Modability

[NCrawler]

I was just wondering how 'moddable' this game/engine will be. Will I, for example, be able to mod it into a Napoleonic era game or will I be limited to the WWII era?



NC

[wodin]

The answer is no....you get a set of OOB's to play with and thats it.

I believe alot more OOB's are being issued withg this release than just the ones used in the Bulge battle.

You can make new maps and create new scenarios using the OOB's that come with the game.

You can't even mod the game to create new WW2 battles that use OOB's that don't come with the game....one reason (which is fair enough in my opinion) is were dealing with a small developer who needs to make money...if you could mod the game to your hearts content then no one would need to buy any new games in the series.

[JudgeDredd]

Well, you are stuck in WWII and indeed stuck in a particular period of WWII.

I know why PG do it...but one could question why they do it when others do not? Perhaps it's to do with the amount of work that goes into it. Perhaps it's to protect their investment in the best WWII command ops engine out there.

Whatever the reason, as a gamer, I don't like it but as a gamer who wants this great system to continue, I don't mind.

[Prince of Eckmühl]

I really wish that PG would include an estab editor. That's not to say that a whole lot of folks would take on the truly daunting challenge of trying to build their own period-discreet "armies" were they given the opportunity to do so. Gathering the data, sorting it into something useful, and then applying it, strikes me as something of research and clerical nightmare. Given the choice, I'd just as soon pay PG to do it for me. Even then, I'd like to have the editor so that I can correct errors or add units that I believe have been overlooked. As to what will keep the developer going from here, I'd prefer that they concentrate on adding new features in whatever gets released. That'll keep me coming back as surely as new estabs or maps.

[wodin]

Some sort of announcement is going to be made with the release...I reckon it has something todo with OOB's.

[Perturabo]

ORIGINAL: Prince of Eckmühl

I really wish that PG would include an estab editor. That's not to say that a whole lot of folks would take on the truly daunting challenge of trying to build their own period-discreet "armies" were they given the opportunity to do so. Gathering the data, sorting it into something useful, and then applying it, strikes me as something of research and clerical nightmare. Given the choice, I'd just as soon pay PG to do it for me. Even then, I'd like to have the editor so that I can correct errors or add units that I believe have been overlooked. As to what will keep the developer going from here, I'd prefer that they concentrate on adding new features in whatever gets released. That'll keep me coming back as surely as new estabs or maps.

How about the good old fashioned hex editor? It's a basic tool of every aspiring modder.

[wodin]

Hex editor? Whats that? Forgive my ignorance but this game doesn't have hex's so if it is what I think it is it would be useless in this game.

[Perturabo]

It's something that modders usually use to edit game data before other proper modding tools get made.
Normally, modders don't get tools from developers. They make them themselves.
I think that modding was originally derived from savegame editing. Someone got the idea that if it's possible to edit saved games then it's possible to edit game data using the same tools.

The first stage of modding is trying to figure out the data structure - on what positions what data is stored, etc. I simply make a new scenario in SM and select the edited estab file. I check the estab data and look for various numbers and then search for these numbers (converted to hexadecimals) in the various entries in the estab file.

Here's how modding with a hex editor looks like:



Here's a quick guide to hex editing:
http://www.pccheater.co.uk/hexedit.htm