Using New Race Graphics?

[markgame]

In a previous post I asked where I could find new race graphics and I was pointed to a couple of very good sites.

Now, however, I am a bit confused. How do I implement these new fleets into SE4?

[Tomgs]

Well there are a couple things to do after the pictures are unzipped you have to put them in the SEIV\pictures\races folder in a folder named after the race inside for instance the United Flora race would be in a folder named UF because all the pictures in there are named UF_something. If you want to use them just to use as a player race thats all you have to do but if you want the computer to use them as an AI you need to add some files to the folder to tell the computer what racial traits you have, what type of planets to use and so on. UF is a good first start because Henk Brouwer the creater of that race has created a UF_AI_general.txt file that describes the race and gives the computer some info about it. Look at the origonal Races that came with the game to see the other files that can be used to further define your race. I usually try to pick the race that is closest to what I think the new race would be and copy and modify the files a bit to fit them.

Have fun there are a lot of interesting things that can be done to the files but I haven't tried too much yet since I am still too busy playing the game .

[This message has been edited by Tomgs (edited 24 November 2000).]

[Kodos]

Does this work with the Demo as well, or only the full Version?

[markgame]

Tomgs, thanks for the help. The method you suggested for selecting new player graphics works great.

[Tomgs]

I didn't try to do this in the demo Version but I have heard the only thing you can do with new graphics in the demo is to replace existing graphics maybe even using the same names. I recomend being very careful changing things in the demo because the game won't run if some files are changed. Its a good reason to get the full Version just about everything can be tweeked. There are however some extra neutral empires that can be added to the demo you can find them on http://www.se4hub.com/universalshipyards/ They work in the demo and full Version. Some error Messages do come up when starting a game with them because some of the fleet files and so forth are missing but they work anyway and will just use the default values. If you add the correct files to them the error Messages wont come up. Just copy the files from one of the other neutral races if you want. Its good practice for starting to modify race files to find the missing data in one of these files and correct them.