Hi, I’m fiddling around with the text file that controls the communications ingame. I can edit existing signals which is good (sometimes cliffski’s sense of humour starts to grate when you get it over and over again :D), but I’m not sure if it is possible to add more comms signals on top, for more variety. Can I just add new entries in the text file, or will the game not recognise them?
Please share with us the exact location in which you found the comms file. Thanks. 
@archduke: you can mod the comms in data/comms.ini, and as for imperium3? you can add more. but they go in order. say, if two fighters were damaged, comm #1 in comms.ini for that action would go first, and comm #2 would go second. i think its easier adding them to the bottom. just make sure to make a space before each category. and also, there’s only one or zero comms for each line. don’t do two comms in a single line. if you want to do a comm where the crew members are in it, type in something like, “Oh no. I need to dock for repairs. Could you escort me, ?” (BTW when i said zero comms for a line i meant only in the spaces before each category of comms)
Oh, good. So it’s not random, than? That’s interesting. I could… make use… of that. Say by having hull damage messages get more and more panicky as you go through the battle, as more and more ships are disabled/destroyed. That would work, right?
well, probably not. the comms go in order, true, but only as they are written. not as the damage goes. so you could get hit with, say, 10 cruiser defense lasers and say, “The ship is going down in a few more hits!” when its hull is barely scratched. but, no. It’s TOTALLY not random. kind of. there’s a set of comms for each action, as a reaction.
Yeah, I will end up adding more ship names and comm lines (funny ones).
can you, if you can add them, take them away?
thx for make me remember, I will make comms for Praetorian Industries.
(if you have some nice comms, show me xD)
In theory, you would only need to erase the lines of the existing ones in the comms.ini.
Remember that each comm is the line that has a number in front of it (e.g. 0 = “Target Selected.”). Don’t erase the lines between , those are the categories.
Do comms files in mod directories get picked up? If so, do they replace the “official” one (making the final set chosen effectively random from an end-user point of view when more than one mod is installed), or do the additional ones simply get added to the list?
I am aiming to add a comms editor to GSBEdit but need to know if it can be a per-mod configuration or if it needs one of the special base file editors (with appropriate warnings).
I have never tried to add comms through the mod folder, all the mods that add comms require you to rewrite the base file. Well, those mods are before mod folders existed in GSB (they were added around the Tribe release).
Knowing that not all files work while being in the mod folder (e.g. music) and Cliff didn’t add any new comms with the dlcs I don’t think he added support for them outside the base data folder, but I could be completely wrong and it’s possible that GSB can pick them there. If nobody tries we won’t know for sure 
(I may try this later if nobody does)