Modding Planets in DA

from GalCiv2 Forums
So... Here's what I want to do:
I would like to mod Venus so that it is a toxic world with few usable tiles unless heavily modified. This would allow for a mid game extra sol planet-- if the player wants to invest heavily into it's teraforming. The question is: what do I add to the CustomPlanets.xml file to make this happen?
7,805 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
DA supports a new tag for picking the special environment types in CustomPlanets.xml: <PlanetType> </PlanetType>. Just add that tag to the planet definition, and give ita  value from the following list:

HabitableByAll
HeavyGravity
Aquatic
Toxic
Barren
Radioactive

That will make the planet the type you specified.

To make it very improvable, you would give the TerrainPalette tag a value corresponding to an entry in PlanetDescriptions.xml with a high EnhancementPotential value (or make a new one that does).
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
That's great info, thanks! I'm not sure I follow that last paragraph, though...
WindowBlinds - Free yourself of the default settings, customize your desktop.
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
See Cari's modding guide (stickied in the Modding forum) for that stuff--that last bit is the same as it was in regular GC2.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have been. Or trying at least. I'm sure I'm not doing it right...

How many different files am I supposed to be editing?
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Oh: and is it possible to make a planet both (say) heavy grav. and aquatic?
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
You should only need to change CustomPlanets.xml at the very least. If you don't want to edit anything else, just set the TerrainPalette setting to DesertPlanets1 since that's the one with the highest improvability (40%).

Editing PlanetDescriptions.xml (located in the base Data dir rather than Data/English like most files) will let you make a new entry with even higher improvability, as well as specifying the color scheme used to paint the map you see on the planet screen. The color schemes are in turn defined in TerrainColorSchemes.xml.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Oh: and is it possible to make a planet both (say) heavy grav. and aquatic?


No.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Thanks a bunch! I'm gonna have some fun with this...