[Solution]Galaxy Forge Maps not appearing in entrenchment

New content has to be added to the appropriate manifest or added to the appropriate user data directory. We'd prefer if people used the user data directory.

C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\Galaxy

or

C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\Galaxy

cool, cool, thanks, and dang you're up late

I've done the above but as I come to play the map I get an instant defeat and if I click "keep playing" I see an empty galaxy.

Now I seem to remember there was some edit to do with notepad for a problem of this kind so I've opened the map and noticed VersionNumber says 3 already and the problem persist.

I have all the same problems. Solutions?

Here my solution, if you have scanario maps for your mod:

add in your mod folder an "Galaxy" folder and add your maps to the galaxy.manifest.

Don't forget to change the number of maps on the top!

I think if you add the galaxy files the normal entrenchement galaxy folder or the vanilla galaxy folder

they also should work. But I haven't tested it yet.

If you put them in the user datafolder:

C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\Galaxy

you get the automatic lost bug again as it was in earlier versions of sins.

It does seem to work if you create a mod and then put the new map in it. load the mod and the map works fine.  For some reason vanilla entrenchment will not read(they do not even appear on the map list) maps unless you create a sperate mod for it. 

I even tried changing the galaxy count on vanilla entrenchment to see if that would make the map apear, no dice.  

Keeping in mind galaxy forge 3 maps load in vanilla sins with no problem.  AND keeping in mind I put the entenchment maps right were blair told us to.

So unless I am missing something, or this was the way entrenchment was supose to work i think we have codeing a booboo.

The only way I got it to work was to put my map.galaxy into the Entrenchment folder;

C:\Program Files (x86)\Stardock Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\Entrenchment\Galaxy

and then edit the galaxy.manifest file in;

C:\Program Files (x86)\Stardock Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\Entrenchment

added my file name to the end of the list and then added 1 to the fileCount property.

bingo! I can can play my map now.

(this is Vista64, so your path names will be different in XP)

 One problem thou, the browse name showed up as "Gateway", something funky still, but it plays.

DKM2, it works like a charm. I added filename "(name of your map)" in the galaxy.manifest folder at the end of the list and it shows the correct name in game.

I tried that method DMK2 but when I go to load the game, my PC just crashes on a black screen and I have to switch it off. Tried all sorts of different ways to modify it, but just comes up with the same black screen. Any ideas anyone?

To get galaxy files to work in vanilla Sins:

You need to put the galaxy file in your

Program Files/Stardock Games/Sins of a Solar Empire/Galaxy directory.

To get galaxy files to work in Entrenchment:

You need to put the galaxy file in your

Program Files/Stardock Games/Sins of a Solar Empire/Entrenchment/Galaxy directory.

Then you have to add it to the galaxy.manifest file in the Entrenchment directory.  This is a new step because Entrenchment uses a different system to keep track of where all the files are, to make it possible to stack mods.  Likely vanilla Sins will eventually switch over to this system.

To add it to the manifest file, add 1 to the fileCount at the top, then add another fileName.  Make sure you spell fileName properly (capital N) and make sure you have quotes around the actual name.  In short, make sure you are using the exact same formatting.

Don't use the folder under user settings (on vista, it's part of the User directory, on XP, it's part of the Documents and Settings dir).  It will cause instant game loss, this folder is for maps created with the in-game map creator. 

There we go finally!!!!! Thanks psugar it took a while but finally got it to work. In the end it didnt apear under the custom maps list like it did before an I crossed my fingers an woot!

Thanks for reply. I have done exactly as you say, but I still have the same problem. Game refuses to load and just stays on a black screen. Can anyone help?

K instead of editing my earlyer post a hundred times as new wierd stuff happens I made a new one.

After I got it working it I saved my game at start an came back here an cheered then went back to load my game that I had just saved. Well after teh load bar entrenchment minimized an the stupid vista "it has stopped working" report poped up. But I went back to the minimized sins game which aperantly had died an for some reason it was playing normally. Not sure if it will die in some time or something but woot an im back playing.

Not sure if anyone else will be that lucky.

Hey all, psugar you're solution works great for maps made with standard galaxy forge, but isn't working with maps that include modified planets.  The map shows up when I disable the mod, but of course any of the non standard planets simply aren't there.  When the mod is enabled the map doesn't show up on the list.  Any ideas anybody?

Well, got the map with the mod planets to show up on the list by adding a galaxy folder to the mod itself and then altering the galaxy.manifest file in the mod folder, but the non-standard planets still disappear when the game starts.   Any ideas?

Alright, nevermind I got it figured out.  Didn't realize there was an update to entrenchment already.  Once the update was dl, the map works great.

If your custom planets are missing, you may not have updated the galaxyscenariodef file that the game uses?

fearnly: can you send your galaxy.manifest and your .galaxy file to [email protected] with a link to this thread?  We can have a look at it.

Things to try if galaxy forge or particle forge won't load:

Please make sure you have your .Net frameworks up to date (service pack 2 for .Net 2.0). 

Try moving the d3dx9_36.dll from the Sins directory to the location of ParticleForge.

If that fails, installing the DirectX runtime from March 2008 has fixed problems on a couple of machines here at work.

Please post back if any of these things fix your problem.

I followed the steps you posted previously, but my galaxy forge maps still don't appear.

A map I created with the in-game map editor appeared in the custom maps area, but the ones from the forge did not.

Also, my player profile didn't carry over...but my achievements did.  Not sure if this is intentional or not...

The custom maps section is for the maps created with the in-game map creator.  If you follow the steps above, your map will show up with the rest of the maps, sorted by the number of players.

Not to drill this to death, but I play with the same three people and we all have the same problem as listed above. We have tried the methods listed and we can't get it to work. And it is not just for entrenchment, it is for the normal sins as well. And this all started after the final release of entrenchment. We have all completed the latest updates, and are still at a loss.

Is there something that we are missing?

Is it just me or is the way of adding custom forged maps to the game a bit overcomplicated? I can see copying the maps to a specific directory (even if that means having custom maps in two different places) but also having to edit game files?

It's maybe even fine for the people who design maps, as they are prepared to deal with some 'dirty' editing anyway, but to the casual player who just wants to download and play a map, it's simply too many things to remember.

How about adding a functionality to the Forge (or, better, Sins itself) "Install Custom Map" that takes the map file, copies it to the relevant folder and takes care of the manifest entry?

Heh.  pndrev has it... we're looking into ways of making it easier.

For now though:

If your map is in the manifest file, you've put it in the right location, and it's still not showing up in the appropriate spot (Small,Medium,Large), open it in notepad and confirm that the version is 3.  Version 2 maps will not show up no matter what you do, because they will cause a crash if you try to load them.

If you've got a version 3 map that won't show up, and you've edited your manifest file properly (don't forget to change the count at the top!), email support with the two files.

Also, some mods may cause your game to use a different manifest file.  If your map isn't showing up after putting it in the manifest file, and it's the right version, disable any mods and check if it shows up.

The game won't even load now, with my custom map added into it.  I had to remove it in order to get sins to start.

pndrev's idea is an excellent one.  With as much modding as sins has, and as open to it as the dev's seem to be, I'm surprised this type of feature hasn't been implemented yet.