- Thread starter Quintillus
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- scenario editor
chickenx4
Prince
Okay thanks I'll do that when I get my computer back and the Internet back
Oni Ryuu
King
HI Quintillus.
Is there any way of editing the BIQ to start a scenario with precisely damaged pre-placed units?
A scenario would feel more realistic if your frontline troops started with some battle damage. The Pearl Harbour attack never really does the devastating blow it should so starting with numerous badly damaged units could more accurately demonstrate the impact.
Starting the game trying to recover an army on the brink of total collapse would provide some drama.
Alternatively, you could start you campaign by routing an enemy force.
Have you made any progress with the drag-and-drop system?
Is there any way of editing the BIQ to start a scenario with precisely damaged pre-placed units?
A scenario would feel more realistic if your frontline troops started with some battle damage. The Pearl Harbour attack never really does the devastating blow it should so starting with numerous badly damaged units could more accurately demonstrate the impact.
Starting the game trying to recover an army on the brink of total collapse would provide some drama.
Alternatively, you could start you campaign by routing an enemy force.
Have you made any progress with the drag-and-drop system?
Bluemofia
F=ma
I'm also interested to find out if this is possible, and whether a pre-placed city can start with foreign population, rather than all of its population owned by the civ that owns the city. For example, it bothered me that the Japanese occupied China is owned by Japanese civilians, rather than Chinese civilians, and thus start resisting the allied forces when captured (and conversely, not resisting the Japanese occupation).
From what I understand, the .biq doesn't store sufficient data to be able to fine tune these things, but it would be useful if it could.
From what I understand, the .biq doesn't store sufficient data to be able to fine tune these things, but it would be useful if it could.
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Bluemofia is, alas, correct that the .biq does not store that level of information. I checked just to be sure, but there is no way to set health on a unit basis (beyond experience level), and you can only specify the number of citizens, not their nationality.
To add that would require going into "extended editor" functionality, essentially creating an addition to the .biq (which may make it unloadable as-is by Conquests), and then having an ability for the editor to create .sav files from that .biq that would take into account the desired additional information. The player would likely have to load the expanded BIQ to generate the SAV before playing, so they could choose their civilization. This would, of course, have being able to read and write a .sav file as a prerequisite. But it is an interesting avenue to think about for future functionality, as that would be playable in Conquests.
I would have to check how much if at all Steph's editor went in this direction. I know he was looking at additional eras and I think he had a .biqe (?) file that contained additional information of some sort, but beyond additional eras I don't remember what was available.
Drag-and-drop is still at about the same place as in the last update, as I was just traveling for a week and a half. But I was expecting not to make much progress in the second half of May (hence the "at least mid-June"), largely because of the vacation and planning/preparing for it. I may well get back to it later this week.
Oni Ryuu
King
Another dud.
It was unlikely but worth raising the point.
No need to hurry with the drag-and-drop system (for me at least). I’ll still be testing for a few weeks before I need to reorder everything. The prod was just in case there was any bad news; I wanted to know early enough so I wouldn’t have to retype everything in the same week.
It was unlikely but worth raising the point.
No need to hurry with the drag-and-drop system (for me at least). I’ll still be testing for a few weeks before I need to reorder everything. The prod was just in case there was any bad news; I wanted to know early enough so I wouldn’t have to retype everything in the same week.
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Cool. Worked on it for a couple hours today, figured out how to get other tabs' drop-down lists updating properly with drag-and-drog without excessively complicated code. That means the remainder of TECH drag-and-drop shouldn't require any new concepts, and PRTO should benefit considerably from TECH having blazed the way on most things (though there's a couple of somewhat different things for PRTO, notably things like stealth target lists). Still a good amount remaining though, particularly since I have a day job.
Good news is that drag-and-drop works even when you have the list filtered. Hadn't really planned for that but it's nice that it does.
Good news is that drag-and-drop works even when you have the list filtered. Hadn't really planned for that but it's nice that it does.
Oni Ryuu
King
Hi Quintillus, we have a mighty bug to slay.
The bug discussed some weeks ago has resurfaced with a vengeance. It makes Klendathu look like a petting zoo. I’ll try to give you all of the info I can if you tell me what you need.
When I edit the biq, information remains from the first entry of a list as I scroll-down. For example; the unit stats change as you move down the list but the abilities, attributes and upgrade lines remain unchanged or correspond with another unit. Sometimes I have a brief window before the bug takes effect and I know that certain units trigger it immediately when accessed. It started as an occasional irritation but now when I try to fix something I do twice as much damage instead. Reinstalling your 1.03 editor or the 1.09 one has no effect and reformatting it through the Firaxis editor has stopped working.
Hopefully you’ll be able to recreate the problem by accessing the Landing Craft (near the end of the units) and then switch to any other unit.
biq
The bug discussed some weeks ago has resurfaced with a vengeance. It makes Klendathu look like a petting zoo. I’ll try to give you all of the info I can if you tell me what you need.
When I edit the biq, information remains from the first entry of a list as I scroll-down. For example; the unit stats change as you move down the list but the abilities, attributes and upgrade lines remain unchanged or correspond with another unit. Sometimes I have a brief window before the bug takes effect and I know that certain units trigger it immediately when accessed. It started as an occasional irritation but now when I try to fix something I do twice as much damage instead. Reinstalling your 1.03 editor or the 1.09 one has no effect and reformatting it through the Firaxis editor has stopped working.
Hopefully you’ll be able to recreate the problem by accessing the Landing Craft (near the end of the units) and then switch to any other unit.
biq
Oni Ryuu
King
My biq is falling to pieces and i don't know what to do.
I've done everything i can think off short of sacrificing a chicken and i'm beginning to panic.
I've done everything i can think off short of sacrificing a chicken and i'm beginning to panic.
chickenx4
Prince
there's a problem when I launch with java its unable to run
tom2050
Deity
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@ Oni, so as you scroll though the list of units, it actually changes unit stats like A,D? I have been using 1.07, 1.08, and 1.09 and I haven't encountered this bug.
I opened your .biq, went to the units tab, selected Landing Craft (0,5, move 5). I then can switch between units using either the arrow keys, or the mouse, but the stats of the units stay intact, along with all the other selections. I am using Win 7 and downloaded the most recent Java version a few months back. Sounds like could be an issue not with the editor, but with perhaps the Java version or something?
I opened your .biq, went to the units tab, selected Landing Craft (0,5, move 5). I then can switch between units using either the arrow keys, or the mouse, but the stats of the units stay intact, along with all the other selections. I am using Win 7 and downloaded the most recent Java version a few months back. Sounds like could be an issue not with the editor, but with perhaps the Java version or something?
Oni Ryuu
King
Everything in red remains unchanged. Everything else changes unpredictably transferring information from the previous unit selected. The type of information and to amount of things that change seem totally random.
Sometimes it has no visible impact, other times it’s completely unusable.
Sometimes it has no visible impact, other times it’s completely unusable.
I've had that happen with Steph's editor years ago, but never with Quintillus's using Win7, 8.1, & 10. Unless something changed in version 1.09, which I haven't played around with much.
Oni Ryuu
King
It looks like reinstalling the game has fixed the problem.
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Blue Monkey
Archon Without Portfolio
Is the actual limit still 65,536 tiles as the in-editor help states? I thought it was more, but i haven't tested the limits in so long i'm not sure.
Oni Ryuu
King
Thanks Blue Monkey
After reading your post I had to count the tiles in my 360x360 map. I thought the tiles were measured vertically and horizontally, from tip to tip but whatever I type into the editor is halved in-game. The actual tile count is done in a zigzagging fashion.
It’s no wonder I’m always disappointed by the size of the map. I checked against a 180x180 map and it’s exactly half confirming what I said and it means that at least the 360x360 map is working (with this editor).
I hope I’m not the last person to find this out.
After reading your post I had to count the tiles in my 360x360 map. I thought the tiles were measured vertically and horizontally, from tip to tip but whatever I type into the editor is halved in-game. The actual tile count is done in a zigzagging fashion.
It’s no wonder I’m always disappointed by the size of the map. I checked against a 180x180 map and it’s exactly half confirming what I said and it means that at least the 360x360 map is working (with this editor).
I hope I’m not the last person to find this out.
Blue Monkey
Archon Without Portfolio
Unless you work with maps a lot that weird bit of geometry doesn't become obvious. Isometric tiles are offset. You can't think in terms of simple rows and columns as you would with a square grid.* It's an eccentric choice - the design team made a decision about how to attach coordinates to the tiles that is different than i would have. But then i don'y know what kind of compromises they had to make to deal with the hardware & software limitations that existed way back when.
I prefer the game map to have "the right shape" visually rather than the minimap. So the bmps i make to put through the editor's map generator look stretched. Most people go the other way. There technical game design issues related to making that choice - travel distances change depending on direction for example. But travel distances are distorted no matter which choice you make - it's a limitation of using isometric tiling. So in the end it's a matter of taste.
*One of the many genius things Quintillus has done is figure out how to translate the square pixels of an image into isometric tiles arranged the way they are in a biq. If you think about the mathematical description of mashing up a chess board to look like C3 tiles - then translating that into computer code which can handle images of variable sizes - you'll understand how complex it is.
I prefer the game map to have "the right shape" visually rather than the minimap. So the bmps i make to put through the editor's map generator look stretched. Most people go the other way. There technical game design issues related to making that choice - travel distances change depending on direction for example. But travel distances are distorted no matter which choice you make - it's a limitation of using isometric tiling. So in the end it's a matter of taste.
*One of the many genius things Quintillus has done is figure out how to translate the square pixels of an image into isometric tiles arranged the way they are in a biq. If you think about the mathematical description of mashing up a chess board to look like C3 tiles - then translating that into computer code which can handle images of variable sizes - you'll understand how complex it is.
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Oni Ryuu
King
I still feel daft that it took me this long to notice.
I’m sure the preferred option for tiles would be non-Euclidean hexagons for a spherical map but as you said, “Limitations”.
I've realised that game-play should always come first. It doesn't matter how accurate, informative or creative it is if it's not fun.
Maths and logic I can do but 5 minutes coding and I want to throw faeces and bite people. Quintillus is due his kudos. What can a craftsman do without the man that makes the tools?
I’m sure the preferred option for tiles would be non-Euclidean hexagons for a spherical map but as you said, “Limitations”.
I've realised that game-play should always come first. It doesn't matter how accurate, informative or creative it is if it's not fun.
Maths and logic I can do but 5 minutes coding and I want to throw faeces and bite people. Quintillus is due his kudos. What can a craftsman do without the man that makes the tools?
chickenx4
Prince
hey quintillus when I edited my unit pcx the new unit I added wont show up in the icons
Oni Ryuu
King
Hi Quintillus
You must dread reading my posts by now.
Can you remove the restrictions on the three classes of land, naval and air units?
Presently you have to select only one class. If it’s possible I’d like to experiment with combinations of the three. I hope to be able to make better helicopters, dirigibles, amphibious vehicles and a number of other units.
It’s probably hardcoded or already tested but I thought it was worth asking.
You must dread reading my posts by now.
Can you remove the restrictions on the three classes of land, naval and air units?
Presently you have to select only one class. If it’s possible I’d like to experiment with combinations of the three. I hope to be able to make better helicopters, dirigibles, amphibious vehicles and a number of other units.
It’s probably hardcoded or already tested but I thought it was worth asking.
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