Any programmers bored enough to...

[Tac]

Make a small program for me? Or point me to some guide/online source where I can learn to make this?

I have a game called Sword of the Stars (think Master of Orion type game) that I would like to mod.

The devs intentionally put all the unit stats and other good stuff as .txt files so players could mod the game... but they did not provide an editor so it is extremely time consuming to hunt down each unit stat and manually change it.

What I want is something like this editor made for another game:



A long column on the left side with the units listed and a text box area on the right side displaying the .txt file at the position where that unit's stat is located. That's all I need.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

That's all I need.

Famous last words on a software project 

[Tac]

lol

[gyrene81]

editing text files...hmmm...if you're gonna do it in windows ctrl+f will allow you to do a search...just a matter of opening the file, doing the search and making the edits.

[Blackwulf]

If that is a text file editor in the screenshot, why not use that and point it at the folder with the other game's files? 
Though I will gladly admit to not being a programmer.

[Tac]

I've been using cntrl-f method its just that it is extremely time consuming.

The editor I put the pic of above is from mount and blade... which I also used to mod unit stats via text editor. Took me 5 hours to make one set of changes in just 20 units. When that editor came out I did changes to 40 units in less than 30 minutes.

Sword of the Stars uses several text files and the unit stats are much more complex to edit than mount and blade.

Hence why I'd like an editor.

and I cannot use the mount and blade editor since its exclusive to mount and blade..wont work for anything else. cant be changed.

[katanaso]

What does the text file look like?

It could probably be loaded in a database and then have a front end created for it. 

Really not hard to do, but would take a little bit of time to customize it. 

Do you have any interest in SQL queries and creating a front end?  Could be a fun project for you.  

[Chalenge]

Visual Basic would probably be the easiest and there is a free version. You would have to be very familiar with the layout of the text files but if so this would be a matter of hours to do.

[Tac]

I only do html in my notepad thats as much programming as I know  and can handle. ><


"What does the text file look like?

It could probably be loaded in a database and then have a front end created for it.

Really not hard to do, but would take a little bit of time to customize it."


I can put up a couple of the files up if you want to see how they look like.

As for loading it in a database.. umm.. no idea, i'm clueless on all this. All I can tell you is the game uses a hundred or so different txt files.


In this game, each ship is made up of three sections. Bridge, Hull and Engine. Each section has about 10 different variants. Then there are about 50 different weapons in 3 different categories (small,medium,large). There is one text file for each of the above listed things. Each text file has dozens of different stats that make up the in-game item.

Then there is a master .txt file that determines what the 'base' stats of a ship is...and those stats are then modified by stats from each hull type.

So as you can see its a lot of stuff. Hence why I think the easiest thing would be to have the program simply be a GUI that you can just click on the thing you want to mod (say, a hull type called 'Armor') and then have the program simply 'open' the correct text file on a text box on the right side where I can make changes.


Here's a snippet of one such file, a missile weapon:

weapon
{
   hidden true   // Can't select this weapon explicitly from design screen.
   
   name         @WEAPON_MIS_MIRV_WARHEAD
   weaponclass      missile
   weaponfamily   missile
   model1         barrel_m1_missile.X
   model2         barrel_l2_missile.X
   turretsize         medium
   cost         3000
   turretclass         missile
   hpbonus         -30
   burst_volleys      1
   volley_period      .2
   recharge_time      32
   muzzle_sound      Sounds/Weapons/mis_missile_muzzle.wav
   muzzle_sound_minrange   60
   muzzle_effect      effects/Missile_muzzle.effect
   muzzle_speed      90
   solution_tolerance   90
   icon_file      GUI/WeaponIcons.tga
   icon_rect      "0 32 32 32"
   range         300000
   range_planet   300000   // Same as 'range' because missile has a fixed time-to-live. (range should be a bit less than [netforcelimits] speed x ttl)
   
   fc_requires_los            true
   fc_requires_inrange         true
   fc_requires_enemycolony      false
   fc_manual_target         false
   fc_manual_toggle         false
   fc_manual_launch         false
   fc_controllable            true
   fc_holdsfire            true
   blindfire false
   pinpoint false

   missile
   {
      tracking 1
   
      impact_decal   decals/WeaponHit.decal
      impact_decal_width .5
      impact_decal_height .5
      impact_decal_depth .1

      beam_origin      -3
      beam_length      5.5

      impact_sound      Sounds/Weapons/mis_missile_impact.wav
      impact_sound_minrange   200
      impact_effect      effects/Missile_Impact.effect
      area_impact_effect "effects/collide_asteroid.effect"
      Planet_Impact_Effect   "effects/Missile_Planet.effect"

      thrust_sound      Sounds/Weapons/mis_missile_travel.wav
      
      speed 135
      seek_attenuation 4   // Higher number = tighter turns/faster accel
      
//      netforcelimits
//      {
//         force            9000
//         torque_yaw         9000
//         torque_pitch      9000
//         torque_roll         500
//         speed            135
//         rotspeed         820
//      }

      ttl            20
      model         missile.X
      health         3
      dam         20
      dam_radius      10
      mass         30
      thrust_effect      effects/missletrail.effect
      thrust_node      EffectNode
      dumbfire_period      0.5

      dam_pop      15000
      dam_infra   .0001   
      dam_terra   .0005
   }

   rating_frate   2
   rating_dam   2
   rating_acc   9
   rating_range   9

   dam_est      125
}

[CptTrips]

Famous last words on a software project 

And it always starts with "How hard would it be to......."

Makes me cringe every time.

,
Wab

[ROX]

It could be possible in Microsoft Access as a special project.

The fields would obviously have to be drawn from Access database tables.

Some of those fields look like they need to be based on queries to those tables if it's looking for specific data.

That would most likely be a costly project based on so many fields.

Access uses SQL, if I remember right.

[Tac]

Here's a visualization of what I'm trying to get at.

Three tabs on the top. Each tab has a large text editing box, a bullet box to select small,medium or large and a list of items that fall under each of the bullet-selected categories.



The idea would be for the user to select the tab category of what he wants to edit, select the size in the bullet box (doing this populates the itemized list), select the item in the list below which then just has the GUI open the appropriate .txt file in the editor window.

That alone would cut a significant amount of time to make a mod vs. finding each individual text file (most under different menu trees!) and juggling nearly a hundred .txt files open at the same time in the windows bar.

[curry1]

How hard could it be to makes subs in Aces High They are just like planes except underwater and not planes. Geez

[gyrene81]

How hard could it be to makes subs in Aces High They are just like planes except underwater and not planes. Geez

someone ate too many twinkies again...



no idea why someone would want to take flat txt files and run them through a hog like sql...great for data mining, storage and organization...total stink for simple editing.

best bet would be a visual basic text field editor...but to create a custom one based on that sample would be a p.i.t.a.

[katanaso]

Yeah, full blown SQL Server would be serious overkill...

I'd probably play around with MS Access for this -- make a small relational database that can search any of the fields he wants.