As said in the FAQ, modding is part of our plan. "Modding is one item we hope to add at some point in the future and is on our big list of items for potential future inclusion. We are still evaluating what would be the best way to offer modding support and what aspects of the game could be offered for modding. What we can say for now is that, in theory, it should be possible to modify several aspects of te game, like technologies, leaders, culture perks, and other areas via simple XML editing. This may also include changing images and/or adding 3D models, but we’ll have to see. So, please check again in the near future and we may have more news on that." In the meantime, please feel free to discuss modding for the game in this subforum. What would you like to be moddable and why? We'll take your inputs into consideration when we discuss modding internally and we'll see what can be done.
I've made no secret of the fact that I consider extensive modding support to be one of the most important features that a game can possibly have so I'm very happy to see that ISG will be mod friendly. I'm sure that the enormous benefit to playabilty and game longevity will more than pay back the extra work involved over time. Good decision!
So lets say I would like to change some grafic/icons. Where are they, can I override this already and if not, can I unpack them and change them?
The current build isn't mod-ready yet. So, no, nothing can be done mod-wise as of yet. As said above, it should be possible to modify technologies, leaders, and other game parameters via simple XML editing at some point in time. This shouldn't be hard to achieve. Changing images and/or 3D models are also a possibility, we'll see. Right now we're 100% focused in finishing the implementation of the missing systems in our road to Alpha. After that milestone is reached we'll be improving all the systems and then start thinking in modding. In the meantime, feel free to let us know what you'd like to be able to mod in the game, and we'll see what we can do.
Well yes, this has to be done of course, I am with you; I just thought we could get our hands into it somehow. Like opening the packages and modifying them.
To be frank with you that may even be possible already, to unpack and change stuff, but we don't know yet. When the time comes we'll investigate the right way of allowing people to mod the game. We've structured the code and most of the game's data in a way that it should allow to expose XML files easily (e.g. leaders, tech tree, culture perks). In the future we may also consider exposing other parameters which should allow to control the game as people see fit. What gets exposed and not will also depend on what people tell us they'd like to modify in the game, of course.
It's possible to mod unity files directly, but plain text XML is much easier. If possible, allowing some kind of scripting (what type being depending on what you coded in) with DOM or something similar to allow specific changes to the XML without completely replacing the file would make it easier to have multiple compatible mods. What to expose and how would be dependent on what is easy to do given your existing class and data structure--just start with what is easy to expose. For instance, I'd like to mod the base maneuverability of ships to give a bonus to smaller sizes--that could be done by directly giving a bonus by size, by editing the space costs of extra maneuverability to make it much cheaper on frigates than currently and much more expensive on maneuverability that it is, etc. Which if any of that is easy to expose depends on how it was coded--is the space cost a data value for each ship size, or is it a base value with a hard-coded multiplier by ship size? Is the multiplier itself a data element or hard-coded? All that is dependent on how it was coded--if it's a easy data element, expose it, if not, don't worry about it at least for now. I.e., start with just exposing data elements you're reading in from data tables today, and people will find useful things to do with those, then worry about exposing more later.
It is definitely possible to edit the current game files with a hex editor. All the XML files are imported directly into the save files, so modding should be very easy in the future as you could make a "mods folder" to store the mods that will hold the "files to be overwritten" (Modded XML files) upon use of the mod. This will just use those XML files instead of the default XML files to create the initial save file. Once the initial save file is created, everything is stored within it. Essentially the mod would only be used upon initial creation of the new game and after that, all the modded data is stored in the save file and moves into every future save file (of that specific game) from then on. Editing with a hex editor is very tedious work and will corrupt your save files if you do not know what you are doing. I have slowly been figuring out what changes what, but without seeing the files in actual XML format, it is hard to decipher everything. Some of the assets files are much cleaner to read through than the save files, but currently changing those will import any new changes into every new game you make afterwards.
https://interstellarspacegame.com/f...-bring-ground-fights-to-a-different-game.435/ Great new game (or at least mod idea) here
Hi all, Honestly, I've never seen the reason for modding in games like ISG. OK, It can be fun to play Klingons or whatever, but I am sure there are a way more important things to in the backlog. Maybe some generic ship designs or one or two leaders more in the custom race screen would be a nice feature, though. regards, Björn
Modding doesn't have to be about playing as Klingons. I would love the ability to adjust numbers in the game when it comes to weapons, and defenses. In addition the ability to mod the difficulty levels would intrigue me, not just by playing with numbers mind you, but setting entirely different parameters. Creating additional biomes, is another thing I would like to experiment with. These are just some examples. Don't get me wrong, the base game is quite good and I actively support it, but being able to customize the experience further via modding would be a huge plus, not just for me personally, but Praxis itself.
For mods, being able to rebalance the technology would be nice--but I'm interested in being able to crack open and modify the AI--at least with respect to fleet design and space battles. Strategy games are built around hard and soft counters. But with the AI, designs differ little beyond how big the ship is. This makes it very easy to counter them early by overwhelming them with missiles, fighters and bombers (MoO2 was similar, but the age of missiles ended with phasers). There are obvious counters to this strategy--ECM jammers & point defense are available from the beginning of the game. I could go more into fleet strategy, but I'd appreciate if the AI were more open to modding so myself or someone more capable could improve the AI (ship design has been my favorite part of this genre since the first Master of Orion game).
I understand what you're saying, this is beyond me though but I would like to see what others can accomplish. In the early game there is little choice, targeting is so poor with direct fire weapons and the space requirements versus damage are problematic. Being able to re-work the numbers should actually help the AI. A while ago, the devs changed missile space requirements so that they are now the same for every type of missile, I like this. That said though, rather than seeing a nerf of any type, I want to do something similar (though not exact), with kinetics and beams, as well as return some of the potency they lost over the many releases. The goal would be to increase casualties for both the player and AIs. I could as well... Hopefully we will see the day when many players put out their own variants of ISG, each perhaps focusing on their own preferred areas, I know my own would entail rather extensive alterations, but in the end a modding community built around this game would be a big plus.
In the early game there is little choice, targeting is so poor with direct fire weapons and the space requirements versus damage are problematic. Being able to re-work the numbers should actually help the AI. A while ago, the devs changed missile space requirements so that they are now the same for every type of missile, I like this. That said though, rather than seeing a nerf of any type, I want to do something similar (though not exact), with kinetics and beams, as well as return some of the potency they lost over the many releases. The goal would be to increase casualties for both the player and AIs. No idea how to quote in these forums, but I think we get the gist. I have yet to find anything that can compete with or beat a race to Ion cannons. Get the cannons, rush your ships up in the enemies face and ionize them, then board. I often don't have enough boarding ability and have to destroy ships I can't capture... I may lose a few destroyers in the bum rush... But it works on everything, I think it even still stuns the monsters, even though you can no longer board them. It can take a while to kill a battleship with PD lasers. But it's not going anywhere.
Hi @Dewbacca If you haven't figured it out yet, just highlight what you want to quote and the ability to do so will appear, this forum software is very user friendly. The thing is that many aspects of ISG are dependent on settings, which in return raise some issues that don't appear otherwise. For example, om my settings you're very slowed down in tech but not so much so in production. That means you usually get bigger battles consisting of many ships, with some strange configurations on the ships. The AI for example, continues to pursue it's development of shields and armor, but sacrifices weapons research, sometimes it's reversed. I myself don't use beams, and I do use lots and lots of ships, each one capable of dealing damage. I ran into a few battles where 40-50% of AI ships had Ion cannons, it was a nuisance, but by no means OP as they were never able to stun enough of my ships at the same time to win the battle. So apart from settings, play style can affect what is OP or not.
I see how quoting works, thank you. Also, yes... the AI isn't going to be able to pick and choose battles where it could "stun & board". I've found it very effective, but with the ability to choose the fights. I DO start out nibbling around the edges of larger fleets, and after refitting what I capture, it quickly matches then overwhelms any opponent. I certainly would enjoy a stripped and balanced version of the game where we could test it in multiplayer. P.S. I think I was the crazy guy who pointed out you can board and capture monsters. I often wonder how many folks playing this game have captured an enemy outpost? Shame you don't get to keep it.
yeah, I know... I pointed out that monsters COULD be captured and the next update changed it. I quit the game for several months over that change.
Sorry, I didn't get that. Yes, there have been numerous changes made to ISG since it's release. One train of thought is that the game is being refined, another is that it is in perpetual Beta, and the devs are still trying to figure out basics. Unfortunately it is a fine line and there is no way to please everyone. Certain past releases were stronger in some areas and weaker in others, hopefully we've come to a point where the basics at least are stabilized, many players hate re-learning a game with each release.
