The campaign modding thread

Has anyone looked at this yet? It’s pretty easy to mod. Most of the variables controlling gameplay are here:

\gratuitous space battles\campaign\data\campaign_opt.ini

Here are some interesting ones:

enemy_attack_chance_multiplier = 1.0

That is effectively a global modifer on how likely the enemy are to attack, iof you want to tweak general difficulty

ai_armsrace_fleet_growth

Thats how quickly the enemy build up the size of thier fleet in response to seeing large fleets of yours in battle

ai_max_fleet_size = 200000

Thats a hard limit on the strength of enemy fleets

newgame_credits_normal = 10000 newgame_crew_normal = 450 newgame_pilots_normal = 50 newgame_credits_easy = 16000 newgame_crew_easy = 600 newgame_pilots_easy = 70 newgame_credits_hard = 5000 newgame_crew_hard = 300 newgame_pilots_hard = 32

Starting values

Also, if you wish you can change the outputs of the factories or other facilities. They are in

\gratuitous space battles\campaign\data\facilities

It should be trivial to add new facility types, if you want really big or really small ones.

To change the starting world change this:
\gratuitous space battles\campaign\data\campaign.txt

Homeworld = 4

Feel free to post questions abotu more compelx modding.

Cliffski, thank you for releasing that data. They make a superb starting-point for Campaign modding. First pebble in the avalanche, indeed…

Already started in the upper left region of the map xD. I thing staring on a one line path is rather interesting, and it forces diversity. As ot leave the region requires you to not have a single fleet build!

Why oh why did my computer have to give me the blue screen of death 14 times? WHY?!?!?!?!?!??!?!

Anyway, I will be up and modding the campaign around a week after I download it, which will be whenever I get my new computer (probs not for a few weeks)

Is possibly to add campaign mods without the need to modify the original files??

This is not that easy, but you can more-or less do it with only changing one file. If you edit

\data\campaign.txt

you can make it point to all new encounter data, and use a new background graphic, so to that extent, you can have an entirely new map, although you still depend upon the same facility stuff and settings…

I think i know the answer but… its possible to make the campaign to work with modded races?? since i am running the campaign in a clean GSB install without mods, i dont know the answer… but it will be awesome if u can see your own mod races in the campaign… i need to look into the campaign files when i had time.

I’ll wager that you can play Galactic Conquest with modded hulls/modules/weapons on your local machine, but all modded content is blocked from upload to the campaign server. The only way to be sure is to have Cliffski’s input on this, or simply try it ourselves and see if one’s computer catches on fire.

I can’t see any possible outcome other than a total riot of mainstream GSB players if a fleet with modded content made its way through the campaign server and was then distributed to Galactic Conquest players as a threat force to be battled. That would be a fiasco. At least here on the Mod Forum, we’re all willingly consenting to the use of modded content. It’s a totally different matter to try forcing someone to battle against it without warning and without their consent.

Of Course, when i asked for the possibility of using modded races, i was talking about the offline campaign, the online modes never will allow moded content for obvious reasons. Almost not yet, till we find a way to make 100% balanced mods, something almost impossible.

There is nothing stopping you using a modded race to wage war on the galaxy. Except the shipyards, they do somewhat inhibit the deployments of Juggernauts, Dreadnoughts, Leviathans and other such Behemoth Battle Wagons

I was unaware that there was an “offline mode” to the campaign since:
A) you must be online to play the campaign - which should not a problem if you have purchased the game and have an internet connection
B) the game will select online fleets which meet the requirments of an encounter else it will use one of the “stock” fleets. Unless that is what you are refering to

From the brief look around inside the inner workings of the files it may be possible that you can include “stock modded” fleets of your making, however the stock fleets could also be stored in the online server rendering this option null and void.
Please note that this is only my initial surmise - I have yet to see how deep this rabit hole goes . . . .

This online-only failing of the game is currently being discussed by some new players here on the Support forum.

Like the rest of you, my primary focus has been modding and not campaign play or challenge play. I would love to know if the force substitutions I desire are possible or impossible. I had (perhaps foolishly) assumed that since GSB was moddable across a broad spectrum of parameters, GC would be just as malleable. It seems that was a hasty assumption.

In light of this recent revelation about the campaign requiring the internet, I have little interest in spending my own time and mental bandwidth on Galactic Conquest if it does not support the substitution of both my fleets and enemy fleets with others of my own creation.

Like you Archduke, i have also devoded my mental bandwidth to the modding of a race and I once again stress that my current knowledge on modding of campaign is rather limited. So it is quite possible that i am wrong and everything we want to achive is posible. (in fact i have jotted down a few half baked ideas on how we can face off against fleets of our own devise)

Anyways, once i have dispenced with my duties to the completion of the Union mod and other such side projects, if it has not been done already I will focus my attentions to the creation of a modded campaign and bombard cliff with questions on how to change anything and everything. Once i comprehend what rules we can bend and what rules we can break, i will post what i know in the Modding GSB 101 thread.

However, i will not object if someone else beats me to this . . .

Splendid news, Darkstar. I salute your willingness to blaze a trail through that wilderness. It’s not that I’m crestfallen about the campaign’s so-called “vanilla” mode needing an active internet link. I am much more agitated at the thought that there might be no other way to run the campaign, which sounds like it would destroy the hopes of anyone wanting to use modded content on both sides of the battlefield. I hope that Cliffski can clarify his position about this crucial point to us concerned modders.

Based on my “gut” feeling and what i know already from modding - i think that there is a way that you can face off against your creations but you will need an active link to the net in order to do so . . . . Damn this temptation, already i am thinking of the posibilities of a Unity Campaign where you rid the galaxy of this menace and how i would go about it.

As i said, it is all rather a half baked idea on my notepad at the moment. So unless Cliff has a chance to enlighten us all, we shall have to wait for one of the members of this forum to step forth into this new world and pave the way.

Hi, it was correct that the problem you are encountering is that modded content is filtered during the upload process. In fact, it’s more secure than that, in that the server actually accepts the GSB, then tears it apart and compares it with server-side secure copies of everything, and only allows that content to filter into the available campaign challenge fleets pool, if no modded content is rpesent.

Theoretically, this could be changed, to allow modded content, but to do so is non trivial because it would required this:

Changes on the server, to allow through modded data, albeit then flagging them as using a specific mod
Changes to the client to ensure only those mods are picked…

and yet…

as i type this…

I realsie it’s flipping trivial. It’s easy, and we shoudl give it a go because…

All of this ALREADY exists, in that the server is allocating a list of installed mods anyway, although they are restricted (currently) to the content that is DLC, and in my 'allowed content' folder on the server. In theory, if I added additional mod folders up there, then it would all work perfectly, with you only seeing modded races if those fleets are locally installed...

I need to investigate further, due to the way races are selected for planets, and other complications, but it may not be as hard as I first though. It’s number 423 on my list of things to do before lunchtime

Damn - I was entertaining the half baked notion that if you post an online challange fleet, you could somehow get it into the campaign.
But after reading Cliff’s outline of the process - now i know for certain that my idea wont work

In that case i wish you good speed with the 422 other items on your list

soooo… who has a very stable, and popular mod that writes its own package file, that I can test this with?

Well, sorry xD, my mods are not “popular” -.-. Btw, i think u may consider a lot of things, like that u need to upload/download the mod content everytime u play against a modded race, u need to check the balance viability (and how do u do that?). And if someone is using a old version of a mod, and the author launches a new version… can u manage that with a DLC type-download system… i mean, u could be playing both players with the same mod but different versions… and seeing the easy way GSB can be modded, everyone can modify the txt files or watever he wants , how does the server check that out?

I really will love the idea of seeing fleets of one of my mods flying in the campaign xD (it will be really aaaawwweeesooooomeeee xD) and think about it, if u create a mod about star wars, in the campaign will be a scenario with the death star and so on… ^^, for example) but honestly i think thats it a really hard job to achieve… But if u find a way to make it real, GSB will be the best game i ever played in almost all my life xD.

would it not be simpler (or better for the customers) to assist modders with the testing and balancing of their mod’s, and then allow them to sell them to the players and share the profits with you (cliffski).

I can honestly say i would love new modules maps and races, but i always find installing modded ones hard and sometimes unproductive as they can be unbalanced.

I think it would add a new aspect to the game if it could be expanded by the players, and as a result it may even form a life of it’s own.

what do you all think?

i like the idea, exept that mods shouldnt cost anything. thats the whole point of modding. why buy a crappy home made mod for a game that already costed you money?

but i agree that there should be some sort of system for us modders to balance our mods (if the mods arent supposed to be over/underpowered). but i dont think that cliff have the time to spare. and its very hard to balance stuff in a game like this, because of all the module, ship and fleet combinations.