Race Design Questions

[Menschenfresser]

I received my copy of SE4 a week ago and am new to this forum. I've decided to see if I can create my own race, and I have a few questions. I'd appreciate any help whatsoever.

1) In the AI general file down at the bottom, I am confused as to the function of everything that has to do with the "Race Opt 1,2,3" etc. Some of the lines I understand, but I don't quite get why there are repetitions, and what exactly the number in the "amount" line corresponds to.

2)I wanted to give this race the possibility of starting with all the colonization techs, so I just wrote in multiple "Planet type" and "Atmosphere." I was wondering if this will work, or do I need to approach it in another way.

3)In each Category, say "Happiness Type" for example, there are several selections to pick from. In this case we have three. I was wondering if I add another "Happiness" type to file, will I be able to use it in my new race. I suppose my question is, I realise I can change variables for different things, such as shields, weapons, Culture, Racial Traits, etc, but can I add new ones? Say for instance I wanted to add an "apathetic" type to the Happiness file.

I realize this is a monster of a request. My hope is that this post will lead to a sort of enlarged thread that we can all save as a newbie configuration guide.

This forum was here before me, and this may have been done before, and if so, please, point me in the right direction.

To tell you the truth, I am still in my first game, just on the side, in a separate folder, I am juicing up stuff and creating things for my second game.

Many thanks.

[Menschenfresser]

Ok, I think I have solved my own question of the "Race Opt" in the General AI file...correct me please if I am wrong.

This presents the computer with several choices for racial characteristics when it creates a new empire based upon how many exp points are chosen for the game.

Right?

[Marty Ward]

Yes, I think that is right.
If you are going to create a new race I would suggest searching the forum for ideas, even though there are a lot of Posts you can turn up a lot of info. I sometimes get overwhelmed by the number of entries a search gives and repost a question. Most people don't mind giving advice again. Good luck with your design.

[Menschenfresser]

Last night I d/led the Startrek races from Angelfire. I've placed all the necessary files here and there...at least I think I have; however, just as a test, I have started 20 new games, and never has the compter picked as a computer played race anyone other than the Klingons or Romulans. And they will only pick either one of those or none at all.

I have editted the settings.txt file and added them to the Quick section. I even rearranged the order. Still it won't pick any of the others (Borg, Federation, Dominion, etc).

Any ideas other than adding them manually and then turning them over to the computer? I sort of like the mystery of whose's out there.

[Q]

quote:

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Originally posted by Menschenfresser:
Last night I d/led the Startrek races from Angelfire. I've placed all the necessary files here and there...at least I think I have; however, just as a test, I have started 20 new games, and never has the compter picked as a computer played race anyone other than the Klingons or Romulans. And they will only pick either one of those or none at all.

I have editted the settings.txt file and added them to the Quick section. I even rearranged the order. Still it won't pick any of the others (Borg, Federation, Dominion, etc).

Any ideas other than adding them manually and then turning them over to the computer? I sort of like the mystery of whose's out there.

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You need an empire file and there a two ways to create them:
Choose in the game setup "many" for random computer empires. It is still a matter of chance if the computer will pick the desired race, so if you have 30 races in your race folder the computer will only pick 8 random empires. My trick is that I use an old modification folder with only few empires. Then the chance for the selection of the new race is up to 100%. When I have the desired empire on the player list, I switch it to human control and save it to a new empire file, which I then transfer to my actual game folder. Once you have this empire file you can select the empire under "add existing" in the player setup.
The second way to create an empire file is more direct, if you pick "add new" in the player settings. But then you must insert manually all the information for the new empire including the text for the race description yourself, which I find rather tedious. But once you have completed all the empire description use the "save" function before you actually start the game. This will create the empire file.

[Nitram Draw]

The computer should pick them at random. That sounds odd.