how do i make my own tech tree? » Forum Post by grandmc117

tesb

Join Date 03/2008

+302

Just look for techs from other trees (the standart ones in your data folder) and use their ID then add your descriptions.

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What about creating one or more new technologies?

I created a new tech tree with several race specific techs but i did not show up when i tried to start a new game

Did I miss something?

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put it in the twilight/data/english/tech trees folder if you haven't done so already

-Dave

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I have been trying to use the editor provided with twilight,

When i press save as in the editor and give it a name its all well and good and I can reload it through the editor but when I run the game and select custom race and go to tech selection it only shows the normal list of tech tree's

Also, even though I save the file to the same location as all of the prebuild tech tree's when I explore that location through windows it does not show up and I can't seem to find that location.

Is it being saved to some different location?

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Where did you put your custom tree?
It should go into ..\Twilight\Mods\your_mod\Data\TechTrees.
Don't put it into ..\Twilight\Mods\your_mod\Data\Techs except you want to add techs to the default techtree.
Make also sure you assigned a DisplayName and the right TechRequirement

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I found the file it is saved in Galciv2/twilight/Data/English/TechTree's

What i did was I copied the Terrian tech tree and saved it into a new name through the techtree editor, changing the internal and display names and then added/removed/replaced several tech's

I also rearranged some of the tech requirements (I removed planetary Improvement and set the techs that require planetaty improvement to a couple of different techs)

What did I do wrong?

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maybe send it to someone at SD

-Dave

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tesb

Join Date 03/2008

+302

I for one copied the thalan tech tree and added some techs and saved it with a new name in the same folder where the original tech trees are and it works with out a problem. (you should name it whatever_TechTree.xml)

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DivineWrath

Join Date 05/2006

+135

It sounds like you are doing a few things wrong. Let me explain what you should be doing (and not doing).

________________

1) You should be placing your mods into the mods folder. It should be found here (assumes default install path).

C:\Program Files\Stardock\TotalGaming\GalCiv2\Mods\Default

You would also need to turn on mods to use them (there is "select a folder" and there is "use mods"). If you want to have multiple mods, you could copy the default folder, rename the copy, and then edit the .xml file found one level in (use notepad) so it has a different discription.

Stuffing your work in the data folders for the game itself would make things messy, and might be ignored by the game (it might look for specific files instead of everything it could find). Inaddition, overwriting the existing files runs the risk that your work will get destroyed in the next update.

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2) You should be providing the tech trees with their own internal name and display name. If you don't, your tech trees might replace, or look exactly like the one you copied (and then modified). You should be able to find the entries early in the file (if using notepad), or top left corner of the tech tree editor.

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3) The TechIDs and Display name of techs serve 2 different roles.

The TechID allows ship parts, starbase modules, planet improvements to know which techs unlocks them. For instance, the "Ion Drive" ship module requires the tech "IonDrive" to be researched to unlock it.

The display name serves the role of renaming the tech. Without it, you would need to go through and try to find every ship module, starbase module, planet improvement, and so forth so you can change the tech needed to unlock them. For instance, the tech "IonDrive" has the display name of "Ion Drive". This means the game would show "Ion Drive" instead of its internal name. If you were to rename it to "Teddy Bears", the player would see that teddy bears unlock ion drives.

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ok that make more sense I will get that going

Thanks

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DivineWrath

Join Date 05/2006

+135

ok that make more sense I will get that going

Thanks

Thats good. If you are able to get things working, could you let us know?

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Ok well here is what i did and the results/problems that have occurred

I took the standard MinorRace tech tree and added 4 new technologies which are aligned with the custom race I am creating (each of the new tech's provides some of the racial bonuses I intended for the race)

I then reassigned some of the techs to new prerequisites such as changing xeno research to require traditional research instead of planetary improvement and switching all of the tech's that require "Planetary Improvement" to the new tech's that I created. I used existing tech's as my example for filling in information.

All of the new tech's that I created also were set as no trade and no stealing

I saved the tech tree to Galciv2/twilight/mods/default/data/techtrees

Everything seemed to work fine, I started a new game with a custom race, and was able to select my custom tech tree and everything seemed to work just fine, but once I started the game it crashes.

I checked to see if I had somehow corrupted something by again doing a custom race but using a standard race tech tree and everything worked just fine?

Why is the game crashing?

Should I construct a completely custom tech tree and then create custom planetary improvements to copy the normal ones but use my customized techs for their requirements instead?

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DivineWrath

Join Date 05/2006

+135

Why is the game crashing?

Probally the tech tree editor bug. Take a look at the first tech in the tree (using the editor) and see if its pointing to the proper tech.

A sample problem involves the Arcean tech tree. If you open it up with the tech tree editor, and then try to close, it will ask you if want to save changes. The change was the tech "Adamantium Armor" was changed from requiring "Kanvium III" to "Adamantium II". Because "Adamantium II" normally requires "Adamantium Armor", this change results in 2 techs needing each other creating a strange loop that crashes the game.

Edit: By the way, this is simple to fix. Change the required tech of the damaged tech and everything should be fixed. Remember, it should be the top most tech in the list when using the tech tree editor.

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Thank you!, I can't beleive I never noticed that it does that

I made that correction and everthing functions correctly now, thankyou so much

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DivineWrath

Join Date 05/2006

+135

Thank you!, I can't beleive I never noticed that it does that

Its not an easy thing to notice. After 10 or so failed attempts to fix things, I started using my last working version, and ran it through the tech tree editor to try to break it. I eventually discovered that when opening it up in notepad, that the broken version had 1 extra line of code. After shifting through nearly a 1000 lines, I found that a tech had a changed required tech (I quickly determined it to be the top most tech).

Anyways, a good way to prevent this in the future is to make a dummy tech. Name something so it sorts to the top of the list like "01 Keys", "01 Notes", or "01 Dummy" (numbers seem to sort above letters). So long as the tech serves no purpose in the tech tree, you should be alright.

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After working on it for 3 hours my head is ready to explode.
Im really sick of playing the TOrian stock tree but Im having way more trouble devving my own tree

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how do u start making the tech tree though, and what about improvments editor how does it work?

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I recommend that before you start trying to make your own tech tree that you do the following

Start a new game using each of the stock race tech tree's and read through the different technologies, i recommend that you make a note of which techs are common to all of the races such as the Xeno Communication Branch which might have different names (the display name varies on some of the techs but they all use the same tech ID name)

Also be mindful of the weapon techs there are several Alternative weapon techs that are different but ment to replace certain weapon techs on different

But get an idea of which techs already exist that you just need to make sure you add to your list and what you might need for new techs.

Best to steal from differnet tech tree's stuff that is already existing and add it to your tech tree.

It might be easiest if you copied the minor race tech tree and after saving it with a different name that you started editing it, that will give you a pretty good start on some of the universal technologies in the game.

Also you can have multiple editor window open at the same time so you can have your customer tech tree up and be referencing tech id's from 1 or 2 of the major race tree's at the same time

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another thing, read carielf's modding guide. the thread is stickied.

-Dave

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