First Time Poster

Help with Modding

from GalCiv3 Forums

Hi ladles and gentlespoons,

Im a long time fan of galciv and I'm looking forward to getting the game soon (in truth, I'm looking forward to getting the PC in order to look forward to getting the game, but that's another story!). I've been checking out the ability to mod the game with a lot of interest, however, I am a complete modding/coding noob - I literally know next to nothing about it.

Im keen to do two things initially - 1) increase the maximum trait points to 8 on all custom races I create, and 2) Give each custom race a complete ship design theme from the ground up.

I know this is a big ask but if you guys could give me a run through of how I would do that - while pretending you're explaining it to a 5 year old! - I would be very much obliged to you.

One question, I see that modding is done in Notepad++ - is that something I need to download or does it just come with the game? 

Many Thanks in advance!

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Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top


Hi ladles and gentlespoons,

Im a long time fan of galciv and I'm looking forward to getting the game soon (in truth, I'm looking forward to getting the PC in order to look forward to getting the game, but that's another story!). I've been checking out the ability to mod the game with a lot of interest, however, I am a complete modding/coding noob - I literally know next to nothing about it.

Im keen to do two things initially - 1) increase the maximum trait points to 8 on all custom races I create, and 2) Give each custom race a complete ship design theme from the ground up.

I know this is a big ask but if you guys could give me a run through of how I would do that - while pretending you're explaining it to a 5 year old! - I would be very much obliged to you.

One question, I see that modding is done in Notepad++ - is that something I need to download or does it just come with the game? 

Many Thanks in advance!
End of quote

You will be joining us here?

No but seriously you should probably go to the modding forum and look at already answered questions and as well ask over there.

If you happen to make a faction mod that covers some races from other series in the SciFi Genre feel free to send a direct download link over as I help out on a SciFi race compilation thread.

Cheers!

-Jeff26jeff

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Technically you could use almost any text editor, but Notepad++ is one of the best, you can download it free just google for it.

 

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Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

You will need to create or modify xml files in order to accomplish the tasks at hand. Notepad++ is free and all around universally helpful. That being said i do not know which file you would have to edit to upgrade races to 8 points but i can tell you whhen you find it you will only have to change the one number not write any 'code'. The ship designs you can start by simply going into game and playing with the ship designer. I have the artistic talents of a newt myself but its still pretty fancy. After that you would have to create the xml file to support them. You could likely copy/paste and simply change the file names to your saved ship files.It is something i will be doing shortly myself.when i have an example ill post it.

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Thanks for the advice guys, tbh I think I'm getting slightly ahead of myself - probably best to get a PC to play the game on... And then the game itself before I delve into this too deeply!

 

Jeff26jeff - thanks for the welcome and I'll be sure to share any creations I make - I generally like to make my own creations from scratch but I do like to try and recreate alien civilisations from sci-fi literature.  If you've read any Ian M Douglas or S M Stirling then you'll get an idea of the direction I'll be going.

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

if your buying a computer to play GC3 like I did then to play GC3 you'll need 8GB+ of ram preferably more ( I have 16GB) as 4GB wont cut it and the recommend spec of 6Gb is laughable atm until the game is optimised a lot and if you want to play insane maps get 8-16GB

Reply #6 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Echillion, reply 5

if your buying a computer to play GC3 like I did then to play GC3 you'll need 8GB+ of ram preferably more ( I have 16GB) as 4GB wont cut it and the recommend spec of 6Gb is laughable atm until the game is optimised a lot and if you want to play insane maps get 8-16GB
End of Echillion's quote

Thanks for the advice - luckiliy a friend of mine has built several of his own gaming pcs and is lending me a hand to plan out and build mine.  I had a feeling the game would need more than 6GB, so cheers for the confirmation!

I would ask his help with the modding too but his time is limited due to work constraints - hence me bugging you guys lol 

Reply #7 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I'm playing it just fine on a 6Gb machine but I haven't tried the very largest map size and generally with this game it's true the more memory the better.

 

Reply #8 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Good to know that 6GB will work but yeh I'm definitely going to opt for more.