Question about changing different values in game. Also some ideas about culture.

from Sins Forums

 

Hello to everybody. First post in Sins forums

First things first: Thanks to Ironclad for this great game. And also many thanks to Uzii, Bailknight and other modders for their hard work making this nice piece of work even better.

And to the business:

At the moment I am using Adamas repack mod and possible will start using Battlewgons merged pack. I will probably test Battlewagon mod during my next game to see how it affects gameplay and balance. Sounds pretty interesting though.

So the question is about defensive structures and changing their properties. Can I change simple things like damage of defense guns and amount of strikecraft in hangars by editing games datafiles (.entity files IIRC). Or do I need those modding tools for this kind of stuff.

Other thing I have been thinking about is cultures effects. Can you, for example, disable certain functions of a planet if its allegiance drops too low. My idea was to make culture more effective by adding different side effects to low allegiance.

For example if allegiance would drop to 50%, all frigate and capital ships factories would have their building speed lowered majorly, so ship building would become extremely slow there. This would represent the mutiny and riots of people of other culture acting in the planet.

If allegiance would keep dropping, at 20-30% the planets incomes would drop drastically, say 50-80%. This would happen because of the corruption the majority enemy culture would cause.

If things would get as worse as allegiance dropping to 20-10%, you would be in big troube! All defensive structures would cease to function ("disabled"), because enemy culture would have repelled against your own and would have majority of the planet and its orbit under their control.

I would be very interested to do this if it is possible via editing or modding. Though, I probably need some training with the modding tools, I would be anxious to try this out. BTW. Any further suggestions are welcome.

modding
3,522 views 3 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
Ok lets see if i can piece this out for you:

Any and all buildable units can have their simple values (damage, speed, hull, etc) changed just by changing the text in the entity files with any text editor.
For more fighters
squadTypeEntityDef:0 "SquadTechCombat"
squadAntiMatterCost:0 75.000000
squadTypeEntityDef:1 "SquadTechBomber"
squadAntiMatterCost:1 125.000000
baseCommandPoints 4 <--- Edit this for max # of fighters in either planet module hanger defence or carrier .entity files

For basic editing of stats
planetUpgradeSlotType "Tactical"
planetUpgradeSlotCount 1.000000
basePrice
credits 250.000000
metal 75.000000
crystal 35.000000
BuildTime 55.000000
NameStringID "IDS_PLANETMODULE_TECHORBITALGAUSSDEFENSE_NAME"
DescriptionStringID "IDS_PLANETMODULE_TECHORBITALGAUSSDEFENSE_DESCRIPTION"
planetModuleRoleType "WEAPONDEFENSE"
statCountType "ModulePointDefense"
Prerequisites
NumResearchPrerequisites 0
MaxHullPoints 3000.000000
HullPointRestoreRate 2.000000
BaseArmorPoints 12.000000 (armor provides invisible 5% hp bonus)
MaxShieldPoints 0.000000
ShieldPointRestoreRate 0.000000
maxShieldMitigation 0.0 (provides % of ignored damage, only works if subject in question has base shields)
ExperiencePointsForDestroying 50.000000
angularSpeed 19.999992 <--- turn speed

and
AttackType "ANTIMEDIUM" (look up damage types for what this means, try here http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=p7xc_snd9Cc-6o2UwvPEWUg&gid=1)
DamageAffectType "AFFECTS_SHIELDS_AND_HULL" (tells what the weapon affects, being hull/shield, just hull or just shield)
DamageApplyType "BACKLOADED" (instant or overtime damage)
DamageType "PHYSICAL"
WeaponClassType "GAUSS" (i believe this is the visual aspect of the weaponry, i may be wrong)
DamagePerBank:FRONT 120.000000 (Damage is per shot, meaning if you have it at 5000 but cooldown at 6 minutes, a single shot will kill almost any ship)
DamagePerBank:BACK 0.000000 (Each bank gives it another chance to gather a target meaning it has to turn less)
DamagePerBank:LEFT 0.000000
DamagePerBank:RIGHT 0.000000
Range 6700.000000
PreBuffCooldownTime 6.000000 (how many seconds before it can fire again)
CanFireAtFighter FALSE
SynchronizedTargeting TRUE
PointStaggerDelay 0.000000
TravelSpeed 4000.000000 (projectile speed)
Duration 0.000000
In the respective planet module, frigate, or capital ship .entity file

"Can you, for example, disable certain functions of a planet if its allegiance drops too low"
You could but you would have to work with the buff and ability system then add abilities to planets that are activated only when alligence reaches a certain level. Im not 100% if this would work or not.
I cant specifically find a file that dictates what alligence does so i think thats out unless you use abilitys and buffs.

It would be a cool idea to have the culture affect the planet like this.
Just a side note however, total income (C/M/C) is already affected by alligence. 75% alligence means 25% lost income in all these areas.

Also culture isnt nessisarily propaganda, it could just be way of life, entertainment, pop idols, rituals and ideas. Maybe not so much riots (at about 40-60%) but perhaps protests, walk outs and as it gets lower past 50% lower population growth.
Then at lower %'s you could have population loss (say like .05 per second) as people leave the planet and have SOME (not all) military, civilian and defence structures power down.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
Thanks for the tips! I will definetly change at least some defensive structures (and maybe ad additional group of strike-craft for cruisers, tweaking the price to balance this) values to make them both cost and combat-effective at early game and maybe even good enough for support in late game defensive battles. Late game fleets would still rip unsupported defences apart, but they would be much better than vanilla defences.

The idea of population leaving the planet and that affecting the buildings and stuff sounds good. Correct me if I'm wrong but do you mean that leaving people are your people who are annoyed or scared of different culture. Or do they just thing that grass is greener on the other side of the fence, leaving to join "enemys" population. Maybe you mean both.

Sorry if I stuck in small details, but I think that difference is in the details.  ;)


Still, If some of you experienced modders know if these culture/allegiance effects are possible, please tell moi if you have some basic tips about doing this. I would be more than obliged. 

Fences - Organize your desktop icons today!
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
Population would leave for the same reasons why population would leave a country or state/territory on earth.
They are fed up with their current culture (as being influenced by other cultures)
They find another culture more appealing
The uprising brought by other cultures makes the area less desirable
They dont like the other culture being forced on them and relocate to another of your planets
and so on.

Talk to uzii about planet ability's and effects. He's done some involving his "relic" planet.