Zyxpsilon

Reply to Twilight Beta 6 in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

Gosh, cari... this is all soooo complex - i will have to re-re-read the whole explanation to fully grasp the 'process' of detecting biks or pngs from any particular folders. No offense but, it's just how my stiffy brain works -- at times! ;) I've already tried the Mod/gfx route and it seems my pngs (for NAH trading movies) weren't detected within a game. One important thing though, all & each of my races datasets are pulled off individual Custom#12s and selected as opponents during setup pha

Reply to AI needs to read Machiavelli in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

If only NIETZSCHE could speak again, he probably would develop his very own agressivity tactics at levels beyond what we've known from plenty.

Reply to i need a lil understanding about the life support deal in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Which makes colonizing PQ4s or less the more useful on bigger maps, the stepping stone of range may be smally but at least it can provide freighters a sort-of corridor to fly through and from. I'd second on the Hard-Cap oxymoron... a relative value would be necessary in any cases. And, what's with the TotA giga-distances found in the biggest map now - range will actually become an important (if not essential) issue.

Reply to how many unrealistic technologies can you list in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

About Universal Translator; the tech itself is relevant in a sense but... I was more after the fact that IF sentient beings do have the incredible knowledge of gapping the vast distances between them and anybody else, you'd think that they could also have skills such as ESP or better yet, developped organic hereditory senses which would allow them to communicate directly with alien brains (as much variable as this could be defined, btw). Thus, translating is unnecessary simply becau

Reply to Twilight Beta 6 in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

[quote]Umm...if the XML specifiies a filename and it can't find a bink but there is a png, it should use it automatically. Otherewise you'd just get a black screen for a lot of cutscenes if you didn't download the multimedia component.[/quote] kay... that gives me a fair idea on the process itself (as i do have the multimedia components loaded in properly, too). Guess i'm gonna have to test this out a bit further with the required modded pngs to see if those could 'rep

Reply to how many unrealistic technologies can you list in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

But, i hate typos... soooo; *** Many... - Universal Translator; think real hard about this one, comprehensive intelligence relies on senses & not from simple deduction. - Good & Evil; i doubt space faring civilizations would even bother declaring any sort of behavior to all ET-Phone-Homes they'd ever met out there. I don't see many other reasons to [U]GO[/U] in space than having a blast and gathering precious resources at all cost. - Force Fields (and all

Reply to how many unrealistic technologies can you list in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

--Doubled-post deleted--

Reply to how many unrealistic technologies can you list in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

Many... - Universal Translator; think real hard about this one, comprehensive intelligence relies on senses & not from simple deduction. - Good & Evil; i doubt space faring civilizations would even bother declaring a any sort of behavior to any ET-Phone-Homes they'd ever met out there. I don't see any other reasons to [U]GO[/U] in space than having a blast and gathering precious resources at all cost. - Force Fields (and all type of armors); Seriously? Just knowing how

Reply to Polymorphic Victories. in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

Supplemental -- Which is possibly why i would recommend variable settings to any of the Victory ratios. Say, Influence defined at 95% or 60% from the setup process or enforcing Diplomacy Alliances with between 5&8 out of 8 races. Consider this too; a mixbag of maximal targets available when conditions start to behave like a roller-coaster - win or lose, the results are always the same. When in fact, a silly AI can stop the fun via surrendering or back stabbing everyone else

Reply to Ethics-Related Debate I've Been Having in Modding GalCiv2 Forums

And i thought Ethics was simply a flip over instance of extremes having negligeable impacts on certain gameplay conditions - after reading the above, i have to admit that complex storylines can actually define a race and how it MUST re-act during a game, Ai driven or not. I also had to figure some 'feelings' by instinct when i experimented with the multiple values for each 36 races of X-Worlds; the contrast between Evil (UPON starting) and Good is in fact having huge influence over how

Reply to Polymorphic Victories. in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

Hold it... isn't Military Victory [U]always[/U] on by default? Presuming the toggle from the start is one thing, having a proper or efficient way to sort of run around these issues another. Again, it's a rather strange thing to delay the inevitable win (cuz, in fact scoring better or worst doesn't really matter at that point, to me.) but the pleasure of preventing the AI (even if there's only one remaining) from gaining a victory status (somehow) outweighs all the trouble one may ha

Reply to PlanetImprovements.xml -- extra unused lines. in Modding GalCiv2 Forums

I was more after sizing some file bytes which aren't necessary to make room for mines... but if (REMs!) were inserted by staff, it sometimes means the issue isn't exactly resolved code-wise (well, this reasoning is based on my own design experiences and how a code gets [I]properly[/I] developped though). After deleting these, everything looks smooth anyway. I only kept the "future" group just for kicks... as a reminder of structural definitions by SD. Knowing how any of the

Reply to Re-Generated descriptions in Foreign policy reports. in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

Bump again... after another inspection of some files - this may be also be linked to the FlavorText.xml. It boggles me that a few things wouldn't be showing up as standard knowledge all the way through any Diplomatic reports. What makes the Yor (and a couple more, btw) so special that the regular descriptions aren't available like others. Pfftt. Small details, and yet there HAS to be a logical reason by GC_coding features and/or gameplay definition of particular elements - one

Reply to I need some help with one of the threads here in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

Same issue with another thread of mine in Modding... i suspect 'glitches' in the new forum formatting things. Bof, it's okay. Just until, SD coders fix (or try to) it though. :) - Zyxpsilon.

Polymorphic Victories. in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

This may seem a little strange to ask or observe about but -- Sometimes when the game itself determines a Victory condition is near, i'd like to be able to delay or "prevent" it from happening as i wish. Presuming all setup options were used, a diplomacy set of Alliances can get you that much also, and be simply switched off with a simple treaty cancellation. Game goes on. Now, the code would need to be alter for that kind of stuff but i also wonder if anyone

Reply to Question on custom races and comment on ship designs in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

... or differentiate templates & stock SD_Ships from your wonderful creations until upgrades need to be performed again! Although i agree that the 'hardpoints' system should be somehow optimized to ease the process. A simple thing (maybe not code-wise) such as a relatively small hovering zoomer-box gaining focus on intuitive coordinates slotted by mouse clicks might do the trick, btw. - Zyxpsilon.

Reply to Pls help a newb out with his gameplay in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

What about raising cost for HyperDrive to a [U]very huge[/U] figure while pulling it off the list of starter-choices? It could certainly be considered a much tougher colony-rush phase for any, including AIs. Another reason why i always enjoy fiddling with some of these values; it completely re-balances gameplay to a whole new context -- making it more obvious to the casual players which are comfortable with defaults. The challenge comes not only from renaming and/or re-locating stuff around

Reply to Video & Sound sluggish right from clean boot. in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

OMG, i'm feeling soooooo gawdawful silly after what i just found out this afternoon. Considering your advice, kryo, i went into the PC case to re-check everything once again... and, dunno why i couldn't notice it earlier two weeks back, the darn CPU fan was clugged with dust (and i mean a whole crazy thick bunch of those!). This supposedly power-chippy marvel by Intel was running shambles and has been for i can't exactly determine when. Some benchmarking and/or probing with tools splash

Reply to Video & Sound sluggish right from clean boot. in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

Entirely agreed. Shoots! God help us all -- the twilight of hardware failures is upon my poor soul. I've got some work to do now. Tks, kryo. - Zyxpsilon.

Reply to I want my capital to be right . . . in Modding GalCiv2 Forums

Duh - restarting until everythin' shows up the right way! Now, why did i not think of that one? :) :) Indirectly you could simply change the picture of Earth and the tiles would follow your draft like slaves of a master. - Zyxpsilon.

Reply to Pls help a newb out with his gameplay in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Yep, [U]but[/U] that's going from a MODDED type (Dave's BoL) of game which completely alters usual conditions with a 'No-Colony' preq node in the technology gambles! ;) If you're simply talkin' about increasing game-skills for default settings... you should concentrate first at developping a few strategies for specific victory goal(s) and into a number of different type of initialized values; good/neutral/evil races, wide influence, warmongering, invasions, etc. Just the upcomi

Reply to Video & Sound sluggish right from clean boot. in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

Alrighty, guess i won't receive any comments or help about the above. So lemme start another almost related subject on my very first BSOD that happened 30 minutes ago - i can proudly say that GC-DA is a steady solid code since this doesn't really happen often. I sure had a few glitches here & there but overall, it's performing as could be expected on the VERY low-end PC i'm stuck with... for now. 1) XP-events logging reported it as a gc2darkavatar.exe poking flaw at mem #0x001a

Reply to PlanetImprovements.xml -- extra unused lines. in Modding GalCiv2 Forums

Thanks! Pending or replacing type of effects on data... gotcha. Secondly, XML files structuring is easier to parse through when ONLY valid stuff gets written in. - Zyxpsilon.

Reply to Twilight Beta 6 in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

[quote]As for the movies you can set the intro/outro cutscenes in the Scenario editor, but they have to be compressed with the free bink tools you can download at www.radgametools.com[/quote] Which reminds me of something; Would there be an 'easy way' for SD Coders like you to provide or implement the following type of option for any (or all by choice) in-game movies processing?... 1) Converting every static reference image from png to fully compatible bnk animations co

Reply to Strategy questions - experts, please help in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Kay, here's my 2cents... 1. It's at 100% from beginning to end unless a real bad mega-event enforces me into a lower value. I rush colonize with up to 5 ships bought up-front, since the only efficient way to boost any sort of an economy is to have population that pay taxes and steadily grows. And those new planets even if undevelopped WILL be useful later on. 2. No. There are two occasions where i build Starports; Attack potential near enemy borders and tight defenses for the c