Antares Mod preview

[Ed Kolis]

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...?Number=301782

Just a couple data files - and one is missing most of the relevant data - but maybe someday I and/or someone else will pick up on this and finally make the MOO2 mod for SE4 I've been dreaming of!

[Atrocities]

Cool work. How long do you exepect it will take you to finish the mod?

[Ragnarok-X]

Could you write a small summary of the mod ?

[Ed Kolis]

How long? Probably I never will... keep in mind these are data files I've worked on a bit, held onto for months while worked on other things, worked on a bit again... Probably if I ever finish it it will be a mod for SE5 or even SE6

OK, a summary of this mod? How about this:

The Antares Mod is a work-in-progress mod which attempts to convert the game mechanics of Master of Orion II to Space Empires IV. Features will include a completely redesigned tech tree based on the MOO2 tech tree, quasi-Newtonian propulsion, scale mounts for special (i.e. non-weapon) ship components, "structural integrity fields" a la Star Trek Mod which function as leaky armor (simulating MOO2's "structural hitpoints"), a variety of specialized mounts for use on weapons, miniaturizing technology (as you research advances on a technology, instead of it getting more powerful, it gets smaller and cheaper like in MOO2; you must research a new technology to get more powerful items), Antaran attackers based on Devnull's space monsters, and more!

edit: added reference to Antarans

[deccan]

Hey, what are you doing working on an SEIV mod? Go back to that Dominion2 rogue-like!

[Ed Kolis]

Hey, I kinda got stuck on that roguelike - I'd have continued working on it but I came up with this idea for a universal Malfador data file manipulation library (to read and write files from SE4, SF, DO, and SE5), but that turned out harder than I thought and I never finished it... and then my boss told me not to bring my laptop to work anymore because the OTHER boss might get mad if he saw me messing around on it... then I remember about the MOO2 mod I'd started on a while back...

BTW, I was planning on releasing the Malfador data manipulator under the LGPL, but I wonder what my school would think about that given that I wrote most of the code for that during my free time at work (I work at school) probably they'd want ownership of the program and all mods created with it, to be used exclusively for research purposes by the University of Cincinnati YOU HEARD THAT, YOU'RE MONITORING MY INTERNET USAGE RIGHT NOW, I KNOW IT! But they're much nicer than that, aren't they... I think I need to contact the People for the Ethical Treatment of Software, who knows what kinds of "research" a university might put a program through

And speaking of creating mods with tools, most of the components in the Antares Mod preview I just showed you were created with my very own Templatizer ... which no one else seems to want to use ... really, it's a handy tool, if you want I can show you the template file for the Components.txt and you can see how much cleaner everything looks when you have only one entry for each component family!

Hmm, speaking of the Templatizer (will I ever stop? ), I need to figure out how to make it raise events such as "done working on entry #32, Phased Polaron Beam", so I can make a GUI Version with a progress bar... I'm getting kinda tired of the text interface I have set up; it doesn't do a very good job of reporting its progress - it is thorough, but it is a bit verbose!

I wonder, though, if loading the entire template file into memory before doing any processing will speed up the program? I don't think so, but it's worth a shot, and it would allow for a progress bar...