Kraxis race changes in the XML?

from Elemental Forums

Under the Core Improvements folder are a bunch of faction-specific improvements. Most are split between Kingdom and Empire but there are a couple of other interesting files in here:

KraxisImprovements.xml and

KraxisSpecificImprovements.xml

The buildings within these files use a prerequesite structure of:

Code: xml
  3.     <Prereq>
  4.       <Type>Race</Type>
  5.       <Attribute>Kraxis</Attribute>
  6.     </Prereq>

Yet in the CoreRaceTypes.xml file the listing for Kraxis shows:

Code: xml
  3.   <RaceType InternalName="Race_Type_Krax">
  4.     <DisplayName>Krax</DisplayName>
  5.     <RaceClassification>Fallen</RaceClassification>
  6.    ...

So it looks that at one time Kraxis were being differentiated through their race yet now it looks as though they just share the Fallen race buildings.

Would love to know the thinking behind moving away from this model if anyone can shed any light please.

3,582 views 12 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

I think they just went with a solution that saved a ton of time for their designers.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

I tried turning these back on again by just editing the game files, changing the RaceClassification to Kraxis but it didn't do anything. Not sure why. Perhaps there is a cache for the actual game files somewhere.

Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Because Kraxis as a "Race" are a subset of "Men". They share the same unit models and animations. They just took a shortcut with code, that's all. There's a lot of other "human" races they do this with too. I'm learning that trying to make skins that apply to only one subset of humans and getting it to show up for just that race. I'm actually stuck on that right now. But I've learned all kinds of cool stuff about the layout of how things in the xml reference each other.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Raven X if you modify the genericunit tags in the raceconfigs, you can make fresh unittypes with any skin textures you wish.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Heavenfall, reply 4
Raven X if you modify the genericunit tags in the raceconfigs, you can make fresh unittypes with any skin textures you wish.
End of Heavenfall's quote

I see the generic unit tags. As far as I can tell they only asign a unit model though and not a skin.  Check out my post here https://forums.elementalgame.com/394996 . If you can help with an example that would be most excellent :)

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

I'll dig in in a bit, just going through the bugfix mod now.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Heavenfall, reply 6
I'll dig in in a bit, just going through the bugfix mod now.
End of Heavenfall's quote

Thanks man, I appreciate that. I'm getting ready to hit the hay so I may not reply again until this evening but if you can figure that out the new Undead Faction will promise to spare your pathetic mortal existence ;)

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Can you upload the textures somewhere else than depositfiles? Every time I tried to download for the last few days I get; We are sorry, but all downloading slots for your country are busy. I live in Sweden.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Heavenfall, reply 8
Can you upload the textures somewhere else than depositfiles? Every time I tried to download for the last few days I get; We are sorry, but all downloading slots for your country are busy. I live in Sweden.

End of Heavenfall's quote

Here ya go: http://www.filefront.com/17259190/Finished-Undead.zip/

I uploaded it to Filefront. Hope that helps. :)

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Raven, reply 3
Because Kraxis as a "Race" are a subset of "Men". They share the same unit models and animations. They just took a shortcut with code, that's all. There's a lot of other "human" races they do this with too. I'm learning that trying to make skins that apply to only one subset of humans and getting it to show up for just that race. I'm actually stuck on that right now. But I've learned all kinds of cool stuff about the layout of how things in the xml reference each other.
End of Raven's quote

Krax were supposed to be a race of Men but their build tree is the same as the other Fallen races now.

There is a file called CoreRaceConfig.xml which also has a lot of specification information (I tried changing this for Kraxis as well without any luck) but it does point to models indirectly.

Eg. CoreRaceConfig.xml (<GenericUnitType_Male>Krax_GenericBaseUnit_Male</GenericUnitType_Male>) points to CoreKraxBaseUnits.xml which has all the model and texture information.

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

The Kraxis thing is actually what screwed me up for a long time when I was trying to create a new race. I figured, oh, the Kraxis are Men, but are Empire, whereas all the other factions are fallen. But nope, they are coded as Fallen right now. Anyways I was able to create a new race (AND faction). Although it's not really "creating" per se. If you change raceclassification in both the racetype and raceconfig, it will work. I ended up using that as a prereq when seperating the improvements, so this new race has it's own set of buildings, and doesn't share ANY of the empire buildings even though the faction is part of the empire allegiance. I have to give props to BlackRainZ for figuring this out.

 

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

Thanks for the info. :) I assumed one of the locations would take precedence.

I've been able to create a new race with a combination of allegiance buildings plus its own set of unique buildings but this just looked a little odd for Kraxis.