Modding Galciv 2, whats the problem guys?

from GalCiv2 Forums
okay saw a thread asking if there was going to be a program for editing galciv. well u don't really need one. most of the pertinent files like party files, imps, race files, anomoly files, etc can be edited with notepad. on top of that, the files are pretty self explanatory. if u need help or (most likely) noe more about this than i do, leave a reply.
8,521 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
Correct, I've already been fixing things I thought were problems in GC2 that way. Sadly, the saved ship designs are not XML, otherwise I could have some REAL fun with them The graphics are PNGs, the rest of the files are XML. Not too hard to work with that. True, there won't be a tool to edit them, but I don't think GC1 had that for a while either.
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

When we make saved ships we do it with the game too.

You can modify the screens with DesktopX.

Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
My comment about the ships was about an insane plan to write a perl program to generate all possible cost-effective colony ships and constructors with naming conventions like Col-XXXSYRZZ where the XXX is the cost (so that I can always grab the cheapest one if there are two paths to a colony ship with the same stats), S is the speed, and ZZ is the range.

I've already got hand-made designs for both colony ships and constructors at all speeds from 1 to 5 (yes, I'm often researching Hyperwarp before the colonization phase completes), and ranges of 0.1 and 1.1 for colony ships. I'm just thinking it would be nice to have all that and various life-support ranges with the various life support techs, or to throw in some miniaturization.

Frogboy, remember, I'm not you're target market, I'm a freak, even among fellow geeks

I could run a helper program that would do that for me, but it would require me telling it when I get new techs, and I AM the weakest link.
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

PopupTarget, the core ships are saved in xml format.  You could still write your program and when I put in the code to read in mods, it can read those in from the mods folder. 

Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
Yes the XML files can be editted using Notepad, that however doesn't ensure the validity of the edits. I.E. it is very easy to mistype or misconnect the items in a chain. Nor does it mean that a program will not increase the ease of the modding. Especially once you start getting mods and are dealing with multiple files just for the technologies.
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
CrispyMouse: Agreed, that's really all I was trying to point out. If the Devs think they have higher priorities, that's fine by me, because a mod editor is something that can easily be done by someone outside of Stardock. Wouldn't be the least bit surprised to see a fan-authored mod editor within weeks of release, if not before then.