Copple questions reggarding modding

[GalaxyCreator]

Hello community,

I've just a week ago started working on my custom build galaxy map, reflecting our Milky Way Galaxy. The map features 5.000+ handplaced Stars, as well as 1.000+ diverse ressources. All races from all DLC's are supported. Also, the map comes with a real nice star map background. However, I have a copple of questions about things to Mod.

1. Modding Stars:

In particular I want to add blue giants, multiple star systems, as well as Quarzar's, Brown Dwarfs and pretty much all other possible variations of stars. Unfortunately the Mod Tutorial says you can't Mod Stars. What does that exactly mean? Are Stars and their looks hardcoded into the .exe? Or is there a way to add new stars and the tutorial just won't tell it?

2. Modding Races:

Which files exactly need to be modified to add a new race?

3. Re-Randomize ressources (not planets, race start colonies and dust clouds) possible?

4. How important are the ressources: ruins, creatures, renegade race factions, pirates, indpendend races? Do you need them ingame, or can they be neglected? Is there a random recreation in game? So that pirates or ruins get automatically placed?

5. How important are events. Is there a random recreation in game?

Edit: Here's a little teaser for the map...

Rofl...I can't add links...I'm sorry.

[feygan]

You can change how stars look by fiddling with the image files for stars, this has been done to improve the looks of stars in a couple of mods. You can use the same method for adding something like blue/green stars etc. As far as I know though everything else about them is hard coded and cannot be altered other than the basic changes you make with the in game editor such as size etc.

[Japhet]

Try this thread for advice about modding and adding races:
tm.asp?m=3662698&mpage=1&key=&#3662698

[ehsumrell1]

Hello GalaxyCreator, and welcome to the DW forums!

Fantastic idea you have. A word of caution though, from my experience and also from another forum
member Osito (who also built a large galaxy map), if I recall correctly, any starmap with over
1,400 star placements will eventually (sometimes immediately) crash the game. This is due to
some of the Galaxy Creation hard-coding in the DW executable file. Hopefully Osito will see
this thread and comment upon this subject. Or, better yet, look him up in the members listing
and send him a PM. Of the people that I know that have DW map-building experience with any success
outside of myself, he would be the guru of choice in my opinion. Hope this helps, and best of luck!

See his map mod thread here: http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3656168

[GalaxyCreator]

Thanks for all the answers.

Unfortunately this forum makes it impossible for me to answer, unless I've spend 7 days in this forum, so bear with me.

Can I have more detail on this star limit issue?

[ehsumrell1]

ORIGINAL: GalaxyCreator

Thanks for all the answers.

Unfortunately this forum makes it impossible for me to answer, unless I've spend 7 days in this forum, so bear with me.

Can I have more detail on this star limit issue?

What I can tell you is that the map size in the game is set up by the galaxy size/shape/configuration settings
during the new game start process. You set the size and number of stars, 700, 1000, etcetera.
Yes you can add/create more via the game editor, but eventually it will crash due to being over the limit.
Just like the fact that you have limits on the number of resources, research projects, and so on.
As I stated before, read Osito's thread concerning this matter via the link shown in my previous post.

[Osito]

Thank you for the compliment Ehsumrell1 Now get back to the Star Trek mod!

To the OP, Ehsumrell1 is right about the galaxy size. In my own map I originally had about 2000 stars, but the game kept crashing. The only way I could find to fix this problem was to reduce the number of stars to below 1400, from which I inferred that it was the number of stars which was causing the problem.

Note that the game doesn't crash immediately, which might lead you to believe you're not experiencing the problem. In my play tests, I found the crash would usually occur 20-30 hours in, but sometimes it was over 40 hours in. Given that DW games can easily go on for that long, the crashes cannot be ignored.

I don't know how far you've got, so apologies if you already know this, but you'll find that the only way to get races to start at a particular homeworld is to do the map as a scenario. However, if you do that, the scenario won't load into other themes. So, I did four scenarios for my own map, two for the default theme, and two for Haree78's 'Extended' theme. You can load the map into other themes (except that some themes will conflict with it), but you either have to redo the scenarios, or the races will not start at their homeworld.

Overall, I think that editing maps is not very well supported in DWU, and it is an immense pain to set up everything exactly how you want it. I think it may take a DW2 to get these problems addressed.

Anyway, good luck with the endeavour!

Osito

[GalaxyCreator]

I've got 8 hours stable running. Saving a game takes longer and longer. Combined all races and their exploration, I'm now far beyond 3.000+ explored Star Systems by all races. I can't the say the game runs slower, just the saving/loading times. I'm using a thirtee minutes auto save cycle. Here's a screenshot...by the end of the next week I think I will no if such a huge map is stable running.

[GalaxyCreator]

Ok, so I've tested some more hours, and apart from the game loading and saving there doesn't seem to be any flaw. However, since I figured a way how to remove Nebulae (the black clouds in galaxy view), and with your recent input of the star limit crash, I decided a recreation. I'll keep the 4.000 (correction after I actually tried counting the numbers) star map as well as the 15 hours savegame, for anyone willing to furtherly test it, and will release it together with my new efforts, once I'm allowed to add links into threads.

For anyone asking how I removed Nebulae? Use Gimp (or Photoshop or whatever) to lower the opacity of the Nebulae .png's. This will only work in the vanilla folder, not inside a customization folder. Btw. why does editing the Game.txt not work. I'm trying to rename Nebula designations, like Arm, Cloud or Expanse.

[Osito]

I have to stress that the game will often take more than 15 hours before it crashes. I was usually getting a crash in the 20-30 hour range, but it was totally unpredictable. Incidentally, the way I did the test, was to set everything on automatic and let the game play itself. That way you can leave the game running itself all day or night and come back to it later. I ran many tests on my map and 1400+ star maps always crashed eventually. Obviously, I cannot be absolutely sure that it was the number of stars causing it, but the crashes stopped when I reduced the number of stars. It's always possible it was a memory problem I suppose, but I was using 16 MB RAM, which is more than many will use.

Osito

[GalaxyCreator]

Please, can anybody show me a legit way how to remove Nebula caption?

[Osito]

ORIGINAL: GalaxyCreator

Please, can anybody show me a legit way how to remove Nebula caption?

As far as I'm aware, you can't. Yep, I agree it's annoying.

You can stop them appearing in the game settings for each specific game, but that also stops certain other things appearing like the galactic grid.

Osito

[GalaxyCreator]

Thought I'd just add some new screens on my modding/mapping progress, showing the new galaxy and 5 of 15 new races.



Edit: Ok, so no screens regarding races due to forum limits.

[Bingeling]

You can use a photo site and link with image tags. I have a free photobucket account for my AARs.

[GalaxyCreator]

Ok, so I have everything set up, only need to make ten posts and then wait for another week, so I can provide a release thread. Gives me one more week to test the Mod...

[GalaxyCreator]

Shameless double post.

[GalaxyCreator]

Shameless tripple post.

[GalaxyCreator]

This ten post and 7 days limit is pretty much the single most annoying thing I've ever witnessed in any forums. I'm not harmful, why the restrictions...-.-

[Osito]

Note (in case you weren't aware of this) that you won't be able to upload the map to the forum, as you'll exceed the upload size limit, so you'll need to have the d/l hosted elsewhere.

Osito

[ehsumrell1]

ORIGINAL: GalaxyCreator

This ten post and 7 days limit is pretty much the single most annoying thing I've ever witnessed in any forums. I'm not harmful, why the restrictions...-.-

Hello GalaxyCreator;
Sorry that the Forum rules annoy you. The reason is that those rules seriously reduce (almost
eliminating) "spambotting". Our forum was hit by spambots (both intentionally and unintentionally
by members who inadvertently got infected) on an almost regular basis until the current rules
were put into effect. There is, unfortunately no way to determine that you, or any other new
user, are harmless. It is just a precaution and preventative method.
[:)]