makin a small mod to diplomacy, better cap ships/ more artifacts

from Sins Forums

hi there im lookin to make a mod to my game install simaler to the "real cap ships" mod in the forums here i have a few issues that concern me.

1.my large computer wont open the entity files properly with notepad the text is all screwy not at all like the modding guide from the sticky on this section of the forums. They open up just fine on my laptop which has windows 7 the big pc has vista home.

2. can i add more banks to cap ships so they can be more like starbases , shooting at more than 1-2 targets?i read it could upset the game horribly

3. i would like to make so ever planet has a bonus or relic of some type if possible which file(s) do i mod and how?

thanks for the help

modding
2,254 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

Answer for question 1

Consider using Notepad + instead it works great for editing "number lines" and the compare feature will save you enormous time finding errors

 

http://notepad-plus-plus.org/

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

for question 1 the entity files will probably START with BIN, and are in BINary mode which is for faster loading, but TXT mode is for easier editing. there are three ways around this issue, 1 download myfist0's reference files. 2 download my reference files, 3 download and use my textbin gui

question 2 just edit each of the CAPITALSHIPracerole.entity files to alter EACH of the four TargetCountPerBank:direction lines so that it can hit more targets in that direction

question 3 edit the galaxy and change the two lines

planetArtifactDensity 0.150000   *this controls the artifact density in the map as shown 15% of planets will have an artifact
planetBonusDensity 0.400000     *this controls the planetary bonuses in the map, and is 40% of planets will have a bonus

hope this helps

harpo

 

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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

2. can i add more banks to cap ships so they can be more like starbases , shooting at more than 1-2 targets?i read it could upset the game horribly
End of quote

You can just make sure you only increase the banks that are currently set. Look at my flagship mod for an example.

3. i would like to make so ever planet has a bonus or relic of some type if possible which file(s) do i mod and how?
End of quote

I believe you should look at the *.galaxy file for each map you want to use...

planetArtifactDensity

& 

planetBonusDensity

Edit- Well Harpo beat me to the punch while I had this open ;)

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

you can also edit each planet.entity to give them a specific required bonus along with changing the random bonus list. The more times you put a specific bonus in the random list the better chance of that bonus being used. Dont forget to update the counts.

 I also highly recommend notepad++ over plain notepad