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Elemental Beta Testers: Your characters in now

Elemental Beta Testers: Your characters in now

As promised, we are going to start putting in Beta tester NPCs into the game.

If you want your NPC in the game here is what you need to do:

Step #1: Create a sovereign

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When you create this guy/gal, bear in mind that this is going to be an NPC. So don’t max him. He shouldn’t be as powerful as your sovereign so don’t use up your points.

Step #2: Find your sovereign in the documents\my games\elemental\units

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Step #3: Make them an NPC

This is relatively easy. Open up your created unit XML. Add these lines (preferably at the end just before the closing of </UnitType>:

<UnitDisplayName>Arvix</UnitDisplayName>

<Class>Mercenary</Class>
<NPCTalentValue>1</NPCTalentValue>
<NPCSpawnLikelihood>1000</NPCSpawnLikelihood>
<NPCRecruitmentText>I might be interested in joining you.</NPCRecruitmentText>
<Backstory>Put your backstory here.</Backstory>
<Rumor>There is a tale told by the people who live near %s that Arvix the mercenary will join up with anyone who has enough money.</Rumor>

Also, remove the <IsSovereign>1</IsSovereign> if you don’t want him to be one of your sovereigns to choose from.

 

Then change the display name (<DisplayName>) to Champion.

Example:

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Step #4: Send it to us

We recommend Dropbox:

https://www.dropbox.com/

To share with others, just make a post in the modding forum with the tag [NPC]

You can test out your NPCs right now. Do the above with the file that is in your my games\elemental folder and add the tags I mentioned and your NPC should be in the world.

Here’s my NPC wandering around

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Other Tips and Tricks

We use the NPCTalentValue to determine when then sovereign will spawn. 1 means they show up at the start of the game. The rest are triggered by getting a technology or an event.  For instance, we might choose to have a random event where the world is invaded by Demons and have a bunch of demons show up and have the NPCTalentValue be 37 or something.  The higher the number, the more powerful the unit.

NPCSpawnLikelihood is what we use to determine the likelyhood of it showing up. Eventually 1000 will mean it will definitely show up and 1 will mean there is a 1/1000 chance it will show up in a given game.

When you upload your NPC, include your name so that if we use your NPC, we can put you in the game’s credits.

Have fun!

124,635 views 64 replies
Reply #51 Top

As far as talents, weaknesses and professions work...do they even apply to champions? I know some obviously would make no sense, but some of them seem like they could work with champions.

Reply #52 Top

Quoting Shurdus, reply 47
So does the beta actually needs to work in order to make these characters? I for one would very much like to contribute, but at this point the beta crashes at world generation. Does this hinder me making a character?
What stage of world generation?  Do you get to the screen where you can choose/create a Sov, then the choose/create a faction screen?  If so you should be able to, and should see your custom Sov. in documents\my games\elemental\units

 

Reply #53 Top

Eh ... my NPCs are simply tailored towards their interests and strengths. The weak ones are weak, and the strong ones are strong ... however no one is truly "Maximized." ... This was so fun because I was able to simply "roleplay" the character into existence, especially since the weaker I made them the better NPC they become.

So certainly I have a few strong ones, but most are average or weak.

Reply #54 Top

another question, is there any other class besides mercenary that would still make them recruit able but for something besides money?

Reply #55 Top

Awww.... So now I found out that the game ctd on creating a sovereign as well as on generating the world. :(

Will there be any possibility that there will be characters added up until well after beta 1z4? Every 1z beta caused a ctd for me so far so I did not get a single turn in yet, and I did not get to create a character.

Reply #56 Top

@Shurdus: Considered the use of volunteers to create a Sovereign/Hero for you? (if by any chance you know the stats, talents and [especially] clothes you want to use; plus any background story [that seems to be popular to do] you may want to add)

Reply #57 Top

so now that i have done a few how do it post it useing drop box? so i just post the link the forum? or do i use it to send it somewhere?

Reply #58 Top

Quoting swordguyj, reply 57
so now that i have done a few how do it post it useing drop box? so i just post the link the forum? or do i use it to send it somewhere?

Make a new topic for your NPC in the Elemental Mods subforum. :)

Reply #59 Top

@Wintersong: thanks, but I do not know the stats in advance. I need to see what options I have in order to pick and I cannot do that right now. It is a good suggestion though. :)

Reply #60 Top

Quoting Shurdus, reply 55
Awww.... So now I found out that the game ctd on creating a sovereign as well as on generating the world.

Will there be any possibility that there will be characters added up until well after beta 1z4? Every 1z beta caused a ctd for me so far so I did not get a single turn in yet, and I did not get to create a character.

Hopefully the devs will fix the XP related CTDs/lock-ups for 1Z4. Either way, perhaps you should upgrade to Win7. Your comp is not bad. [I don't advice to upgrade to Vista, because that OS is only decent if you know how to tweak it properly with Vlite. :) - My tweaked x64 Vista is faster than Win7 and rock stable. |-)   ]

Reply #61 Top

At the moment I am considering an upgrade, but since XP will be aound for some time still and I barely have the money for it I would think I will be fine for now. Whatever may be of that, I feel that I should just keep posting crash reports and the bug will be found eventually. By then I just hope I can still get a character in. :)

Reply #62 Top

you know now that 1z4 is out and some of the options for the sov have changed, will our builds from now even be viable at the end? also are you talking amendments?

Reply #63 Top

Hey, is that really how the units will look on the cloth map, with the bases?  It looks like a chess piece; idk, but wouldn't that make the units seem more like 'pieces' than units, thus weakening the game's immersion?

Just a thought...

 

 

Reply #64 Top

Quoting Krynus, reply 63
Hey, is that really how the units will look on the cloth map, with the bases?  It looks like a chess piece; idk, but wouldn't that make the units seem more like 'pieces' than units, thus weakening the game's immersion?

Just a thought...
They are supposed to be figurines on a cloth map.o_O