mods and games

[metro637]

I am looking for a battlestar galactica mod also has anyone developed any types of mods that utilized different human cultures only as different empires

[Urendi Maleldil]

Different cultures? You mean like an Age of Empires in space mod or something like that?

[metro637]

What I want to do is set up a game with only human races. If the huma race colonized the galaxy the had some sort of collapse and several civilizations started to recolonize.

[Suicide Junkie]

So, basically you just want a galaxy full of races with the same (or very similar) pictures, shipsets, and racial traits?

[geoschmo]

Easy enough to do. You don't even need a mdo for that. You can just find some different human races and use them when you set up the game. We did that in a PBW game called the quest for Terran Prime.

Someone was talking about a "Foundations" mod a while back based in the Asimov universe. That would be like what you are talking about too. But I don't know if that ever got done.

Geoschmo

[metro637]

Please forgive me, I am new. I found out that I can use as many human races as I want. I still don't know how. I followed the directions in the manual concerning adding races to the pics/races file. I get a msg teeling me that certain values are missing in the settings.txt file. I've tried doing this with several races. Can someone please give me a simple step by step guide with some examples or something please. I also want to play where civilizations have to research to discover warp points. What is the line of research for this

[oleg]

Originally posted by metro637:
Please forgive me, I am new. I found out that I can use as many human races as I want. I still don't know how. I followed the directions in the manual concerning adding races to the pics/races file. I get a msg teeling me that certain values are missing in the settings.txt file. I've tried doing this with several races. Can someone please give me a simple step by step guide with some examples or something please. I also want to play where civilizations have to research to discover warp points. What is the line of research for this

When SEIV swear about settings.txt it means the race have pre-Gold. There are several recent threads on this forum how to replace AI files. Be sure you use most recent, gold-AI files as templates. Latest TDM is the best source.

The easiest way is to copy AI files from some other race and simply rename them. For example if you have ButtUglyMartians race, copy terran_AI_research.txt into ButtUglyMartians folder and change name to ButtUglyMartians_AI_research.txt Do this for all AI files. The only care should be about AI_general.txt that contains all race information. You certainly don't want to lose it !
Also, take care about advanced racial traits. For exapmle, if your ButtUglyMartians have "organic manipulation" race trait, all AI files should be imported from the race that also have this trait, like Xi'Chun. One more thing - be sure that both races have same HW type (rock, ice, or gas).

Almost all AI should handle "warp points not connected" rather well - it has a special state "not connected" that forces AI to research stallar manipulation ASAP.

[ October 31, 2002, 15:30: Message edited by: oleg ]

[Suicide Junkie]

RE: adding races. Sounds like you are trying to add SE4 classic races to an SE4 Gold game.

Make sure you have the latest (for SE4 v1.50 or higher) Version of each race.

Re: Warppoints. All races can see warppoints at all times. Neutral races are not allowed to warp, but regular races are. There is no way to switch between the two in game.

You could make a mod such that only fighters are available at first (Since fighters can't warp). Only once you've researched ship construction level 1 can you actually build a warp-capable ship.

I don't see the point of having the races start out without the technology to move to different starsystems... you'd just have to sit around in your puny little homesystem and wait for the tech to finish. You might get a chance to build defenses on your planets while you wait, but any random differences in starting location will be amplified.

The lucky player with two breathable planets in his system will be quickly become more powerful than his neighbours who may not even have any colonizable planets in theirs.

[capnq]

The instructions for converting pre-Gold AIs are at the link in my sig.

I think metro's question might actually be, "How do I add a specific race to a game?". To do that, you use Set-Up/Players/Add Existing. To use a race this way, it has to have an .emp file in the Empires folder. If a new race didn't include .emp files with the shipset, you have to make one for each of the three point values (2000, 3000, 5000).

There are two ways to make the .emp files:

A1) start a new game with a High number of random AIs.

A2) On (F2) Game Menu/Players, turn all the AIs you want to make .emp files for to Human Controlled.

A3) On each race's turn, (F2) Game Menu/Save Empire with an appropriate name.

A4) Repeat until all the races you want have been randomly chosen.

-----

B1) Open each race's &ltraceName&gt_AI_General.txt file.

B2) Either print out the file, or write down all the information.

B3) In Set Up/Players/Add New, create a "new" race with that shipset and all its settings. Race Options 1, 2, and 3 correspond to 2000, 3000, and 5000 point games.

B4) Save the empire, as above.

I personally prefer method B), but most people seem to use A) for some reason.

[ November 01, 2002, 19:19: Message edited by: capnq ]