Revision 4 has design templates upgraded. Just like the others, it now has tooltips all over to make sure it's obvious what you're doing.
It also now has "Clear" buttons for the optional tactics variables, before there was no way to unset them and now there is.
Wasn't too difficult a form since most of the controls are the same thing but for different components.
Modding Tool [1.1.0 Released!]
RE: Modding Tool
Good work! This is going to help all of us modders! I am having some trouble with it tho. It won't read my mod files and will just use default files even tho I specify my mod folder to use. Any suggestions I could try?
RE: Modding Tool
Hi darkriot,
First, just confirm you're using the latest version for me? The version is listed under the "About" box on the main menu, as of writing this post the latest is 0.2.1.4.
You may be able to see what's going on in the "Input Info" box (this replaces the "Version Notes" box when you've selected a mod folder). Pay particular attention to any orange or red lines, these indicate warnings or errors respectively.
If you can copy/paste the input log and the mod path you’re using (should be listed under the "Recent mod folders" once you've selected it via the "Specify mod folder" at least once) into a reply here I might be able to advise you a bit better.
First, just confirm you're using the latest version for me? The version is listed under the "About" box on the main menu, as of writing this post the latest is 0.2.1.4.
You may be able to see what's going on in the "Input Info" box (this replaces the "Version Notes" box when you've selected a mod folder). Pay particular attention to any orange or red lines, these indicate warnings or errors respectively.
If you can copy/paste the input log and the mod path you’re using (should be listed under the "Recent mod folders" once you've selected it via the "Specify mod folder" at least once) into a reply here I might be able to advise you a bit better.
RE: Modding Tool
Revision 5 pushed today, with the policies form tidied up.
I’ve stretched it a bit horizontally so it’s no longer vertically bigger than the screen on a 720p display, it should fit a lot better now. I’ve added tooltips to the fields I felt needed them, a lot of the stuff in policies is blatantly obvious just from the title and feels like I’m insulting people’s intelligence by putting tooltips on them!
I’ve also set a lot of fields that were just using numbers to use drop-down boxes. These are the fields that referenced priorities, they’re stored as numbers in the text files but those numbers actually represent priorities (e.g. Low/Normal/High) so it’s easier to just view them that way.
On top of that the Design Templates form has had a bugfix, if you had any redundant subfolders folders in the design templates folder it should no longer cause strange output. It also loads the pirate versions of design templates in a more intelligent way, previously certain situations could cause it to just load in the standard races.
I’ve stretched it a bit horizontally so it’s no longer vertically bigger than the screen on a 720p display, it should fit a lot better now. I’ve added tooltips to the fields I felt needed them, a lot of the stuff in policies is blatantly obvious just from the title and feels like I’m insulting people’s intelligence by putting tooltips on them!
I’ve also set a lot of fields that were just using numbers to use drop-down boxes. These are the fields that referenced priorities, they’re stored as numbers in the text files but those numbers actually represent priorities (e.g. Low/Normal/High) so it’s easier to just view them that way.
On top of that the Design Templates form has had a bugfix, if you had any redundant subfolders folders in the design templates folder it should no longer cause strange output. It also loads the pirate versions of design templates in a more intelligent way, previously certain situations could cause it to just load in the standard races.
RE: Modding Tool
Yesss! Modding urges intensify!
RE: Modding Tool
Small patch today for revision 6, the policies form now has an indicator as to whether you're editing a pirate race or not. Simple fix but important for ease of use.
More importantly I've been fighting a minor issue which would corrupt the order of your recent mod folders. Finally tracked it down and solved it. Now it's not a huge issue, but since it stores those values in the windows registry (don't worry it can only effect the registry key that the tool itself creates) I've made it an obligatory update because I don't want to be doing anything bad to people's systems no matter how minor.
More importantly I've been fighting a minor issue which would corrupt the order of your recent mod folders. Finally tracked it down and solved it. Now it's not a huge issue, but since it stores those values in the windows registry (don't worry it can only effect the registry key that the tool itself creates) I've made it an obligatory update because I don't want to be doing anything bad to people's systems no matter how minor.
RE: Modding Tool
Tiny update for revision 7, correcting a problem in revision 6 that made the colour selection act strange in the races form.
RE: Modding Tool
Not got much time tonight so I've just gone over the "Always Displayed" section of the races form adding tooltips. Minor changes really but it is actually quite helpful knowing exactly what can be entered into certain boxes there and then as opposed to having to go reference the modding guide or a race file.
That's revision 8 for ya!
That's revision 8 for ya!
RE: Modding Tool
So, didn't have enough time to post about revision 9 before I left. It was just some typo correction and when you output, it displays the output path on the confirmation dialogue now so there's no confusion.
For revision 10 (just published), there's a new bit of code to solve an issue with some mods that have research projects in the wrong order. Now it'll try and put them right for you.
For revision 10 (just published), there's a new bit of code to solve an issue with some mods that have research projects in the wrong order. Now it'll try and put them right for you.
RE: Modding Tool
Having tried to load in a few mods over the past couple days that have things (research and components mostly) out of order I decided to just go the whole hog and deal with it. That involved building subs to sort multidimensional arrays, which was a big pain but I think it's worth it.
So for revision 11 the tool is now capable of sorting any root file (the races/policies/etc don't really have an order beyond alphabetical which is automatic) in order of whatever its projects are. So if your mod involves research lines that jump from project 50 to project 1074 (thank you Starfall) the tool can now handle that.
If you're missing any projects then you're still stuffed, but I haven't come across any mods that skip projects so we should be ok.
So for revision 11 the tool is now capable of sorting any root file (the races/policies/etc don't really have an order beyond alphabetical which is automatic) in order of whatever its projects are. So if your mod involves research lines that jump from project 50 to project 1074 (thank you Starfall) the tool can now handle that.
If you're missing any projects then you're still stuffed, but I haven't come across any mods that skip projects so we should be ok.
RE: Modding Tool
For revision 12 you no longer have to have matching policies for each race, the tool will just create blank versions for any you're missing. That applies to all subfolders. So far, it's meant that it successfully loads every mod I've thrown at it which is great.
It also sorts out a minor bug where it reported out of order components even if they weren't.
It also sorts out a minor bug where it reported out of order components even if they weren't.
RE: Modding Tool
Revision 13 has the races form tidied up with some tooltips added. It also has the Periodic Change Cycle Event updated to be a drop-down box along with a minor bugfix for Victory Condition 3, which wasn't loading all the facilities if the condition was set to "Build Specific Galactic Wonder". Could have caused a crash if you tried to open a race containing something outside the range it was loading.
And that's the subfolder forms done. I anticipate the root forms being somewhat easier to apply this process too since they don't really have layers and most of them work fine the way they are. Should just be a matter of opening up the form and putting semi-intelligent tooltips on the controls.
And that's the subfolder forms done. I anticipate the root forms being somewhat easier to apply this process too since they don't really have layers and most of them work fine the way they are. Should just be a matter of opening up the form and putting semi-intelligent tooltips on the controls.
RE: Modding Tool
Revision 14 contains the governments form tidied up a bit. I've taken the old wall of text that served as a reference and stuck the component parts of it into tooltips, should be much easier to figure out what each setting does.
I also noticed a small bug that could cause issues in the races form if you had extra spaces in the scripted research lines, I've fixed that now.
I also noticed a small bug that could cause issues in the races form if you had extra spaces in the scripted research lines, I've fixed that now.
RE: Modding Tool
So I asked myself this evening, when would you need to search by a research or component index as opposed to searching by name?
NEVER! That's when.
Having the indexes in the selector field is a total waste of time. Especially now they're guaranteed to be in the correct order, they're not even needed for testing. The only exception is when scripting research orders for races, but in every other event you don't need to know the index of the component or whatever until after you've loaded it.
I've removed the indexes where I could so it now displays as:
"Wave Weapons" as opposed to:
"0) Wave Weapons"
Now you might be thinking, why remove potentially useful info?
The reason is it enables a very useful search function which only supports the first "word" in the box. Nobody is going to know off the top of their head that research project 188 is Target Tracking, but they'll probably know Target Tracking is in there somewhere. Which means we can now do this:
By starting to type in the name of the project into the box.
I've tried to apply the same principle wherever a research project, component, resource, fighter, facility, government, plague or race is referenced.
Where they aren’t, I’ve limited the drop-down boxes so you can’t type in them (hence the grey looking “Industry”, “Category” and “Special Function” boxes in the image above). That should help prevent mistakes and make it clearer where the search function will work and where it won’t.
Meet revision 15.
NEVER! That's when.
Having the indexes in the selector field is a total waste of time. Especially now they're guaranteed to be in the correct order, they're not even needed for testing. The only exception is when scripting research orders for races, but in every other event you don't need to know the index of the component or whatever until after you've loaded it.
I've removed the indexes where I could so it now displays as:
"Wave Weapons" as opposed to:
"0) Wave Weapons"
Now you might be thinking, why remove potentially useful info?
The reason is it enables a very useful search function which only supports the first "word" in the box. Nobody is going to know off the top of their head that research project 188 is Target Tracking, but they'll probably know Target Tracking is in there somewhere. Which means we can now do this:
By starting to type in the name of the project into the box.
I've tried to apply the same principle wherever a research project, component, resource, fighter, facility, government, plague or race is referenced.
Where they aren’t, I’ve limited the drop-down boxes so you can’t type in them (hence the grey looking “Industry”, “Category” and “Special Function” boxes in the image above). That should help prevent mistakes and make it clearer where the search function will work and where it won’t.
Meet revision 15.
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RE: Modding Tool
Awesome work, this is really coming along. It's rare for someone to stick with this kind of project for this long.
By the way, will we be able to modify the actual game text (GameText.txt)? Or will that have to be something done outside the program?
By the way, will we be able to modify the actual game text (GameText.txt)? Or will that have to be something done outside the program?
RE: Modding Tool
Yeah the fact that so many of these projects get abandoned and left in a barely-working state (if you see any release at all) is one of my primary motivations for keeping up with it. It happens all the time and I know it annoys me.
As for the other files I’ll most likely leave editing them outside of the program unless I can think of a good reason to put them in. I've had a quick look at GameText.txt and obviously it's far too big to fit on a form, which means grouping would be required.
Realistically it's always going to be easier to search for values you want to edit in a simple text editor than it is to find the correct group and then the value on a form, but normally that's more than counterbalanced by the other conveniences the tool gives you. In these cases though, they're just lists of values with no references to anything outside the current line. When modding is literally just a matter of "search value", "edit value", there's nothing I can program to make that process any more efficient.
What I will likely do is make it copy over those files from the original source when you output a mod (assuming you don't have them there already of course).
Beyond that, I may look into it in a bit more detail after I publish 1.0.0. No promises though!
As for the other files I’ll most likely leave editing them outside of the program unless I can think of a good reason to put them in. I've had a quick look at GameText.txt and obviously it's far too big to fit on a form, which means grouping would be required.
Realistically it's always going to be easier to search for values you want to edit in a simple text editor than it is to find the correct group and then the value on a form, but normally that's more than counterbalanced by the other conveniences the tool gives you. In these cases though, they're just lists of values with no references to anything outside the current line. When modding is literally just a matter of "search value", "edit value", there's nothing I can program to make that process any more efficient.
What I will likely do is make it copy over those files from the original source when you output a mod (assuming you don't have them there already of course).
Beyond that, I may look into it in a bit more detail after I publish 1.0.0. No promises though!
RE: Modding Tool
Revision 16 is up, with the resources form tidied up and tooltips added.
Furthermore, I’ve decided not to have the resource locations as a separate form, since that means editing resource locations requires the user to open the form, make the edits and close the form for each resource they want to change the locations for. That can build up the time it takes quite a bit if you want to change the locations of lots of resources.
So they’ve been merged together, just be aware the locations won’t appear until you’ve selected a resource to edit.
I’ve also been playing with the spacing and size of the fields for the locations, so it should (just about) fit on a 720p display now.
Furthermore, I’ve decided not to have the resource locations as a separate form, since that means editing resource locations requires the user to open the form, make the edits and close the form for each resource they want to change the locations for. That can build up the time it takes quite a bit if you want to change the locations of lots of resources.
So they’ve been merged together, just be aware the locations won’t appear until you’ve selected a resource to edit.
I’ve also been playing with the spacing and size of the fields for the locations, so it should (just about) fit on a 720p display now.
RE: Modding Tool
Hello and thank you for your work.
It seems you have made quite a few changes and additions over time. Could you attach a list of all the functionalities of the mod tool in the first post?
As in, which files / categories it can edit and to what extent. That would make it much easier to understand the capabilities right away.
It seems you have made quite a few changes and additions over time. Could you attach a list of all the functionalities of the mod tool in the first post?
As in, which files / categories it can edit and to what extent. That would make it much easier to understand the capabilities right away.
RE: Modding Tool
Hi Cepheiden, I rather like the idea of having the OP include a basic overview of the tool so I've gone ahead and edited it. I expect I'll improve it somewhat as time goes on, but for now it should at least give you some idea of what to expect.
RE: Modding Tool
Great, thank you!
Now I got all the information needed from just the first post.
Now I got all the information needed from just the first post.