easyMod

Speaking personally, the only thing in Program Files/Stardock is my old Impulse stuff. All GalCiv II material is under Program Files/Stardock Games.

What is the actual installation folder? Is it: Galactic Civilizations II - Ultimate Edition or something else? I might just drill down into "Stardock Games" and list the directories there looking for gc2, that might be the least fragile method.

Thank you for the reply though!

Auto-detecting the game installation folder by way of checking likely locations is all very well but you need to think about letting the user pick a folder manually as well.  I have GalCiv on D: along with most of the rest of my games.

Being the true programmer that I am (read=I'm lazy) I've decided I'll autodetect any thing located in the directories that I know about, and let the user pick the location if I don't find it. That covers everything, requires less coding on my part, and still gets the job done. If anyone is interested in my tool, please let me know and I'll post updates and screens as I have them.

easyMod will

• Project Support - Each mod is a project and files are kept together
• Concurrent Project Support - Allows you to work on a multiple number of mods at once
• Eventually, every aspect that can be modded via XML, will be available through the tool
• Simplified editing. If that aspect requires 3 XML files to be modded, that's hidden from you and only required to fill out text fields
• Super modding - Mod your favorite mod!
• Project Merging - If you have two projects and you want to combine them, you will have the ability to do so
• Sandbox support - All projects are created in their own directory, so there is no risk or corrupting your game or another mod
• Hints - The tool will provide hints as to the "sane" default values are or make suggestions based on the type of mod you want
• Ability to automatically package your mod for distribution
• Simple image manipulation, palette swaps, etc
• Addition of new assets into the game (planet tiles, custom maps, etc)

easyMod wont

• Do any type of 3D modeling (importing, exporting, etc)
• Modify the in-game user interface

If there are any other features you would like to see, or don't like one listed, please let me know.

Thanks for all the replies thus far!

Hmm....i think i might get this once it has a version for download.

one suggestion:

the current stardock editors make you type in the name of a tech in the tech tree list for the required tech to research, could you have a dropdown menu that updates for new techs in the list to speed that bit up?

EDIT:

Another suggestion:

could you have the icon, texture and model selection methods show a preview of the selected file?

Nice idea!

I plan on having everything update as you add/edit it, including (dropdown now , and lists). I should have a very rough and feature poor version by the end of the week. I already have about 3k lines of code written and some initial UI done, but I still have a long way to go. I only wish I knew more about Windows GUI programming in C as I think I could code it up quicker that way.

Here are some screenshots of easyMod with the Tech editor open.

EDIT:

- Updated screenshots for new UI.

Something you might want to look into is validating the tech tree so that there aren't any circular dependencies.  I've done it a couple of times myself and it causes the game to crash when generating the galaxy, so it would be good to catch that before I get all the way in-game.

I think I'm going to cut it there for the UI development until I get the functionality working for the existing pieces. I will need some help in testing if there are any brave souls out there who would be willing to risk life, limb and data corruption. 

On a side note, there *shouldn't* actually be any issues aside from it just not working like it should. I'm also open to praise/flames for design, etc. Thanks again to everyone that has replied!

Nice job!

I say, that was some speedy coding.

I would like to risk my pc for the sake of GCII Modding!

EDIT:

On a side note:

Try to edit the OP so its up to date.

Peace.

I think I'm willing to give it a shot.  I'm only a novice modder myself (if that) so I imagine this tool is just the thing to be tested by someone like me.

Sorry for the lack of updates, I got caught up an a pretty exciting game this week and got my first ascension victory (usually I get culture or alliance)  with 9 majors and 4 minors or a gigantic size map. I'll get back to work shortly...

If it helps, the steam version is downloaded to:

Windows 7 64 bit

c:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\galactic civilizations ii - ultimate edition

Thought I would post an update:

- Game autodetection is complete (as much as it's going to be at least)

- Game failover in case auto-detection fails is complete

- EasyMod configuration reader/writer complete

- GC2 ini reader/writer complete

- GC2 Hints xml reader/writer complete

- GC2 Hints editor complete

In Progress

- Config loading

- Project creation

- Project modification

- Project loading/saving

- Custom Races editor

After the next updates are complete, it will be ready for some testing, just see if it breaks on other people's system.

System Requirements:

- Oracle's Java (7u5) (Found here: http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp)

- Windows XP or later (32/64 bit ok)

- At *least* GalCiv II. DA and Twilight are also supported (and preferred)

I am planning on adding an auto-update feature so you don't have to manually keep downloading the updates. I've always hated that and I assume anyone kind enough to test this out would find it annoying as well. Sadly, that will not be available for the next few releases.

EDIT:

Thanks for the steam installation path. I added that into the game path autodetection. As I don't have the game from steam, I'm hoping the directories structure is the same and it "just works" for steam users.

Could you include an auto-save to the todo list?(with a slider to determine how many minutes to wait)

It could get annoying if your PC freezes during modding.

I can give you a firm "maybe" on that one

Update:

I had to go back to square one with the code. You would figure as long as I have been developing software I would have learned by now to design first, code later.   Any ways, I have a design plan now and am coding to meet to my plan. I have the much of the base functionality in place but no UI. Stay tuned, I will get this beast released...

Edited main post and added screenshot of the hint editor.

not bad!

is the window scalable?

Of course! I hate being locked into a particular size. Resize, maximize, or minimize, the choice is yours.

Nice.

one feature i asked for a few posts up(this one:

is that going to be included?

Images - Yes, I can do that.

Texture - Maybe, if it's a standard image format, which I think they are.

Models - Most likely not, as those are 3D images and I don't know of a java library that handles the 3D format used by the game.

you sure you could not make it take a photo?

Yep, I'm sure.

UPDATE:

Just wanted to apologize on the lack of updates. Life has gotten VERY busy for me lately and I have not had much time to work on EasyMod. I expect that I will be getting some time this week, so I'll post some updated screens when I have them!