Modding SEV Thread Questions

[Kana]

Still is is useful information...that is about 1/30th of a LS.

Yeah I know trying to wrap your mind around the scale is confusing...yet it would see that would be a smart place to start making a game from. If you are going to use real measurments, then you should at least make sure they make sense across the board. If your using hexes, or units then use them. Once you quantify them, then your in a pickle...Now if we could actually change them in mainstrings.txt that would be even better...

[President_Elect_Shang]

Well the first problem I see is that the combat is run on squares and the system is run on hexes. Unfortunately I think you are shooting for a level of realism that SE5 just can�t deliver. For my purposes I use these terms:

1 square in the combat map is 1ls (light second).
1 hex on the system map is 1lm (light minute).

Obviously this has its flaws, but as I said SE5 just can�t offer that up. Another trick you might try is to determine the scale of the combat map the best you can; you might find something I didn�t, and then adjust the system map to better match your needs. Finally while you are pondering all of this keep in mind that weapons won�t fire on system map so any scale over combat is for all practical purposes useless for the player. Just the modder as we try to lay out the systems.

[President_Elect_Shang]

Sometimes I don�t understand why I want to do things the hardest way. I ran the distance test again and here is what I did. I sent the ships to opposite corners, aimed the weapons, and then checked the info screen to see what it said the distance was. Results:

9,499.79 km with each ship at its closest point to the edge of a 5000.0 combat map which meant there were 12 squares from each ship to the retreat line. This is in lines with the result I had which included these 24 squares.

Now light travels at 299,792,458 km/s so that means our combat map is 9,499.79 / 299,792,458 = 3.16878885592E-5. In terms us non-scientific just wanna play the game freaks can understand it�s about 9,499.79km or 5,902.8958383 miles. Ok Kana enough of this my head hurts now!

[Kana]

Actually light travels at 299,792,458 METERS/sec. Which is 299,792.456 KM/sec. For all intensive purposes thats about 300,000 KM/sec = 1 Light Second.

So basically the combat map is 9,499.79/299,792.458 = 0.031687 = 3.1687 percent of a Light Second.

So the combat map is a max of approximately 9,500KM across. I assume the map is square. So that is 90,250,000 KM of combat area. Ok now my head is starting to hurt. I'm going to assume that each system hex is 10,000 km in size. 1 Million KM of area.

So basically the weapon ranges need to be in KM to match the speeds of movement which are in KM/sec, which match the combat time which is in minutes and seconds. So has anyone changed anything in mainstrings.txt to change the combat range descriptor to KM? Or are most of you just ignoring that it says LS, and think of it as KM?

Well this all actually helps me for both of my mods, I just now have to figure out how I want to implement the information.

[President_Elect_Shang]

So that was 299,792_point_458! That web site was so hard to read! Um, MainStrings.txt! Well I suppose I need to setup a Knowledge Base for that next before I forget what I have already done. The MainStrings.txt seems to be the hidden key to unlocking everything you can do in SE5. I�m surprised no one else has modded it. Wow I really am pioneering some new ground here aren�t here?

Since I won�t be setting up that KB till later here is what I will add. I have managed to change text but you cannot delete any lines. Even if you renumber to close the gap up when you start SE5 it will complain the lines are missing and stop running. You can rename items but if they start up with a blue box as in the main startup screen you need to replace any text you remove with a place holder or the box will move to sit on the one above it. For example let�s say you want to remove the option for no warp points. You will need to delete the text then place something there (I placed �No Longer Used�) so the box that was no warp points won�t move up and sit on the box above it. You will be able to change the text to say km/s instead of ls. Just make sure it is not a descriptor for a formula, which I am not aware of any that use ls. Also if you need to know what formula descriptors you can use (an example of what I am calling a descriptor would be Get_Empire_Tech_Level) just look in the MainString.txt. It won�t tell you how to use it or which files it can be used in but so far every descriptor I have pulled from there works after figuring out how to plug the info in. Just remember that all of the descriptors listed there have had the capital letter removed and you will need to replace it. In other words using the same example I just gave Get_Empire_Tech_Level appears in MainStrings.txt as get_empire_tech_level. So you would need to replace the letters G, E, T, and L with the capitalized version. I will post all this more clearly (I hope) later today or tonight.

[Kana]

About those descriptors, Did you get the description files from Kwok's yet, PES?

http://www.captainkwok.net/files/DescriptionFiles.zip

[President_Elect_Shang]

I did thank you; but the main string contains all of them. I think it even has ones that aren�t working yet.

[Kana]

Are we sure that the Combat Radius can only be set to a Max of 5000? What are you basing this info on? I mean if it lets us change it in settings.txt I could in theory set it for any number unless there is something hardcoded that would prevent it. I assume you've tried 5000 PES? Has anyone else tried anything over 5000? I will have to consider doing some tests myself... I can see the only downsides that it make take up some more FPS on the slower systems, and all the ships and such will end up being really tiny in the zoom screen, but we can adjust that as well. Is there a max zoom amount? I ask because I want to know how much room in combat I have to work with, or can make to work with. Of course I think it was mentioned that weapons have a max range of 500 anyway which I just remembered, and the game will only display up to 300. Bah...

[President_Elect_Shang]

Right the max combat of 5000 is hearsay from one of the Beta Testers. I have tested the combat map at 5000 and it is insanely large. Even with combat set at 7 minutes the two sides couldn�t reach each other at my max ship speed of 8km/s. The ships were very tiny, so tiny I had to use the weapon range ring just to locate those little dots and zoom in! I have no idea what the max for zoom range is although there must be one. Setting the combat map larger wouldn�t cause me to be concerned about the FPS. I would be worried about multiplayer games where combat never happens but the turn takes for ever to run because a ship is trying to flee the whole time. Remember that with SE5 v1.17 combat will continue until time runs out. If you set the combat map to 5000 you will need to increase the combat time so all players have the best possible chance to fight and even force retreat on another player if that is their goal. If the ship can�t reach the retreat line and the time runs out retreat never happens and you will end up with a series of battles taking place in one system hex when it should have been spread over several. Also if you increase the combat time the turn processing will surpass most any humans� tolerance level if there are one or more AI empires. I know you are aiming for reality in your mods but; like the Matrix, you are still bound by the laws of this reality Neo. You can bend them but they won�t break! Just try to keep these things in mind so you don�t end up building a great mod that dies because it takes forever for the first turn to process!

[Kana]

Darn you Daggit...There is always someone busting my modding bubble...Yeah small size would be a problem in a simo game, but the time/retreat thing could be an issue...I guess I will have to severely scale down everything even more...I seem to be limited by range of weapons in SEV anyway so I will have to just start from there.

On the plus side, while using a search function on mainstrings.txt, it seems that you can change the moniker for ship speed so you can have it in km/s or G's, or even warp factors if one wants...That will help with my sanity some...