Trying to figure this out...

[Black_Knyght]

I'm toying with a mod of my own, sort of. I've been thinking of combining aspects of the Masters Mod with the FQM and ModWorks Capturable Racial Techs & Space Yard Expansions.

I don't know exactly what parts of these disparate mods to combine, or what I need to use and what I don't to incorporate each of these into the data files.

How would I go about merging these, or how should I go about combining them?

[Kana]

Well I would certainly go one step at a time, test, then another step, test...if you add to much from different things, you wont know what is broke...

[dogscoff]

By FQO I assume you mean FQM - that one is generally (comparatively) easy to merge with other mods, since it only alters files which other mods tend to leave alone.

Merging mods is not easy. You need to sit down, decide which bits of which mods you are going to use, then start copy/pasting. You will find that copy pasting alone though is not enough- there will be times when two things you want to incorporate clash with one another, and then you have to get a bit creative as to how to implement both. Then there's all the bugtesting, and searching the files for double-blank lines and things like that... it's a hell of a job.

I'm not a modding expert though, so feel free to completely disregard everything I've just said if anyone more knowledgeable says something contrary =-)

[Urendi Maleldil]

The Masters Mod is 99% compatable with FQM. The only things in the way are the small and medium ringworld planet sizes (from the Megascale Masters).

It also shouldn't be hard to make the racial tech capturable. Just fiddle around a bit with the tech requirements.

[Fyron]

FQM has small and medium RWs though.

[Urendi Maleldil]

Oh, I didn't realize that. The ones I created for the Masters Mod were built from scratch, so they're a little different. Anyway, that's the only issue you have to resolve to combine the Masters Mod and FQM.

[Black_Knyght]

Is there a way to make the Racial Traits not only capturable, but tradable?

And is this even a viable concept?

[Fyron]

Capturable means tradable.

[Suicide Junkie]

Not quite.

Consider three techs.
Tech A is a racial tech.
Tech B is a normal tech; it requires Tech A level X to open.
Tech C is a normal tech; it requires Tech B Level Y to open.

Tech A can never be stolen, researched or traded unless the other race has the same racial trait.
Tech B can not be researched or traded, but it can be stolen (via deconstruct & analyse)
Tech C can be stolen in the same way as B. Tech C can also be traded and researched *after* level Y of tech B has been stolen.

[Fyron]

Erm... yeah? Just trade a ship, your tech B is quite tradable. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[Black_Knyght]

I'm having a bear of a time trying to create a "Shipyard Expansion" componant/facility. Can anyone walk me trhough this? I've never done one before, and it's more complicated than it looked initially.

Also, I've tried adding a specific image and sound effect to a given weapon, but for some reson I can't get the sound effect to take. I just get a little "beep" instead. Is there some specific requirement for the sounds, beyond having to be a .WAV?

[Fyron]

Space Yard Expansions are very simple to implement. There are several methods,
depending on preference.

The easiest, which I strongly discourage you from using, is to add a facility
with no abilities and the same family number as an existing Space Yard facility.
It must be "less advanced," meaning that it should have a lower roman numeral
(such as 0). After building this facility, you can then upgrade it to a Space
Yard. Keep in mind that the cost of an upgrade (with stock upgrade cost
settings) is one half that of building a facility directly, so this method could
very easily allow you to build space yards far more quickly than normal,
depending on how much the base facility costs.

A better method is to have normal Space Yards and a new type of facility, the
Space Yard Expansion. A Space Yard Expansion should provide a small, incremental
amount of construction, such as one tenth of that of a normal space yard. Exact
values are up to the modder's discretion, of course. To implement this, you need
to add two new facilities, with a new, unused family number. Do not make these
have the same family number as normal space yards. The components can be called
"Space Yard Expansion Project" and "Space Yard Expansion." The Space Yard
Expansion Project will have no abilities. It is meant as the facility you build,
then upgrade to the Space Yard Expansion facility. Give the Space Yard Expansion
Project a roman numeral value of 0. The Space Yard Expansion facilities should
have roman numerals of 1 or greater. Make sure to place the Space Yard Expansion
Project after the Space Yard Expansion facilities in Facilities.txt. This will
cause SEIV to display them as the only facility in the family when obsolete
facilities are hidden. You never want to build the Space Yard Expansion
directly, so this makes it much easier to use the system (no need to show
obsolete facilities to build the Project facility first). In this sort of
system, you would first build a normal space yard, then start with the
expansions.

Another method is similar to the second, except that you have 3 different
families of Space Yard Expansions, one for each resource. It is set up in much
the same way. Make sure to _never_ set a space yard ability value to 0. If the
space yard rate of a planet is 0 (and it is not rioting), an unlimited number of
resources will be put into construction projects, allowing 1 turn builds of
anything (assuming all resource rates are 0).

A final method would be to have no normal space yards. All space yards have
small, incremental build values, much like Space Yard Expansion outlined above.
You would build them in the same manner as a Space Yard Expansion, though it
might be better to call them "Industrial Facilities" or something of that
nature, since they are not really expansions anymore. This method changes
construction rate to be more gradual. You might wish to lower the base
construction rate without any facilities if you choose to implement this method.
Otherwise, you could quite easily see construction rates drop from 2000 to 200
after building the first facility (assuming 200 is the value you chose).

[Black_Knyght]

I saw that - straight out of the "Read Me".

It's very informative as "What-I-need-to-do" to make this happen. Now I need to learn the "How-to-do-it" part. I've never tried modding before, and creating this Facility/Componant/whatever else I need is something I haven't done yet.

I have David G's modder. Would this be useful to do this, and how would I begin?

[Suicide Junkie]

Open facilities.txt in notepad.
Search for "Space Yard"
Copy the whole entry, and paste it twice to make three copies of the spaceyard facility.
Change the names, family numbers and roman numerals to the values mentioned in Fyron's post. Delete the abilities from the SY expansion project facility, and set the Number of Abilities field to zero to match.

Double check to ensure that there are no double blank lines between before or after your new facilities.
Save, and play.

[Black_Knyght]

Okay, that was extremely helpful. Between that and Fyron's advice, this is what I've got:


Name := Space Yard Expansion I
Description := An expanded construction facility which allows for increased construction of ships.
Facility Group := Space Yard
Facility Family := 6341
Roman Numeral := 1
Restrictions := None
Pic Num := 932
Cost Minerals := 8000
Cost Organics := 0
Cost Radioactives := 0
Number of Tech Req := 1
Tech Area Req 1 := Space Yards
Tech Level Req 1 := 1
Number of Abilities := 4
Ability 1 Type := Space Yard
Ability 1 Descr := Can construct with 1000 minerals per turn.
Ability 1 Val 1 := 1
Ability 1 Val 2 := 1000
Ability 2 Type := Space Yard
Ability 2 Descr := Can construct with 1000 organics per turn.
Ability 2 Val 1 := 2
Ability 2 Val 2 := 1000
Ability 3 Type := Space Yard
Ability 3 Descr := Can construct with 1000 radioactives per turn.
Ability 3 Val 1 := 3
Ability 3 Val 2 := 1000
Ability 4 Type := Component Repair
Ability 4 Descr := Can repair 2 components per turn.
Ability 4 Val 1 := 2
Ability 4 Val 2 := 0

Name := Space Yard Expansion Project
Description := Large Space Yard expansion project which will allow increased construction of ships.
Facility Group := Space Yard
Facility Family := 6341
Roman Numeral := 0
Restrictions := None
Pic Num := 772
Cost Minerals := 10000
Cost Organics := 0
Cost Radioactives := 0
Number of Tech Req := 1
Tech Area Req 1 := Space Yards
Tech Level Req 1 := 1
Number of Abilities := 0
Ability 1 Type :=
Ability 1 Descr :=
Ability 1 Val 1 :=
Ability 1 Val 2 :=
Ability 2 Type :=
Ability 2 Descr :=
Ability 2 Val 1 :=
Ability 2 Val 2 :=
Ability 3 Type :=
Ability 3 Descr :=
Ability 3 Val 1 :=
Ability 3 Val 2 :=
Ability 4 Type :=
Ability 4 Descr :=
Ability 4 Val 1 :=
Ability 4 Val 2 :=



Does this look about the way it should?

[Fyron]

You didn't delete the abilities on the Space Yard Expansion Project, just the values. Delete the whole lines.

[Black_Knyght]

Name := Space Yard Expansion I
Description := An expanded construction facility which allows for increased construction of ships.
Facility Group := Space Yard
Facility Family := 6341
Roman Numeral := 1
Restrictions := None
Pic Num := 932
Cost Minerals := 8000
Cost Organics := 0
Cost Radioactives := 0
Number of Tech Req := 1
Tech Area Req 1 := Space Yards
Tech Level Req 1 := 1
Number of Abilities := 4
Ability 1 Type := Space Yard
Ability 1 Descr := Can construct with 1000 minerals per turn.
Ability 1 Val 1 := 1
Ability 1 Val 2 := 1000
Ability 2 Type := Space Yard
Ability 2 Descr := Can construct with 1000 organics per turn.
Ability 2 Val 1 := 2
Ability 2 Val 2 := 1000
Ability 3 Type := Space Yard
Ability 3 Descr := Can construct with 1000 radioactives per turn.
Ability 3 Val 1 := 3
Ability 3 Val 2 := 1000
Ability 4 Type := Component Repair
Ability 4 Descr := Can repair 2 components per turn.
Ability 4 Val 1 := 2
Ability 4 Val 2 := 0

Name := Space Yard Expansion Project
Description := Large Space Yard expansion project which will allow increased construction of ships.
Facility Group := Space Yard
Facility Family := 6341
Roman Numeral := 0
Restrictions := None
Pic Num := 772
Cost Minerals := 10000
Cost Organics := 0
Cost Radioactives := 0
Number of Tech Req := 1
Tech Area Req 1 := Space Yards
Tech Level Req 1 := 1
Number of Abilities := 0


Thanx Fyron. I take it that it should look like this?


Another question popped up.

I included this and playtested it. BOTH facilities became available at the same time. I have them listed in the Facility.txt in the same order they are here.

Should they be reversed, or is there some requirement that I need to add?

[Fyron]

Did you hide obsolete facilities? That is the correct order to get only the Project showing up in the construction list, when obsolete facilities are hidden. Compare your facilities to the examples in the concept mod.

[Black_Knyght]

I'm assuming there's no specific command I need to add, just personally hide any obsolete facilities while playing?