To modders of BE, I need some help to learn, can you help me?

[50ShadesofGray]

Hello there, this is my first post, Ive never been here before but Ive created this account specifically to ask for help from anyone willing to provide it. Here goes my wide drag net.

I, like many, have various gripes about beyond earth, specifically concerning some of the newly created downsides that were introduced in Rising Tide. Personally i fell that Rising Tide made some very good additions and pointed BE in a good direction. However there is always that nagging "BUT" that must be heard.

Instead of griping and venting my issues with what could be a great game, i would simply like to learn how to mod the 5hit out of this and fix the various issues in question. I am asking for the support of others that know how to code various existing things within Rising Tide to please direct me to where i can learn all i need to know to make changes and additions. Hell, I'm willing to talk to someone who knows how to mod over Skype or some such medium in order to walk me through it. IDK why but I'm oddly dedicated to this.

To give a general idea of what i really want to focus on, i would like to learn how to edit the below aspects of Rising Tide. With this, I'm taking Lebouf's advice and making my dreams come true.

; Existing Sponsor passives, including their new diplomacy trait upgrades.
; The new diplomacy traits system and its various upgrades.
; The affinity system, including the new hybrid system.
; The existing units upgrade choices, specifically the hybrid units.
; The places and quantity of affinity that is generated via research.
; The places things are unlocked on the research web
; How to edit the social policies, layout of polices, unlock paths, and effects.
; Wonder effects and yields.
; Tile Improvements and yields.
; How to create or edit existing promotion bonuses.
; How to create new buildings or wonders

Ive already attempted to approach people from the modding community on steam, and lurked around various guides, sadly to no avail. I cant seem to get my head around this, mainly because this is my first attempt as coding, and I'm typically a modeler/animator so coding is an entirely new environment for me. I have higher ambitions on what i want this game to become, but for the moment id like to stick to some simple XML/LUA coding. In the future id like to learn more on how to edit the squad layouts in order to make more visually interesting units, including combining existing units into squads for possible hybrid concepts.

At present Ive been looking at other peoples coding styles, mainly the most prominent mods, (awesome collection, social policy revamp, immersive units) and i cant seem to understand how the game actually accepts the new information. If you can help me with this, i would be very grateful for your assistance. And yes, i have modbuddy installed. So i have the resources.

: Apologies mods if general discussion is the wrong location for this thread.
: Steam contact 50ShadesofGray, picture is a unicorn vomiting rainbows its hard to miss, message me directly there if you feel that would be easier.

Thank you to anyone just for reading this.
Gray.

 

[Lord Shadow]

Frankly, you're asking for a lot. You want people to walk you through modding most everything that isn't graphics-related, save for perhaps AI and quests.

My suggestion is: delve into the files and try to understand how the XMLs work, by themselves and with each other (creating types and referencing others). I presume it'd be easier to learn on your own than to find someone to teach you everything. Many of us are self-taught, after all, and don't necessarily have a coding background.

As for practical knowledge, I suppose it helps to know XML is mainly a storage medium, so to speak. You'll find values defined in them which feed the game's database, but it's up to the game's actual code (partly Lua, mostly hardcode) which does the processing. But defining something in the XML doesn't mean the game will pick it up and magically use it: it expects a certain structure and certain values. Perhaps that's truer in CivBE than it was in Civ5.

The best guide to what the game will accept is the table definitions across the XMLs: they stipulate the data BE will understand and build something with. For instance, the PlayerPerks XML begins with the definitions of all the available effects a given perk (sponsor/agreement trait) can have.

What's (almost) certain to work is not only what's defined on the initial table, but also what you see in use afterwards, in the body of the XML. There are cases of data defined on the main table which remains unused and may not work correctly, such as unit promotions, which produce a UI glitch if you add promotions not used by BE (i.e. 97% of them). You'll sometimes wander into uncharted territory, so you'll need to do extensive testing to check whether your modifications are working as expected.

So that's the gist of it. Once you understand how the game does what it does, you'll be in a good position to start adding new stuff.

 

[Browd]

Moderator Action: Moved to Creation & Customization - General Modding Discussion subforum.