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Galactopedia

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Galactopedia

Downloadable information utility for GalCiv2

http://www.kynosarges.de/Galactopedia.html
from GalCiv2 Forums

Galactopedia

The Galactopedia is a utility program for Stardock’s excellent space strategy game Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords, providing you with exhaustive information on all objects and technologies defined by the game. The information is taken directly from the game’s data files, and therefore always up-to-date.

The Galactopedia is © 2006 by Christoph Nahr but available for free download under the MIT license. Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords is © 2006 by Stardock Corporation.

System Requirements

The Galactopedia requires a Microsoft Windows system capable of running the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0. This includes most Windows systems with Internet Explorer 5.01, except for the unsupported Windows 95 and NT 3.x/4.0.

Please use the Windows Update service or visit the .NET Framework home page to acquire the .NET Framework as a free 22.4 MB download, and to learn more about .NET system requirements.

Please see the Galactopedia website for more information, screenshots, download and source code!

http://www.kynosarges.de/Galactopedia.html

<img src="http://www.kynosarges.de/images/Galactopedia.png">

374,283 views 120 replies
Reply #51 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
For each improvement, it would be nice to list the improvement (if any) that obsoletes it, as well as the improvement that it obsoletes. That way you can easily answer questions like, "What's the next upgrade after the Enhanced Factory?" (Answer: Manufacturing Center.)
Reply #52 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Some Galactic Achievments and Trade Goods are missing their required techs. Could this be fixed? Also could you add a Super Project button plz? Finally please change whatever needs to be changed when v1.1 is released. Thanks!
Star Control: Origins
Reply #53 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hi Chris Nahr, great app. I found a bug though I'm not sure its an error in your code, XP, my videodriver or .NET. What happend was. I started Galactopedia (GP), then started up GC2, swaped in and out a few times, to write a post on the forum, at some point I resized the GP-window. I then closed down GC2, and started swapping between FirFox and GP, but now the description window was blank each time I went into GP, to get the window to update I had to resize GP each time I swapped, or wanted to disply a new entry.

And then a few feature request:

I would like to be able to have a few sort options in the lists, so that I could sort alphabetically, by tec, requirement, generation, prereq, modules, etc.

I would also like to se the SizeMod value displayed. SizeMod is the percentage of the hull-size added to the component size. Ex. A Size 6, SizeMod 10 component will take up 6+flor(55*0.10) = 11 spaces on a non miniturized cargo hull.
Reply #54 from Stardock Forums Top
Version 1.31 is up, with just a few changes but the source code is now (almost) fully documented...

David -- Linking to obsoleting improvements should be easy, I'll do that.

unreal_ed -- There do seem to be some trade goods and galactic achievements that lack tech requirements, I'll look into that. It's possible that those things are not supposed to be built in the current version, though.

I'm reluctant to add a single button because that kills the nice symmetry... I could make two extra buttons for Super Projects and Unique Projects, though.

Martin -- Thanks for the explanation of how SizeMod works, I've left it out because I didn't know what it does! I'll add the data to the hull display.

Generalized sorting on entry properties is technically simple but requires a bit of infrastructure. Nothing too bad, though... I think I can put it in the next update.

I'm afraid I can't help with your display problem. Alt-Tabbing seems to work fine on my system. I've had one other bug report that the entry display was strangely garbled, and that also happened when Alt-Tabbing between GalCiv and the Galactopedia. My best guess is that there's a weird incompatibility of some system configurations regarding DirectX and the GDI+ display library used by .NET. Make sure you have the latest DirectX version and the latest video driver, and when the problem arises shut down and restart Galactopedia... that's about all I can advise. Sorry!
Reply #55 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Regarding the display bug: Last night restarting Galactopedia didn't help so unfortunately I'll have to run it on a seperate computer from GalCiv2. But I just downloaded both the new binary and source, so I'll se if I can figure out a workaround. If I do I'll let you know.
Reply #56 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'm thinking that this might be a GDI resource issue related to the reallocation of the buffer bitmap for the entry display. I'll try to minimize reallocations in the next update, maybe that helps.
Reply #57 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Just to let you know, it works great on x64 windows! The installer didn't know to look in the wow64 tree of the registry for my game path, but not a big deal.

Is there a significance to the way some techs are child nodes of others, for example the Phasors techs have PII nested in PI, and then everything from PIII after is nested into PII. Just wondering if it makes a difference in game somehow.
Reply #58 from Stardock Forums Top
SuperGeek: Good to hear the program works on x64. I have to admit, I didn't even know there was a separate WOW64 registry hive on those systems... Would you happen to have the correct GC2 key for your system? I'd like to add the WOW64 variant as an alternative registry location.

The tree view is nested somewhat strangely because the GC2 tech tree is extremely deep and very narrow. If all dependent techs were nested regularly you'd have to click through 20 nodes to get anywhere, and you'd constantly be using the horizontal scrollbar. Instead the tree view lists linear research sequences as siblings, without child nodes but with a ">>" sign in front of them. There's no game difference, it's just a more efficient use of screen space.
Reply #59 from Stardock Forums Top
Okay, version 1.32 is up with a few of the suggested enhancements.

Size modifiers for ship components based on hull size are now listed where appropriate.

Upon closer examination I found a ton of invalid identifiers for tech requirements so I've written some code to extract them programmatically. There's a new menu item, Debug -> Invalid Links, that shows all invalid entry references found in the GC2 data files. I've manually fixed a couple of obvious misspellings but a larger number of entries seem to be deliberately unreachable in the current version (1.1 beta) so I've removed them from the lists.

Lastly, I've revised the entry display code so that much fewer bitmap reallocations are made. This might fix the display issues Martin has reported, in case they were really a GDI resource issue or possibly memory fragmentation.
Reply #60 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Chris: The registry key is as follows: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Stardock

For some reason, MS felt that it made since to put all the x86 files into folders/nodes called wow64, and all x64 into the ones called system32 and such. Such depths of wisdom, those folks;)
Reply #61 from Stardock Forums Top
Man, I've read several MSDN articles on the 64-bit transition and not a single one of them mentioned that programs running under WOW64 use the Wow6432Node subkey. Thanks a ton, I'll make a note and add another registry search option.
Reply #62 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
You may wish to know that there is not a wow64 node in the HKCU hive.
Reply #63 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The tree view is nested somewhat strangely because the GC2 tech tree is extremely deep and very narrow. If all dependent techs were nested regularly you'd have to click through 20 nodes to get anywhere, and you'd constantly be using the horizontal scrollbar. Instead the tree view lists linear research sequences as siblings, without child nodes but with a ">>" sign in front of them. There's no game difference, it's just a more efficient use of screen space.


Chris, I'm not sure my system displays as intended. Please see image here. If it does, I would like to better understand why it is devided up as it is. I was not entirely sure I understood your last post as it coorilates to my display.

*edit*
It occurs to me now that perhaps these splits are due to the weapons given by ethical alignment. I have yet to research Xeno Ethics in any of my games since I'm too busy getting better defenses. Is this correct?

Thanks for the help!
Reply #64 from Stardock Forums Top
No relation to ethics, and yes, it looks as intended.

I've just typed up a long post explaining your screenshot. Then the forum crapped out and I lost it.

Again, briefly. From Phasors you can go to TWO alternative technologies: Phasors II or Psionic Beam. Hence, you get a clickable square that reveals a branching subtree.

However, from Laser you can ONLY go to Laser II, and then ONLY to Laser III, and so on. Hence, you get a linear list of techs preceded with ">>" symbols, and no clickable squares with nested subtrees.

The regular way would be to use nested subtrees for all tech dependencies. But since there are so many techs that only allow a single new tech to be researched, putting them all in separate subtrees would be a massive waste of screen space and also force you to click through a million subtrees to see techs farther up the tree. So this variable display allows you to see a more compact and convenient tech tree.

It's purely a display trick that depends on whether a tech allows just one or more than one other techs to be researched -- nothing to do with the individual techs at all.
Reply #66 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I like the way you did it. Things are sure easier to see than otherwise, I can certainly understand that. I guess I didn't realize you researched the psionic bean so soon. I thought it was at the very end of the tech tree. I have yet to see it in a game.
Reply #67 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Now if only this was in the game... I think that it would be awesome if you could actually see what some of the techs you can research did or review them after you research them... Maybe at the next update
Reply #68 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Very nice!

I was actually attempting something similar (oddly enough also using the .NET framework). The only major difference was that I was going to add a tech-tree view similar to the one in game except that you could mouse-over each individual tech to see the cost, stuff it unlocked, etc (like in Civ IV). But rather than reinvent the wheel, I think I leave it to you or the devs to add in instead
Reply #69 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I just downloaded from the author's webpage and when I run it, it says it is version
1.3.0 instead of 1.4.
Reply #70 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
When a picture doesn't appear for an entry, it's either because Stardock's XML data does not specify a picture or because a specific picture could not be found. Also, GC2 itself can render 3D model files; I can only show PNGs or similar bitmap files. Nothing I can do on my side to fix this, unless some Stardock guy would tell me which image files to show for the image-less entries.


Since it's a .NET App, you should use the embedded DX9 support and have the app render the in game models in a seperate window! That would rock!
Reply #71 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
That must have been an old file getting stuck in your browser cache, or in the proxy cache of your Internet provider. The files at http://www.kynosarges.de/Galactopedia.html are definitely version 1.4.0 (now 1.4.1) -- I just re-downloaded the executable myself to make sure.
Reply #72 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Since it's a .NET App, you should use the embedded DX9 support and have the app render the in game models in a seperate window! That would rock!


Cool idea... but I think that's just a little bit too much work for my tastes.
Reply #73 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Really neat app. Thanks for your work, Chris.
Reply #75 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Version 1.5.0 is up, with a new category for user-defined ships. (The little "User" button squeezed into the lower right corner of the category bar... no room elsewhere...) Accordingly, you can now set the save game folder of GalCiv2 because that's where user-defined ships are stored.

And that completes my to-do list for the Galactopedia.