Trouble adding new units

[Thomas P]

Hello everybody,

I'm a new member of your community and I have got lots of problems with adding new units to Civ4. I liked Civ3 and I liked it to create mods. I never had any problems, but now...

Okay, here is my problem. At first I decided to add a mobile SAM and a mobile Artillery to the game. I found those units in a folder of the game. I integrated the units into the game without any problems. So I decided to add another unit - a nuclear-submarine. I made a copy of the standard sub and integrated it the same way into the game as "nuclear-submarine". Then I changed the rules of both subs. For example the standard needs oil and the nuclear sub needs uranium. Maybe interesting for you - I reduced the defencepower of the nuclear-sub to 50% in shallow water (TERRAIN_COAST). I created a new button and everything was still working fine.
So at last I had to change the layout. I decided to use the layout of the akula-sub, but it doesn't work. My nuclear sub still looks like the standard sub. What must I do to change the layout? I read all descriptions about adding units, but I don't get it.
I created, similar to mobile SAM and artillery (and they are working fine), a folder called NuclearSubmarine in assets/art/units/. But obviously I haven't got the right files in my folder.

Can anybody help me, please? Who can teach me how to copy and replace files the right way? Can anybody please send me a list of the needed files and their sources?

I'm using the 1.61 patch.

Thank you.

PS: (I hope it's "PS" in english ) I'm very sorry for the bad english. And I'm sure I made hundreds of mistakes, but I hope you could get the message. Thanks.

 

[Rabbit, White]

Did you change all the necessary XML entries?

Things you need to have for a new unit graphic to show up:
- New unit definition in Civ4UnitInfos.xml (as I understand you've done that)
- The new unit needs to reference a new art definition in the <EarlyArtDefineTag> tag
- This new art definition needs to be created in the CIV4ArtDefines_Unit.xml file
- The new art definition must reference the new unit files in the <NIF> and <SHADERNIF> tags, and depending on the unit it might also need to reference the new animation file in the <KFM> tag.

If you're using snafusmith's akula submarine then you'll use the same animations as the regular submarine and so your new art definition would look something like this.

<UnitArtInfo>
	<Type>ART_DEF_UNIT_AKULA_SUBMARINE</Type>
	<fScale>0.55</fScale>
	<fInterfaceScale>1.3</fInterfaceScale>
	[B]<NIF>Art/Units/AkulaSubmarine/AkulaSubmarine.nif</NIF>[/B]
	<KFM>Art/Units/Submarine/Submarine.kfm</KFM>
	[B]<SHADERNIF>Art/Units/AkulaSubmarine/AkulaSubmarine_FX.nif</SHADERNIF>[/B]
	<ShadowDef>
		<ShadowNIF>Art/Units/01_UnitShadows/BattleshipShadow.nif</ShadowNIF>
		<ShadowAttachNode>BIP Pelvis</ShadowAttachNode>
		<fShadowScale>0.001</fShadowScale>
	</ShadowDef>
	<iDamageStates>4</iDamageStates>
	<fBattleDistance>0.55</fBattleDistance>
	<fRangedDeathTime>0.31</fRangedDeathTime>
	<bSmoothMove>1</bSmoothMove>
	<fAngleInterpRate>720.0</fAngleInterpRate>
	<bActAsRanged>0</bActAsRanged>
	<TrainSound>AS2D_UNIT_BUILD_UNIT</TrainSound>
	<AudioRunSounds>
		<AudioRunTypeLoop>LOOPSTEP_SUBMARINE</AudioRunTypeLoop>
		<AudioRunTypeEnd>ENDSTEP_SUBMARINE</AudioRunTypeEnd>
	</AudioRunSounds>
	<SelectionSound>AS3D_UN_SUBMARINE_FORT</SelectionSound>
	<ActionSound>AS3D_UN_SUBMARINE_FORT</ActionSound>
</UnitArtInfo>

Of course the refences to "AkulaSubmarine" should be changed to whatever file names and locations you're using for the files.

Let me know if this helped.

 

[whatsallthisnow]

So, when changing the art files, should a "AkulaSubmarine_FX" file be included in the downloaded package? or do you just plug in the standard "AkulaSubmarine.nif" file and add "_FX" to it?

Also, on the actual Akula thread it says " fScale to 0.65" does that mean change the <fScale> to .65? When I first tried modding this file, I did that. I'm also having an issue with the Akula file, so this thread applies to me as well

 

[Rabbit, White]

If the _fx file is not included then you simply put the regular version into the shadernif tag, i.e. <SHADERNIF>....../AkulaSubmarine.nif</SHADERNIF>. All it means is that the unit does not support team colors (as far I know at least ).

The fScale is just the recommended scale by the author, so yeah just change the <fScale> to that value and see if you like how the unit scales in comparison to other units.