MODability

[ForesterSOF]

Are the files easily MODded so we can make custom scenarios or in my case I would like to see how far I could go to make an SMAC MOD.
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You have two choices in life; Explore and Learn, or Vegetate

[Zaimat]

Modding although very desirable is not a priority. Having said that it will be possible to mod the game and I would like to work with select people if they want to make major mods to facilitate the process and make it easyer for others. This is something further down the road. We have every plan to support and build on Horizon with modability/add-on modules after release. We see the release as a beginning not the end.

If you and/or others have ideas on modding capabilities I'd love to hear them. What are some of the things you'd like to be able to do? What games you consider had good moddability in the same genre?
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Horizon - Lead Designer

[Therlun]

Space Empires IV is the only TBS Game i remember that had mentionable modability.
You could replace all graphics, races and ship physics.
(there are several mods introducing newtonian movement and ship construction).
Also a crapload of balance and feature addings.

Other then that... was there any really successful (Space)TBS game at all in the last few years?

Civ 4 perhaps, although not "spacy"...
The different Civ titles spawned many scenarios. From STar Trek to LotR, from Atlantis to Warhammer.
Civ is only "Cities and units" though, and those are easiely modable.

Galciv is spacy, but had terrible modability.
It was an extreme painjust to include new ship images, and only a few people were able to do it at all (me being one of them! *proud* )
Galciv had easy to add events too, but they were only of the "you found a bag of gold" type, nothing fancy.
you couldnt chaange the game itself too much.


a game with great modability allows you to play with all of its features.

can you put the abilties of a planets somewhere else? (on ships for example, for a nomadic race)

can you individually "exchange" game ressources? (one race uses other living beings as food, while other races' food has no use for them)

can you influence AI behavior?

can you twist and form every apsect of the game?
from the star distribution to the sounds weapon make?

could you add anti-technology?
encountering some nasty death ray, and onlsy the encounter with it!, may
trigger an appropriate anti tech?

overall trigger is the keyword IMO.
what can you make a trigger, and what effects can the modder trigger?


also: http://forum.l3o.com/ftopic145.html&highlight=

[ForesterSOF]

For starters I would like to be able to tear apart a Race and remake it including the graphics and sound for it.

Another is the ability to tweek any and every setting there is.

A third is being able to make custom PBEMs and MP games with custom maps.

A fortth could be to make a program like Civ4's PitBoss that is able to change any setting along with making a custom map in it or with a map creation program or even with a paint program then put the file in maps or import feature in the game.
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[Zaimat]

Good suggestions.

Personally I think people would be interested in re-creating scenarios or settings from popular sci-fi shows or of their own imagination.

Horizon and most 4x TBS games are based on random or at-game time AI decisions to give it replay value and a different challenge. With Horizon we've got a storyline embedded but it's not as rigid as a scenario or campaign based game where you have set objectives and the map is set a certain way and the AI.

Originally I wanted to do both but that turned out to be too much extra work for our first release. But it would have made it easyer (a scenario editor) great for modders.

Still it should be easy to change graphics (provided you have some 3d application, the ship models, etc), modify races and the galaxy. The AI settings have a lot of possibilities.

I wouldn't go as far as Therlun though, in order to create anti-techs for example (and I'm not certain how anti-techs would work exactly), the game design would have to give the means to the AI. Basically if it's a game feature in the game the AI can use it or you can set it a certain way.
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Horizon - Lead Designer

[RobHuntingdon]

It depends on what kind of modding you want too. For example, some places all you want to do is adjust the play balance. Maybe make one race more (or less) powerful, one area of technology more or less powerful, etc.

However, to really be "fully moddable", you have to be able to add new items and/or rip out ones you don't like. This of course means that you have to be able to tell the AI how to use the new items and rip out of the AI scripts attempts to use the missing items. This includes technologies, buildings, weapons, ship components, spy missions, etc...

Scripting of events and such is definately another big plus, but I don't have a problem with it having to wait for a patch or expansion pack.

And good documentation is FAR more important than extensive options. If what modability exists can be used to the fullest by anybody -- rather than only an elite few with the time (and patience) to figure stuff out over the course of months -- then IMO the modding options will have fulfilled their purpose.

Some examples of what I mean:

The first versions of Civ 2, for example, had lots of mods, but about all you could really do was adjust the existing items and make them look different and say different things. A mars mod, for example, still used food, production sheilds, and money, it just got called different things. Even when you got to ToT and played the Sci-Fi game it was still renamed food, sheilds, and money. Civ 4 is quite more extensive but I gave up on it because the one thing I did want to do I couldn't do because there was no documentation of how to use the scripting options... plus I felt the queue management stank too badly; I got tired of being prompted every turn for new orders on 15+ cities, and going into the city to mess with the queue took too long and didn't help much. So even though the python scripting I could probably go do now I almost certainly won't bother.

SE IV had great modding, but I found that the tech tree was just way too broad for my tastes. I prefer a deep tree over a broad tree I guess. But, although it wasn't easy at times, I was able to rip out a lot of the "excess" (please don't have a heart attack folks) and the game still ran. And a few things I just found excessively unrealistic (I mean, come on, a building that makes your planet magically have extra mineral richness? get real) so I ripped them out too. That's a good thing to be able to do. Only thing is the few things I added I'm not sure if the AI is using... oh well.

And Starfury didn't have a lot that you could add or subtract, but you could change stuff pretty easily and the documentation was excellent. This made making simple changes very easy. Unfortunately the support in game for modding was less robust -- one or two errors and the game could take forever to load up (or worse, crash without an error message to help with debugging your mod). When somebody screws up a file, you have to crash gracefully at the bare minimum, and preferably tell them what they did wrong too!

RH
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Tarry here, my merry men, whilst I seek what adventure await in yonder greenwood; but look thou listen for my call, for I will blow my horn if I become hard-pressed.

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[ForesterSOF]

the anti techs would be things that slows down something to make the game harder.

An example of an anti could be a change in growth rate or a depleation of the planets atmosphere etc.
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You have two choices in life; Explore and Learn, or Vegetate

[ForesterSOF]

Another thing to help with Race Editing could be a program.

An example could be "ACEdit 2.0" which is used to edit the factions in Sid Meier''s Alpha Centuri (SMAC)

Not only can you edit all aspect of each faction but you can change the order of the players so PBEMs can be setup from East to West letting turning go faster.
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You have two choices in life; Explore and Learn, or Vegetate