Official word on DLL!

[Thalassicus]

That's good to know. I tried creating combat classes several times in October but couldn't figure out how to solve the animation problem, and the questions I posted about it on the modding forum went unanswered. I just assumed it wasn't possible and moved on to other things.

It was frustrating to find that artdefines file... took me half an hour! No references to "artdefines" in the wiki or modding guide, and hidden away in a compressed file.

 

[Spatzimaus]

I searched the asset folder for "fpk" and "artdefines" got no hits either... it's been half an hour and I haven't located what you're talking about.

It's INSIDE the files. Go into Nexus, go over to the Script Browser menu, and run the unpacking script; it'll create copies of all of the .xml files that normally are hidden inside those into the Resources/Common, Resources/DX9, etc. directories. Find the ones you want to change, copy them into your mod, make the appropriate changes, and set VFS to True. (Unfortunately you can only do this for a couple specific ones, like the unit files, and can't add new sounds this way. Hence some of the complaints I've raised in other threads.)
When I get home I can write out the exact steps.

One downside to editing those files is that they're a huge pain to keep updated when the game patches, since you'd have to re-extract the files every time and there's no obvious time stamp disparity on the resulting file to tell you if it had been edited in the last patch. But if you're adding new units, for instance, then you have no choice; it's the only way to add a new art define.

 

[Thalassicus]

I haven't ever used the nexus, since most of the work I've done is data or lua edits, not graphics. I found the file by looking around the folders, opened it with the dragon unpacker, and got the fighter/bomber part done. Thanks for your help with this. These bugs in the core game have been annoying me for almost a year now.

 

[GoodRevrnd]

"Fun" and "useful" aren't always the same.

I could actually do that right now, there's a RivalTerritory attribute for promotions. It's identical to as if we have open borders with everyone. Caravels had this ability in Civ 4. It might be more useful on an earlier unit, though, or possibly somewhere in the Scouting promotion line.

This. But yeah, to be "useful" I think you'd have to allow them to perform preemptive strikes (vs units or by launching cruise/nukes) without getting booted from territory. You'd also have to code the AI to freak out you if it detects them (and really freak out if it's a nuclear sub) and yell at you to remove them from their territory. I've just always thought subs were fun units since CIV2 when I'd stuff them with as many cruise missiles as would fit.

 

[Thalassicus]

Increase the animation speed of the bomber attack graphic.

You do realize that the above three can all be fixed right now, without the DLL, right?

How do I do this? I thought fMoveRate would work... but that does not appear to affect attack speed. Even with fMoveRate=50, stealth bombers at max range still require 32 seconds to complete 1 battle.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Inside the art defines file (either units or unitmembers) the units have a move rate multiplier. Fighters (and Zeroes) are 1.2, I think Bombers (and B17s) are 1.2, Jet Fighters 1.5, Stealth Bombers 2.0. Just change those. It was definitely completing the bombing runs much faster when I upped those numbers.

I'll check when I get home.

 

[MAGBaxter]

Whats DLL and what can it bring ?

 

[Thalassicus]

One question... What is a ''DLL''?

Right now we only have access to some of Civ. This means we're limited in what we can do. The "dll" has some more parts of the game, so with it can do more. The list in post #5 is some things that will be possible once we have more access.

@Spatzimaus
I must not be loading the file correctly? I checked database.log and there's no errors reported. I have the file placed here, and it's imported into the virtual file system:

\CiVUP - Civ V Unofficial Patch\Core\Misc UI\civ5artdefines_unitmembers.xml

Just to test, I also tried making the bomber scale twice as large as normal, to no effect.

The strange thing is... I loaded up Cache\Civ5CoreDatabase.db in the sqlite manager, and every single row in the ArtDefine_MemberUnitCombats is identical. I must not be looking in the right place...

On a related question, where can we speed up unit movement animations?

Update: It's amazing the things that can come to you after waking up from a restful sleep. I realized what I was missing... the "reload unit system" checkbox.