SE 5 Editor
 

Just as an FYI, I'm currently working on an editor for the SE5 data files that should help a lot with modding. I'm starting with facilities, but plan to do most of the data files eventually. Progress has been very good so far and I expect to have a very rough alpha version done in another day or two.

Here's a screenshot of what the facilities editor screen looks like so far:

http://www.devnullsoftware.com/img/s...es_editor1.png

When I get the facilities editor done, I'll start on the components editor. I'm doing this in C# using .Net 1.1, so it should be pretty easy for most people to install and use. We'll see. I'll post more as I do more.

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

That's completely neat!

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

You might want to add some sort of built-in formula builder to help the less mathematically-inclined. It could include presets for all sorts of different effects, like exponential decay for diminishing returns. If you make the app do work for the modder, it will be a lot more useful than just being a "visual" editor, in my opinion.

Also, might want to have a way to move facilities around in the file, for better organization.

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

Looks nice, looking forward to the release.

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

The little ? buttons next to each formula textbox are intended to be a formula wizard and will show values at various levels.

Looking into a generic formula parsing algorithm now, in fact.

Hmmm, hadn't thought about moving them around in the file. Could be done relatively easily, but would make the sorting I do in the list-view a bit harder. I'll have to think about a good way to do it. With a good GUI, I'm not sure why you'd care about the order in the text file, honestly.

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

Great idea. Hopefully you can avoid the pitfalls of the SEIV Component Modder application. It was fairly useful at times, though a bit tricky due to bugs and weird "features".

A suggestion: a weapon damage calculator for the component modder section, to assist in balancing weapons vs each other.

I think there is already a damage calculator out there, maybe see about integrating it?

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

cool that will help alot of us http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

Yup, I'd definitely planned on some weapon damage charts, but haven't thought far enough ahead about how to integrate them. Definitely something I want to do though since I think the weapon damages could definitely use some tweaking.

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

Devnullicus said:
With a good GUI, I'm not sure why you'd care about the order in the text file, honestly.

Because it makes a massive difference to gameplay. A poorly sorted (eg: alphabetized) list makes it take forever to design ships.

Could be done relatively easily, but would make the sorting I do in the list-view a bit harder.

How are you doing it? You can just tie an ArrayList into the list view object to handle it automatically.

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

All I have to say is YAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

In case Fyron's response wasn't clear enough: the order in the text file determines the order in-game (at least when alpha sorting is off).

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

For facilities, the "Facility Group" seems to control the order within the game. Within a particular Facility Group, I would guess the order to be the same as in the file, but I haven't verified that.

For components, I would guess that the "General Group" field works similarly to "Facility Group", but again, haven't verified that.

As for how I'm doing the sorting, it can currently be sorted in ascending or descending order by name or by facility group. I'm using some slightly modified code I found on Microsoft http://support.microsoft.com/kb/319401

But yes, now that I think about it, alphabetical sorting doesn't make as much sense. I think I'll modify it so you can drag the facilities to whatever order you wish and get rid of the alpha-sorting.

Or maybe I'll just add some info to make it know what order to put it in the file, because the alpha-sorting by name or facility group is actually kind of useful as well. Will have to think a bit more on this one.

Thanks for the suggestions!

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

this is insanely ultimate
Devnullicus, I tip my hat to you.

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

For components, I would guess that the "General Group" field works similarly to "Facility Group", but again, haven't verified that.

Nope, just one big list for components. You can use component groups in filters (which makes the list only show components in that group), but those are very slow to use compared to good sorting.

Or maybe I'll just add some info to make it know what order to put it in the file, because the alpha-sorting by name or facility group is actually kind of useful as well.

I think you run the risk of making a confusing interface here. You want to let the user move the items, but still want it alphasorted? You've got to go one way or the other here, or provide some sort of option to switch between them.

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

Wow, that looks like a very handy and helpful program for modding. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Very nice!!

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

The component group is used for prioritizing repairs.
I find that there tends to be serious conflicts between filtering on that and getting useful repair priorities.

Since the order of components is everything a filter is, but better, and bad repair priorities have no workaround, repair priorities win.

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

Any chance youll do one for events?

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

My plan is to do editors for all the data files and maybe the racial data files as well. Currently, I'm on vacation and having fun doing the code for this. When my vacation ends in a week and a half or so, I doubt I'll have a lot of time to work on this any more, so we'll see how much I get done by then.

Whatever I get done, I'll release along with full source code in case anyone feels like finishing up what I don't have time for.

I'm currently just about done with Facilities - I still have to finish up the reordering, adding and deleting items from the various lists, and saving the data back to the file. I also have the formula wizard to do, and I suspect that will take much of tomorrow.

At this point, I think I have a good idea of how to do most of the rest of the data files, so they should start going quicker. Except for Components, most of the rest of the data files aren't as complex. Components is what I'm planning on next - I'm guessing I'll get to those by sometime tomorrow. After that, I could probably do Events, but have no definite priorities yet.

The best part about this is that I'm having a blast and learning a new language (C#) as well http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I suspect I'd be getting this done a little faster if I wasn't having to look up so much syntax, but even so, I'm finding C# to be one of the fastest development languages for this kind of task I've ever used. I'm pretty impressed with how easy this program has been to throw together so far.

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

Devnullicus, this is awesome. Should be a huge help. Any chance to do this for AI scripts? I personally that AI is the most "broken" part of the game and needs a ton of modder help.

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

Just a quick update. The Facilities Editor UI is pretty much in final form and I'm starting on the formula parser/wizard. Here's a screenshot of what the editor looks like now.

http://www.devnullsoftware.com/img/s...es_editor2.jpg

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

Again Yaaaa !!!!

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

damn devnull this stuff is great!

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

I've now done a successful test of loading a facilities file, modifying some data and saving it back out. All that's really left at this point is the formula parser which I'll be starting on tonight. Hopefully, I'll be able to make a release of this code tomorrow or this weekend.

As part of the "polish", I'm doing stuff like the about-menu, etc. and I noticed I have no icon. Since my art ability is about nil, I was wondering if any of you artsy types feel like making an icon for the editor?

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

Here is an online icon maker... you can upload any image to it. I've used it to make favicons for websites.

http://www.imageauthor.com/

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

Did you see the part where I said "my art ability is about nil"? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Think "programmer-art" and shudder in fear.

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

YOU ARE MY HERO!

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

Few graphics editors do icons, so that might still be a handy option for whomever makes the icon. Nice, considering that that site can import uploads in other image formats... someone just needs to make a square picture.

Of course, I've been wrong before... like about the unstable warp point to the center of that black hole. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/stupid.gif

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

For reference, Visual Studio has a built-in icon editor.

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

I have photoshop and all sorts of tools to make images. It doesn't even need to be a .ico or .bmp file, I can use jpg, gif, png, etc.

What I'm lacking is SKILL at making any kind of reasonable-looking image. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Really, I have close to zero artistic ability.

I've got a temporary image I'm using for now, but what I'm hoping is that someone artistic feels like making a nifty image for the "About" window. If you also feel like making a nifty .ico file for the program icon, that'd be neat, too.

If no one feels like doing this..that's ok too! I'll happily release without things like nifty icons. I just think they make things a little more polished is all.

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

Hows this work for ya Devnull?

http://www.secenter.org/se5edit.ico

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

Perfect! Thank you! If you let me know any information you wish to have known in the credits, I'll put ya in http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

Just credit James "Combat Wombat" Phillips

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

Woohoo! I've got the formula parser working. It will now evaluate a formula and tell if its valid or not. I can also plug in values for any "variables" in the formula and calculate the answers.

Next steps: Formula wizard to help create formulas and show the values of the formulas at various levels.

Getting close! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

Here's some shots of the Formula Wizard - it's turning out quite well, actually.

Valid Formula:
http://www.devnullsoftware.com/img/s...la_wizard1.jpg

Invalid Formula (with explanation of error):
http://www.devnullsoftware.com/img/s...la_wizard2.jpg

I'm just about done with the formula wizard. After that, I need to debug the column sorting and reordering in the facility list (it works MOST of the time, but sometimes not, so I need to find out why and fix it) and then package it all up with an installer.

Once I release the initial version, I'll start on the component editor.

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

Here is something that may catch you:
What is 100 + 10 - 10 - 100?

And another good one is:
100 / 2 / 2 / 2
Also ask yourself if the answer should be rounded off.

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

Yeah... SE5 has its own unique interpretation of arithmetic.

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

According to the wizard, the values for those are:
0 and 12.5

I have no idea how SEV does its rounding. The library I'm using does all the calculations as doubles (floating point values).

Are there some strange rules that SE5 uses that I should try to put in the calculator?

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

This editor is absolutely fantastic.
Top notch work Devnullicus! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon14.gif

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

ok, now that the facility editor is done, I've started on the components editor. There sure is an awful lot of info for each component! I had to go to a tabbed Form just to hold all the options! Anyway, here's a few screenshots to show what the GUI layout will be:

General Tab:
http://www.devnullsoftware.com/se5/i...ts_editor1.png

Requirements & Abilities Tab:
http://www.devnullsoftware.com/se5/i...ts_editor2.png

Weapon Tab:
http://www.devnullsoftware.com/se5/i...ts_editor3.png

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

Dev will your editor take into account mad men with nuty mods? For instance one weapon I made has this range formula:

0 - iif([%Range%] < 20, 0, iif([%Range%] < 50, 10, iif([%Range%] < 90, 20, iif([%Range%] < 140, 30, iif([%Range%] < 170, 40, iif([%Range%] < 200, 50, iif([%Range%] < 230, 60, iif([%Range%] < 250, 70, iif([%Range%] < 270, 80, iif([%Range%] < 500, 90, 0))))))))))

And another has this damage formula:

iif([%Range%] <= 10, 80, iif([%Range%] <= 20, 70, iif([%Range%] <= 30, 50, iif([%Range%] <= 60, 40, iif([%Range%] <= 90, 30, iif([%Range%] <= 130, 20, iif([%Range%] <= 240, 10, iif([%Range%] > 241, 0, 0))))))))

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

It should be noted that you do not actually need the iffs to get SE4-like damage at range; just use the damage at range fields (SJ posted an example in another thread).

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

It should, as soon as I get the rest of the functions like "iif" into the editor. For this release, I only implemented the ones used by facilities.txt.

But as long as the formula is a valid mathematical expression, it should work in the editor.

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

Mmm? I’m not using SE4 style damage.

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

This editor will be of great help!!
I've always hated mucking with the text files.

I installed v1.0 (using all defaults) but get the following when I fire up the Editor:

"The application failed to initialize properly...."

Do I need to be in a specific folder when I execute the install procedure?
Did I do something wrong.

Please help.

Also, any chance you'll do something similar for the SEV map files?
Is there any way to include specifications for moons on SEV planets?
I really miss having moons in SEV

Thanx,
skigrinder

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

Devnull for the editors you need to have it show the iamge that is selected for the component or ship or whatever is being edited.

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

Umm..it does, I thought?

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

Nope, the installer should set the appropriate registry settings so that when the editor starts up, it knows where to find its data files.

What version of Windows are you using? Do you have the .NET framework 1.1 or greater installed?

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

Any way to make the editor work without .NET?

I'm running XP SP2 and have Visual Studio 6.0 installed and don't want to install .NET for fear of messing up a development environment that is critical for an app that I support.

Any ideas?
Am I being paranoid about not installing .NET?

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

Nope, it's written in C# and requires .NET. Sorry.

Re: SE 5 Editor
 

When using the facility editor, it does list as variable only [%Amount1%] [%Amount2%] and [%level%].
Would it be possible to add more (there must be more, like the tonnage or structure of the facility isn't it ?)