Mods cause the game to freeze

While trying to apply the mod

from Sins Forums

okay, I'm not new to modding, but I am stumped here, I got back into Sins after about 6 months or so.  I updated my game to the most current version of the game, and went to rework my personal mod.

But for some reason every attempt at a mod I make the game freezes while trying to apply it.  I'm thinking it is the resource file I downloaded off this website (ForgeTools, I'm using the reference data that came with it).  I'll go and throw my numbers into the gameinfo files I want to change (the upkeep is WAY to high in my opinion).

I'm thinking right off the bat that this problem is being caused by the ForgeTools I am using.  Based off what I have read on this forum is that the ForgeTools are out of date, so this brings me to ask a few questions:

1.  Where can I find the most current version of the resource files converted into a workable format?

2.  Why hasn't Stardock updated the ForgeTools (Your failure makes a poor impression [TEC-failure to do mission])

3. Am I possibly doing something wrong that has changed since I last modded?  I am installing my mod in C:\Users\User Name\AppData\Local\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\Mods-Entrenchment v1.041......  I have my mod name, and then the GameInfo file inside.  The mod shows up in the game application, and when I go to apply the mod, it starts, and then the game just freezes, resulting in my using ctrl-alt-delete to hardclose the game.  I'm not altering the files in anyway that I don't think would cause the game to crash, I'm just changing some values (capital ships per rank, fleet upkeep per rank, max asteroids per planet).

Any help?  If you know where I can find the 1.041 resource mods (or a program that can convert them), I would appreciate it.

modding
13,193 views 10 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

the last set of refernce files from ironclad are for sins 1.15/entrenchment 1.01 AND WILL cause lockups/minidumps when used with 1.181/entrenchment 1.041.

there are three  text to bin gui tools available hoho5000, dekanrics and mine.

if you are thinking of modding diplomacy  them my textbin gui is already compatible with diploamacy 0.85 & 0.90, but I have not tested or used the others.

hope this helps

harpo

 

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

Yeah it helps a little bit.  I 'think' I got my GameInfo files converted correctly.  I'm using the SMT program, which seems like it converted the GameInfo files

So here is what I have, hopefully you can help me figure this out

Mod folder:

C:\Users\Kevin\AppData\Local\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\Mods-Entrenchment v1.041\test2

inside this folder there is: GameInfo, Entrenchment->GameInfo, (brush, entity, galaxy, playerPictures, playerThemes, skybox).entity

(There is the seperate GameInfo for the Entrenchment expansion in the Entrenchment folder)

Its still freezing...... do manifests need to be placed in a specific place, what am I doing wrong???

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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Fendryx, reply 2

Its still freezing...... do manifests need to be placed in a specific place, what am I doing wrong???

yes though you have them in the right area, but you need to make sure they are kept up to date with your mod, so any new entity files you put in the GamesInfo folder also is in the Entity file with the number count kept current.

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

fendryx, in my modding utility pack 1.181a, I have a manifest maker that can build fresh manifests for a mod. along with all of my other modding/mapping utilities.

harpo

 

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

Okay, so can I get a straight answer, where does the entity.manifest file go?  The GameInfo file?  and because I am working on an Entrenchment mod, which GameInfo do I put it in?  The original sins, or the entrenchment gameinfo?  So if I am being a total noob thing, but this manifest thing really isn't making any sense...

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

the manifests for your mod SHOULD be in the folder above the mod's gameinfo folder eg C:\Users\Kevin\AppData\Local\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\Mods-Entrenchment v1.041\test2.

 you do not need or want to alter or add any files in the game's folders as the manifests tell entrenchment & diplomacy which files to load and entrenchment/diplomacy both search the top active mod, then the other active mods, then (for diplomacy the program files\stardock\sins\diplomacy folder) then entrenchment's program files\stardock\sins\entrenchment then last is the program files\stardock\sins folders.

hope this helps

harpo

 

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Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

yeah it helps alot, I got it working :)  I remember having trouble with learning the manifests when trying to figure out how to load custom maps.

Thanks for all the help everyone (And thanks for the programs Harpo!)

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

Alright, I'm going to bug you guys again for some help.

I got the first version of my mod working, and it worked really well, played a full length game without any issues.  Then I decided I wanted to tweak the maximum number of capital ships to a slightly higher number, and now for some strange reason I can't build Starbases.  Every single system I try to build them in says that I have exceeded my maximum number of star bases for this system.

And looking back on this, this problem may have existed in my first test.  My first game I played I did a capital-ship only strategy, and to achieve this I didn't build any ships but capital ships (it was quite awesome, I had my maximum of 18 capital ships lol.)

I'm not quite sure what would have caused this because I didn't even touch any files containing info about starbases except for the planet gameinfo files, where I modified the maximum number of resource asteroids.  I even went back to make sure that they all had a maximum of 1.

Any thoughts?

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top

the only way that you could possibly get this is if the planet*.entity files had the line staring with maxStarBaseCountPerPlayer set as 0, the default value for maxStarBaseCountPerPlayer is 1

and this line is about line 293 in the planet"*.entiy files

hope this helps

harpo

 

Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top

yeah im not sure what the heck is going on here.  I upgraded to Windows 7, but I doubt that would be causing this.

I'm going to try rebuilding the mod and see if I get the same error.