Silent Shade's Mod Introduction and Gameplay Mod

excellent!


edit:
just ran thru it, and its kinda good. Makes it easier for the once that want to mod

Great work

sweet! Will check out in teh morning.

so i should back up my files first or not?

it is always smart to backup before any change especially when modding a game.

just remember though guys that with this the devs wont want to hear about any crashes or anything with your modified game....so if you do this....dont send in any reports. devs only want to hear about issues with the vanilla game (plain as it is given to you)

Not a bad mod... Capital ships cost a bit more than I'd like... Fighters and bombers seem just about right. I like the planet population increases, seems more realistic, but I think they could still be bigger!

Nice job silent! 5 out of 5

I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong but replacing my GameInfo files makes SoaSE throw a fit. It is particularly fond of complaining that "TextFileArchive (.\GameInfo\Gameplay.constants) missing Label: 'zoomDistanceLevel0'" and then calling a minidump (yes I'm not sending this is). Additionally I can't even edit the GameInfo files without causing some error or another. My backed up vanilla files work fine and IMO SoaSE has been fairly stable (i.e. ~5 crashes)but this mod hates me...any help as to why this is happening would be much appreciated and a solution would be even better

If this is relevant:
SoaSE v0.62.010
XP Sp2
x6800
8800 gtx
2 GB

@Nyquist
Ahh your not supposed to replace the folders, but overwrite them. Sorry for not making that clear. Only the files I changed are in the mod's folders and it still requires most of the vanilla files so moving the orginal folders out and then putting mine in won't work at all. Remember to make a copy of the orginal folders before overwriting them. Let me know if this helps.



@Multi/Servius

*Bow*



@DeadlyShoe

*Thumps with a large encyclopedia*



@Lordkosc

Thanks, and I will probally lower the capital ship costs a bit and increase the population (I was thinking of million per.) However, in the mean time this would be a perfect time to practice modding yourself

Well it seems I wasn't very clear either When I said 'replace' I meant that I was dragging your GameInfo onto the existing GameInfo folder and hitting 'replace all'. This gave me the "TextFileArchive (.\GameInfo\Gameplay.constants) missing Label: 'zoomDistanceLevel0" error. I then went to my backup files and tried adding your individual mod files to their respective folders but I get the same error again. So I redownloaded the latest Beta files and tried to add your mod like before but the same error pops up.

That is, really strange. I haven't had that problem, and apparently kosc was able to get it to go. I suppose you should redownload the mod and try it again, mabye the download was corrupt or somthing. I honestly have no clue why it would not work for you unless the file has been messed up. The top of the gameplay file should look somthing like this:



TXT
GameplayConstants
      BEGIN
      pingTime 10
      zoomDistanceLevel0ScalarForPlanets 1.5
      zoomDistanceLevel0ScalarForNonPlanets 5.0
      zoomDistanceLevel1 65000
      zoomDistanceLevel2 50000000
      baseHyperspaceRange 1000000.0


Its also important to note that there not be any extra lines or any lines deleted as it seems the game looks for a particular thing on a particular line so if there are any enters or such it could throw the file off. I am not sure if the tabs are critical as I always try to keep them the same.



You could also try to replace the modded gameplay file with the orginal one, as I do not believe there is anything critical to the mod in it, although I did make several changes. It would also help determine whether its just the gameplay file thats messed up or all the others too.

Yeah worked for me, but I stopped using it I like my capital ships cheap.

Silent,
First thanks for the continued help in trying to get this to work...I want my expensive capital ships

I tried downloading the mod from both sites again but still get the same error. Replacing the modded Gameplay.constants file (55.6 KB, looks like what you posted, has no blank lines etc.) with the original Gameplay.constants file (59.0 KB) gives me this error: "TextFileArchive ( .\GameInfo\CAPITALSHIP_TECHCOLONY.entity ) missing Label: 'MainViewIcon'". I've tried editing the various modded files to include what the errors are looking for (e.g. added 'zoomDistanceLevel0 1000' to the modded Gameplay.constants) but a new error always pops up in one of the modded files. Reinstalling SoaSE didn't help either...although I must have missed some files b/c my saved games were present when I reinstalled (even though I checked "Delete all files including skins, themes, and saved games." when prompted).

I installed the mod to C:\Program Files\Stardock\TotalGaming\Sins of a Solar Empire\ (overwriting files in the GameInfo, Texture, and String folders) and made no other changes. Hopefully it's something stupid I'm doing like forgetting to add something like "-modsworknow" to the command line.

Alright, I would like to take a look at your gameplay.constants files, your orginal and the modded one. You can upload them to Rapid Share or somewhere else.

Thanks for looking at these:

My original gameplay.constants
and the modded gameplay.constants. For clarity I renamed the modded one to MODGameplay.constants.

It appears that your file is from a diffrent version. I am not sure, but you said your version was 0.62.010 while mine and the mod's is Version 0.62[b].010
I guess that means you need an update?

Extra lines indeed...I've finally got your mod working (maybe). Just about every file in the mod's GameInfo folder had too little or too much info so that when SoaSE read a specific line it didn't find the expected code. Some good old cutting and pasting got the modded files to correspond with their vanilla templates. This mainly involved:

-deleting the "CapitalShipType" line

-replacing the 'Subject "*ACCESS_*TECH"' with 'Subject "RESEARCHSUBJECT_*ACCESS_*TECH"' (e.g. Subject "FRIGATEACCESS_HEAVYTECH" to Subject "RESEARCHSUBJECT_FRIGATEACCESS_HEAVYTECH")

-adding in the 'weaponCooldownDecreasePerc' info

I think that's most of the changes I made (I'm using my non modded Gameplay.constants file) and I've uploaded the edited GameInfo mod files if you want to take a look.

Oops, by 0.62.010 I meant 0.62[b].010 =\

Yeah I noticed all the extra stuff in the gameplay file when I used WinMerge to compare your unmodified gameplay with my unmodified gameplay, they were completely diffrent (about 200 diffrences.) I still don't have any explaination other than we have two diffrent versions though, at least thats what it seems to be. What is the date/time your .exe was created on, and what is its size.

Sins of a Solar Empire.exe
Size: 2.28 MB (2,392,064 bytes)
Created: April 4, 2007, 10:46:10 PM
Stardock identifies it as version 0.62[b].010 updated 05/04/2007
Do you know how to display the version in game?

I've uninstalled and reinstalled few times since the last release and consistently get the same files. Additionally I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling Stardock but haven't noticed a difference in the files downloaded. Stardock does seem to leave my saved games (when told to delete them) so I guess it might be possible that other game files are left behind as well.


Oh, and nice mod The capital ships actually seem like capital ships rather than glorified frigates.

Sins of a Solar Empire.exe
Size: 2.29 MB (2,408,448 bytes)
Created: Friday, March 30, 2007, 7:17:22 PM
Stardock identifies it as version 0.62[b].010

Unfortunately I haven't found how how to display the version ingame, if it even exists yet. I haven't completely reinstalled as that takes up almost all of my bandwidth for the day *kicks the Fair-Access-Policy* I did archive the game after I first downloaded it, and I have used that and downloaded the updates twice so far (once yesterday). However I still got the same files.

And thanks.

the version is in the upper left of the main menu iirc

I am also experiencing problems with the mod. I get something like this

TextFileArchive (.\GameInfo\CAPITALSHIP_TECHBATTLESHIP.entity) missing Label: 'entityType'

I cant seem to figure out how to get the mod, I have checked File Front and Rapid Share and I cant find it. Help?