RE: Galactic Star Map (Version 1.0)

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All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Distant Worlds 1 Series >> Design and Modding >> RE: Galactic Star Map (Version 1.0)

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RE: Galactic Star Map (Version 1.0) - 4/12/2019 10:09:01 AM

Osito

Posts: 875
Joined: 5/9/2013
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Anthropoid

@Osito: I have now read through the whole thread and this time round paid close heed to your directions on integrating your maps into an alternate Theme and thus creating a new "scenario" with the map in said theme. I sent you a PM an hour or so ago asking if you could point me to the thread (mentioned by Roger Bacon) where you explain how to make "scenarios" and I suppose I've probably found it already.

Is the state you described back in 2014/2015 still the case for the latest Steam versions of the game? If so, a real shame that scenario and map creation were not given a bit more useability love. I was considering trying to integrate your maps with Das123's RetreatUE + Bacon Mod + Das Chrome theme. I may still give it a shot, but it sounds pretty tedious.

It true that I haven't been around in a modding sense for a while. I took something of a break modding Stellaris, and my memory of DW modding is slightly hazy.

However, I do remember very clearly that you can't simply combine my map mod with another mod. This was one of my biggest disappointments with DW modding, and essentially made my map mod irrelevant.

If you want to combine my mod with another mod, you have to start with one of them as a base, then rebuild the other one on top of it. Building the map itself is very tedious, as you have to place each star individually.

Incidentally, when I say there's no easy way to combine the mods, I'm talking about conventional modding techniques. It may be that Roger Bacon has some ideas about how it could be done more efficiently.

(Incidentally, I tried to do a similar map mod in Stellaris, but the limitations turned out to be almost as bad as with DW.)

< Message edited by Osito -- 4/12/2019 10:49:33 AM >

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Osito

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Post #: 61

RE: Galactic Star Map (Version 1.0) - 4/12/2019 1:01:36 PM

Anthropoid

Posts: 3107
Joined: 2/22/2005
From: Secret Underground Lair
Status: offline

I appreciate your response Osito!
I can confirm that "it isn't as easy as putting the map/scenario file into a new map directory."
After installing Bacon Mod and confirming it worked, I installed Das123's integration of his RetreatUE + Chrome with Bacon Mod and also confirmed it worked. I then created:
H:\\Steam\steamapps\common\Distant Worlds Universe\Customization\RetreatUE Bacon\maps
and put copies of your maps in there and attempted to launch Human Evolution as a scenario. Initially it seemed to work fine but then crashed with errors.
Right now, I've got a burned out water cooler and waiting for my new one to arrive so I can install it, so I'm kinda dead in the water either on graphical design (what I SHOULD be doing!) or on high power gaming (just grabbed Witcher 3 for super cheap and was going to dive into that for my first time when I realized the CPU is throttling back hard because of the dead cooler . . .). So I've got some time to kill. I may well piddle around with changing directory references or directory names to see if the map/scenario can be "fooled" into thinking it is in the folder it belongs in. I suspect that must be part of the process because, when I launched Human Evolution map/scenario there was a message saying "Loading Extended DW theme" and it was only a few seconds after that when the application crashed out. That tells me that something in the map/scenario file is telling the application which theme the map/scenario file is "for" and then the application is trying to make sure that is the them which is currently loaded. In my case, since the theme doesn't exist: error. However, it may be possible to dupe the app into thinking that the "right" theme is already loaded by simply changing the name of my H:\\Steam\steamapps\common\Distant Worlds Universe\Customization\RetreatUE Bacon\ to something like H:\\Steam\steamapps\common\Distant Worlds Universe\Customization\DW Extended\ . . . or whatever the actual string is. Not a hard thing to check so I'll give it a try and let ya'll know what I find. Even then however, the mismatch in the species (the so-called "races" of the game) in RetreatUE Bacon and the one's assigned on the map MIGHT be a problem. Possibly not since all the default species still exist in RetreatUE Bacon and your map uses only the vanilla ones.

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(in reply to Osito)

Post #: 62

RE: Galactic Star Map (Version 1.0) - 4/12/2019 1:03:39 PM

Anthropoid

Posts: 3107
Joined: 2/22/2005
From: Secret Underground Lair
Status: offline

So is DW2 an actual thing? Or is it just a dream? That hero who made this, Elliot is his name, eh? He is so incredibly low-profile, hard to know I guess!?

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Post #: 63

RE: Galactic Star Map (Version 1.0) - 4/13/2019 12:27:06 PM

Anthropoid

Posts: 3107
Joined: 2/22/2005
From: Secret Underground Lair
Status: offline

Little update on my efforts to get the Osito Galactic Star Map "Human Evolution" scenario to run with the "Bacon Mod + RetreatUE + Das Chrome" theme.

Based on something said by a previous poster in this thread, I wanted to explore the possibility that the two packages could be "duped" into working together simply by insuring that the directory name for the "theme" running when a new game is setup matched the directory name for the theme in which the map was originally created in the editor. I thought I'd first try with the "Extended Universe" version of Human Evolution.

I tracked down Haree78's "Distant Worlds Extended Universe 1.0.3 released 40 races", downloaded and extracted it. This looked like this:
H:\\Downloads\DW Extended Universe 1.0.3 + Das Chrome Blue\DW Extended Universe
Mainly I did this just to know what the string was for the name of Haree78's theme. I wasn't sure if Osito's map would expect the larger (parent) string or the smaller one, so I decided to try the smaller one first "DW Extended Universe."
I then created a copy of
H:\\Steam\steamapps\common\Distant Worlds Universe\Customization\RetreatUE Bacon
and renamed it:
H:\\Steam\steamapps\common\Distant Worlds Universe\Customization\DW Extended Universe

When I loaded that theme (the "dupe labeled" RetreatUE) the interface told me there were two scenario maps for the theme, and I attempted to load the Human Evolution map.

In contrast to previous attempts to load the Human Evolution map with the more accurate "RetreatUE Bacon" name for the theme, there was no popup text telling me the game was attempting access any other directory (e.g., "Loading DW Extended Universe theme") so I took that as a sign that, the application had been duped into believing that the strings for the current them and the theme in which the map had been created matched up (suggesting there would be no point in trying the longer string "DW Extended Universe 1.0.3 + Das Chrome Blue."

Unfortunately this is where things went astray and the result of the tests suggests to me that the simple approach of "duping" the app by falsely matching names in the loaded theme and the one in which the map was created will not work in this specific case--and probably not in the case of most mods for the game.

The game suffered an exception and the error pertained to the application being "unable to read" a "resourceld" at line 174 in components.txt.
Going to line 174 in:
H:\\Steam\steamapps\common\Distant Worlds Universe\Customization\RetreatUE Bacon\components.txt
I found

quote:

11, Bombard - Nuclear Devastator, 11, 4, Torpedo_Large.wav, . . .

If memory serves, "Nuclear Devastator" missiles are a vanilla component? So the mismatch in what the application expected based on the map/scenario file and what it found in the theme itself is either a result of changes to the parameters for that component, else a difference in the exact permutation of lines in that file starting at that point.

This suggests to me that: getting the Galactic maps to work with the theme will involve some rectification of such mismatches, and that would require an overall level of understanding of how the data files are structured that far exceeds mine!

I would imagine there are scores, hundreds or perhaps a thousand or more such mismatches in the data files, so that path seems pretty bleak . . .

So, I think I'll have a look at simply "redoing" the map by loading it as a custom scenario, wiping out all the aliens/pirates/etc., and then rebuilding it from "scratch" (i.e., using only the solar systems). If I succeed in that, I'll post it.

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Post #: 64

RE: Galactic Star Map (Version 1.0) - 4/13/2019 2:36:27 PM

Hattori Hanzo

Posts: 734
Joined: 3/21/2011
From: Okinawa
Status: offline

well, it seem that a lot of work is waiting for you..

Good Luck, Anthropoid.. !!!

ps: and don't forget to let us know the final result of your efforts