serratemplar

Yea, that's just par for the course. They deal with this in-house too, no doubt: they just work in the same office and can give each other ample warning. :) We're down the pipe and don't get any heads up. My Random Appearance Button took a kick to the shins. It's mostly fixed but I've got some (annoying) UI work to do in order to accommodate the sweet new arm slots.

A Git of the old source (ideally versioned with each update) would probably be fantastic for all of us down the line, if you don't mind spearheading that, OP. Turns out that creating a "Default" project with the IDE still uses the old source code, which was killing me today. The updated source of course lives here (for those that don't know): ...\Steam\SteamApps\common\XCOM 2 SDK\Development\Src\XComGame\Classes\

Me either. One thing you could try is to build a mod from scratch - using one of those examples you've found as a target - and build up to it, line by line, see which one breaks the universe. I'm afraid I don't personally have the time to deep dive in myself, but maybe someone else on here does.

I'm just guessing here, but that looks like it's bombing while cooking (and failing to a material default). Have you read the official docs on adding a flag? Maybe there's some switch you need to toggle in the IDE that you've overlooked?

Yep, on the nose. :)

If you're just looking to add custom flags, there are several mods that do just that. This one, for instance, adds a ton of flags: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=619708200 If you play the game in Steam, just Subscribe to this and you'll get the mod and the source code. The latter of which lands in the Steam workshop directory. :)

El Diablo, I honestly can't guess at what the core problem is, but I'm starting to think the tutorial is misleading you. If things work pre-tutorial but not post, I'd revert and try another tutorial. :)

Visual Studio's always been a bit finicky around this kind of stuff. I've honestly never seen the first msg, but the second one I've seen quite a bit. It usually means I've removed/deleted/renamed a file without then hitting Save All under the file menu. Each time you change something about the left pane (moving files around, renaming them, deleting them) you're actually changing the project file (.x2proj file) and you need to save it. Not doing so can lead to some weird stuff happening, even if you save later; it can end up being "too late" if enough compound changes are stacked up confusing things. Usually you can clear things up just hitting Save All. Try that first. If that's not enough, you can peek at the project file: back up the .xproj file for your project then open it in a text editor (it's plaintext and readable) and search for the clause(s) (typically a <content> tag) containing the offending filename(s). Any files tracked by the project that you deleted shouldn't be in here anymore; if you renamed it in the editor, then failed to Save All, you might find that the old filename is in the project file. Bring it in line with what you see in the IDE (or vice versa) to get things back on track. If you make changes to the project file outside of the IDE, tabbing back in will get you a message along the lines of "blahblah.xproj has changed outside; reload it?" You want to do that. :smile: If it makes things worse, just restore the backup and give it another go. And get in the habit of hitting Save All after any project level change!

Yea, I agree; there's like two or three separated rows of grey. I really wonder why they made the choices they did around the palettes they gave us.

No, just that folks have been asking for it, so I thought I'd look into it. Although, the current color picker UI is pretty impractical for over a few dozen colors; at some point the slider would just be a more convenient interface.

Has anybody else looked into this? I've done two deep dives into it hoping to make it happen myself, and I don't think it can be done easily, if at all with the given tools. I've come away convinced that the only way to support color selection by sliders would be to override one or more core classes in some big ways. The code all assumes that colors are indexed in their pre-baked palette. Everything from color creation (under UIUtilities_Color) to application to the meshes (in XComHumanPawn) assumes that colors are all referenced by (single int) index. When the meshes themselves are updated, the indexed color (selected from one of the swatches the code calls UIColorChip) is unpacked into a (core UE3 class) MaterialInstanceConstant, then the mesh is redrawn with the new color. It looks like the assignment via MIC is how the color is ultimately stored for further use in that Actor. What I'd like to do is create a ScreenListener - listening for UIColorSelector then somehow switching on which of the traits is actually being edited - that pops up three UISliders for RGB input and pipes those values (upon commit) into a MaterialInstanceConstant, and then applies it - permanently - to the mesh in question. But I don't think this will work because, everywhere I look, whenever the mesh is updated for any reason, all of the involved functions assume the color is from their pre-baked palette...so, I think, even if I managed to assign a color to the mesh, the next update for any reason (even backing out of the menu) will just scrub that injection with whatever color index was previously assigned to it. Probably for optimization or stability. I assume this wasn't done arbitrarily by Firaxis: this must be tied into some optimization that's simply outside of my comprehension right now. (I'm very new to UDK and modding in general.) So, I'm hesitant to just gallantly override this class, if I even can. (I haven't tried injecting any log() statements yet, honestly, so this may be a complete wash.) But, even if I can, the amount of stuff to be done to undo the "all colors are on our palette" assumption is some serious heavy lifting. I'm just spit-balling here, but possibly we could override the baked in palette with our own (via config file and an override - syntactically or just brutishly) although this seems really awkward and is far less desirable than sliders would be. But, maybe I'm wrong? So...maybe I've made a mistake above or otherwise am confused and this isn't as hard as I think. Have any of you taken a look at this or have any ideas about it? Wait, whaddya mean by 'practical'? I mean something I could reliably maintain while having a normal day job. :) Thanks in advance.

Oh ho! Thank you thank you. That was definitely it.

It's supposed to be a 588x512 JPG named ModPreview.jpg and - as far as I know - that's the only constraint. For two of my three mods it's working but I can't get it to work for the third one. When I click Publish in ModBuddy it claims everything's succeeded and I do see text stating it's pushing and pushed the preview image up, prior to claiming success. I've also uploaded it via the Steam Workshop interface itself and set it as the first image, which some forums I've seen suggest is actually what makes a thumbnail. So far, I'm still thumbnail-less. :\ Does anybody happen to know precisely what needs to be done; so far my guesswork has not paid off for me. Thanks in advance. :)

You can't override the stock .uc files; at least, not without overriding some core UE files that are compressed and maybe encoded hidden somewhere. Amineri went into this recently (mentioned it anyway) but I can't find that post, sorry. :\ (Was in here somewhere if I recall.) Maybe to start experimenting you can dupe then modify the Example Weapon mod, creating new versions of the old weapons that have more slots?

See here. Sounds like you're in the clear though because, as you say.... Well that's odd. I mean, it's great that you know you can fix it, but there's gotta be an easier path to get there than a full reinstall of both. :smile: I read somewhere recently this week (can't recall where, probably on here) that certain mods can mess with the INIs outside of their sandbox. What does your mod do? What file(s) does it include? Is it a new class or override? INI edits? Sometime else?

I hate to ask the stupidest question, but since I'm about to start suggesting insane stuff, it must be asked: you've rebooted your system between tests, right? :smile: Do you have any anti-virus applications running? (Some of those can really mess with compilers.) If so, maybe try disabling it and see if things work. (Some are super aggressive - e.g. Avast - and might need to be removed if it turns out to be the problem.) Since you can't get an unmodified example mod to run, if I were in your shoes, I'd tear it all down and set it all back up, one step at a time. A full teardown would be telling Steam to delete all the local content, then going into VS's profile location (under User\AppData, you'll need to Google around depending on your version of Windows) and making sure it's gone. I'd delete the Firaxis Modbuddy folder under Documents too. Then reinstall it and try again. Your goal at this point should be to get the unmodified ExampleWeapon mod building; was the first thing I did and it worked right out of the gate.

From page 2 of the Quick Start Guide: (Emphasis mine.) Specifically these: ...\Steam\steamapps\common\XCOM 2 SDK\Binaries\Redist\UE3Redist.exe ...\Steam\steamapps\common\XCOM 2 SDK\Binaries\Redist\vs_isoshell.exe If you didn't install them, you'll want to do that.

Sounds like the build process (that gets forked off by the IDE) is bombing. Did you install both of the redistributables as instructed? Are your paths set up?

i would think that, however shouldn't it just give an error or something instead of just freezing endlessly. Also the same things happen when i try to debug the given Exampleweapon mod file for example. Well, if it's a compile/build time error, yea it'll give you a message. But run-time errors can manifest in other ways, like crashes or freezing. It does make them more annoying to track down, I'll grant you. Follow davidlallen's advice there and let us know what you see.

I see. Not so bad then. :) Probably just a bug in your code. The general strategy is to start commenting out stuff you've added until you end up with something that you can build and run (even if it's all the way down to an empty project). Since you *know* empty projects can run, you can use this approach to find which line of your code is the culprit. That's what I'd do. :)

Is XCOM 2 (the game) running when you're running the build? If you try to start Debug mode - which will trigger a build - and the XCOM exe is running, it's going to sit and wait...because the XCOM game exe locks resources that ModBuddy needs to run its build. Make sure XCOM's not running then try your build. :) If that's not the issue, first thing I'd check is my SDK's installation: in particular, make certain that the paths you need to set (to the SDK and the game) are set correctly. I hope this helps!

Great find. Thanks for sharing. :)

This is subjective, of course, but personally I've found the game very well balanced in my playtime with it. I'm really having a lot of fun. Sorry you're not enjoying it. :(

I think you might have an easier time making a button like mine have a custom generator that can access the soldier's info from inside (the XComGameState_Unit instance) rather than injecting or overriding that code. Injecting custom code into that core class (if it's possible, I don't think it is without doing some really extreme overhauling) will reduce compatibility with other mods; I really think that's why they're pushing the Listener class thing as those will tend to play more nicely than straight up overrides. (My mod's hitting precisely this problem right now as the popular ImportFromCharacterPool mod makes its own instance of UICustomize_Info and my mod and it trip right over each other since my listener responds both to the stock Customization Info menu and the one from this mod.) Extending (and overriding that function) might be doable, but I don't know quite where you'd convince the game to use your function instead of its for Background generation. All that said, I could be 100% wrong, haha. I'd be very curious to know how you manage to do this; I'd no doubt learn something. :) Good luck!

Actually, this may be a nonstarter. :\ Once again, under my nose, in the GenerateBackground function... if(BackgroundStory != "") { LocTag.StrValue0 = GetCountryTemplate().DisplayNameWithArticleLower; LocTag.StrValue1 = GetFirstName(); strBackground $= "\n\n" $ `XEXPAND.ExpandString(BackgroundStory); } It doesn't even check for any tags other than Country or FirstName. I think the only way for you to do this (to include last names) would be to actually write a Screen Listener that generates a bio and forces it in via that function. Doing that would allow you to create a custom tag, I bet.