MOD: Space Empires V - Babylon 5

[Ragnarok-X]

Hey Tim,

great you see you around. It must have been at least 2-3 years now huh

Anyways, SEV is just superior to SEIV, at least from a modding point-of-view. On the other hand, modding SEV is so much more difficult and time-consuming, just WOW. Yesterday i spend 3 hours and made little progress, mainly because i always had to start the game from new to test stuff...

However, im still a big fan of B5 and i just cant let it go.

Anyways, if you like contributing, i could certainly use some help. You suggested some writings, so why dont you come up with some nice racial techs/descriptions for the races ? Since flavour is most important, i require as much racial trait as possible. If you have ideas on racial techs and especially racial buildings, brainstorm and write them up. Should me funny and will help me.

Everyone is welcome to contribute suggestions and/or thoughts in general.

[Fyron]

The best suggestion I have is to start small... Don't try to implement anything from Babylon 5 Wars (pretty much ever; its an unwieldy, complicated mess), don't try to just port the SE4 mod. Start with the core races, and only give them 2 or 3 thematic weapons each (it's AOK for there to be a set of weapons everyone can use). Try to have as many shared items as possible, especially in the more basic stuff like ship sizes, armor, and engines. Don't try to make a per-race set of unique thematic facilities from the beginning; get a core set of facilities working first. Once you get the core working, you can think about adding more auxiliary races, weapons, and specialized racial armors/etc. Basically, plan out a roadmap, where the first few milestones feature primarily universal, shared items. Save the nitty-gritty details for later, and you'll be able to get much farther, faster.

And most importantly... post the milestone builds for early feedback! Don't think you must get the mod "complete" before sharing it. Release early, release often.

[Ragnarok-X]

Here comes another one. I fear this will be pretty difficult.

How would i go about adding a new empire and forcing to select the new created "Narn Regime" trait ?

I figured its something with the scripts. Script files call Racial traits from Script_AI_GlobalConstants_RacialTraits.txt but i cant seem to add a new constant

AI_RACIAL_TRAIT_NARN_REGIME string := "Narn Regime



Would anyone be kind enough to give step-by-step explanation ?

I seem to have a general idea about those scrips, but not enough to get it to work. I assume you somehow load a file into the parser, edit it and hit complile and it should throw out a bunch of new files you need to put into the appropriate "empire" folder.


How exactly would i go about telling my new empire (i.e. within the empire folder is the "narn" folder with ship files and a bunch of .txt, but none of those cover racial trait decisions).

[Captain Kwok]

Add the constant for your new trait as you've already done. Then copy one of the [EmpireName]_Setup_Script.txt files and rename it Narm_Setup_Script.txt. You'll see a function in that file that chooses the racial traits for that empire. Replace one of them with your new trait constant - in this case you'd want it to be added first. Open the Narn_Setup_Script file with the Script Parser and hit compile. It will make Narm_Setup_Script.csf, which you can then place in your Narn empire folder. If the game picks the Narn as an AI race, it will choose your trait.

[Captain Kwok]

The Wiki has some more coverage on how the scripts work in general:
http://wiki.spaceempires.net/index.p...ting_%28SEV%29

[Ragnarok-X]

Got it, thanks.

[Ragnarok-X]

A few quick questions:


Is there any way to alter a ships speed in combat ? It seems the movement speed of the vessel is always proportionally tied to its system-movement speed. Any way to change this ?

Even though my mod folder has only 2 empire files (EA, Narn), the AI creates new games with stock races. How can i tell the game to ONLY use the custom races inside the gametype folder ?


Is there any way to make buildings "unbuildable" ? I.e. make homeworld facilites unique ?

[Timstone]

RagsX:
Woot! Okay, I´m in... again.
Nice to see all the big players are still around.
I´ll see what I can do to whip up some racial descriptions. I´ll start on the major races first.

Fyron:
Great advise! This is certainly the way to go. The biggest threat is that you don´t see any progress, that discourages a mod-builder pretty fast.

[Ragnarok-X]

Yeah, Fyron and SJ and Kwok have certainly been helpful so far Especially Fyron who didnt get tired of me asking stuff. He is right though, instead of working on all fields at the same time, one should focus on goal after goal. For me that means completing

- Economics
- Ship Design
- Research Fields
- Racial Stuff

in that order on a basic level, afterwards adding in more details and stuff. Once the basic layout is done, its pretty becomes a copy and paste job, though not to be underestimated.


Atrocities has created a bunch of very fine looking weaponry pictures, perhaps he will paste them to tease you. I take it those pictures will be added to the image mod, so he is actually aiding the community in general as well.



EDIT: A quick links to a screenshot from another Babylon 5 Mod (Homeworld 2).
These look gorgeous.

LINK
Warlock


Think
SEV = Strategic Level
HW2 = Tactical Level

[Timstone]

RagsX:
I've send you a PM.