Full custom races??

[Sir Cumferance]

This question may have been asked and answered elsewhere but is there a way to 'invent' your own race. I want to create a race of energy beings, and have artwork and such, but it won't do any good unless I can take up a space in the 'pick a race' area....Did I writte this allright?

-Man who stands on toilet is high on pot-

[CharlesBHoff]

The races are hard coded into the games alots of mod creatored gave up on trying to add custum races to the games.

[Kloreep]

It is possible to mod existing races in to new ones; practically everything can be changed about a race, but you must use an existing "slot". So if you want to add your energy beings race, you're going to have to effective delete another race. (The Silicoid would be a good candidate; some settings apply to all races in a species and the silicoid are the only race in their species category, allowing for even more fine-tuning of things like base relations with other species. The Ithkul are also an only race, but their pop-eating qualities might be hardcoded; I don't know.)

[CharlesBHoff]

You cannot add any new traits as all trait are hardcoded into
the game which is why most Mod maker arenot try to created new races.

[Rockstone]

Wrong.You can add races into a game.But it must be put in a slot with room.Saw that with a magneate race mod that lets you play as them.

[Keeblerdawg89]

If you look at the way the racemodifies.txt is laid out, you can create new races if you follow that format and add to those tables accordingly... For starters, notice that the first 2 collumns to the right of the race names have numbers for Species then Race... You'll have to look for a Race number that's vacant from 0-2 next to the common Species numbers, noting that Race 0 should always be used.... Example... Cynoids are Species 3, Race 1... That means Species 3 Race 2 is an empty slot...

Now that figuring that stuff is out of the way, the hard part starts... wsRaceDesc is a VERY picky file that's NEEDED to be setup right so you (and anyone else who tries your added race mod) will understand what's going on and that the description strings actually match up... I messed with that for a few hours last night in just trying to add 1 option to 1 sellection in the customization screen and could not get the game to recognize correctly what I was telling it to do... And that was even after following the way that's formatted... If anyone can figure that much out, they might be able to do whatever they want...

[CharlesBHoff]

Originally posted by Rockstone
Wrong.You can add races into a game.But it must be put in a slot with room.Saw that with a magneate race mod that lets you play as them.

Changeing any of the speadsheet and WString files are very trickly. I make than speadsheet file that 80% to 90% of the time have than star that have 8 planets. Why it doesnot do it for all I donot know why and gave up trying to find out, too much techical stuff in it which I donot understand.

[Keeblerdawg89]

You're right!! It's VERY tricky.... The 2 files I last mentioned are only 2 of several you'll need to do things with... I haven't found them all, but do know that the 2 encyclopedia "ws..." files will also need info... Although it seems as easy as doing a copy/paste of a set already there then modifying that, it's not that easy... The game seems to be VERY picky on what's in there... Even as I try to get it to accept the starting ability customizations modifications I've been trying to get to work, I find that the "ws..." strings descriptions of them don't like the idea of working right, even if the mod itself does work... Also, if this is any indication, all attempts I've had in trying to ADD just 1 technology to the tech tree have caused the game to crash (blue screen of death) and then lock up the computer after closing that blue screen (with the only way to go on is to hit the power switch).

For now, it's back to the ol' drawing board.... and for my next trick......