modding help...

Start by getting the Forge Tools from the downloads tab. That should have most of the easy to edit .entity files in txt format, if I remember correctly.

yes ive just started modding and the forge tools tutorials and reference data are a must. the tutorial under document will tell you how to mod.

i thought that those tools only edit maps and particles... which one edits the objects (like ships and such)?

you dont need tools to edit the stats of ships. all you need is the game info. read the last adobe file in the documentation folder for those tools and it will teach you how to mod. you really dont need anything special to mod.

Game modding comes in many types of work. The majority of it (and the most important part of it) is simple text which can be edited with any text editor (thus notepad is good to start with).

what other program can i use that is free other than notepad? i cant find a damn thing on it because it is so disorganized and types things like this:
n o t e p a d.

i cant find anything when it is like that.  

plus, it makes a bunch of random symbols so if someone knows a program that uses encoding that can convert ALL of the text into something i can read, i'm all ears.
ex:

T e c h C a p i t a l B e a m _ C o r e B €? €? €? €? €? €? €? €? @@
P r o j e c t i l e 

ok you have the same problem i did. if you use wordpad instead it makes the lines go down scrolling. you need to get the free modd set from the site and replace your gameinfo files with the game info from that download. trust me. then you can see what you want.

hey! i can see it now thanks. that will help a lot!!!  :CONGRAT: 

When you get heavier into modding, you'll probably not like having tons of Notepad windows open. Try something like Notepad++, a free util that can open multiple files in the same instance, and other neat things.

two more q's:
1.--do you have to edit the 'gameplay.constants to get a mod to work?
2.--when you are finished, can you just copy the files you edited into the 'GameInfo' folder to get it to work (or the mods folder if it can work) or do you have to do anything else to it to get it to work?

1) You don't have to edit the gameplay.constants, unless your mod needs to change something in it The file basically contains stuff that's always true for all races, like market prices, phase jumping stuff, game speeds.. things like that.

2) You should never be replacing the core files, always use the mod folder, it'll work. You need to have *all* the GameInfo files in there, not just the ones you edited. What the game does is it looks in your mod path, and picks out folder names as your mod name. So, your finished mod path for should be something like ...\Mods\Test\GameInfo, and the mod selection in-game will show "Test" as the mod name.

do everything in the mods folder and make a subforlder for the mod your working on you need a copy of the gameinfo in there the last tutorial in the mods download folder under documents tells you exactly what to do.

One more thing now; i have almost finished my mod (it took me an hour to do and works perfectly) but i need one more tweak. That is, what file do i find the income sources for the crystal and metal asteroids? i want to increase them to make the game faster...

good question i need that answer myself.

You could just mod the speed options in the gameplay.constants file.

Umm just sstart looking through the entity files in the text format under reference data if you've downloaded the mod tools. They are pretty easy to understand...

no; i am looking to increase the income and not the actual gameplay... it just takes forever to get enough money to expand in the beginning of any level... that is why i am looking for this file.

I dunno where that file is. And my notepad seems to have killed itself for the time being. So I can't seem to find it.

You can, however, just mod the resource rate option in the constants file under incomeSpeedData.

how can you kill notepad....

How? Why would you want to do that? and you do realize if you can't read the font b e c a u s e i t i s l i k e t h i s, change it to tahoma, trebuchete, or TNR 12.

That was a question about "And my notepad seems to have killed itself for the time being."

I use UEStudio for text editiing. Its perfect.

Dunno. Crashes on opening. I'm like the bane of computers if I'm in the same room.
I'll figure it out eventually.

hello, in case you are still checking this post here is some info you may want.

truth: i did not read every post as im limited on time right now so this may be a repeat, but ill check back later...

I was messing with code, just cause thats what i do...

I wanted to leave the game in tact but speed up the "cold start" someone mentioned above.

This is how i did that.

There are different types of planets as you all know. Each type has its own file which can be opened in notepad etc.

I took the start planet and made more nodes with higher output, Bam mod complete lols.

Process:

make your mod folder, look elsewhere for help on this or ask and ill go into it...

Gameinfo folder

find your target planet file, this case is Terran Home, so the file is PlanetTerranHome

open it up, its pretty basic

in this file you can edit the planets expansions, ie: i made my home planet support up to 100 Civ buildings just for kicks. yay for 50 trade routes

you can also edit the population limits and all that.

keeping it simple, we want up to 10 nodes at our home planet.

find "planetResourceSetupInfo" (no quotes)

below that "totalMaxResourceAsteroids" change to 10

metalResourceAsteroidSetup
minCount 4
maxCount 6
extractionRate 1.400000
refineryRate 0.060000
maxRefineryCount 3
crystalResourceAsteroidSetup
minCount 4
maxCount 6
extractionRate 1.400000
refineryRate 0.060000
maxRefineryCount 3


What this means is that you will have a max of 10 nodes (8 min), at least 4 of each type. they will also be jacked up to 1.40 per sec.

Hope this makes sense, ask any questions you may have. im looking to be very active in the mod community here, thanks to this post as my starting point

One thing i didnt mention above.

I made more nodes for a few reasons. i could have just made 1 of each @ 50 per sec...

when under attack it will take a min to blow up 10 nodes period, 2 nodes = 50% loss then 100% of income from that planet = teh sucks.

Also having ten nodes ties up your builders and costs you money. If i wanted to instantly have millions of credits id just mod the start cash... which is an option. you could leave the game the same and just make it so you start with say 10 times more money you normally would.

many nodes is more fun to me and also makes it very wise to defend and attack home planets.

if you are wondering about the limits of this my version has 10-20 of each type, with a max of 30 and it runs fine.

that means that every players home planet had 20-30 nodes on it and makes me hunt for home planets asap.

balance is key to modding, if you speed up your start time you should also add an early objective to go for.

In my test run i noticed a change to the black market as AI players were ballin, and also saw an AI player defend a home planet for about 30 mins, this was a 3vs1 attack mind you and the planet was overflowing with ships of all kinds. coolest SINS moment so far, very epic potential in this engine cant wait to flex my code here its gunna be great.

note my version also has modded caps for fleet slots and cap slots.