Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide

[Erik Rutins]

Distant Worlds: Universe, the ultimate Distant Worlds experience, is coming out soon. Not only does Distant Worlds: Universe include all the former Distant Worlds content, it even manages to further expand on it. This includes a brand new storyline, as well as a host of changes under-the-hood. One of the most important changes however, is that Distant Worlds: Universe features vastly expanded modding capabilities. This means that it will now be easier than ever to make Distant Worlds your personalized sci-fi experience!

The full modding guide has now been made available for all to see. This comprehensive guide is over a hundred pages long and explains in detail how to alter the game to your own likings. Both the seasoned modder as well as the beginner will find this document very useful!

Click here for the full modding guide.

See the printer friendly version of the guide here.

[Darkspire]

Hi Erik.

It was discussed quite a while ago that the Star Wars images that are included were not a good idea, might get some kickback about copyright, even more so since the new movie is in the works.

Various other things but this seems to be the final print and had not been put out as a draft, so I'll leave it at that.

Darkspire

[Erik Rutins]

Darn, I thought we had replaced that image but apparently it did get in. Thanks for the heads up, we'll get it fixed ASAP.

[swizzlewizzle]

Yea, let us take on the copy-right risk, you guys just make a good platform for us to build on ok? [8D]

[Hawawaa]

Ya drawing Disney characters in bathroom stalls at restaurants can lead to Disney's lawyers knocking on your doors to remove or it or else... Crazy stuff but its the world we live in. Good catch. [;)]

[tjhkkr]

Darn, you must have fixed it; I would have loved to have seen the SW version. [:'(]
But I would not want MatrixGames to get in any trouble. [:D]
Thank you![8D]

[Erik Rutins]

Yes, all fixed now <whew>.

[tbrass]

[rant]
You know, prior to the Mickey Mouse Copyright Act(the 1976 revision, instituted at the behest of Disney), you would have been a-okay to use those images in the US. Copyright terms had been limited to 28 years. Early law was only 14 (yeah, yeah, with the right to extend if the author was still living.) The whole idea was to encourage people to draw upon prior art in creating new, interesting works.

You know, like mods. Clearly the founders envisioned Star Wars DW, A Game of Thrones CK2, and Morrowind Skyrim. Too bad copyright maximalists have control of our government, and they are now trying to negotiate--in secret because they have admitted that the public wouldn't like the actual language being discussed--criminal sanctions for building on the art of others.
[/rant]

Thanks for sharing the modding guide, Erik! Looking forward to seeing the rest of Universe.

[Mad Igor]

oh yea ! online pdf !i rly hate all those downloadable PDFs.
1) waiting for enternety for them to load.
2) then see annoying "UPDATE IS RDY" icon. annoyed with eyedirt on the left i'm forced do kill with process manager.

[Darkspire]

ORIGINAL: Mad Igor

oh yea ! online pdf !i rly hate all those downloadable PDFs.
1) waiting for enternety for them to load.
2) then see annoying "UPDATE IS RDY" icon. annoyed with eyedirt on the left i'm forced do kill with process manager.

Don't use Adobe reader then, try Foxit.

Darkspire

[tjhkkr]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
Yes, all fixed now <whew>.

Anyone want a contraband modding guide complete with the 'contraband images?' [:D]
Just kidding, Erik; I already deleted it and pulled down the safe copy...[:'(]

[RICO7878]

Awesome! Thanks.

[ASHBERY76]

Well after reading the manual it seems very limited under the hood modding from my experience with many vanilla games I have got having a lot more options,but it is better than before.

[Erik Rutins]

I thought we'd expanded things quite a lot and it was a lot of work, but I understand you were hoping for more. What other modding capabilities would you use that are not currently supported? We are listening and we do plan to respond to community requests post-release.

[FingNewGuy]

oh yea ! online pdf !i rly hate all those downloadable PDFs.
1) waiting for enternety for them to load.
2) then see annoying "UPDATE IS RDY" icon. annoyed with eyedirt on the left i'm forced do kill with process manager.

Dude, what kind of POS machine are you running??? I have NEVER had any kind of problem with downloadable PDFs. Ever.

[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.

[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.

[Hannable]

This might have been asked before somewhere but hopefully I'm not being redundant (feel free to post a link to the relevant post if needs be)

But I'm curious how Universe will affect existing mods like ship sets, planet images, weapons effects, sound effects, icons, ship names, and such? Will we all have to start over or will Universe support existing mods?

[ASHBERY76]

From reading the manual it should not effect anything you mention.

[Darkspire]

ORIGINAL: Hannable

This might have been asked before somewhere but hopefully I'm not being redundant (feel free to post a link to the relevant post if needs be)

But I'm curious how Universe will affect existing mods like ship sets, planet images, weapons effects, sound effects, icons, ship names, and such? Will we all have to start over or will Universe support existing mods?

You will need to modify any theme to get it compatible with Universe. There is now a new theme structure, the days of having to write over master files like planet graphics etc are gone, each theme is now self contained and really can be a unique theme.

You will also need to update, race and policy files, they have had quite a bit added. I updated my theme from Legends and it took me about a week to transfer all the races over, due to testing on Shadows I never updated it fully, then I started on Universe and just did a basic testing theme, it has taken quite a bit of time to balance out and add everything for the universe version of Darkverse and I am still working on and tweaking it as I was down for a few months due to a hardware failure, DW is now more a 4x engine and has become like clay, you can sculpt some pretty amazing things with it.

Darkspire