ahh, grooovy. just got my lightwave model into the game, im well chuffed now. o.k. textures no matter what settings i use to convert texture to 256x256 png they always turn out black, ie no texture, so my ship model just stay's untextured. another question, is hard points, i believe in 3ds max u can create hardpoints with dummy objects, but im a lightwave user. so unsure on how to do this, so im getting there. can any one offer any advise or tips please

I don't know if the devs are still reading this thread, but I've noticed an error in the docs. When talking about modding Ability Bonuses it says that the maximum number of options is six. I've updated my game to 1.20.035, and the max I can get the game to display is four. Is this an error in the docs, or has the code just not changed to reflect them (the docs)? Edit: Emailing CariElf too.

Please tell me : did you punch all the ugly xml.data with notepad or does stardock have a nice eye-caring frontend that makes editing those xml files a breeze ? ..btw if one manages to reduce the max. population supported by food to zero the populationlimit seems to be disabled.

Nope, straight up notepad. That's what just about everyone is using since the devs haven't released a mod kit w/ tools. Nor do I expect them to, they've got better things to do.

Also the ability bonus limit is going to change to 6

I find microsoft word works nicely, and it's much easier on the eye than notepad. Though it's a little awkward setting fields and stuff sometimes...

I made a few Borg style Bik files for movies, and placed them in the mods directory movies file. For some reason they won't work. They are 5_Trade00 to 5_Trade03. What am I doing wrong?

I have discovered the problem, thanks to another modder, I needed to add three lines in the raceconfig.xml file. My Borg race conversion is nearly finished.

Hmm.... is there a reason that most Weapons and Engines have no thumbnails in their XML file, but still have thumbnails in-game?

In most (all?) cases the game generates thumbnails for those componenets that have none.

Aha... I understand now... makes some sort of sense, too .

Can someone explain how the ability-bonus really works:

1) is it a percentage ? or something different

i made following test (using 1.2) - i changed an early tech to give +300 to speed ability :
a previously 3-movement points per turn ship got a boost to 33! mp.
This is a real bonus of 1000% instead the intended 300% for this test !

2) can i expect this weird behaviour with all the other abilities too ?

3) i would really appreciate if the devs would show some formulas how such things are calculated

4) did i mention that a nice xml-editor interface would be helpful for modding

Ability units vary from ability to ability. In the case of speed it is a straight 1 point = 1 move conversion. Assumably it's just limited to two digits there.

Excellent guide! Thanks CariElf!

Bo

Would it be possible to have an invasion tactic give multiple bonuses?

does anyone know what the RaceSpecific xml tag is supposed to do?

is there a modding guide for modding the screens.str and the English.str?

wrong thead

I'm trying to find where the precursor bonus tile probablities are stored. Does anyone know where these settings are lurking?

Hi! First, great post! This has helped out the Star Trek Mod so much!

Now can you help a little more? I'm curious about the Tech Robots... Is there an XML file that points to them, or is that hard coded to those file names? I'd like to be able to point different races to a different "Tech Robot".... I have tried, I've went through the Modding guide several times (sorry if I missed it!)...but I can't find a way to alter this in the XML. I know we can't always get our way as modders, but if there is already a way to do this, we can greatly save on download size, we are 1.9gigs now and want to add more!

I've went through and have found a way to cut about 120megs out of it, but need to find something to do with these dang Tech Robots to really make a difference in size.....


Okay... So... while I'm at it.... Any chance that the StarBases for different races work with adding for example
S0_EconomyStarbase0 - For Feder...I mean Terrans and
S1_EconomyStarbase0 - For Bor.... I mean Drengin...

Everytime I try to do that I crash... I'm still trying to find a way though because I think this would be a GREAT assist for the game, and even if all of the base ones in game use the same design, modders could really add more!

Guess no one will reply to my topic down below, been waiting for the critcal informations

Here it is...
CG2Builder is great and now i can make my own custom map, but there a problem i am having... my custom planet wont show up (only default) and the PQ, all the tiles has bonus on it. So how can i fix this?

I have copy/paste customplanet.xml to customplanet folder and it didnt work, not even in mod either. I tried alot of things and still didnt kick in

Been trying to match the custom planets and other details for this custom maps.
And one more thing is 18x18 is the maxed size for map? Cuz i want something bigger like an Galaxy, that 18x18 is like an quarter size so make it 72x72 would be really nice. Is it possible???

Any infos???

----
Nvm i figured it out how to do it!

Umm, I doubt too many computers would take kindly to running a 72x72 sector map. In fact I think most would crash from low virtual memory.

72 x72 would be to big also i made a copy of custom planets xml file an added my planets i wanted.i put it in the mods folder, the game used it that way i have a custom race, planets, and pol party. also i left the oem custom planet xml file in the main data folder.

What is the difference between
< SpeedAbility > located in the Tech tree under Impulse Drive and Warp Drive

and

< Speed > located on the Ship Components?

I know the < Speed > relates to how far you can move, and I think that the < SpeedAbility > tag is for combat speed, but does it make any difference? Any at all? Or is it one of those tags that originally had a purpose but is no longer used because of a problem with how AI used it?

Speed on engines gives X amount of speed to the ship you place the engine on. SpeedAbility on a tech gives a speed bonus to ALL ships once you've researched that tech, without needing to add any parts to them.

Speed has absolutely no effect in combat, and never has.

It should give a defense bonus, methinks.