Issue with planet type and new race
 

This has happened a few times now since I've begun re-playing SEIV....

I'll start a new game and create a new race. I'll pick a ship set from one of the standard races, then I'll pick the "Environment" settings for planet type and atmosphere.

But when the game starts, I have the wrong tech for colonization, but my "Homeworlds" are on the proper types.

Example - I picked "Gas Giants" & "Oxygen" for my new race. Game starts, I have 3 Homeworlds on Gas Giants with O2. However, when I go to the research window, I have started with "Rock Planet Colonization" instead of "Gas Giant Colonization".

The map gives both Rock and Gas Giant planets, that have 02, a green asterick. But I only have the "Rock Colony" component available for ship designs.

This has happened several times now, regardless of whether I choose gas giant, ice, or rock during the race creation setup.

Have I done something wrong/missed a step, or is this an unresolved issue with SEIV? If the latter, what is the workaround, other than *hoping* the game matches my selections every time I create a new game?

Kammak

PS - I have no custom shipsets or downloaded races installed, just the canned stuff. I have a self-created mod that DOES NOT change any technology, just adds mounts and a few other changes (like a universal colony module in the components file). All the items I've modded have worked fine in-game.

Re: Issue with planet type and new race
 

That custom universal colony module might be your problem. Try adding a separate tech area for it in the TechAreas.txt data file and see if that fixes your problem.

When the game selects starting colony techs I believe it simply selects the first TechAreas.txt entry that will yield a component with the home planet type colonization ability. You might also try moving the component entry around in Components.txt to see if that does anything.

The Colony Tech Mod 2 works by exploiting this behavior, so you might want to download it and take a look at the data files to get an idea of how it all works.

Re: Issue with planet type and new race
 

"You might also try moving the component entry around in Components.txt to see if that does anything."


This is starting to sound familiar - I moved the universal colony component to the very beginning of the component file, and that seems to have fixed it. (I had originally added it to the bottom.)

I'm recreating a personal mod I made years ago, and apparently I've forgotten a lot of the "gotchas" about modding this game.

Anyway, thanks for the tip!

Kammak

Re: Issue with planet type and new race
 

Starting colony tech assignment is done by assigning the first level of every technology required by the last component with the appropriate colonization ability in the components file. Whew, that was a mouthful!

Re: Issue with planet type and new race
 

Ah, I knew it was something overly complicated and completely unintuitive.

Re: Issue with planet type and new race
 

Hey, I also just realized that this means races with different starting planets can start out with different technologies researched. So a Rock race could automatically have a head start in, say Physics, if you simply add a Physics 1 requirement to the rock colony component.