Scenarios

GMLocutus · #1 June 22nd, 2004, 10:39 PM

How are scenarios created exactly, I want to makes some scenarios and I was wandering how to do that.

dogscoff · #2 June 22nd, 2004, 10:54 PM

Basically, you need to start a game, in control of all or most of the players. Play however many turns you need to set up all the ships, planets, politics etc, then turn some/ all empires over to the AI, send out out a few explanatory Messages and then sae it.

Distribute your savegame as a scenario.

A few things that might make things quicker:
-use the map editor.
-Consider including a special "creator" race. This race can create advance as far in tech as it likes to set up any stellar manip, create "derelict" ships and the like, and then you just abandon all their planets before game start.
-You could even mod the game to give this special race super building/ research powers and speed.
-tech and building will be much quicker if everyone is in trade agreements with everyone else. Careful not to make contact between races that are supposed to be unknown to one another though.

Suicide Junkie · #3 June 22nd, 2004, 11:31 PM

Using a temporary mod where all ships have 30 speed and facilities produce at rates of 100,000 can greatly simplify things too.

Just switch back to your final mod a few turns before the scenario is ready, and make sure you're not losing too much in maintenance

Arkcon · #4 June 23rd, 2004, 12:21 AM

Also, in order to give your scenario the exposition screens, you have to copy over the tutorial graphic files, and edit them so they have the content you need. Or so I've heard, never done it myself.

[ June 23, 2004, 13:20: Message edited by: Arkcon ]

Suicide Junkie · #5 June 24th, 2004, 04:13 PM

All of the text is set in one of the scenario text files...

I copied a few of the event images to help fill out the briefing Messages.

PS:
If the player saves and then reloads the game, they will not see any future tutorial Messages.

For example, in Exodus, if you play straight through the first 30 turns in one sitting, you'll get countdown warnings as to the star's state before it blows.
Once you've saved and reloaded, then you stop getting the countdown.

dogscoff · #6 June 24th, 2004, 04:21 PM

Maybe someone needs to make a scenario/ tutorial that guides the player through making a scenario...

geoschmo · #7 June 24th, 2004, 04:41 PM

Honestly a scenario-making tutorial is probably a waste of time. If someone wants to make a scenario all they need to do is take the exsising tutorial scenario and play with the files. Copy them and change the values. It's a fairly straight forward process and the files are pretty self-explanatory. Anybody who doesn't have the time to look at those files and figure out how to make a scenario isn't going to have the time to make a scenario anyway.

On the otherhand, if someone with some programming ability wanted to come up with a scenario-file editor with a nice user interface that would create all the files and folder structure that might be nice. Wouldn't help though with the actual .gam file creation which is the most tedious part of scenario making.