Major Races and other questions (New Modder)

You can never have more then 10 major and 8 minor races in any given game, but as far as I know, there isn't really a limit on how many you can have as options.

Yeah, I knew you probably couldn't have more in a game but more variety in the options is always a good thing

The number of minor races is pretty much unlimited. The number of major races can't be changed, as far as I know. I never tried that myself, however, so don't take my word for it.

It is definitely possible to give each minor it's own tech tree. You just need to change the line from MinorRace_TechTree to the name of your new tech tree. The minors have, however, a few problems. Recent discoveries showed, that 1) they only have access to Super Projects, but not to Galactic Achievements or Trade Goods, and 2) there is a (nonsensical) rule as to what techs the minors have access to in the game. I made a post about my findings. You can find it here.

I hope that helps. Your idea definitely sounds interesting.

I checked out your findings and I have to ask to make sure I'm understanding right.

So, if I were to give say the Snathi a new tech tree that is ONLY for the Snathi everything would work properly? I assume that trading the Minors for those unique techs would be safe since they would have already researched them?

Also, do we have any idea why they aren't able to use Trade Goods or Galactic Achievments? That puts a slight kink in my plans...

Depends on the techs. If it is something nobody else has, it's fine. But you still have to make sure, that some of the generic techs don't suddenly disappear.


I'm not quite certain about it, but I think it is an attempt to distinguish the minors more from the major races.

Well, this should be interesting to say the least...

You may not be able to add major races in the sense of giving them a race ID and getting them on the race selection screen, but you can make an unlimited number of custom races with their own stats and TechTrees.  There's no need to be restricted by customization points, either.  After you make a custom race, they get their own .xml file that you can mod up any way you want.

Even if new races aren't in the selection list they would still be in the load list when choosing to create a custom race or opponent though right? I don't really NEED to be able to play as the new races, just having them as possible opponents is enough...

Though I imagine it wouldn't be too tough to switch out one or more original races for new races if I wanted to play as one of them.

 

Noticed something I found sort of odd. Was looking through some of the different Tech Trees in-game to get an idea of where things could be added or expanded on. Noticed that some races had their symbol (Which I'm guessing represents their unique techs) on technology that all races get.

Do these races just have slight variations of the same tech or is it something else?

 

Never really looked through the tech trees before. Actually surprised me how many unique things there are. Still room to improve further though

Already got a basic tech tree (copied and renamed the Terran tree) stripped of it's unique features and ready for modding. Now I just have to decide on what race to build first...so many interesting possibilities

I never used custom races, but that would be my guess.


Yes, that would be easy to do.


That happens every time a tech is unique to a race in a given game. Minor races are excluded from this, for obvious reasons. Impulse Drive, for example, isn't a unique tech by itself, but if your only opponent is the Arcean Empire, it will be one in this match.

Guess that makes sense

Custom races will be available if you choose the Custom Race in the race selection screen.  Then, there is an option on the bottom to "Load".  You can load up any custom race and off you go.

All the customs are also available as opponents.  So, all problems solved.

Run into a rough spot I can't figure out. Trying to add a new group of techs to the Terran tree. I managed to get the 3 techs grouped together easily enough but upon trying to add the planetary improvement and it's upgraded versions I found that for some reason only the first, weakest version was showing up. The other two techs in the group gave the proper bonus but no improvement was given.

Any suggestions? As far as I can tell I've done everything right, checked everything that seemed like an obvious culprit...

Just to be clear: You added three techs, and each tech gives access to a planetary improvement, where each improvement is an upgrade of the former one. Is that right?

If the techs don't show the new improvements, make sure, that the tech requirement for each improvement is set correctly. It needs to be written exactly as it is in the tech tree. If they do show the new improvements, but you can't build the new versions, make sure that the upgrade target points to the next weaker version. I.E., the base improvement is the target for the first upgrade, the first upgrade is the target for the second one, and so on.

Yes, that's exactly right.

It only showed the first level of the improvement so it's probably something with the tech tree...Wait, does the tech requirement need to be written the same way as the TechID or the same as it is in-game? Those were actually different, the ID had 2 and 3 at the end of the higher techs but the Display Name had II and III.

I think I may have been matching the Display Name...I'd test it but I don't have time right now so hopefully someone will verify.

It needs to be the TechID. The ID is unique for each tech, while the display name can be different for each race.

That was probably my problem then, I'll know for sure once I reinstall. Discovered some weirdness that will hopefully be fixed by a reinstall...

After a little research I figured out the weirdness, not a problem at all, just never wasted time updating so didn't have the extra options added by the patches (random event and extreme planet settings on game setup, and tech brokering)

Can play without it just fine though so who cares Back to working on figuring out the modding stuff.

Does the Planet Quality ever max out? As in, if you had a planet that was just land could you end up having every single square open for use with enough work/random events? I assume ocean squares never become usable...

Ocean tiles can become usable, I usually see it happen when extra tiles are added through the Weather Control Center and Biosphere Modulator, if all the land has been used up. I have never seen a fully maxed-out planet, but somewhere I have a screenshot of the highest-PQ planet I ever saw, will try to dig it up - and I think elsewhere on the forum someone posted one too, somewhere...

All tiles can become useful. I once had a real monster planet, due to a random event. The event, that doubled the base PQ of a planet, happened to one of the planets of the Altarians. The base PQ was 29 (already the best in the game) turning it into a PQ 58 (!) planet. Add 3 more tiles, due to terraforming, and then another 3, because the Altarians build the Biosphere Modulator there. After I "acquired" the planet, I build a Weather Control Center (bought from the Arceans) there, adding yet another 3 tiles. Now, keep in mind, that I added 10% bonus to the Planet Quality ability to the techs Extreme Colonization, Biological Studies, Weather Control and Divergent Evolution and another 10% to the Orbital Terraformer. I had all of those, except Divergent Evolution. The terraforming tiles are not used in the calculation, as far as I can tell, but it wouldn't have been necessary, anyhow. Even a 10% bonus to PQ would have been enough, because the maximum number of available tiles is 72.

Dang, I'm doing pretty well then The second planet I colonized in my current game was a Class 26. Currently Class 31 through improvements. Got it set up as my Economic Capital and it is bringing in tons of money. Currently over 200000 bc.

Also got a Class 18 I haven't upgraded yet set up as my shipyard. Well protected to since it's on the edge of the map and I control everything near it.

Haven't got Terraformers yet but that will really boost someof these planets.

What in the world did you do to get that kind of income?  I've never come anywhere even remotely close to that.  Even when I'm running half of an immense galaxy my total economy tops out way below that.

200000 is my current total, not my income. My income is a little over 1000 at the high points and around 600 the rest of the time. Was making about 2000 per turn for a while during a really high point.

I can see how that would have been confusing.

 

Having so much money actually saved my game, I was able to buy and then destroy an Arnorian Ranger the Thalans found. Way too early for ships like that to be running around.

Finished off that game with an influence victory, was bringing in over 5000 bc in profit, mostly from tourism. Had no idea tourism was so lucrative!