Rough limitations of modding Civ:BE

[Draffin]

Hey Everyone,

I'm new to the forum and modding Civ in general. But this looks like a great community and I'm looking forward to being a part of it.

My question is, is there a list or does someone have a rough idea of the limitations of modding Civ: BE. I had a look online and the only think I could find was an old article on modding Civ 5 that had a list of what you could and couldn't do.

http://modiki.civfanatics.com/index.php?title=Modding_Limits_and_Issues_(Civ5)

But, it was written in 2012 and I'm sure the modding tools have developed since then, so is there anything else that's more up to date? I had a search in this forum and couldn't find anything definitive. The aspects that concern me most about this older document is that it states you can't edit the audio, espionage, combat and potentially the AI.

Due to my naiveté I understand that it's possible to easily to mod the database and with Lua you can change quite a bit of the interface and interactions but I'm just really curious to know what you can't access (I have some programming experience so I'm not afraid of a little C++).

I have a pretty big idea for a mod that I'm developing but I just need to know where I can and can't take it before I commit too much to it.

If a list or document does exist perhaps it's worth stickying it?

Thanks in advance.

Draffin.

 

[Machiavelli24]

You can use SQL and/or XML to change the database but these values can not be changed in the middle of a game. Essentially they are constants.

For game play related lua code 95% of it is going to be tied to an event, which determines when the code is run and what informational inputs it will have. If there is not an event that fires at the times your algorithm requires than you're out of luck. There are not tons of events so they will be a common limitation.

The C++ for Beyond Earth has not been released. So you can't mod that at this time.
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I have a pretty big idea for a mod that I'm developing but I just need to know where I can and can't take it before I commit too much to it.

I would recommend starting small. Trying to make something huge can easily be overwhelming and discouraging.

 

[Draffin]

Thanks Machiavelli,

I work in software dev so am very aware of the perils of feature creep. I'll break up my grand idea into smaller experiments and see how it goes.

So are the issues concerning adding audio, altering espionage etc still prevalent?

Surely the event system is fairly thorough? I mean a lot happens in the game...

 

[Machiavelli24]

I haven't done much with audio or espionage so the following information may be incomplete. It should be possible with Lua to trigger music tracks starting. But it may not be possible to add new music tracks to the system (maybe only overwrite existing tracks).

In Civ5 espionage wasn't really accessible outside of the C++ but in Beyond Earth I believe it is more accessible. I think it is possible to detect when an operation completes and you may be able to make new operations.

Surely the event system is fairly thorough? I mean a lot happens in the game...

It is hit or miss depending on what you need. For example, you can't detect when someone assigns a specialist. So you probably can't do anything fancy with specialists. You can detect when a unit is created but not when they fight, which limits what you can do with combat. You can detect when a player adopts a virtue but not a diplomatic trait.

If you haven't seen it, the wiki is a great reference (but a crap tutorial). It wasn't updated for BE though and not all of its Civ5 information is appropriate for Beyond Earth.

 

[Draffin]

Ok, thank you for the heads up.

I'm finding that the the fact a lot of tutorials aren't kept up to date is going to be an ongoing problem. I literally just finished the first twitch modding guide that Firaxis did for BE and even then it didn't work properly and I had to find a way around the issue. Common problem I'm assuming?

Is there a file that documents what all the events are? Or are they just called through out the code whenever it was deemed required?

The code documentation does seem limited, it would be great if there was an overview or list of definitions somewhere

Thanks again for your help

 

[Draffin]

Edited - had a problem and I found the solution all on my own-some.

 

[Ryika]

Is there a file that documents what all the events are? Or are they just called through out the code whenever it was deemed required?

Nope. You can use Notepad++ or something similar to mass-search through the code for events that are used in the lua though. But of course that will only return the functions that are currently used, not everything that actually exists.

Of course a lot of the stuff from Civ5 still works, but Machiavelli has already mentioned that.

Speaking of Machiavelli, gotta insert some offtopic here:
Grz to your Community Spotlight, was an interesting read!

 

[Draffin]

Well...sounds like it'll be a bit of a learning curve but I'm sure I'll get there.

I'll go off topic now Ryika and hopefully point you to the other thread I just started in this forum room which has had me banging my head against the keyboard the last two hours. I'm sure the fix is blaringly simple but it has me stumped.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=557890