maxpublic

Yes, you can enable all of those ships. Yes, you can do that to. Even add colors, although I don't know how to do it. There was a thread on this forum earlier that explained how to do it. Well, Petroglyph obviously has the tools but they haven't released them. I think that either a) they'll never release them, or b) they'll try to sell them to us in an 'expansion'. So far the mod tools are nothing but vaporware, and there's no indication whatsoever that they'll ever be anything else. I wouldn't hold your breath. Max

The extracted files always take precedence over the .meg files. If they didn't we wouldn't be able to mod the game at all without replacing the files within the .meg itself. I don't think the AI xmls are (for the most part) actually used, though. I suspect they've been superceded by .lua scripts, which as yet we can't touch. Once we can I'm sure we'll be able to alter the behavior of the AI. There are a number of files within the megs that're garbage and weren't cleaned out. It's clear that they were used at one time, but are no longer of any value. Max

I like the idea of the mod (where to download?) but the name - Total Realism? Realism in Star Wars? A universe that has hyperspace drives and 'lasers' that're slower than bullets and folks who can do magic...er, 'use the Force', that is? "Realism" and "Star Wars" is a contradiction in terms, don't ya think? Maybe "Better Balance", or "What EAW Would've Been Had It Actually Been Beta'd", or something like that. Max

I don't want to hijack this threat, but the answer is "you can't". It's part of my own personal mod, a mod which changes just about every bloody thing that can be changed. It's far more likely that magnus will post an expanded version of his own map before I'll be finished with my mod. You'd have a greater chance of getting an expanded map by pestering him about it than me...and my map wouldn't be of much value to you anyway, since I've changed all the credits/pop values/slices/production/etc. etc. etc. Magnus' map is playable RIGHT NOW, without any further modifications, so that's the one you want. And it looks a hell of a lot better than the one that came with the game. I only posted about the map here to a) tell magnus 'good job', because he inspired me to revamp the map to be more accurate with respect to 'official' SW lore, and b) to tell him that you can indeed go far beyond 43 planets, and so long as your system is fairly decent the game is still playable (he mentioned that he was thinking of trying it, I already had, and wanted him to know that it could be done without bringing the computer to its knees). In fact, I know that 90 planets work, and that it looks pretty good even on a normal-sized map although quite a few planet rings partially overlap. But it looks *much* better on a 2.0 scale map, even with the minimap problem. I figure I could fit a couple hundred planets in on that one, although I bet even my computer would up and die sometime after the mid-game if I tried. Either that or *I* would up and die of old age waiting for the damn thing to process. Max

Well now, that bums me out. All that work to get the planets sorta-kinda right within the standard galaxy, and it turns out you actually can increase the size of the galaxy itself. Time to go back and reposition all 90 of those suckers.... But seriously, thanks for pointing that out, Zer Teron . It solves the problem I was having with planet rings overlapping and interfering with one another. It also means I have *a lot* more room if it turns out that my computer can handle a late game with 90 planets. Guess I'll be finding that out pretty soon. Addendum: I reset the scale of the map to 2.0 and just doubled all the location numbers for my planets (so that with respect to the galactic center they'd remain in the same position). It worked beautifully, although I think you'll have to change maxfleettraveldistance in gameconstants.xml to 150 or else some planets would be eternally out of range. The only real problem was the minimap. I couldn't find any reference whatsoever to it in gameconstants, and the map of the galaxy is no longer contained in the little box but bleeds over onto the rest of the gui. This really doesn't concern me that much - I'd much, much rather have the larger map and live with the minimap problem - but even so if anyone knows how to 'compress' the minimap that'd be great. Max

Well, the limit definitely isn't 80. I've put 88 on the map and am doing the last 2 right now, for a total of 90. And I misspoke; I didn't actually increase the size of the map itself (that'd be sweet) but the amount of the galaxy covered by keeping relative distances but squashing actual distances. So the map is (mostly) accurate, at least in terms of positioning. If we could actually expand the map then I'd make it several times wider than it is now since the SW universe seems to have two long arms of planets extending galactic east and west. I also had to scale down the planets to 1.0. Even so there's a heck of a lot of overlap and I don't know how this will interfere with moving fleets/armies; hopefully everything is just far enough apart that it'll all work out. BTW, I don't know if you noticed but the stock galactic map that comes with Empire at War isn't even remotely close to the 'official' maps. They just seemed to slap down planets wherever they felt like putting them. Max

The patch modifies megs, not extracted files. It does, however, replace your masterenglish.dat file. So you should really back that one up if you've made any changes to it. Max

Magnus: Just so you know I was inspired by your map to give a shot at both increasing the galaxy size and putting the planets where they're actually supposed to be (using two 'official' maps that agreed on locations). So far I have 78 planets and the game seems to work fine (probably slower on slower systems, but on mine it chugs right along). I don't know how many planets you can actually have, but my final map should be somewhere between 90 and 100 planets. Max

So far just about the only thing we can really do is extract files from the megs and change stats. So you can always revert to the regular game just by moving your files out of the extracted directories (e.g., /data/xml). The problem with the 1.03 patch is that apparently more things were broken than fixed, and that's true whether you've got a modded or unmodded game. Also, it appears that LA or Petroglyph or whoever did the patch changed the executable to put a wrench in pirated copies. Thing is, their 'new and improved' detection scheme seems to think that some retail copies of the game are actually pirated (a SecureRom problem...as usual when it comes to SecureRom). My advice is to skip 1.03. It really doesn't do a whole lot except for improve multiplay (supposedly, although I haven't seen any evidence of that) and tweak some stats - which is something we do as modders anyway. Oh, and of course it seems to break a good many installs that were working just fine with the 1.02 patch. Of course, you could always install it, see how it runs, and if it mucks things up just uninstall/reinstall the game and patch to 1.02 (which is what I had to do, since it'd crash my game right after the logo movies each and every tiime). Max

Last I checked this is the mods forum, not the "I'm geekier than you are" forum. If you're going to engage in yet another useless ST vs SW debate at least have the decency to move the thread someplace else, like "off-topic" or "my girlfriend is inflatable". Max

I don't know that you *have* to use it, but I don't see why you wouldn't want to. It makes editing the text lines simplicity itself. And I don't know what you mean by needing FramWork, I just downloaded it, installed it, and was good to go. If you take out the hijacked entry then poor ol' Chewie can no longer hijack AT-ATs. Which might be fine in the galactic game, but without that ability you're pretty much toast playing in the Rebel campaign (i.e., in one of the scenarios Chewies ability to hijack an AT-AT is pretty darned important). You can make a rebel AT-AT just by adding a short entry as a variant, rather than a full entry. Either way works. In the variant all you have to do is add in the lines you're changing from the imperial version. You definitely have to make the rebel company for the AT-AT, though, and the infantry company which the AT-AT deploys. If you don't you might convince the game that an imperial AT-AT is deploying rebel troopers, or that a rebel AT-AT is deploying an imperial company consisting of rebel troopers, either of which will probably freeze the game. All of this just involves cutting/pasting, changing a few lines, and adding the appropriate text entries via the DAT editor. Max

I'm going to assume for this example you're making a rebel AT-AT and that you've already added it into Groundvehicles.xml and Groundcompaniesrebel.xml, or that you've made a variant entry on the empire AT-AT. In the vehicle file you'll probably want to change the Text_ID entry to something like "TEXT_UNIT_AT_AT_WALKER_REBEL" and the Encyclopedia_Text entry to "TEXT_TOOLTIP_ATAT_REBEL", while in the companies file you'll want to change the Text_ID to "TEXT_REBEL_HEAVY_ASSAULT_COMPANY". Or, if you've made a variant you'll want to add these entries to the variant description. For the 2) part of your question, you'll want to download the DAT editor so you can add the new description lines to the masterenglish.dat file. I'm too lazy to go find it at the moment, but you should be able to quickly locate it by googling "empire at war dat editor". Once you have the editor, open the masterenglish.dat file and choose "insert line", then add one of your new identifier strings to the first box (e.g., TEXT_UNIT_AT_AT_WALKER_REBEL). In the bigger box below that write in your description (e.g., "Rebel AT-AT"). Do this for all of your new text entries and they'll show up in-game just fine. If you're a bit confused over what lines are used for what just take a look at the Imperial AT-AT entries in the file to see what you need to do. For 3), the troopers from the AT-AT are actually a special ability in the entry and they deploy a company called "Veers_Deployed_Imperial_Stormtrooper_Squad", which is in the ground companies file. You'll want to change the deployed trooper squad identification to something like "Rebel_Deployed_AT-AT_Squad" and then make a new entry for that squad in Groundcompaniesrebel.xml. You can actually just cut and paste the Veers entry and then change it so it looks like the following: Rebel_Infantry_Squad Squad_Rebel_Trooper, Squad_Rebel_Trooper, Squad_Rebel_Trooper, Squad_Plex_Soldier, Squad_Plex_Soldier 5 6 No (whatever) You'll need to change the damage rating, of course. I think the variant here will work, but I haven't tested it. If not, you can always make a new company just by copying/pasting the rebel trooper company entry, then altering it so that it consists of two plex and three troopers with all the right damage/autoresolve/etc. stats. Important: the special deploy ability is listed in both the groundvehicle.xml file (for your rebel AT-AT) AND the groundcompaniesrebel.xml file (where the AT-AT is listed as its own company). You'll need to make sure that the special deploy ability is listed correctly in BOTH entries (vehicle and company) in order for it to work properly. Take a look at the imperial AT-AT if you aren't sure what I'm talking about (in both groundvehicles.xml and groundcompaniesempire.xml). As for recoloring I don't know, but there's a thread on this board that described how to recolor units. Max

What everyone else is saying. Make a folder in /data called /xml (i.e., it's /data/xml). This folder doesn't exist when you install the game so you have to make it yourself. After you make the folder put your xml files in it; DO NOT put them in the /data folder. So if you've changed specialstructures.xml, the path to your changed xml file will be: /data/xml/specialstructures.xml. Max

It's an interesting thing when you have to rely on the community to provide code so that you can properly play the game you paid for. These 'protection' schemes don't seem to do much of anything except for annoy us honest customer types, while the pirates laugh themselves silly over how ineffective they are. Sometimes I think I should buy the cd, shelve it, and download a pirated copy to avoid the protection hassles.... In any event, the 1.3 executable doesn't work for me either; it crashed the game out right after the logo movies, and replacing it with the 1.2 executable had the same result (so it isn't only the executable that's to blame). Had to reinstall and repatch to 1.02 to get everything working again. It also overwrote my masterenglish.dat file which I forgot to back up prior to patching. If you do patch don't forget to back up that file! Max

The files in the /data/xml folder always override the meg files. So it doesn't matter what they change in the meg files, your own xml files will take precedence. Of course, a lot of the files are interdependent so without direct knowledge of what xml components they altered in the meg file you could get some interesting results. For example, you could've altered the costs and build times in squadrons.xml based on the stats in the old spaceunitsfighters.xml file, without ever making your own spaceunitsfighters.xml file. But now if they alter the meg equivalent of that file (say, they nerf the Y-Wing) you won't know about it until you play the game and wonder why your Y-Wings are blowing up even faster than they did before, or don't seem to be able to do any damage. The company could also have altered the meg squadrons.xml to reduce the price of the Y-Wing to compensate, but since your squadrons.xml overrides theirs you now have incredibly weak, highly overpriced Y-Wings that won't be obviously wrong until you play the game for awhile. In any event I'd wait on the patch; it appears to introduce even more bugs than it fixes. Some folks are even reporting that SecureRom no longer recognizes their cd as valid (it times out) and they can't play the game with the new patch. Apparently Lucas Arts or Petroglyph introduced some new code into the executable which is supposed to be able to better detect pirated copies of the game, but instead it seems to be reporting valid copies as pirated ones. But SecureRom has always sucked big green donkey dicks, so this is no surprise. I'm waiting until they get the patch right (1.4 or better) since 1.3 is mostly about multiplay anyway. Max