Beginner's Modding Part 1

Joined: Jul 11, 2008 Posts: 221 Status: **Offline**

Welcome to the beginners modding tutorial. This series of tutorials will guide you along to understanding the layout of the Galaxy Empire client.

Starting off, you need to run the autoupdater and get the latest program if you haven't done so already. Go to this this thread to get the latest version of the autoupdater.

To begin with, Galaxy Empire is a mixture of many different game environments from space to ground travel. Since it is a server-client based program, not everything will be editable on the client's end. Anything dealing with prices or trade values is stored on the server, the client (you) are unable to change them. It will make some scripts not make any sense since they do not contain very much information on what they support. This is usually because the info is server-side only.

Start by looking in the Galaxy Empire folders. In there you will find that the data is partitioned off into specific folders.

In the top folder you should see 'Logs' and 'DATA'. Plus you will also see an INI file called 'InitialSetup.ini'. This is your main configuration file for the entire game. This file must reside in the same folder as 'GE3D.exe' does. The 'DATA' folder can be moved around as long as you set the proper path in 'InitialSetup.ini' (datafolder =).
Logs contain a log of the programs activity. It is a good idea to empty this folder once in awhile since it does incremental saves.
DATA contains all of the rest of the game data. Every script, image, sound file, model, it's all contained in there.

Looking in the DATA folde you will find a large array of folders to look in. ARCHETYPES is the main folder that stores the archetypes of many of the game parts. This is because alot of the special features of an item in the game is reference by a nickname. It is a good idea that if you want to add something new that you put it in the proper archetype file.

NOTE : The autoupdater will erase any changes you have made, so make sure you keep a backup of your files

Go into the 'ARCHETYPES' folder. In this folder is the main list of items in the game.

EquipArch.ini - this contains mountable equipment, at this time the mounting/unmounting code has yet to be implemented so you aren't able to change equipment yet. Most of the info in this file will end up on the server only due to cheating possibilities.

FlareArch.ini - this file contains the lensflare templates. You can assign a flare to any light by simply adding 'lensflare =' under a [light] section.

FogArch.ini - this contains the fog settings for a system or room. Simply add 'fog =' to any [room_info] or [system_info] section to use it.

FxArch.ini - holds the special effects entries. FX are fully scriptable and also allow texture animation

to be finished...