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I know the game is not even out yet and i sadly was not selected to be a beta tester so i have very limited knowledge of the game but i was wondering how the modding aspect of the game is gonna be.

I spent 4 years modding stellaris and got pretty familiar with the system and also the limitations involved.
The number one thing that annoys me is the vanilla ai being retarded so if it cant really play the base game well how is it gonna play a modified version of it. Number two is how the game does not treat many things as variables that could then be properly referenced /multiplied/added/substracted in scripting. I could not for example set up a desired income as num_planets * 10 ... should be fixed with triggers exported to variable function now... after so many years...

So my question is: am i gonna be able to easily add new resources / play styles so that the ai can make proper use of said resources and adjust to the playstyle? Or how hard is it to teach the ai?

An example would be: i want to make a race that only has cloning as a way of reproduction. For that they will need a building with 1 per planet limit with some upkeep and a fixed output. I want the ai to treat this building as priority.

Another example would be if i added a new special resource that is needed for much of their development. Can i define an income value they should achieve and then ai looks at available options to achieve that income and make smart decisions?

ORIGINAL: RgZera
I know the game is not even out yet and i sadly was not selected to be a beta tester so i have very limited knowledge of the game but i was wondering how the modding aspect of the game is gonna be.

I spent 4 years modding stellaris and got pretty familiar with the system and also the limitations involved.
The number one thing that annoys me is the vanilla ai being retarded so if it cant really play the base game well how is it gonna play a modified version of it. Number two is how the game does not treat many things as variables that could then be properly referenced /multiplied/added/substracted in scripting. I could not for example set up a desired income as num_planets * 10 ... should be fixed with triggers exported to variable function now... after so many years...

My philosophy on new game features is that the AI must know how to use them. So that is how we've implemented things in DW2 - the AI uses all the tools available to the player.

We have exposed a lot of data for modding in DW2, more than was available in DW:U. Most of this moddable data uses XML files, which we will also publish the schema for (XSD). In addition we will have editing tools for most of these XML files.

And of course we will have comprehensive modding documentation explaining things.

While we don't provide support for direct scripting of the game logic, in DW2 there is powerful in-game story-telling tools using Game Events. Game Events allow you to script triggers and actions in a game that can utilize many features like generating ships or bases, changing diplomatic relations, unlocking research, etc. These Game Events are recorded in an XML file (supported by the tools mentioned above). Game Events are not specific to a particular map or savegame. Instead they are flexible because they mould themselves to each new game by using location hints that specify where the events should be placed in each new galaxy. We use Game Events for all of our in-game story logic and exploration events (ancient ruins, abandoned ships, etc).

So my question is: am i gonna be able to easily add new resources / play styles so that the ai can make proper use of said resources and adjust to the playstyle? Or how hard is it to teach the ai?

The base data in the game is very easy to mod. This includes the following types of data: artifacts, colony events (plagues, festivals, etc), ship components, space creatures, fleet templates, governments, planet and star types, planetary facilities and ruins, alien races, research projects, ship hulls, troops and floating space debris of various kinds.

The AI knows how to use new modded versions of any of these items. There is no hard-coding of game logic. Instead the logic is driven by the values in the files.

For modding game logic the primary tool are the Game Events mentioned above.

An example would be: i want to make a race that only has cloning as a way of reproduction. For that they will need a building with 1 per planet limit with some upkeep and a fixed output. I want the ai to treat this building as priority.

You could get close to this already with modding. Your race could have a very low reproduction rate (but not zero). Then you add a facility (perhaps unique to this race) that has a bonus to colony growth rate.

We are also open to add new features that people want, but we cannot anticipate everything. Nor is it possible to expose every value and setting in the game.

Another example would be if i added a new special resource that is needed for much of their development. Can i define an income value they should achieve and then ai looks at available options to achieve that income and make smart decisions?

Yes, you could do this. You would add a new luxury resource with a specific colony development bonus amount, maybe also some other bonus types. You can then add this new resource as a 'growth resource' for your race, i.e. they especially like it. Maybe you even make the resource only appear on their native planet type.

AI around resources and freight logistics works to achieve good growth at your colonies. It aims to get a wide variety of resources that raise development of each colony.

Hope this helps
Elliot

Sounds like the AI got a nice overhaul. I guess not being limited to one thread opens lots of possibilities. [8D]

Yes. Thank you for the extensive answer.
It only makes me more hyped for the game.
Cant wait to dive into vanilla gameplay to get a feel for all the available mechanics and then make a total conversion ☺️

One more question concerning ships. How easy is it gonna be to import 3D ship designs?

We have a nice list of stargate ships, some made from scratch, lining up in stellaris. They are pretty high resolution too.

Sins of a solar empire supports physically based rendering, stellaris does not. Thats why a friend of mine remade all the textures. The end result looks really good in stellaris and i was hoping it could be imported without much rework needed this time around.

ORIGINAL: RgZera
Yes. Thank you for the extensive answer.
It only makes me more hyped for the game.
Cant wait to dive into vanilla gameplay to get a feel for all the available mechanics and then make a total conversion ☺️

One more question concerning ships. How easy is it gonna be to import 3D ship designs?

We have a nice list of stargate ships, some made from scratch, lining up in stellaris. They are pretty high resolution too.

Sins of a solar empire supports physically based rendering, stellaris does not. Thats why a friend of mine remade all the textures. The end result looks really good in stellaris and i was hoping it could be imported without much rework needed this time around.

The rendering in DW2 is built on Xenko/Stride, so importing ship models means using Stride GameStudio to import assets and make bundle files.

Stride uses PBR, so all of our DW2 ship and base models use PBR materials. We default to using diffuse map, normal map, emissive map and combined gloss/metalness/ambient occlusion maps in another texture using the RGB channels. So maybe your original textures might work best? But you can set up the materials with any layers you like.

We'll have detailed documentation about how this works with DW2 at release, but in the meantime I recommend looking at the following Stride documentation for a general idea of what's involved:
https://doc.stride3d.net/latest/en/manual/game-studio/assets.html
https://doc.stride3d.net/latest/en/manual/graphics/materials/shading-attributes.html

Sounds good! And thanks again for the quick reply