Rallying call for all interested: Colonisation of the Moon mod!

[woodelf]

I feel bad about you guys not having Space workers or a better lunar scout so there's a bigger file coming.

Put it here:

C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Mods\Lunar Mod\Assets\Art

 

[matthewv]

Nice job woodelf. Much better. Time to actually get to work and finish all the terrain.

 

[woodelf]

Nice job woodelf. Much better. Time to actually get to work and finish all the terrain.

Thanks.

So no XML errors at all?

 

[matthewv]

The only error I get is when I quit the game.

 

[woodelf]

The only error I get is when I quit the game.

That's easy, don't quit!

 

[matthewv]

Half the time my comp still freezes when I quit to decktop yet sometimes I just get the error message

 

[woodelf]

What are doing about luxury resources? Do we have any? What about a Dune-type Spice that the colonists eventually find?

 

[dsquared]

not on the moon JBG says to keep it realistic, i think that some resources could be dual luxury/strategic, ie oxygen deposits so you can have an oxygen bar and oxygen for use in rocket fuel etc

also titanium/aluminum etc can be gold equivalents as well as strategic

titanium especially, if youve ever seen the metal, i have some titanium backpacking equipment, its almost magical, its this yellowish brown color and weighs so little its surprising to hold

water is clearly a luxury on the moon as well

 

[woodelf]

Okay, sounds good.

How many more resources can you make dsquared? I finally ordered the Blender book, but I'm not holding my breath for being able to contribute artwork to this mod.

 

[dsquared]

well I'm gonna see if my alpha channel problems go away first, photoshop is removing transparency from my DDS files so until i clear that up im not going to reskin, but that said, resources are easy, mostly just one big block of texture, the only model with no problems is my algae farm which im going to refine a bit and edit to use as glasshouses as well, the nuclear bunker model is also high on my list to reskin for use in this mod (it has a sat dish on the roof and looks great) artwork for this is fairly easy to add, basically one or two lines of XML, I'd rather focus on getting the guts hammered out because i feel like were spinning out wheels and not getting actual modding done right now besides of course you getting rid of all the errors which is awesome

 

[Kael]

Image hosted for Woodelf:

 

[matthewv]

Are you guys not getting any cratered terrain or does it just look that way?

 

[dsquared]

youre seeing it there, we get a terrain CALLED crater just looks like desturated plains or desert

 

[matthewv]

Check your art/terrain/textures and chech cratereddetail.dds to see if it looks like a crater. Tell me weather or not it does.

 

[dsquared]

yes it looks like cratered terrain

-edit-

matthew what program are you using for DDS editing, photoshop is giving my alpha issues so I may switch if what i think is causign the problem isnt

-edit-

success! my alpha has returned, ill be doing some more resources for the mod, matthew whenever you post let me know how you want to add resources, either replacing ones we have ie all those gems we see around or new XML entries and how it affects your script.

 

[Belizan]

@Belizan
I knew you would be intrested in how I did this. What I did is when a unit is selected that can 'walk' on water, all the the water terrain is turned into the same type of terrian that is defined as a land type of terrian in the terrain infos xml file instead of a water type. In testing it out I made so that settlers could walk on water and it worked beautifully. My settler could walk on water but my warrior could not. There was also no way of noticing while you were playing the game and had the settler selected that the water was actually a land terrain type. Doing it this way also does not handicap the AI since they will also realize they could walk on 'water' with certain units since they will think its land.

So you are saying you made two versions of each water terrain, roughly identical save that the "land" version had <bWater> set to 0, and then onUnitSelected you do a sweep of.. the unit's move range? The entire map? And swap the terrains, then swap them back on the next unit selected? I didn't even think the AI sets off unitSelected events? Clever idea though, I had for some reason assumed that changing the map would cause graphical glitches and map corruption (from failing to track when to change it to and fro), not to mention I wasn't sure how to manage it properly for the AI :/. Have I got the gyst of your algorithm, or was there even more deviousness involved in your solution? Inquiring minds want to know 8).

 

[matthewv]

@belizan
I dont know whether the AI sets of onunit select or not but I definately hope it does. And I would do a sweep of the entire map. I got no graphical issues because I set the last two boolean values of set terrain type to 0 so that it did not recalculate or redo the graphics. It is actually a really simple short algoritham which I think you figured out well.

Edit: my moon_map script is driving me crazy at the moment. It is acting really weird. I think I will redo it all over agian.

@dsquared
just send the resource files my way and I willl update the bonus art defines xml accordingly.

 

[dsquared]

you may be right belizan, the AI may not get this benefit, i dont know if he watched the AI to see what happens, create a map with one plot surrounded by water and see if the AI can get off of it

ok when i slam em out ill email? you or something

-------UPDATE

Finished 7 of th 26 resources listed in TMB 1.1

Copper
Aluminum
Titanium
Uranium
Plutonium
Carbon Ice
Gold

Admittedly several of these require changing only the base and then the references to the new base in 4 or 5 NIF files, but plutonium looks pretty cool as does titanium

 

[Belizan]

I could imagine that at the beginning ther will be NO Combat unit as all are eager to colonize. The first combat unit should come a way later in the tech tree. This would make a completely different start.

I think the first combating units would be foot troops with normal rifles and infantry on moon cars, and melee troops. The "gunpowder" units should not be capable of taking cities or have a negativ city attack (because while storming most of the equipment would be destroyed so that these troops have to operate quite careful) Therfore we should have the hand to hand or taser troops to capture (these on the contrary have to be quite weak on the open field).

The situation might change when underground cities become availabe but even then motorized troops will not be well usable.

Further - later game - units might be troop carriers and moon-tanks and of course different styles of shuttles.

Artillery units should not be usable due to the small gravitation on moon.

I've been going through the thread pulling out potentially Python-related implementation tasks, and I came across this post which I don't think I responded to at the time, but... I know we are doing a unit overview at this juncture, and it occured to me, in thinking and reading this that the early military units for lunar groups would probably look like rockets and missiles. That early in the game, capturing of bases is not possible, it is only the damaging (or potentially destruction) of other bases which can be achieved. The development of military technologies which would allow for an actual invasion and occupation of a moon base station would seem pretty advance, requiring a multitude of technologies (hacking, engineering, security ops, demolitions, etc.).

 

[Belizan]

@belizan
I dont know whether the AI sets of onunit select or not but I definately hope it does. And I would do a sweep of the entire map. I got no graphical issues because I set the last two boolean values of set terrain type to 0 so that it did not recalculate or redo the graphics. It is actually a really simple short algoritham which I think you figured out well.

Edit: my moon_map script is driving me crazy at the moment. It is acting really weird. I think I will redo it all over agian.

Well, my other concern is the gotcha factor. Improvements are set to only exist on certain terrains, and generate resources based on terrain type, etc. With an OnUnitSelected based algorithm, you ahve the problem of aberrations from, say.. when a player goes from a selected unit directly to the city view. Or he ends his turn (i don't know if OnPlayerEndTurn runs before or after production). Most of these can be safeguarded against by duplicating the entries in Improvements, etc. to work equally well on the water tiles and the waterthatisland tiles, I suppose. I just.. worry that we've missed something . It seems open to problems. I guess I should stop postulating and just build it and see 8). That old Mac programming style versus Windows programming style issue 8).

Edit: Oh, and I've made a few map generating programs myself (that's where I started out modding Civ4 in fact). So if you want a second pair of eyes on a problem, let me know.