Cool Trick! Planetary Improvements and Ability Mods II

How to add Ability Mods without taking up Useable Tiles

from GalCiv2 Forums
I was playing around with a variety of things this morning and discovered a trick using the {EnhanceLevel} tag. I created an Improvement called Orbital Defense Factories.

{Improvement}
{S_Name}Orbital Defense Factories{/S_Name}
{S_InternalName}OrbitalDefenseFactories{/S_InternalName}
{S_Type}SuperProject{/S_Type}
{S_TechRequirement}Industrial Complex{/S_TechRequirement}
{Cost}800{/Cost}
{AI}15{/AI}
{S_Description}Creates a series of satelites that upgrade our Defenses by 5%{/S_Description}
{S_BriefDescription}Minorly increases defenses.{/S_BriefDescription}
{!-- Mod to Defenses --}
{AbilityType}2{/AbilityType}
{AbilityAmount}5{/AbilityAmount}
{S_IconName}Orbital_Terraforming_Unit.png{/S_IconName}
{S_QueryGraphicName}Orbital_Terraforming_Unit.png{/S_QueryGraphicName}
{EnhanceLevel}1{/EnhanceLevel}
{/Improvement}

So what, you ask. In addition to adding a small bit to your Race Defense abilitiy (in this case, 5%), the cool factor is: it DOES NOT take up any of your usable tiles!

In this fashion (I think, though I haven't tried it yet), you could create Trade Goods that don't take up any tiles either. Your Yellow, Orange and Red tiles become very valueable indeed. Also, when you build the Improvement on the tile, once its built, the tile turns Green!
modding
7,045 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Looks good. Looks very good..

Would you go through step by step what each line does? How much is original to the game and how much extra stuff did you have to add? (IE, were these part of other improvements that you cut and pasted?) Was {“S_InternalName}OrbitalDefenseFactories{/S_InternalName}” part of the game, or did you create it?
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Your Yellow, Orange and Red tiles become very valueable indeed.


What about us Neutrals? We lose all our colored tiles when we hit Xeno Ethics.

It'd be better just to ask SD to make it so that some buildings don't take up room.

Though personally, I think having tradegoods and so forth take up room is a good idea.
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Not to mention, when you take a planet from the computer. If you don't see that it has an visable signs of a wonder, trade good, super project...then how do you know what tactic to use? or even what planet to attack to gain a certain bonus? i don't like it....not one bit.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Andrew Cory,

Most of the lines are in the PlanetImprovements.xml, I just made up the costs/name/tech requirements.

{Improvement} - standard notation
{S_Name}Orbital Defense Factories{/S_Name} - made up name, could probably be anything
{S_InternalName}OrbitalDefenseFactories{/S_InternalName} - made up name, could probably be anything
{S_Type}SuperProject{/S_Type} - Needs to be a SuperProject in order to mod the Race Ability
{S_TechRequirement}Industrial Complex{/S_TechRequirement} - Use whatever you feel is right as a requirement
{Cost}800{/Cost} - Use whatever you feel is right as a cost
{AI}15{/AI} - This determines how hard the AI is going to try and research this. The higher the number, the more the AI likes it
{S_Description}Creates a series of satelites that upgrade our Defenses by 5%{/S_Description} - Anything you like
{S_BriefDescription}Minorly increases defenses.{/S_BriefDescription} - Anything you like
{!-- Mod to Defenses --} - Note to self
{AbilityType}2{/AbilityType} - Ability id pulled from AbilityBonuses.xml
{AbilityAmount}5{/AbilityAmount} - Amount you want to mod the ability
{S_IconName}Orbital_Terraforming_Unit.png{/S_IconName} - graphic from \Gfx\Improvements\icons dir
{S_QueryGraphicName}Orbital_Terraforming_Unit.png{/S_QueryGraphicName} - graphic from \Gfx\Improvements\icons dir
{EnhanceLevel}1{/EnhanceLevel} - Cut and paste from Soil Enhancement
{/Improvement} - End Improvement block

if you copy and paste the text from the first post, replace '{' with < and '}' with > then it should work when you have researched the proper tech.

Alfonse and Damiun - I found this trick/exploit when I was trying to come up with buildings that could mod racial abilities. I don't necessarily disagree with either of you. In fact, it would be very interesting indeed (though more complicated) if each planet had a limited number of slots available for orbital buildings, based on PQ.

Also, personally, I wish that a building wasn't required to be a SuperProject/TradeGood or GalacticAchievement to mod Abilities, and that you could mod as many as you liked.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Ideally these zero-tile improvements could be visually displayed on some non-useful tile, so that they were not 'invisible'. In any case, great work!
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Pnakotus: Very good idea. Each planet has something like 72 tiles...we could probably use the lowest row to work with the Subterrainen (sp?) and Orbital mods.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I just tried it with my orbital fleet manager (was trying to make them more available and common, but not use up a slot since I haven't figured out how to make the initial colony take on the same behavior). What I found was that the Enhance level tag makes them ONLY able to be placed on "yellow" squares. Now you don't actually have to terraform those tiles before making the placement, but some planets (mars? etc) don't have yellow squares, so this wouldn't work for my purpose, cool trick though. Unfortunately, it does not currently ( or I haven't figured out how yet ) make all tiles useable, only the ones that are already there (yellow orange and red, from Enhance level 1 2 and 3 respectively).
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Whatever happened to orbital buildings? In galciv1 there were hunks of em'!