Design Template question

[grumble314]

How do I keep getting rail guns on my ships when my design template has WeaponRailGun set to 0 and WeaponBeam set to 8?

[Darkspire]

Have you also changed the research settings for the race in the races policy file? Those need to match the design templates as far as I am aware.

Darkspire

[grumble314]

Hmm will check and this is supposed to be better?

[Darkspire]

Don't shoot the messenger [:D]

I really liked the old way of creating designs, no one was more disappointed then me when I found Shadows had changed the rules, I had over 1800+ designs done and working WAD in Legends, I am still trying to work this template idea out myself, much more work and very little feedback until you try them in game, with the old method you made eight levels of designs for each class, which worked out about 200+ designs per race, once you got the hang of it you could do a race in a hour or two, with the new ones I will be looking at double that at least per race and that is without testing, would have been good that we had a choice, a simple theme options file that either you had templates(AI designs) or design files (manual designs) activated.

Darkspire

[Haree78]

ORIGINAL: grumble314

Hmm will check and this is supposed to be better?

You're name is very self aware.

Your rail guns research are probably several tech levels above one of your other weapons.

[grumble314]

Yes I do like to grumble from time to time, actually Titan Beams was much higher it was the research settings. Thanks for the help Darkspire.

[kasper747]

So fare as I know, rail guns
WeaponBeam; WeaponPhaser and WeaponRailGun are all from one group and will be replaced by each other if in Empire Policy (not races.txt) one of the tech areas is higher in priority the others.

So tech and design are connected. Priority in tech means also priority in design.

I see this as problem for such races as Atuuk. They have rail gun everywhere. So they will have problems late game. To neglect this somehow I added to the late game ships more missiles and torpedoes.

[Gorofin]

That is more or less the same question I tried to get answered:

How can I change the template in game, while I still want to use the autoupdate and autorefit functions ?

I didn't get an answer yet.

I solved it for me, that I turned off autoupdate and autorefit for the wanted designs, and use "manual autoupdate" from time to time on my changed design. That works, but makes more mircomanagment.

[Falokis]

Make a zip file with your race, policy, and designs included and post it up. The only time I've run into this problem is when the tech levels are very different. That doesn't sound like the case. Your policy setting can have some affect, so I'm interested to see your settings. For example: If you have beams in your template, the AI will chose impact blaster over long range beams when RAW POWER is the "Research Design Overall Focus". I'm thinking Darkspire might be correct in some way. Templates work perfect for me lately.

[Darkspire]

ORIGINAL: Falokis

Make a zip file with your race, policy, and designs included and post it up. The only time I've run into this problem is when the tech levels are very different. That doesn't sound like the case. Your policy setting can have some affect, so I'm interested to see your settings. For example: If you have beams in your template, the AI will chose impact blaster over long range beams when RAW POWER is the "Research Design Overall Focus". I'm thinking Darkspire might be correct in some way. Templates work perfect for me lately.

That's twice today that someone said I am right about something, at this rate I may even start to think my brain cell has got company [:D]

Yes the policy files are linked, from what I can brainwork it is something along the lines of;
Alter the ingame policy settings for your race for your preferences of tech in the research section, save it in your themes policy folder.
Exit to main menu and change the theme to default then exit game.
Open your theme / policy folder and open the policy file and go down to the research section.
Now open the templates folder and open all the designs for your race (I use TextPad as I can edit all the files at once, makes tracking changes easier) then edit the policy file research choices to the templates.
Load DW and change the theme to your custom one and start a new game and then see if they work.
I use a default word doc for planning them at present, way more complicated than it need be or was but other than writing them down by hand from the policy screen and saving then opening the templates I can not find a shorter or easier way of doing it. I do not even use auto design in my games, that is what really grinds my gears, the old way was for manual design in Legends, in Shadows that has been shifted to auto, I personally would prefer the choice of either manual created designs or template auto designs in a custom theme.

Darkspire

[kasper747]

The best Programm for editing so fare: UltraEdit or some thing simplier notepad++.

[Darkspire]

ORIGINAL: kasper747

The best Programm for editing so fare: UltraEdit or some thing simplier notepad++.

UltraEdit is seriously over priced for what is does and Notepad++ is far to limited in features to be of any real use, neither offer the ease of use or flexibility with multiple editing of files that TextPad does.

Darkspire

[Falokis]

I want to keep this thread going because it seems many people aren't even aware of the design templates or how they work. I'm sure the modding guide will be updated soon(ish) to reflect this change. I only want to help those needing it because (in my opinion) this is a substantial change. It should really be embraced by the modding community here to make the game better and more challenging.

[dostillevi]

I would recommend winmerge for editing files as well, especially if you need to identify differences between two files (or edit 2 at once).

My big question about templates is how scaling works when the template calls for more components than ship size allows.