Dunkelzahn63

Join Date 01/2009

Do you think it's possible ?

As there are many interesting mods for sins i wanted to make a crossover like Theophantus is making, but with some differences. Because of the 2 gig limit Theophantus choosed to pick a little part of each mod to have 6 races max. I didn't realized that the 2 gig limit was so inevitable ( i thought with my windows 7 x64 and 6 gig RAM that it wouldn't affect my mod ).

My project was to add all the races of all mods to one very huge crossover mod. ( for the moment i have done 7DS + Requiem + SGU so my mod have 10 races with the vanilla ones ). Actually i have no dump crashes but something tells me i won't be able to add more like star trek or BSG ones and the REP and CSI ones from SOGE ).

So i'm wondering if i can try another way to do it. I have thinked to make all this in separate folders i can activate/desactivate for a new game. So i must delete for each mod loading screens and all common features to prevent the mods to interfere between them.

I think i can do like this :

A common folder with 7DS and common merged files like string, GalaxyScenarioDef ( for planets ), sounddata and other common files to all mods.

A folder for each mod ( Requiem, SGU, SAO2, 13th tribe, SOGE, Vanilla )

At each game i would choose to activate/desactivate the mods i want in the game or not, to play for exemple SW vs BSG and next play SOA2 vs BSG and so on with common folder always activated.

So as my title said ... do you think is possible ?

modding

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ZombiesRus5

Join Date 02/2009

+340

I'm disappointed you left out Maelstrom and Fallen

It's not just the 2GIG limit you will run into. There are many other constants you would hit trying to merge all mods such as Sound file limits, Mesh limits, Texture limits, etc.

http://soase.weebly.com/hardcode-limits.html

I can't really speak to if it's possible to stack all these mods as the risk for mini-dumping would increase quite a bit depending on if they had any common files that were modified from the base game or even similarly named files between the mods.

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Thanks for your answer Zombierus5

Quoting ZombiesRus5,

reply 1

I'm disappointed you left out Maelstrom and Fallen

For fallen it's only because i don't like Zombies, in movies, games or whatever, but i have already read what this mod is about, but that's not for me .... for maelstrom it's a mistake from me, the title sounds good to me, i'm going to see what it is just after my answer .

I think you have answered me with your link with all the limits. It may be possible but very very hard, some limits are a problem. For the sounds 2000 is enough, but for meshes .... it's a problem even if each mod has his own folder and can be activate/desactivated separately. In fact i could explain my project differently. I would like to make all mods compatible to each other, with merged files in a core mod, so all the modified files with same name would have been in the core and in each mod only the races, particles, textures and meshes. In theory i think it's possible but many limits can complicate a lot my work.

Maybe i should wait for rebellion and hope "old mods" will be updatable to this new game

Thanks for your answer.

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ZombiesRus5

Join Date 02/2009

+340

Quoting Dunkelzahn63,

reply 2

Ah, now you've just hurt my feelings If you've never tried it how would you know for sure. Plus going up against the plague can be fun too

You should look at the new races too... Their version of the Fall is based on Transhumanity with a different take on factions in Sins. Only the Rogue Traders are released right now, but Hypercorps are close and then Archailects will be next.

Good luck on trying to do this. I have all of my mods setup to run this way so I know the effort you will be going through. In fact all of my races are little mini-mods by themselves that get combined together with various build scripts and templates I have written. Of course this all works because I've built the mod this way from the beginning. Would not be fun to retrofit someone else's mod to follow my approach.

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Oh you made more than i wanted to do. Each race as a mini mod ... great ! ... have you made a core mod with merged string, and sounddata and other common files, or each mod can have his owns without problems ?

You convince me i'll download and try sins of the fallen

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the common files NEED to be merged especially the strings, playerRACE.entity's and manifests.

harpo

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ZombiesRus5

Join Date 02/2009

+340

Quoting Dunkelzahn63,

reply 4

Yes, they each have their own entity manifest, galaxy scenario, English.str, etc.

Then I use bridge mods that merge only the common/shared elements together and generate new manifests for the combined mod.

I stack around 25 mod directories in my development build when I'm testing all the races together.

My public release is essentially 2 mods that are the individual mods combined together for public consumption. I have a third mod that demonstrates the bridging mod that combines Fallen with Transhumans.

Again all of the combining is done with templates and build scripts to generate the common stuff and manifests but the end result is the same whether it was done by hand or not. I should also point out the same templates are used to generate the shared files with the mini-mods as well. This way I can say specify what planet items and groups need to be added externally from the galaxy scenario def, then combine it at build time. Same goes for sound files, strings, etc.

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Quoting harpo99999,

reply 5

the common files NEED to be merged especially the strings, playerRACE.entity's and manifests.

playerRACE.entity's ? I understand for sounddata, strings, GalaxyScenarioDef, Gameplay.constants and all the files which have the same name in all the mods, but why playerRACE.entity's ?

Quoting ZombiesRus5,

reply 6

Then I use bridge mods that merge only the common/shared elements together and generate new manifests for the combined mod.

Hum, i don't understand how you do that, and what exactly you call a bridge mod ( is it what i called core mod ? ). I think it's a bit hard for me, i can easily understand a game code as i often make mods for my pleasure but i don't know any computer language and won't be able to make scripts to merge common files ( the last computer language i have used is .... GFA Basic on ATARI 520 ST )

I have tried to test my idea, i have made a 7DS folder with GalaxyScenarioDef, files concerning planets and merged string, sounddata and common files, another with requiem files without loading screens and other common files with vanilla game and .... dump. As i thought and harpo99999 confirmed me the manifests have to be merged.

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ZombiesRus5

Join Date 02/2009

+340

I'm using the term bridge as why of visually describing combining two distinct mods, similar to how a bridge connects two points of land.

It's not quite the same as the software engineering term for a Bridge Design Pattern. I just like the visual representation.

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of course, Dunzel, you have asked 7DS if you can use their/our material. Private use is one thing, have fun. Combining multiple mods and releasing 'your' mod of their mods... not cool without permission.

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