in another post, BZ uses per-vertex rather than per-pixel lighting, so no matter what I do, the spec high is never going to look like a more modern game does for this lighting aspect.

The other thing I could try is copy and pasting multiple lines of xsi text from the stock models to one of my new ones. But even if that worked, it would leave me with hundreds of models and thousands of parts to do, so it’s not like it would be done and re-uploaded in a couple of days.
That said, I also added SpecHigh to a lot of things that didn’t have it originally, and for many units that are metal, and with such an old lighting system in the game, I’m pretty happy with them since they show up now. Yes, there are some places where they get too glaring even for my tastes, but I’m not going to get rid of them or try to kill myself to redo a bunch of them, or add even more triangles to models for even more pieces to have to texture and set, especially since I’ve already spent so much time on them. So embrace the shininess, walk into the light … or turn off specular highlights in the graphic options.

Also (since BDragon posted some screens since his original post that I’m replying to, and before I could finish writing this), yes there are some model parts that have spechigh when arguably they shouldn’t, and there were many places where I actively either didn’t put it in or made sure to remove it, but I don’t necessarily see this as a problem – unless one is looking for it. I’ve played countless IA maps, and individual campaign missions during testing, and have gone through the campaign three full times … yes, the magic is gone. Sausage making really is an ugly task. But I would say, play the mod, play it some more. I believe players will get used to it, and while they may not love it, I don’t think they’ll hate it. I just don’t see this as being such an issue. If the original game had my spechigh, and if my mod took it all out, folks would be critiquing that … Why is everything so dark? Why don’t any of the metal parts have any shininess? Why are all the surfaces so flat looking?

Another way of thinking about this is that within the BZII gameworld, every unit/building comes of the assembly line or bio-metal projector, brand spanking new, with a glossy car-like paintjob and goes into combat, where flat colors and camouflage are not gameplay changing considerations. So enjoy that bright shiny new Sabre or Thunderbolt, cuz it’s probably going to get blasted to chunks in the next five-ten minutes.

- Ammo Pod and Powerups – Well, I don’t know if this is really such an issue for repair/service pods, but yeah, the Ammo/Repair/Service pods don’t have an hp_com_1, and therefore their inf info line starts under them from their dummy__h. The Powerup Boxes have their inf info line coming from their center since mine don’t have a com or a dummy. As a late edition, but before pb137a, I added a0 textures for all the weapon icon textures so that they would show up regardless of how the map was lit – at least that was the intent. I’ll check the pb137a changelog to see if I need to do anything more about them.

- Scout fin – For this one, and a number of the hover tank models, I didn’t hold myself to always exactly recreating the anims. The reverse anims work as intended. That said, yeah the inner tips of the upper fins do pass through the lower chromed actuator casings when reversing. I might tweak it, but ultimately I’m more interested in the animations overall being bigger, and more subconsciously noticed by a player playing the game - not in specific detail, or staring at them for their own sake, but just that the player knows something on the vehicle(s) around them is animating, or in a different position. For other units like the Lancer and Warrior, I believe (?) they have slightly crossing arm tips as well, but this is necessary to get some apparent change in appearance out of them. This is one of those reality vs video-game-practical-aesthetics things (RVVGPA), which there are a lot of in any video game and certainly, my mod.

- Dust trails – I messed around with the simulateBase = "sim_dust" thing a month or so ago, and never got results I liked. Also after spending more time with Battlezone 1.5 and BZClassic, I’m not convinced that having trails so stuck to the ground is really better. Watching a vehicle in BZ/BZC be several meters high with a dust trail glued to the ground looked odd (bad). In fact, I increased the altitude by a meter or two before mine cut off because of this. This is another RVVGPA. Whether BZ, BZC, or BZIIR, dust trails are neat (I like’em), but they’ve never been truly real-world realistic no matter what they look like.

- ISDF01 Falling Cliff – (Also see comments at the end on mission script editing for this mod.) This one has bugged me too, but throughout the process, I deliberately held off on doing some things. Actually when I started this I only intended to do just the core ISDF and Scion units and buildings. So, this is another one of those I might take a look at it, but no guarantees since it’s a one-time use, model and a relatively minor one. Also, it doesn’t seem that a model can have multiple and/or animating collision__hc. Which really ruined my original attempt to make an elevator for the Bomber bay BTW. I’ll also add, I don’t want to mess with the script file for that mission as a part of any solution to this if I can avoid it.
-ISDF01 Guardian Turret – I agree and I’ll check the odf, but again, if this is only fixable through altering the script dll, I’ll likely leave it as is.

-Service Truck FX – It’s the same as in ivserv from pb1.3.6.5. Was BottomInteractsWithTerrain = false added to the pb1.3.7a ivserv.odf? I tried to go through them before release, and have since removed it for the moment, but I might have missed something. This one goes under - I’ll try to check on it with the other stuff, but I question if this is really an issue that “requires a fix.”

-Pilot animation – I could write multiple pages on the pilot, their anim, and their odf settings. But in an effort to keep it short, haha, this is a similar issue to the cons walk, but in reverse. Normal person moves about 1m/s when they walk, around 2m/s when they run. ISDF/Scion pilots move at 5m/s, or 11.25mph. … Let that sink in for a moment. I experimented with 3m/s and less, and that really messed up my animation, plus even though it was closer to reality, I figured players would have fits if the pilot suddenly moved so much slower in the game. And the game’s original model and anim has them sliding rather than walking or running at the default 5m/s speed. Also when we run, and are carrying something, say… a gun, we’re probably going to be somewhat stooped, and that gun’s going to be swinging everywhere. AND, because of the weird way the person model bones system is setup, AND because I used segmentation rather than skin rigging, it all adds up to a different model, movement and animation than one would expect to see in a modern FPS. Basically I had to do a walking anim, with the gun pointed out and the torso not turned as it should generally be. That means the pilot characters can look a little stiff when moving, and I added in a bit of bounce to keep one of their feet (toes) on the ground at all times which is more how we real people actually walk. So I’ve traded low-poly, high-step sliding, for stiff, fast-walk run-sliding; not perfect, but still better I believe.

- Matriarch spin – this was another “done early and moved on to the list of a hundred other things.” The old Matriarch deploys facing away from the player, like the ivrecy. The new one is done so that it deploys and operates with the front facing the player. This was many hundreds of models ago, but at the time I believe I did the fast spin to keep the same animation time as the ivrecy, and because getting the rest of the animation to work properly at the time was a lot of work, while having the end result of the Matriarch’s front being the operating end. So short answer, the fast spin is intentional.

- Segmentation (ie – no SI_envelopes) – yup, I used segmentation. A - At the time I couldn’t get the envelope tool to work, and B – hadn’t yet found the user made tutorial online. C – By the time I discovered the tutorial that was BZII xsi specific, I had already done all the models as segmentation with animations. I miss the silvery change a little bit, but I’m really not noticing the segmentation in-game when stuff is moving/animating – again, unless I’m specifically looking for such a thing. I’ve certainly done bone rigging and animation before, but I haven’t really found the lack of it in my mod to be such a big deal when it comes to actually playing. Also, considering how many of the models, including the Scion ones that I went back through and made mesh changes to after I had thought them done, I’m kind of glad that they weren’t single skin bone-rigged models. This is another “maybe in a future update” thing for me.

- Gun Spire animation – That’s not a deploy animation, it’s a loop. It seemed a waste to have those arms move only move when it was first built, and I would suspect none of us bother to watch the deploy anyway. So I did the periodic arms move in and out thing with’em for more consistency with the other animated buildings.

- Gun Spire Arc Lashes (sparc.odf) – oh if you could all hear me chuckle. I spent several days, and around 5 different systems, and even tried some heavy model modification to prevent easy circle-strafe killing of a gun spire. The present system, while not the last, was ultimately the best one. Its point is to keep a human attacker away from the base of the spire, and it doesn’t hurt the majority of AI vehicles who stay away (though I might check the sparc range again). I didn’t really notice it filling all the sound channels any moreso than having a bunch of other sounds all running at once under different combat circumstances, but I’ll throw an ear to it again to see if removing the sound is better or worse. As for hitting its own lung, it doesn’t damage it, or other friendly units (much) so I don’t see that as being a problem.

And there was that moment of giggly awesomeness when I was attacking the Scion base on Bridges, and I had a bomber coming in to bomb the gun spire it builds at the edge of it. The spire was also attacking a few of my ground units, and so the spire arcs were active, and so a lash came up from the ground and fried the bomb before it could detonate, forcing me to rethink my attack strategy – which for a game this old, I consider a good thing.
That said, I’m open to alternative ideas if people have them, but I’m not getting rid of it unless something equally effective can be found.

Titan lights – I’ll explain how the spotlights work just as soon as someone can explain to me how a floating eyeball that shoots directed lighting works, or how hovertanks work, or how bio-metal gets from a pump in the ground to a recycler to a constructor that can build a 5-10 story building in 10 seconds, or how bio-metal works, or a hundred other things in this game are supposed to work… see where I’m going with this? Actually I’m just happy you’re running the mod with full lights.

Dower – glad you (BlackDragon) liked it. Though, I may ruin it for everyone as I’ve had an idea for an effect to add to it and the Service Bay – though I’m hoping I won’t – though it might look cool – but it might not – but it might - but … move on

SAVior rocket_hp – The actual hp geometry for the rockets is located just inside the yellow ovals on the sides of the vehicle. The weapon and ordnance odf for the (renamed) SAV Torpedo is relatively unchanged from the default files. So I’m assuming you’re pointing out that they appear and are launched from the ground. Yes, this is a little weird looking, but I didn’t want to change this from the original odfs, which I believe are in turn setup similar to the comet cruise missile, which also goes immediately to the ground when fired (at least from a Griffin tank). I can’t remember if I tried them with a different missile (like the Scion swarm), but I would suspect that this effect is specifically from the SAV Torpedo rocket (and may not be really changeable) and not the SAVior itself. It did the same thing with the purely original (SAV) Wasp rocket odf, and I assumed was intentional on the developer’s part.

Yup, SAVior is a cute pun.

Mauler anim – I think I addressed this one earlier today, so look for that – but for clarity, I will add that the game is cutting off, or cutting frames from the running animatin. I tried multiple animations and animRate speeds to fix it, but nothing worked. As for the back leg animation, that’s just an animation, and isn’t tied to the odf in terms of actual walking/running performance. The animation that I believe I finally went with was a sort of leaping look – which looked cool in Max and as an XSI anim when viewed in 3D Exploration, but like a number of things, wouldn’t come out quite right in the game.

Sentry disappearing parts – Yup, I know about this. It seems to only appear, or should I say, disappear when one is driving a Sentry and is viewing himself in third person – as in the supplied screenshot. I think it is because those parts have positional (faux sliding) animations (the only vehicle in the mod that does so on a regular basis), as opposed to rotational animations which make up the bulk of all repeating or looped animations in the mod. I maybe saw it once or twice in AI Sentries, but that was months ago, and I haven’t seen it appear in “other” Sentries since – and I’ve shot up dozens maybe hundreds of Sentries since then (I really have grown to hate the through the looking glass mission). So while technically an error, I don’t think it’s worth going over again.

- Mission dll scripts - On changing mission scripts to change individual object behavior/interaction. I’m pretty much against this for my mod. I believe all the missions and their scripts could use some work beyond my own, or even RD’s fixes and improvements, but that was beyond what I wanted to do for this mod as this time.

For clarification, all the scripts in the mod’s zip download missions folder are Red Devil’s, downloaded before 11/12/15. I especially needed his version of isdf05, otherwise a new campaign doesn’t work. The others I included for completeness, with a note in the readme for players to check this board for more revisions from him, or new patches that carry the new mission scripts. I’m hoping his missions will be included in the next full beta patch, where I will then remove that folder from my mod’s download.

As for me, I only changed 4 mission scripts (dlls), and are contained in the pak file. The .cpp text files for them are in the .pak file in the missions folder (pak one, not the zip one).

Isdf14 – had to remove the “choice” otherwise the player’s actions and following missions wouldn’t make sense if the player went off with Shabby
Isdf17 – last original ISDF mission, had to add in a debrief .txt file. Again, to move the story forward since it no longer ends there, and to bridge the isdf and scion missions.
Scion01 – somewhat indulgent. I replaced the stock scion pilot models with character specific models for the intro cinematics.
Scion07 – replaced the three ivwalks with a more powerful and different walker model to try and make the final mission a bit more challenging. Results were mixed, but still better than the original I believe.

Otherwise, I don’t want to mess the scripts unless it was in conjunction with a full campaign map and script make over – which I don’t want to touch right now, especially since I haven’t even used the editor in over a decade, or done anything else with my freetime for a year now except work on this mod.

…and I still have to go and figure out why my installer is creating a coxxon folder when it shouldn’t be.( I think I’m procrastinating b/c I’m going to open the install forge project and find the coxxon folder thing removed, and yet it is still making it in the installer), and then upload that plus a few minor errors that were found and fixed before the 1.0.1 version was even downloadable – which was a fix for errors in the the 1.0.0 version which was under review and pulled before it was even approved. Yeash.

[coxxon]

yup, i used the laser, but i lose every time :-/

hmm ... well one other thing I did was to keep the FAF (and not grab the shadower missile(?) the mission asks you to build) and use them on the drones since they maneuver more - don't know if fighting them is an issue with taking out the haulers ...
oh, and stay in the Thunderbolt, not the Sabre. It's extra speed helps to run around in that mission.
Also I kept the service truck out near or north of the artifacts, and sometime tried to stay close to it so as not to run out of ammo. Generally though it's best to stay north of the artifacts, and try to intercept the haulers before they get to them.

[coxxon]

everybody likes the shining...

Yessss, the shining, the beautiful, beautiful shining ... it calls to me .... oh crap that's a semi-truck with its lights on - get outta the way fool!

[General BlackDragon]

Yes.


All my replies are not "required fixes", they're just suggestions for improvements. That said, I'll re-iterate my stronger feeling ones with more explination/clearification.

- Dust: Yes, it does look funky if you're in the air, but BZ1 and BZC both have 2 stage dust, a thicker one when close to ground, and a thinner one when jumping, and it disappears when you get too high up. I noticed in your mod you have 2 as well, stationary, and moving. Making them appear near ground, possibly with the bottomInteractsWithTerrain flag set to false to look better, would still look better, imo. You can make it cutoff very quickly so it goes lighter / disappears unless the ship is very close to the ground.

-Gun Spire ArcStreams: Yea, it's mainly the sound, but also the fact that they fire so much so fast. Negating the sound Fx of the explosion and fire sound should fix it. Though I'm personally against trying to prevent a player from rush hugging a spire. Why bother? or, Why not do that for every building, then? What about ibgtow??? What about your fancy (and cool) Fury Shrine? I can drive my scout inside the back of that and laugh with joy. You can't keep the player from doing everything abusive, so you shouldn't bother.

With that said, I do believe if you want to keep the "Enemy" from getting too close to a gun tower, a periodic dispenser of a magnet mine with a short life but strong vehicle push, ought to do the trick. A Repulse Wave. I used it on an old ISDF magnet based Shield generator I made back in 2006? Basically, every 2? minutes it shoved all enemies outside the shield area. You could make the Gun Spire fire a repulse wave every 30 seconds? and have a range of 100m? Should do the job of shoving the player away, and back into the spire's firing angle.

-Fury SAV Wasp: I played on PB7, which allows dispensers to dispense things more correctly, and the WASP missiles came out of the furie's EYES. (Yes, those big yellow bulbs are EYES, don't believe me? Check out this: http://www.battlezone1.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=4396

[Juggernaut]

Single player - mission 1. Shabayev does nothing with the constructor. Eventually she says she built a Factory so I could build mortar bikes, but the factory was never built and constructor was in same spot. Just a FYI. Haven't played through the other missions yet.

[coxxon]

All my replies are not "required fixes", they're just suggestions for improvements. That said, I'll re-iterate my stronger feeling ones with more explination/clearification. <rest of text below>

GBD- Dust: Yes, it does look funky if you're in the air, --
CXN – To me, at this point, BZ1.5 dust looks more like a pulsing image, that acts as an overly visible tail rather than a dust tRail – that’s why I didn’t try to copy it so closely. Mine too doesn’t look fully realistic either, but I tried to make it look like a dispersing cloud, and have the “tail” part hopefully be a little less obvious, as well as its overall opacity/visibility be more muted/transparent.

GBD - Gun Spire ArcStreams: Yea, it's mainly the sound, but also the fact that they fire so much so fast. Negating the sound Fx of the explosion and fire sound should fix it.
CXN – But how is the sound issue any different if one is using or encounters several arc stream armed warriors, and going up against any combo of gtow(s), turret(s), and other enemy combat units? I know it’s annoying for the sound channels to get filled, but I’ve found that happens under lots conditions, well before I ever reconfigured my gspire. What BZII could really use, as I’ve encountered in other game engines, is the ability to each sound’s priority so that lower priority sounds would cutout/or not even play if there are already to many other higher priority sounds playing – in BZII’s case, would probably be something set in a unit/object odf per sound effect – but that would be more of a wish list patch issue …
Like other things, I’ll try to get around to it.

GBD - Though I'm personally against trying to prevent a player from rush hugging a spire. Why bother?
CXN - B/c it’s a defensive structure which can’t do its job if it is so easily killed if there are no other spires or units to help. I would say, that this overall issue is one in the early game against AI where on certain maps a Gspire is all alone guarding a scrap pool. Even in pb137 it’s incredibly easy to go right under it, kill it, and take the scrap pool – even moreso if the player is using linked weapons. But even in an MP game, in a base, one could have other AI or human teammates fighting other enemy units, distracting them away from “aiding a gun spire” while another player again goes up and CSKs a gun spire that may be occupied fighting the other attackers.

GBD - or, Why not do that for every building, then?
CXN - B/c not every building is a dedicated defensive structure.

GBD - What about ibgtow???
CXN - I’ve never really been able to take out a full health gtow by myself, and with the way it is built and shoots, it’s better at defending itself from a close up attack.

GBD - What about your fancy (and cool) Fury Shrine? I can drive my scout inside the back of that and laugh with joy.
CXN - It’s not a multiple build defensive structure, it just happens to have a weapon (practically b/c I needed to have some way and reason for it to have power consumption (and use a lung).

GBD - You can't keep the player from doing everything abusive, so you shouldn't bother.
CXN - Well obviously I haven’t tried to stop every abuse since I’ve only messed with the gun spire.

GBD - With that said, I do believe if you want to keep the "Enemy" from getting too close to a gun tower, a periodic dispenser of a magnet mine with a short life but strong vehicle push, ought to do the trick.
CXN - I’d considered that earlier, but that seemed strange to have the player drive up and suddenly get pushed away for no apparent reason. – unless I also put a visible dome on it that would be at ground level, which also might be just as strange looking. But like everything else I might go back and try it.

GBD - -Fury SAV Wasp: I played on PB7, which allows dispensers to dispense things more correctly, and the WASP missiles came out of the furie's EYES. (Yes, those big yellow bulbs are EYES
CXN - Well I didn’t run every unit in the mod through all of pb1.3.7a – which seems to be an alpha rather than the full on beta – which implied to me that it was still subject to change, and therefore I didn’t want to spend a bunch of time testing my mod against things in it that might be changed before a full beta release of 1.3.7 - but maybe that’s what full releases are going to be now. Anyway, if the missiles are coming out of the “eyes” rather than at the ground, then it’s doing what it supposed to – be a Scion SAV, not wholly a BZI style SAV. All of this SAV’s weapon hp’s are either in the bottom tail bulb, or in the side oval “eyes”, and none are in the forward cockpit area, and yes, I’m well aware this is different than the BZI style SAV. (My Scion SAV is also smaller.) I’m claiming artistic license on this one.

Missiles shooting out of its eyes … awesome.

[coxxon]

Single player - mission 1. Shabayev does nothing with the constructor. Eventually she says she built a Factory so I could build mortar bikes, but the factory was never built and constructor was in same spot. Just a FYI. Haven't played through the other missions yet.

I believe you're talking about ISDF Mission 5- The Dark Planet. I'm also going to start with the assumption that the constructor isn't building any power generators either in what you're seeing (or not seeing) - which sounds like you might be using the default script.
The default script for that mission in the patch13.pak[sp] file no longer works properly and makes the mission impossible to complete - even in the stock campaign. Red Devil fixed that with his new version of the script. Its available in the SP mission fixes thread on this site, but it was also included in the separate missions folder that came in my mod zip. Make sure you have a "missions" folder in your addon folder (whether a copy of mine, or one you manually create), and make sure whether from this site, or from my mod download that it contains a copy of his isdf05.dll

Now, if none of that is fixing the problem, but you are still using Red Devil's isdf05.dll, then all I know to tell you is to (assuming you're at least getting power generators from the constructor) complete the mission with scouts and don't worry about the factory or mbikes, OR restart the mission from the beginning. I did have one incident using the new script where it didn't function properly, so I restarted the mission and it worked as expected.

[coxxon]

In ISDF mission 2, the 2nd jammer is raised up and makes a big warp up on the terrain.

This is an example of a pre-placed building being raised off the ground in the new 1.3.7 alpha build patch, that is like what I was writing about concerning pre-placed gun spires being raised, over in the thread about pb137a.
This one ain't my mod, its the pb1.3.7, because it was doing this even in the stock game.