finalizing new mod...

[Suicide Junkie]

1) Culture settings have bonuses and/or penalties to such things as space combat, maintenance rate, and happiness. Load SE4, and "add new empire" to see the details.
1b) Demeanor, I believe is just a descriptive thing, but I don't know if SE4 will complain if you enter a new one.

2) You are editing AI_general.txt? There are three sets of entries in there, the first is for 2000 point games, the second for 3000 point games, and the Last for 5000 point games.
See SE4's "Add new empire" to make sure the items you choose will add up to exactly that price.

3) Right. There is a viewer, possibly on the CD, that will display the whole shipset, and has a toggle to change the transparent parts from black to hot pink and back, so you can be sure it looks right.

4) No. All races start with the techs defined by techareas.txt. The specific techs given also depend on whether the game is a low, medium, or high tech start.

5) That file is critical. For example: If your shipdesigns.txt call for ships with Antimatter Torpedoes, you darn well better research that tech area early!

[Jmenschenfresser]

Well technically you could make a race have a specific field developed, if you made a duplicate of that field and it's tech and made it racial.

Yes, that race would have a duplicate, say, armor field, but AI or human behind the wheel, either way, it doesn't really matter.

Merely a visual annoyance.

[Suicide Junkie]

But that would require editing the data files, and making it incompatible with everything else out there.

This is just a new race & AI, not a data mod, right?

[Jmenschenfresser]

Dunno...he mentioned creating a new culture or demeanor. Don't think that is doable at runtime.

[Captain Kwok]

I like the look of your ships. Are they hand drawn and scanned?

[PvK]

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
...
2) You are editing AI_general.txt? There are three sets of entries in there, the first is for 2000 point games, the second for 3000 point games, and the Last for 5000 point games.
See SE4's "Add new empire" to make sure the items you choose will add up to exactly that price.
...

Whoa! Really? I always thought the specific set was randomly selected, to give variety each time the empire was generated!

PvK

[trooper]

so, if I make a summary :

- no exotic culture and demeanor, or it won't work on another PC.

- 3 levels for the race abilities (I was wondering what was opt1, 2 and 3. Now I know!)

- I'll have a look on the icons with the viewer. BTW, I saw that some of the mini icons designed for the game was not totally transparent (black spots on the screen)

- Impossible to start with a specific research field for a compatible race & AI . But it's possible to design heavely armored ships by editing the AI DESIGN TYPES file ? (what are "spaces per one" values ???)

- AI_Research.txt : not understand clearly what was its purpose. Is there a generic file for that , that I can use ?

Kwok : My ships are hand drawn, scanned and colorized with photoshop. I tried to create various designs for each ship size, not simply a main body and add-ons.