Hey all!



I've had a fair amount of experience modding that other popular space game, and although it was fantastically easy to mod, a lot of modders including yours truly ran into many issues where a great idea was foiled because of silly hard code limitations. (For those unknown to the term, hard code refers to a part of the game code that is imbedded in the source code of the game and thus can only be changed by the developers themselves) For example, in that other game there was space travel in the same string-type form as in this game, and there were buildings you could build in orbit of planets, but something as silly as combining the string-type space travel with a building as to make a "jump-gate" (a building that would allow space travel to another building of the same type) was impossible because the space travel dynamics were part of the source code, i.e. hard coded.



So I was wondering how much of this game is hard coded? I've read that the galaxy parameters can be changed by us, but how far does this go? Will I be able to create my own galaxy objects with their own rules? (say a black hole instead of a solar system, with the chance to destroy ships that fly into it) Or is it limited to just shuffling around existing things?



And are there any especially noteworthy hard coded limits I should be aware of? For example the game has 8 species, is there a hard coded limit to how many species the game will accept? Same about the ship classes, is there a hard coded limit to the amount of different ship hulls allowed? etc?



Thanks in advance for any answers!

Devs seem to be ignoring this part of the forum unfortunatly Hope they see this though, as a lot of my hopes for longevity if this game lie in modding

Known limitations (in the current build, that I am aware of):



No new stellar objects (no blackholes)

No new galaxy backgrounds (hell, despite being referenced in the XML, I cannot generate an ovoid galaxy with a spiral arm background!)

No new stellar interactions (i.e. blackholes destroying ships)

No new improvements

No access to modify the tech tree

No new racial affinities (i.e. the custom stuff, like locus points)

No new technologies (i.e. more hull sizes, weapons, etc. See point about "no modifying the tech tree")

No new anomalies

No new star names (these appear to be hard coded some how, but are referenced via XML variable to some internal or external list, if it is external, I've not found it)

No new ship designs, racial pictures, etc. (i.e. no new art assets)

No new heroes





Yeah.

Have fun.

Draco18s wrote:
Known limitations (in the current build, that I am aware of):



No new stellar objects (no blackholes)

No new galaxy backgrounds (hell, despite being referenced in the XML, I cannot generate an ovoid galaxy with a spiral arm background!)

No new stellar interactions (i.e. blackholes destroying ships)

No new improvements

No access to modify the tech tree

No new racial affinities (i.e. the custom stuff, like locus points)

No new technologies (i.e. more hull sizes, weapons, etc. See point about "no modifying the tech tree")

No new anomalies

No new star names (these appear to be hard coded some how, but are referenced via XML variable to some internal or external list, if it is external, I've not found it)

No new ship designs, racial pictures, etc. (i.e. no new art assets)

No new heroes





Yeah.

Have fun.

this is a beta build though and there has been a fair amount of successful modding of the savegame which, along wit the rest of the game, is XML based. i've modded heros, hull stats, ship xp points and planetary systems.



once the game is released, i'm sure they will instantiate the various core XML files that will really let us go to town with the mods.

The devs will look at modding after release. At the moment they are polishing things. And they are limited by the engine (unity) that encapsulate every asset into one file. So modding won't be that easy and they'll have to develop special tools for it. So it'll need time.

VieuxChat wrote:
The devs will look at modding after release. At the moment they are polishing things. And they are limited by the engine (unity) that encapsulate every asset into one file. So modding won't be that easy and they'll have to develop special tools for it. So it'll need time.

Damn. My apologies to Draco18s then... I was under the impression that hard stuff to access was limited to 3D objects and core game mechanics... ah jeez...well, no pressure; you've delivered a great game regardless but if you could see your way to crack those files open at some point, they'd be some mighty appreciative folks around here.

Yeah if the devs value modding they'll have to get rid of the list Draco18s posted somehow if that would be the final list the game would be practically useless for mods. And I certainly don't want to see hard code limitations like in SE5, that would kill the mod aspect entirely.

But I have trust in the devs to see the possibilities for good mods in the future.

KNC wrote:
Yeah if the devs value modding they'll have to get rid of the list Draco18s posted somehow if that would be the final list the game would be practically useless for mods. And I certainly don't want to see hard code limitations like in SE5, that would kill the mod aspect entirely.

But I have trust in the devs to see the possibilities for good mods in the future.

Hopefully they will be able to work on that, so the only limitations left would be those inherent in the engine itself.

Many of those can be changed by a text editor and the "sharedassests5.assets" file. You just have to have the same number of characters and white space when you save it as when you started.

I'd say that the fact that there IS a modding section on the official forums is a good sign for the future.