Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide (Full Version)

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Erik Rutins -> Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide (5/13/2014 4:54:07 PM)

Distant Worlds: Universe, the ultimate Distant Worlds experience, is coming out soon. Not only does Distant Worlds: Universe include all the former Distant Worlds content, it even manages to further expand on it. This includes a brand new storyline, as well as a host of changes under-the-hood. One of the most important changes however, is that Distant Worlds: Universe features vastly expanded modding capabilities. This means that it will now be easier than ever to make Distant Worlds your personalized sci-fi experience!

The full modding guide has now been made available for all to see. This comprehensive guide is over a hundred pages long and explains in detail how to alter the game to your own likings. Both the seasoned modder as well as the beginner will find this document very useful!

Click here for the full modding guide.

See the printer friendly version of the guide here.




Darkspire -> RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide (5/13/2014 5:37:17 PM)

Hi Erik.

It was discussed quite a while ago that the Star Wars images that are included were not a good idea, might get some kickback about copyright, even more so since the new movie is in the works.

Various other things but this seems to be the final print and had not been put out as a draft, so I'll leave it at that.

Darkspire





Erik Rutins -> RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide (5/13/2014 6:04:12 PM)

Darn, I thought we had replaced that image but apparently it did get in. Thanks for the heads up, we'll get it fixed ASAP.




swizzlewizzle -> RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide (5/14/2014 12:50:00 PM)

Yea, let us take on the copy-right risk, you guys just make a good platform for us to build on ok? [8D]




Hawawaa -> RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide (5/14/2014 2:01:09 PM)

Ya drawing Disney characters in bathroom stalls at restaurants can lead to Disney's lawyers knocking on your doors to remove or it or else... Crazy stuff but its the world we live in. Good catch. [;)]




tjhkkr -> RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide (5/14/2014 8:55:22 PM)

Darn, you must have fixed it; I would have loved to have seen the SW version. [:'(]
But I would not want MatrixGames to get in any trouble. [:D]
Thank you![8D]




Erik Rutins -> RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide (5/14/2014 10:13:23 PM)

Yes, all fixed now <whew>.




tbrass -> RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide (5/14/2014 11:26:34 PM)

[rant]
You know, prior to the Mickey Mouse Copyright Act(the 1976 revision, instituted at the behest of Disney), you would have been a-okay to use those images in the US. Copyright terms had been limited to 28 years. Early law was only 14 (yeah, yeah, with the right to extend if the author was still living.) The whole idea was to encourage people to draw upon prior art in creating new, interesting works.

You know, like mods. Clearly the founders envisioned Star Wars DW, A Game of Thrones CK2, and Morrowind Skyrim. Too bad copyright maximalists have control of our government, and they are now trying to negotiate--in secret because they have admitted that the public wouldn't like the actual language being discussed--criminal sanctions for building on the art of others.
[/rant]

Thanks for sharing the modding guide, Erik! Looking forward to seeing the rest of Universe.




Mad Igor -> RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide (5/15/2014 5:14:27 AM)

oh yea ! online pdf !i rly hate all those downloadable PDFs.
1) waiting for enternety for them to load.
2) then see annoying "UPDATE IS RDY" icon. annoyed with eyedirt on the left i'm forced do kill with process manager.




Darkspire -> RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide (5/15/2014 7:36:45 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Mad Igor

oh yea ! online pdf !i rly hate all those downloadable PDFs.
1) waiting for enternety for them to load.
2) then see annoying "UPDATE IS RDY" icon. annoyed with eyedirt on the left i'm forced do kill with process manager.


Don't use Adobe reader then, try Foxit.

Darkspire




tjhkkr -> RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide (5/15/2014 11:40:28 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
Yes, all fixed now <whew>.


Anyone want a contraband modding guide complete with the 'contraband images?' [:D]
Just kidding, Erik; I already deleted it and pulled down the safe copy...[:'(]




RICO7878 -> RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide (5/16/2014 1:18:47 AM)

Awesome! Thanks.




ASHBERY76 -> RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide (5/16/2014 4:04:09 PM)

Well after reading the manual it seems very limited under the hood modding from my experience with many vanilla games I have got having a lot more options,but it is better than before.




Erik Rutins -> RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide (5/16/2014 9:06:57 PM)

I thought we'd expanded things quite a lot and it was a lot of work, but I understand you were hoping for more. What other modding capabilities would you use that are not currently supported? We are listening and we do plan to respond to community requests post-release.




FingNewGuy -> RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide (5/17/2014 12:19:37 AM)

quote:

oh yea ! online pdf !i rly hate all those downloadable PDFs.
1) waiting for enternety for them to load.
2) then see annoying "UPDATE IS RDY" icon. annoyed with eyedirt on the left i'm forced do kill with process manager.


Dude, what kind of POS machine are you running??? I have NEVER had any kind of problem with downloadable PDFs. Ever.




swizzlewizzle -> RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide (5/17/2014 2:34:34 AM)

Erik, the only thing I would like is some basic ability to attach sounds/music to triggers... right now the audio system has zero moddability for music. Audio is basically half of the experience so... not sure why you didn't include a way to attach music to events. :(




Shark7 -> RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide (5/17/2014 3:42:10 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: swizzlewizzle

Erik, the only thing I would like is some basic ability to attach sounds/music to triggers... right now the audio system has zero moddability for music. Audio is basically half of the experience so... not sure why you didn't include a way to attach music to events. :(


Not quite zero, you can change the background music. Unfortunately, I don't know of any way to tie it into specific situations.




Hannable -> RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide (5/17/2014 4:04:50 PM)

This might have been asked before somewhere but hopefully I'm not being redundant (feel free to post a link to the relevant post if needs be)

But I'm curious how Universe will affect existing mods like ship sets, planet images, weapons effects, sound effects, icons, ship names, and such? Will we all have to start over or will Universe support existing mods?




ASHBERY76 -> RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide (5/17/2014 4:07:09 PM)

From reading the manual it should not effect anything you mention.




Darkspire -> RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide (5/17/2014 6:44:06 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Hannable

This might have been asked before somewhere but hopefully I'm not being redundant (feel free to post a link to the relevant post if needs be)

But I'm curious how Universe will affect existing mods like ship sets, planet images, weapons effects, sound effects, icons, ship names, and such? Will we all have to start over or will Universe support existing mods?


You will need to modify any theme to get it compatible with Universe. There is now a new theme structure, the days of having to write over master files like planet graphics etc are gone, each theme is now self contained and really can be a unique theme.

You will also need to update, race and policy files, they have had quite a bit added. I updated my theme from Legends and it took me about a week to transfer all the races over, due to testing on Shadows I never updated it fully, then I started on Universe and just did a basic testing theme, it has taken quite a bit of time to balance out and add everything for the universe version of Darkverse and I am still working on and tweaking it as I was down for a few months due to a hardware failure, DW is now more a 4x engine and has become like clay, you can sculpt some pretty amazing things with it.

Darkspire




Raap -> RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide (5/17/2014 11:09:54 PM)

Lots of nice stuff here, looking great.

I assume getting the AI to use newly added technologies/components is just a matter of adding them to the appropriate race/empire files?




ehsumrell1 -> RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide (5/17/2014 11:47:39 PM)

Well stated Darkspire! [:)]




tjhkkr -> RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide (5/18/2014 12:42:49 AM)

This is going to be a whole lot of fun![:)]




swizzlewizzle -> RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide (5/18/2014 12:51:58 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Shark7


quote:

ORIGINAL: swizzlewizzle

Erik, the only thing I would like is some basic ability to attach sounds/music to triggers... right now the audio system has zero moddability for music. Audio is basically half of the experience so... not sure why you didn't include a way to attach music to events. :(


Not quite zero, you can change the background music. Unfortunately, I don't know of any way to tie it into specific situations.


Yes, this is the problem. No reason for any sort of mood music when all you get is random shuffle tracks... at that point might as well just let the players use their own playlists and not even bother with game music. :(




ASHBERY76 -> RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide (5/18/2014 2:58:09 PM)

All I saw in the policy file added was BuildPlanetDestroyers.The race file and policy in the modding manual is the same as Shadows apart from that.




Shark7 -> RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide (5/18/2014 4:57:55 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76

All I saw in the policy file added was BuildPlanetDestroyers.The race file and policy in the modding manual is the same as Shadows apart from that.


Actually there are quite a few differences.

Just some examples from the races file:

You can now disallow ANY component(s) (tech) for a race. Not limited to just 1, as many as you desire.

You can also make ANY component exclusive to a race.

You can disallow any government type(s) for a specific species. (IE your war-mongering ogres could be set to never be allowed to change to Way of the Ancients, Republic, and Technocracy for example).

Those are just the ones I can remember without looking. So there are new options that while they seem small, can make a huge impact on the game.




ASHBERY76 -> RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide (5/18/2014 5:08:03 PM)

quote:

You can disallow any government type(s) for a specific species. (IE your war-mongering ogres could be set to never be allowed to change to Way of the Ancients, Republic, and Technocracy for example).


What about incite rebellion effects if they cannot change gov?




Shark7 -> RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide (5/18/2014 5:40:44 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76

quote:

You can disallow any government type(s) for a specific species. (IE your war-mongering ogres could be set to never be allowed to change to Way of the Ancients, Republic, and Technocracy for example).


What about incite rebellion effects if they cannot change gov?



They'll still be subject to the same rules as any other species, but will simply be limited as to what type of government they can switch to. I wouldn't go so far as to limit all but one type, but someone could certinaly experiment with it.

In my example, all but the three listed are possibilities for the Ogres to switch to, so they can still rebel and switch to Way of Darkness, Despotism, Military Dictatorship, etc.

Keep in mind you also have the 2 existing (Shadows/Legends) settings for:

Special Government

Preferred starting government


Which can further define how they react.

It really just depends on how much you want to mod the game to limit the alien species.




tjhkkr -> RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide (5/20/2014 2:51:25 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76
All I saw in the policy file added was BuildPlanetDestroyers.The race file and policy in the modding manual is the same as Shadows apart from that.

At least you can control which empires are evil enough to build death-stars or Star Trekkian Solid Neutronium Doomsday weapons.




Darkspire -> RE: Distant World Universe: Full Modding Guide (5/20/2014 3:59:03 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: tjhkkr

quote:

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76
All I saw in the policy file added was BuildPlanetDestroyers.The race file and policy in the modding manual is the same as Shadows apart from that.

At least you can control which empires are evil enough to build death-stars or Star Trekkian Solid Neutronium Doomsday weapons.



And to that end you can enable or disable scaling of images for ships, when enabled the image for the ship class can be much bigger than any other ship in a theme, like a properly sized Borg cube [8D]

Darkspire




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