SE4 Modder Ver 1.76 (updated for ver 1.91)

[Nebraskan]

DavidG, I'm sorry, I think I found another slight problem. Please don't yell at me.

I was changing system types to how I want them and those that I changed moved the suns and I did not realize it. Evidently when SE4Modder loads in the system types file it assigns Coord X,Y to the suns. However in only uses a valid number for X, Y is set to 0. I did not notice this and when I started a game I had some binary and trinary systems with all the stars in the 0,0 coordinant not down near 6,6 where they should have been. Now I'm really confused because I went back to SE4Modder and looked at the binary and trunary system types and the suns were set to coord 7,0 or 5,0 or 6,0 something like that but they were at 0,0 when I went into Mapmaker to lood at the systems in the quadrent.

Just thought I should alert you to this little minor strange problem.

Please keep fixing these minor problems and very soon this will be the Ultimate Modding Tool for SE4. Thank you

Harold

[DavidG]

Originally posted by Nebraskan:
DavidG, I'm sorry, I think I found another slight problem. Please don't yell at me.

Harold

No worries. I like solving problems. means people are using the program

The problem with the systems was it wasn't saving the Y coord at all. in the txt File it would read "Coord 1" Since this is invalid I guess SE4 didn't know where to put the sun so put it in the corner. I've fixed this and I'll look at the other thing and post a fix soon.

[DavidG]

Uploaded a Version that fixes the bugs mentioned by Nebraskan. As far as the Create Family goes it currently works like this:

A damage at range of:
60 60 60 60 60 60 60
using Nebraskan's example will in Level 2 become:
75 75 75 75 75 75 75 60

Various weapons differ in what the damage of the extendeded range slots are. I may add some more options in the future but for now a little tweeking of the new componets may be needed after you use the Create Family command.

[DavidG]

New Version now with Formation Editor! Yes now you too can taunt your foe by arranging your ships into rude words.

Ships (up to 99) can by positioned by dragging and dropping. To delete a ship select it (selected ship turns red) and hit delete button.

Currently the 'Design Type' field is set as 'Any' for all ships mostly becuase I don't know what the vailid values are. so if someone can tell me I'll see if I can add that.

[ September 05, 2002, 03:17: Message edited by: DavidG ]

[Krsqk]

Currently the 'Design Type' field is set as 'Any'

AFAIK, design types would correspond to the AI_DesignCreation.txt files. Although you could probably put in any vehicle type there (useful for modders who create unique formations for their race), it would probably be best to stick to the default types. Also, the game seems to accept comma-delimited lists of types (see Dark Wing formation in TDM-modpack for example). Maybe a list box with toggle-able items would work here.

P.S.S. Any VB programers know if VB has a limit of the number of controls you can have in an app?

According to VB6 Professional Edition, limits are:
- 32,000 unique identifiers (anything named)
- no limit on objects in a project
- non-graphical controls (all but label, line, image, and shape) limited by available system resources
- 254 control names per form
- control array indexes 0 through 32767 (counts as a single control name)
- 25 levels of nested controls (frames in frames in frames...)

The biggest hurdle seems to be the control names per form, unless you like piling everything into control arrays with lots of Select Case statements.

[ September 05, 2002, 03:51: Message edited by: Krsqk ]

[Baron Munchausen]

Originally posted by DavidG:
New Version now with Formation Editor! Yes now you too can taunt your foe by arranging your ships into rude words.

Ships (up to 99) can by positioned by dragging and dropping. To delete a ship select it (selected ship turns red) and hit delete button.

Currently the 'Design Type' field is set as 'Any' for all ships mostly becuase I don't know what the vailid values are. so if someone can tell me I'll see if I can add that.

The design type can be any text string, as far as I know. But you're probably best off sticking with the default types that the AI recognizes, as Krsqk said. Attack Ship, Defense Ship, Attack Base(ship), Troop Transport, etc.

I'll have to try this out now. Oh, and one annoying thing about the default behavior of the modder: Why does it have to make all those backup files in the same directory with your data files? Can't it put them in some other specified directory? I like to be able to zip up my data files into a neat package but I have to delete or move all those backups if I use this modder. If it would keep them in another location this owuld be much more convenient.

[ September 05, 2002, 03:59: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[DavidG]

Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
Why does it have to make all those backup files in the same directory with your data files? Can't it put them in some other specified directory?

hehe no reason other than I never realized it was a problem before. I guess I could make a "data_backup" directory under the mod directory and put them in there. Thanks for the feedback.

Thanks for the info Krsqk!!