Hello

I want to create a mod which disables the United Empire pops from being changed to Sheredyn/Mezari etc via the quest chain because I have created a custom faction for United Empire.

I was wondering if anyone knows how to do this?

I had a look in the files but I don't know how to go about it - I've found the droplist files but I don't know what I'm looking for.

Not sure how to do that, but I'm pretty sure that if you reach that point in the quest, choosing to remain as you are rather than changing to Sheredyn/Mezari should preserve your custom pops...haven't tested that in awhile but last I checked it worked.

No clue either on how to do it but it always bothered me that a custom UE faction cant take advantage of the sweet perks that Sheredyn track provides(specifically the Battle tactic for Kinetic loadouts). My thinking is that when you pick your option in the quest line that it resets your population perks and collection bonus to that of Sheredyn(basically Yussho with some Influence perks on Collection) or Mezari(basically Sophon) if you opt to change. Keeping the population as is removes that possibility but I do understand the frustration when it comes to the AI(they always go Military route for some reason, hence cut their legs off if you give them a custom faction). Same deal with Vaulters if memory serves as well.

If I ddin't find the files for Endless Space 2 so hard to understand I'm sure I could create a mod to fix this, its very annoying!

I haven't done a mod that changes original things in-game, but I can point out what I think is happening.

If you open the Droplists[reward].xml and search for UnitedEmpire07Faction you will see that that droplist actually changes faction name to Sheredyn.

 <Droplist Name="DroplistRewardQuestUnitedEmpire07Faction" Fallback="DroplistLuxuries">
<Faction FactionName="FactionSheredyn" Title="%UE_Quest-Chapter3-C1_Reward"/>
</Droplist>

Under that, you will also find an equivalent for industrialists which is

<Faction FactionName="Default" Title="%UE_Quest-Chapter3-C2_Reward"/>

And for Mezari

 <Faction FactionName="FactionMezari" Title="%UE_Quest-Chapter3-C3_Reward"/>

So what I think needs to be done is to change the quest rewards droplists such that only FactionName="Default" is being rewarded for all 3 choices. I think if you or AI start with a custom race then that is the default and it will be preserved. If you can force them to stay default even if they choose Sheredyn/Mezari rewards, I think that would solve the issue.

For the reference Sheredyn faction reward in Droplists[Reward].xml is:  Name="DroplistRewardQuestUnitedEmpire07Faction"

UE, or Default is: Name="DroplistRewardQuestUnitedEmpire08Faction"

Mezari is: Name="DroplistRewardQuestUnitedEmpire09Faction"

So 07, 08, 09 respectively. You don't have to change anything for Droplists[Reward].xml but try to replace 07 and 09 with 08 inside the QuestDefinitions[UE] to keep the OG faction for all 3 quest rewards, because that is the XML that chooses which droplist to take a reward from. After such a change it should only take Default faction reward for any choice. I just don't know how to do it cause I have only done an extension mod before.

Should be something like:

In QuestsDefinitions[UE].xml, type "Chapter3"; this is the quest that allows to change race.

In the rewards droplist section you the line that has "Faction" at the end of it needs to be modified to have 08 instead of 07, 09. I'm not sure if you can just change it inside the original XMLs cause last time I messed with them I forgot what changes I made and my game crashed on start, so try to see how to make that change thru a mod. It's just going to be a bit of a pain to get it working properly with all the correct datatypes to include & inevitable typos.

Actually, now that I think of it you might want to remove the whole "faction" part of the reward from quest XML altogether since you don't want there to be any changes. If you want to take a risk you can comment it out in the original quest XMLs and see if the game still runs. I was curious, I and I tried it just now. The game still runs, I don't have time to play all the way till chapter 3 but it should exclude any faction changes. I used to change the original xmls when modding 7 Days to Die when I wanted to quickly test things without creating a whole separate mod. Just remember to have a backup of all the original XMLs somewhere in case you need to restore them, or in case you forget what changes you made and want everything to work as originally intended. In the worst case you will have to restore the game.

Sorry if I kept repeating myself, also I'm not sure if this is going to work but it makes sense on paper unless I misunderstood something. To sum up try changing the numbers to 08 or comment out those lines. Let me know if you have any questions and whether it worked or not!

Well this helped me thanks