Modding details? Ask away!

[Amineri]

I figured playing around with mission names would be a good small little thing to start off with. I determined easily enough that XGMission was responsible for those. Its a Class, I want to change what that class does, helpfully included in the templates was ExampleClassOverride. I read it, it makes sense to me, create a new class, inherent from the old, override what functionality you wish to change.

 

...

I saw this post earlier in the thread by you Amineri which i hoped would help me figure it out.

 

As far as I can tell this is not a GameState class. It is not an archetype. If I intentionally write some bad code it fails to build. When it does build it happily deposits a OperationAdjectiveNoune.u there.

 

I've been testing it by loading up the debug-mode strategy layer and scanning until a misison is generated to check the name, so there should not be a problem with savegame baked classes or data.

 

I am most likely doing something wrong but I have no clue what it is.

 

It sounds like you are trying the right things, but class override limits aren't well understood yet, really.

 

What Firaxis did is to override the new and Spawn functionality down in the core Unreal native code to implement this "swapping" functionality, but exactly when and where it will and won't work is still TBD. Also, there appear to be some issues with getting it to work on Mac/Linux that I wouldn't have found (I work on Windows).

 

You might check the Launch.log to see if there is an error message about your class getting spawned. The call is instrumented to log message on certain error types. Failing that, you might instrument your code yourself with a

 

`LOG("A message");

Then check if the message is getting logged.

 

It could also be that the XGMission code isn't the one generated the mission names. Most of the XG- prefix code from EU was deprecated, and now the common prefixes are XCom (for gamestates and archetypes) and X2 (for rearchitected classes). The remaining XG- classes are mostly things like pawn controllers (e.g. XGUnit, which is no longer a data container -- that's now XComGameState_Unit).

[Amineri]

is it possible to make all research, building, and scans complete in one days?

 

 

Thanks in advance, i really appreciate it

 

I'm pretty sure it is, but not not all in the same place. Each of the three would have to be handled separately. Research and building times I know are handled in config, but I'm not 100% sure about scanning times -- those might be in code, since they seem to be randomized.

[Tjvelcro]

Hi,

 

Just wondering if you can provide some insight on creating a new class. I tinkered around with the DefaultClassData.ini and copied the ranger portion then renamed it but after testing I can the result in the attachment, my class name does not show up. I suspect I need to change it elsewhere or maybe using modbuddy but not sure how it can be done using that tool. Any advice?

 

 

[sethnorris23]

I see a lot of references to ini tweaks and config changes. But the nexus has always been a place for thousands of skin and model mods, and I opened modbuddy a few hours ago and still have no clue what to do whatsoever. So, I just wanted to create a new tatoo, as a fellow here. But you answered him to do things like open the UD Content Browser which, I've spent hours looking for and I dindt find. Also, is there any reference about the texture formats, size... etc. I mean, mostly, the first mods to appear for a game are simple reskins but seems to be this is hard as hell. And I'm a mapper and a experienced modder, but this seems to be way more complicated than it was advertised.

[RapidXX]

Hi Amineri,

 

I was wondering how I would add a new country flag, or modify an excisting one, could you shine some light on it?:D

[wghost81]

Right now it looks like adding new stuff is actually easier than modifying an existing ones. :) We can modify core functionality with ini and options are wast. But still, scripting side is limited in this area.

[Amineri]

Hi,

 

Just wondering if you can provide some insight on creating a new class. I tinkered around with the DefaultClassData.ini and copied the ranger portion then renamed it but after testing I can the result in the attachment, my class name does not show up. I suspect I need to change it elsewhere or maybe using modbuddy but not sure how it can be done using that tool. Any advice?

 

http://forums.nexusmods.com/public/style_images/underground/attachicon.gifClassNameMissing.jpg

 

That stuff is handle via localization files ( .INT for english).

[Amineri]

I see a lot of references to ini tweaks and config changes. But the nexus has always been a place for thousands of skin and model mods, and I opened modbuddy a few hours ago and still have no clue what to do whatsoever. So, I just wanted to create a new tatoo, as a fellow here. But you answered him to do things like open the UD Content Browser which, I've spent hours looking for and I dindt find. Also, is there any reference about the texture formats, size... etc. I mean, mostly, the first mods to appear for a game are simple reskins but seems to be this is hard as hell. And I'm a mapper and a experienced modder, but this seems to be way more complicated than it was advertised.

 

Right. Well, when Firaxis gave out the full set of tools, they gave out the set of "Development Tools". So there's not a simplified pipeline for modding assets. This is both good and bad, in my opinion. It adds some complexity to some things, but also is much more powerful in terms of what can be achieved.

 

It's like the difference between building a game using RPGMaker vs Unity or Unreal. The former is simpler, but allows less freedom to do what you want. That latter is harder, but allows you to build almost anything you can imagine. Firaxis basically gave us something close to the latter.

[GamingVirtue]

 

I see a lot of references to ini tweaks and config changes. But the nexus has always been a place for thousands of skin and model mods, and I opened modbuddy a few hours ago and still have no clue what to do whatsoever. So, I just wanted to create a new tatoo, as a fellow here. But you answered him to do things like open the UD Content Browser which, I've spent hours looking for and I dindt find. Also, is there any reference about the texture formats, size... etc. I mean, mostly, the first mods to appear for a game are simple reskins but seems to be this is hard as hell. And I'm a mapper and a experienced modder, but this seems to be way more complicated than it was advertised.

 

Right. Well, when Firaxis gave out the full set of tools, they gave out the set of "Development Tools". So there's not a simplified pipeline for modding assets. This is both good and bad, in my opinion. It adds some complexity to some things, but also is much more powerful in terms of what can be achieved.

 

It's like the difference between building a game using RPGMaker vs Unity or Unreal. The former is simpler, but allows less freedom to do what you want. That latter is harder, but allows you to build almost anything you can imagine. Firaxis basically gave us something close to the latter.

 

 

Just my two cents, but...theoretically, they could've gone through and added libraries of common functions with the effects available on hover, and built them into various additional interfaces without ruining or even really modifying the way it works right now. Essentially, a way to bridge the gap between people who understand the code being used for the engine and those who aren't familiar with it.

 

I mean, I'm certified in several scripting and programming languages, and it's not completely foreign to me when I look through the scripts in the ModBuddy, but at the same time, I can see how this would seem downright arcane to others. After all, the documentation provided isn't exactly the most effective reference available, and many of the classes are X2-specific, meaning you have to go looking for something before you'll know exactly what you need.

 

I do hope that Firaxis improves upon the user-friendliness of the tool, but seeing as this is almost exactly the one from Civ V with a different title, I don't exactly see it happening.

[zx64]

Is there any tooling related to maintaining (i.e. visualising, validating, authoring) the config data?

The behemoth of X2AIBTBehaviorTreeNode instances in DefaultAI.ini must have been a nightmare to develop if all they could do was slog away in their text editors of choice and pray for as few merge conflicts as possible.