SEV shipset instructions?

[Captain Kwok]

Space Empires V has a script parser that creates the .csf file - which is the actual compiled script used by the game. Essentially you're just editing various AI text files and then compiling them into a .csf file.

[Q]

Thank you for the answer Kwok.
But what do you do if you want to modify an existing .csf file? Can you convert it back to a text file or do you need the original text file??
Anyway it seems to me that modifying will be more complicated compared to SE IV.

[Captain Kwok]

You cannot edit the .csf files directly. You'd need to make your changes in the base text files and re-make the .csf file.

Modding the data files themselves is probably a bit easier since it's one entry per item. Only the intelligence and events file use scripts of the non-AI files.

[Aiken]

First look at data files:
- ***_Main_Script.txt and ***_Setup_Script.txt are written in some sort of prog language (prior to be compiled into .cfs). What is this language? Looks like Delphi to me, but I'm not sure.
- Other .txt files keep following an old se4 style (no char for comments, tabs and blank line problems)

[Captain Kwok]

Actually Aiken you can insert comment lines into the data files. But double blank lines can still be dangerous.

[Fyron]

When did SE4 have problems with tabs? You can insert tabs instead of spaces between the field labels and :=. I'm not sure why anyone would really want to, due to the funky formatting issues with tabs, but that's another issue entirely.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Captain Kwok said:
It will be more difficult than SE:IV to make new races, mainly because of the items connected with the ship models. Otherwise, most of the AI files are straightforward and like their SE:IV cousins.

This is why the SEV image mod needs to include ships.

[Captain Kwok]

Empire styles / Ship sets are already "plug-ins" so I don't see how including them in the Image Pack would make much sense.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Simple - People could then 'build' shipsets easier.

[Phoenix-D]

Not really, Narf. The idea behind the image mod is to make smaller downloads and disk space use by having a common pool of images; shipsets already work like that, and nothing about the Image Mod makes building images or ships easier.