Planetary modding questions

[Flef]

I have a few small questions before drawning myself into modding. If nobody answer i'll find the answeralone but it would be time saving if somebody knows.
I would like to redo by a mod the planets. And ideally I want to recreate this planet classification:


Is it possible? What are the constraints to know regarding the addition of planets?

Regarding the galaxy generation at start and the AI , is it something to know or the AI doesn't really care about the planet type name?

Apparently there is a kind of "starting set" of planets for the game generation, is it modificable without crashing the game at some stage or impairing the AI?

[Firefox440]

Hi. Do you want create new planets or do you want replace the original planets?

Regarding the galaxy generation at start and the AI , is it something to know or the AI doesn't really care about the planet type name?

This is more a question for Ufnv because I do not the answer.

Apparently there is a kind of "starting set" of planets for the game generation, is it modificable without crashing the game at some stage or impairing the AI?

Edit the originals do not crash the game or affect to the IA.

Other point is what do you want edit? the colors or the type? because the type is in PLANTYPE.INI but the colors are in folders which you must extract. The colors are set by some configuration files, in the folder CONFIG.A and they modified the files from the folders TEXTURES\DETAIL and MAPS. These images are black/grey images where you can paint colors for different heights. Ufnv told me this few time ago.

[Temperate]
GradientSteps=9
GradientDirection=1
Palette1=0,220,200,180
Palette2=5,179,160,120
Palette3=15,153,143,92
Palette4=25,115,128,77
Palette5=49,42,102,41
Palette6=50,69,108,118
Palette7=51,17,82,112
Palette8=55,9,62,92
Palette9=100,2,43,68

These is the colouring scheme. Note, there are 9 Palette entries (the number defined by GradientSteps).

For each palette entry, first number indicated the "hight" of the terrain it indicated, 50 being the "sea level", 0 - highest mountains, 100 - deepest ocean. Other heights are interpolated between given values.

I will add more to the questions and answers guide soon.

[Flef]

I want to add new planets. Original planets are covered by he nomenclature or are a nice additions (ie acidic).
But adding new world may not be something the game will like. I'll probably edit the name for the original ones. But you did it on your mod. Coruscant was defined as "Temperate".

Every planet type will have it own definition of slots for domes, productions, farming, platforms, celestial stations & resources.
then after the tech tree (and surely at some point the AI scripting if needed) will be modified etc... to adapt the game to the new planets with new domes, stations and structures in order add a bit more thickness on the empire side of the tech tree

but first things first :p


Many thanks on the explanation regarding the config files. You saved me a lot of time I think.

[Firefox440]

I have asked to Ufnv about the addition from new planets, or he answer about this here or he will answer me and after it, I will tell you.

[Flef]

arf. I'm struggling with -extractall to extract the game files. I did the manipulation for a steam distribution but it doesn't work. I simply get a white screen for one or two seconds and that's all. I tried something like 20 different ways to get the extraction. invalid serial key :XD:


Gonna wait for the patch then.

[Ufnv]

I have a few small questions before drawning myself into modding. If nobody answer i'll find the answeralone but it would be time saving if somebody knows.
I would like to redo by a mod the planets. And ideally I want to recreate this planet classification:

Is it possible? What are the constraints to know regarding the addition of planets?

Yes, it is totally possible. You just make a type for them and tune planet visualiser parameters to make it look like you want.

Look at plantype.ini and config.a/ directory (latter - in a pack, so need to extract it first).

Regarding the galaxy generation at start and the AI , is it something to know or the AI doesn't really care about the planet type name?

AI does not really care. But there are guidelines on where to generate these planets, how often, which can be a homeworld, etc.

Apparently there is a kind of "starting set" of planets for the game generation, is it modificable without crashing the game at some stage or impairing the AI?

Yes, it is totally modificable, AI is made to adopt to the available set.

[Flef]

Many thanks ufnv.

I think I got it to extract the data

[Firefox440]

Do not worry if extract the files takes 30 minutes or more. Just a point, while it happens, with alt+tab, you can leave to windows, if you have as me 4 HDD, you can extract the files in one when you are not working and continue making other things with the others.

[Flef]

Gracias por tu ayuda . No te molestes, hago un poco de gestion de datos en mi trabajo.

I can't get the .exe running with the -design option. Not a big deal for what I want to do but I wonder if Win10 is not doing something weird. It is a very basic command and it shouldn't be troublesome... But anyway I have seen weirder with windows.

My next challenge before adding planet ((actually I wait for the patch to be released) is to modelize the tech tree. Which is rather fun... 4 dimensions (Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics)...


____

But suddenly I think I got the trick to make something legible.

Edit : Erf no. too many fields of research :XD:

[Firefox440]

What error do you see? Have you edited the game? can you load the normal game? I do not know, it is very simple. Just open a CMD screen, set the polaris sector folder and to write Polarissector -design , nothing more.

What version from the game have you? Steam or Slitherine?

[Flef]

What error do you see? Have you edited the game? can you load the normal game? I do not know, it is very simple. Just open a CMD screen, set the polaris sector folder and to write Polarissector -design , nothing more.

What version from the game have you? Steam or Slitherine?

I have a steam distribution 1.02. I didn't put my hands into the beta yet.
I know it is simple. I tried into the launch options, a shortcut, a batch, the cmd.exe*, a VB exe, a C# exe, etc.... To get the launch option running. Either I have the invalid serial key erreor, either I have nothing
I do not get any error. Game can launch normally if I remove the -design(or extract all).

If we can get rid of the "invalid serial key" error when we use a shortcut with "-design" and "-extract all" with the steam distribution that would be fine for everybody I think. I don't know the steam API. I don't know how hard it is to make.



* that's a very weird stuff : by cmd.exe I can't have the "-extract all" running but by a batch it runs... while it calls a dos command. :XD:

[Firefox440]

I informed about it when the game was released but the unique solution by the moment is to wait to the modding patch where if I am not wrong, the cells editor will be divided from the main program.

[Flef]

I informed about it when the game was released but the unique solution by the moment is to wait to the modding patch where if I am not wrong, the cells editor will be divided from the main program.

I'm completely confident in Ufnv.

Anyway the cell editor is in the last pool of things I'll need to modify. First I have to do my new planetology

Gonna be a busy weekend.

[Ufnv]

I informed about it when the game was released but the unique solution by the moment is to wait to the modding patch where if I am not wrong, the cells editor will be divided from the main program.

Yes, it's because I did not know how it works with Steam. Now I removed the Steam protection if running with some option...

[Flef]

Out of curiosity

I have a small question about the meaning of very good, normal, very bad parameters in the plantype.ini

Code: Select all

PLANET
  Normal "Heavy" "Heavy_name"
PLANET
  VeryGood "Gaia" "Gaia_name"
PLANET
  VeryBad "Exhausted2" "Exhausted2_name"

What it means ? I do not see what it impacts.

the plantype.ini is very interesting file.



On antoher side, still for curiosity, I can't open the .raw files in the MAPS folder (doesn't seem to the .raw used in digital cameras). I suppose they are the height maps for the planets. Do somebody have an idea of what it is? And how to open them.

[Flef]

Planet created :p



Just a draft but it is a piece of cake to add a planet type. The longuest thing to do is to type the description in the LANG folder.

[Ufnv]

Out of curiosity

I have a small question about the meaning of very good, normal, very bad parameters in the plantype.ini

Code: Select all

PLANET
  Normal "Heavy" "Heavy_name"
PLANET
  VeryGood "Gaia" "Gaia_name"
PLANET
  VeryBad "Exhausted2" "Exhausted2_name"

What it means ? I do not see what it impacts.

Actually, nothing. It's obsolete.

On antoher side, still for curiosity, I can't open the .raw files in the MAPS folder (doesn't seem to the .raw used in digital cameras). I suppose they are the height maps for the planets.

These are pure bitmap files, three of four bytes per pixel and no header.

Do somebody have an idea of what it is? And how to open them.

Just textures. Height maps are generated - can be configured with config.a/ files.

[Proeliumerus]

Sorry for hijacking this thread, I was wondering about the moons of the planet?

One mod I really liked from Sins of a Solar Empire was making moons mini-planets / better star-bases.

What I'd love to do is have moons as mini-planets. They can work off of the planetary list for definitions.

This could be unlocked through 2 steps: New Research Item, followed by something per planet.

Is this do-able?

[Flef]

As far as I know I do not think so.

[freifrei]

Is it possible to add tech-locked resource bonuses or additional building slots?
I've tried to fiddle with

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  Additional
    Gravitonium Rnd 5 Min 1 Max 2 "SCDEEPSCAN"
    Reidium Rnd 5 Min 1 Max 2 "SCDEEPSCAN"
    Metals Rnd 5 Min 1 Max 2 "SCDEEPSCAN"
    Organics Rnd 5 Min 1 Max 2 "SCDEEPSCAN"
    Radioactives Rnd 5 Min 1 Max 2 "SCDEEPSCAN"    

section, but stuff like

Code: Select all

 Override PlanetaryFactory Min 30 Max 45 "TECHNAME"

or

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PlanetaryFactory Min 30 Max 45 "TECHNAME" 

or

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    Prod 1.2 "TECHNAME"

is not recognized