Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide

Please post here for questions and discussion about scenario, art and sound modding and the game editor for Distant Worlds.

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Raap
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RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide

Post by Raap »

Lots of nice stuff here, looking great.

I assume getting the AI to use newly added technologies/components is just a matter of adding them to the appropriate race/empire files?
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ehsumrell1
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RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide

Post by ehsumrell1 »

Well stated Darkspire! [:)]
Shields are useless in "The Briar Patch"...
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tjhkkr
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RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide

Post by tjhkkr »

This is going to be a whole lot of fun![:)]
Remember that the evil which is now in the world will become yet more powerful, and that it is not evil which conquers evil, but only love -- Olga Romanov.
swizzlewizzle
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RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide

Post by swizzlewizzle »

ORIGINAL: Shark7

ORIGINAL: swizzlewizzle

Erik, the only thing I would like is some basic ability to attach sounds/music to triggers... right now the audio system has zero moddability for music. Audio is basically half of the experience so... not sure why you didn't include a way to attach music to events. :(

Not quite zero, you can change the background music. Unfortunately, I don't know of any way to tie it into specific situations.

Yes, this is the problem. No reason for any sort of mood music when all you get is random shuffle tracks... at that point might as well just let the players use their own playlists and not even bother with game music. :(
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ASHBERY76
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RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide

Post by ASHBERY76 »

All I saw in the policy file added was BuildPlanetDestroyers.The race file and policy in the modding manual is the same as Shadows apart from that.
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Shark7
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RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide

Post by Shark7 »

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76

All I saw in the policy file added was BuildPlanetDestroyers.The race file and policy in the modding manual is the same as Shadows apart from that.

Actually there are quite a few differences.

Just some examples from the races file:

You can now disallow ANY component(s) (tech) for a race. Not limited to just 1, as many as you desire.

You can also make ANY component exclusive to a race.

You can disallow any government type(s) for a specific species. (IE your war-mongering ogres could be set to never be allowed to change to Way of the Ancients, Republic, and Technocracy for example).

Those are just the ones I can remember without looking. So there are new options that while they seem small, can make a huge impact on the game.
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ASHBERY76
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RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide

Post by ASHBERY76 »

You can disallow any government type(s) for a specific species. (IE your war-mongering ogres could be set to never be allowed to change to Way of the Ancients, Republic, and Technocracy for example).

What about incite rebellion effects if they cannot change gov?
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Shark7
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RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide

Post by Shark7 »

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76
You can disallow any government type(s) for a specific species. (IE your war-mongering ogres could be set to never be allowed to change to Way of the Ancients, Republic, and Technocracy for example).

What about incite rebellion effects if they cannot change gov?

They'll still be subject to the same rules as any other species, but will simply be limited as to what type of government they can switch to. I wouldn't go so far as to limit all but one type, but someone could certinaly experiment with it.

In my example, all but the three listed are possibilities for the Ogres to switch to, so they can still rebel and switch to Way of Darkness, Despotism, Military Dictatorship, etc.

Keep in mind you also have the 2 existing (Shadows/Legends) settings for:

Special Government

Preferred starting government


Which can further define how they react.

It really just depends on how much you want to mod the game to limit the alien species.
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tjhkkr
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RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide

Post by tjhkkr »

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76
All I saw in the policy file added was BuildPlanetDestroyers.The race file and policy in the modding manual is the same as Shadows apart from that.
At least you can control which empires are evil enough to build death-stars or Star Trekkian Solid Neutronium Doomsday weapons.
Remember that the evil which is now in the world will become yet more powerful, and that it is not evil which conquers evil, but only love -- Olga Romanov.
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RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide

Post by Darkspire »

ORIGINAL: tjhkkr
ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76
All I saw in the policy file added was BuildPlanetDestroyers.The race file and policy in the modding manual is the same as Shadows apart from that.
At least you can control which empires are evil enough to build death-stars or Star Trekkian Solid Neutronium Doomsday weapons.

And to that end you can enable or disable scaling of images for ships, when enabled the image for the ship class can be much bigger than any other ship in a theme, like a properly sized Borg cube [8D]

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jamthree
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RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide

Post by jamthree »

So is there anyway to assign more than one type to a component? Like adding another line with the same ID?
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Darkspire
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RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide

Post by Darkspire »

ORIGINAL: jamthree

So is there anyway to assign more than one type to a component? Like adding another line with the same ID?

One type of what?

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Osito
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RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide

Post by Osito »

ORIGINAL: Darkspire

ORIGINAL: jamthree

So is there anyway to assign more than one type to a component? Like adding another line with the same ID?

One type of what?

Darkspire

One type of 'type'?

I'm guessing not, but I would like to know this, too.
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Darkspire
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RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide

Post by Darkspire »

ORIGINAL: Osito

ORIGINAL: Darkspire

ORIGINAL: jamthree

So is there anyway to assign more than one type to a component? Like adding another line with the same ID?

One type of what?

Darkspire

One type of 'type'?

I'm guessing not, but I would like to know this, too.

I was going to go with resources. He came back to the post then left so it can't be that important.

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Osito
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RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide

Post by Osito »

[Edit, when I said "I'm guessing not ..." I was referring to whether it was possible, rather than whether that was what he meant. What I wanted to know was whether it was possible to have more than one type of type. Sorry, my ambiguity.]

I think asking about the 'type' makes some sense, as it potentially allows you to create components with more than one basic function, which would be really neat. Do you happen to know whether this is possible, Darkspire?
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Darkspire
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RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide

Post by Darkspire »

I think asking about the 'type' makes some sense, as it potentially allows you to create components with more than one basic function, which would be really neat. Do you happen to know whether this is possible, Darkspire?

Components can only have the one basic function, ECM, warp, armor. reactor etc.

You can only create new component types based on the current types, new ECM, new warp etc.

What has to be taken into account is that DW was never designed with this amount of modding, so for all those that are stating 'I can't see a lot of new stuff added', the fact that Elliot has managed to open it up as much he has is quite a feat, there are many new text files that allow you to change and alter the various parts, like the new biases files, you used to just have race, now you have race families biases as well, add that to the new governments file and its biases file you can really fine tune the way races react towards each other. The new theme structure is great, no longer do we have to write over the master files, themes are self contained.

I have had just as much fun creating things as playing it while testing, and will continue to do so once it has been released, even more so since I was down for a few months with a hardware problem and am still converting Darkverse Legends to Darkverse Universe.

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Osito
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RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide

Post by Osito »

Thanks for the response Darkspire. I guess it's not long before we'll find out for ourselves just what's possible. It looks like there's a lot of scope for changing things, especially with a little imagination, but it's just human nature to want more ...
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ehsumrell1
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RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide

Post by ehsumrell1 »

Well answered Darkspire!
Shields are useless in "The Briar Patch"...
jamthree
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RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide

Post by jamthree »

Yes i meant 'type' as its detailed in the guide as an attribute of components. Darkspire, from doing a bit of civ 4 modding the ability to mod the game as detailed in this guide is severely lacking and as a consumer that's all I care about not the reasons why it can't be provided. Almost everything you can mod is graphical, balance, or content based which is fine but not something alot of modders will invest time into. Basically the star wars/star trek mods can get a bit more fleshed out. Virtually any meaningful mechanical change I would want to make to the game I would be incapable of doing with what is detailed in this guide.

Honestly the modding community in general should come up with separate terms for cosmetic modding and modding that actual provides you with access to a scripting engine and a way to manipulate a game objects/data relationships and attributes and not just their values.
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Osito
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RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide

Post by Osito »

ORIGINAL: jamthree

Yes i meant 'type' as its detailed in the guide as an attribute of components. Darkspire, from doing a bit of civ 4 modding the ability to mod the game as detailed in this guide is severely lacking and as a consumer that's all I care about not the reasons why it can't be provided. Almost everything you can mod is graphical, balance, or content based which is fine but not something alot of modders will invest time into. Basically the star wars/star trek mods can get a bit more fleshed out. Virtually any meaningful mechanical change I would want to make to the game I would be incapable of doing with what is detailed in this guide.

I have some sympathy with that view. I think the problem is that before I knew what would be possible I had put some thought into the things I would like to change, then I found that almost all of my priorities for modding were not possible. It does take a while to readjust to what is actually going to be possible.

I only have myself to blame, as I didn't contribute to the stickied "Modder's Masterlist", nor did I volunteer for beta testing Universe (not that I would have been accepted).

In any event, I think there is still a lot to work with, and I think it goes somewhat further than 'graphics' and 'content'. Furthermore, it seems the developer will be amenable to making further changes after release, where posssible, and subject to demand. I'll have to make sure I actually contribute to the debate this time.

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