Slitherine

Hey, here it is another crazy idea for modders

After my video "fiasco" i was wondering the other day if it will be possible to edit the loading tips, both text and pics in the loading screens. Yeah, i'm talking about these boring messages that tells you for the nth time the difference between floatplanes and regular ones while you wait the good thing starts.



So, the idea would be to replace the tips with little pills of information about the context of your mod, for example history, politics, geograhpy, technical military info or similar, relevant to the scenario/campaign you are playing, to add a little of flavour to the casserole. I can imagine the BrucErick's wonderful finnish campaign with little infos regarding the Fin Civil War, or some of their famous quotes. Or the Zekedia's Pacific Mod with infos regarding Shangai in the 30s or the strategic british deployment in the area just before WW2.

So ok, that would be the idea, but, is it feasible in a mod?

Editing the text should be easy enough, since they can be access through the txt files in the Language folder. But the images... the images could be a problem. At first i though it would be also easy, since at least some of the pics used in the tips are the same that you can find in the Tutorial folder. But replacing those doesn't work. I have been trying different folders, like LoadTips, Tips, or Loading, without luck.

So... any ideas regarding the pics? Do you think editing only the text would be also interesting? Or you think that with or without pics replacing the loading tips is stupid?

Love to read your thoughts

My guess is that any loading images that are in the Tutorial folder are coincidental and/or vestigial. My further guess is that those images were moved a long time ago to one or more of those resources.bin or sharedassets.assets files. Those files are designed to be off-limits to game modders; I will say no more about that. My opinion is, the mismatch between the loading image and the text talking about unrelated historical matters would bother me. Picture an image of a Japanese Zero over jungle while talking about battles in the frozen north of Finland.

Thanks for your feedback, very insightful as usual, Bru. Yeah, I will grumply admit that without the possibility of changing pics, the idea of edititing the text loses great part of the appeal. Still... I'm still not 100% ready to let it go to the possibility of playing a bit with the tips :/ As we spaniards say... i will discuss it with my pillow (i will make my mind in the near future)

Just to clarify, I didn't want to change anything that is not supposed to be moddable, but it is my understanding (maybe I'm wrong) that sometimes modding certain parts of OoB is not exactly straightfordward, and i wouldn't be the first time that "trial and error" works with the game, therefore my questions

Anyway, thanks again

I have edited the data of assets files before, though that was with a different game. I could try to poke around, and see if any of it could be changed.
Looking at the sharedasset files, the text doesn’t seem to be located in the .assets files, but likely the .resS files. It seems that the decoded text is complete gibberish, while normal text would typically be... well... normal text.
The .resS doesn’t provide the text either, is it possible the text is located within the language files?

Apparently yes, it is. The loading tips are located in the first English Language file, titled “english.txt.” Search using Ctrl+F, using “LOADING TIPS.”

Zekedia222 wrote: ↑Mon Jun 29, 2020 11:58 pm I have edited the data of assets files before, though that was with a different game. I could try to poke around, and see if any of it could be changed. Looking at the sharedasset files, it seems they aren’t located in the .assets files, but likely the .resS files. It seems that the decoded text is complete gibberish, while normal text would typically be... well... normal text.

Is it possible the text is located within the language files?
Apparently yes, it is. The loading tips are located in the first English Language file, titled “english.txt.” Search using Ctrl+F, they should be under // LOADING TIPS

They are indeed in the language .txt files, yep, although I still haven't tried editing them, i don't foresee problems in that regard (i have been wrong before, so...).

If I have enough time I will definetively edit the tips in the upcoming version of my mod. Not sure if these editions will survive in future updates but... I think it's worth the (little) work. Also, I had an idea for what kind of content I could put in. Let's see how it turns out

LNDavoust wrote: ↑Tue Jun 30, 2020 12:19 am

Zekedia222 wrote: ↑Mon Jun 29, 2020 11:58 pm I have edited the data of assets files before, though that was with a different game. I could try to poke around, and see if any of it could be changed. Looking at the sharedasset files, it seems they aren’t located in the .assets files, but likely the .resS files. It seems that the decoded text is complete gibberish, while normal text would typically be... well... normal text.

Is it possible the text is located within the language files?
Apparently yes, it is. The loading tips are located in the first English Language file, titled “english.txt.” Search using Ctrl+F, they should be under // LOADING TIPS

They are indeed in the language .txt files, yep, although I still haven't tried editing them, i don't foresee problems in that regard (i have been wrong before, so...).

If I have enough time I will definetively edit the tips in the upcoming version of my mod. Not sure if these editions will survive in future updates but... I think it's worth the (little) work. Also, I had an idea for what kind of content I could put in. Let's see how it turns out

I think so long as you don’t change the which loading tip it is (i.e. loading_tip_0, loading_tip_1) it shouldn’t fail.