Patches on Modded Scenarios

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All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Gary Grigsby's War in the East 2 >> Scenario Design and Modding >> Patches on Modded Scenarios

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Patches on Modded Scenarios - 7/26/2021 12:51:14 AM

Naughteous Maximus

Posts: 301
Joined: 3/9/2010
From: Los Angeles, California
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I was wondering, when your whole mod is an alternate scenario based off a vanilla scenario, will the patches work on that modded scenario?

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RE: Patches on Modded Scenarios - 7/27/2021 9:37:13 PM

potski

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Joined: 7/12/2021
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If you created a new SCN file to hold your mod (which I think would be best practice) then that wouldn't be affected. But if you changed an existing SCN file then there is a danger that the patch will completely overwrite what you did. For example, if you have "My 1941 GC.scn" then it wouldn't be affected by the 1.01.x patch. That's good that your work is not lost, but you would need to check the patch logs and see if any amendments they made to the official 1941 GC file also need to be made (manually) in your own mod.

There's no easy way to compare the contents of the two files and match them up. If the changes were extensive then you might be able to export their new list of units, for example, to CSV and then run that through an editor to compare it with a list of units exported from your own file.

If you have not made a new copy of the SCN, and for example changed the 1941 GC SCN file, but have now applied the new patch, all your work will be lost. The installer will just overwrite that file. I can see from several of the SCN files in the folder that most were not amended in any way. Only files that were amended by the devs were included in this patch. But you cannot guarantee that will always be the case, so always leave the original SCN files alone and make a copy to work on.

You can't do that for Generic data, stored in the DAT files. Any changes to these always have a risk that a patch will just overwrite what you have done. I would export any Generic data you have changed to a CSV file, then re-import it from the CSV after applying the patch. Then manually make any changes mentioned by the devs in the patch log.

None of this is easy for modders.

(in reply to Naughteous Maximus)

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RE: Patches on Modded Scenarios - 7/30/2021 4:12:09 PM

Joel Billings

Posts: 32265
Joined: 9/20/2000
From: Santa Rosa, CA
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Naughteous Maximus

I was wondering, when your whole mod is an alternate scenario based off a vanilla scenario, will the patches work on that modded scenario?

The answer is, it depends on what you mean and what you have changed in your modded scenario.

Some data in all scenarios comes in from the generic data files. An example of this is the leaders that are available. When the scenario is loaded for play, the generic data is loaded in from the data files on the computer that is setting up the scenario. When we change a leader in the generic file in a new update, and the player has updated to the new generic file, if he starts a new game, that change will be loaded in for any scenario. So at the moment you cannot create a new leader just for one scenario. However, units and game events are not generic, they are scenario specific. So if you create a new scenario and change a unit or change an event, those changes will stick and be in the scenario even after we update the game. When we release an update, if we want to make a change/correction to an event, we are making it in each applicable scenario file. So if you have a modded scenario that has that change, you'll have to make it yourself in your modded scenario.

Now in WitW, we had a way to "lock" the generic data files in a modded scenario. This meant that you could change more things (for example make a change in the stats of a ground element), and those changes would stick for that scenario. However this also meant that you would not benefit from any changes/corrections we made in the future to the generic data files that you locked, so in this case the ground.dat file. In WitE2 we had to disable this ability to lock generic data files. We hope to be able to bring back that capability, but there have been more pressing issues and we haven't yet been able to do that. It was complicated by the fact that we now have 3 files (hexes, cities, weather) that are semi-generic). That means that parts of the data in these files are generic and are loaded in for all scenarios, and parts of those files are kept in each scenario file. Pavel needs time to figure out how to deal with these in the editor when it comes to locking the generic files.

In fact Pavel has many ideas for how he'd like to improve the editor, but between bug fixes and adding the in-game scaling (which was determined to be the main priority item due to the increasing number of 4k monitors), he hasn't had the time to work on the editor aside from a few quick bug fixes. We do hope later this year to reach a point where he can work on the editor. The editor is very powerful, but we also realize putting together a scenario is a big job, and there are many traps in the editor that users can fall into (especially given the lack of documentation). Especially with the event editor, there is now an ability to make more interesting smaller scenarios, but we find that most players of WitE/WitW/WitE2 gravitate toward the campaigns. It is much easier for modders that just want to make a few changes to an existing scenario. But in this case, even when we have allowed locking of the generic data, they face the issue that if they lock some data in order to make a change that will stick, they will not benefit from future official changes in that data. We see the data in WitE2 as something that improves over time as more information becomes available. We're both fixing mistakes in the data, and also making adjustments as more information is brought forward. We try to provide info on the changes we're making in updates, but with so many contributors and so many changes, we don't claim that we are providing full detailed info on every change made. We appreciate that some modders want to lock the data and will accept they won't get future changes unless they make them themselves, and we do plan on adding locking of generic data in the future.

I hope this helps explain the situation.

_____________________________

All understanding comes after the fact.
-- Soren Kierkegaard

(in reply to Naughteous Maximus)

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