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Replying to Problems with campaign size


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Darth Stalin

Posted 04 September 2012 - 01:34 AM

Indeed that is! :themenace:

After I fnish it, I'll try to implement these changes into "Core Worlds campaign" and see, what happens - how does the CSA behave in such "changed" environment :w00t:

Ghostrider

Posted 03 September 2012 - 04:35 PM

It takes a while setting campaigns up doesn't it!

I've got the whole range to update for V1.3....

Darth Stalin

Posted 02 September 2012 - 03:02 PM

Well, after some more tests I had to further cut down units of both Empire and Rebels, as well as pirates. It seems to go quite well, anyway...

Darth Stalin

Posted 31 August 2012 - 04:34 PM

Okay, now it seems that most of the work is done - the campaign seem completed and ready to play.
I had to cut-away lots of unit types (like different levels of pirates/smugglers etc. on "pirate" planets", or most of corvette-class ships for both Rebels and Empire) from starting forces; but due to the fact, that Rebels and Empire have each some 50 planets (Empire 56, Rebels 63), with total of about 80 planets of different "pirate" factions (with "subfactions" as 12 "CSA" planets with ships specified to fit their production abilities and Espo garrisons, and 6 "Hutt Space" planets, which are the only planets with Hutt civilians etc., yet with very potent fleets), the pirate garrisons, as well as "opponent" starting forces were numerically increased. Pirates were given full compliment of starbases and ground bases on every planet, as well as full contingent of 10 units per each planet.
There are also 19 planets with no garrison, as these were either almost empty wildernesses or balls of rock/ice/sand with only temporary outposts or with so insignificant military forces that it would be useless to give them any - thus the player (or AI) can have a chance to capture something without using force.
But, as I watched the campaign file to grow up and up, I've decided to make the file first in "Empire only version" - it means that the part for "Rebel human player" has only planets for Empire and Rebels, without Pirates, and all planets have only space station and heroes, without any forces - in fact in this version of file the player can play ONLY as the EMPIRE.
I'm gonna to make a "mirror" version of this file, to be playable as REBEL player only (with similar method - preparing forces for Rebel play, with Empire part of file being cut away).
Thus the complete "EMPIRE" file has about 645 kB and seems to be fairly handleable for players' machines.

Now I'm gonna to try this out and see, how it's going.

EDIT:
after some trials the file got trimmed once more - by some 100 kB, with complete removal of Lwhekk and its trade route as well as making two Imperial planets empty (as too unimportant for the Empire).

Darth Stalin

Posted 19 August 2012 - 01:07 PM

Okay, I've tested that - but such a change does not work. The Sandboxes etc. must be left as "Core Worlds", though it is possible to add more planets and trade routes as well as heroes... however, I'm not sure if the "campaign sandboxes" have any important meaning for the course of the campaign.
Thus maybe I'll first finish the "typical" GFFA campaign, and maybe later I'll re-make the Core Worlds, to have CSA troops as separate power in the galaxy.

Darth Stalin

Posted 19 August 2012 - 10:51 AM

Hey, it seems that I found the correct number of trade routes that Gould not Cash my „huge campaign” – and allow having 217 planets.
However, as I thought previously on having the CSA as a “third party”, I also thought if it would be possible to… “reshape” the Core Worlds Campaign to fit the “GFFA” size.
Of what I saw inside the Core Worlds campaign, I thought that there should be done the following changes… and the sections of code should look as follows:

<Campaign Name="Sandbox_Core_Worlds_R">

<Campaign_Set> Sandbox_Galaxy_Far_Far_Away </Campaign_Set>
<Sort_Order>1</Sort_Order>

<Text_ID> TEXT_CAMPAIGN_GALAXY_FAR_FAR_AWAY </Text_ID>
<Description_Text> TEXT_CAMPAIGN_GALAXY_FAR_FAR_AWAY_DESCRIPTION </Description_Text>
<Camera_Shift_X> 40.0 </Camera_Shift_X>
<Camera_Shift_Y> 0.0 </Camera_Shift_Y>
<Camera_Distance> 600.0 </Camera_Distance>
<Home_Location> Corporate, Rendili </Home_Location>
<Home_Location> Empire, Coruscant </Home_Location>
<Home_Location> Rebel, Mon_Calamari </Home_Location>

<Starting_Active_Player> Rebel </Starting_Active_Player>

<Rebel_Story_Name>Story_Plots_Sandbox_Galaxy_Far_Far_Away_R.xml</Rebel_Story_Name>
<Empire_Story_Name>Story_Plots_Sandbox_Galaxy_Far_Far_Away_E_AI.xml</Empire_Story_Name>

<AI_Player_Control> Corporate, AI_Player_None </AI_Player_Control>
<AI_Player_Control> Empire, AI_Player_Empire </AI_Player_Control>
<AI_Player_Control> Pirates, AI_Player_None </AI_Player_Control>

<Markup_Filename>Corporate, DefaultGalacticHints </Markup_Filename>
<Markup_Filename>Empire, DefaultGalacticHints </Markup_Filename>
<Markup_Filename>Pirates, DefaultGalacticHints </Markup_Filename>
<Markup_Filename>Rebel, DefaultGalacticHints </Markup_Filename>

<Supports_Custom_Settings>True</Supports_Custom_Settings>
<Min_Custom_Starting_Credits>185000</Min_Custom_Starting_Credits>
<Max_Custom_Starting_Credits>1339000</Max_Custom_Starting_Credits>
<Show_Completed_Tab>True</Show_Completed_Tab>

[of course changed also in similar way for Imperial player]
…and then it would be also enough to increase the number of planets and trade routes as well as adding forces to these planets.
Do you think that would be enough? (except that the CSA would have the “AI module” acting as described for Core Worlds, while other sides will be set for GFFA…)?

Darth Stalin

Posted 12 August 2012 - 07:01 PM

The only limit on planets and trade routes that I've run into is the character limit of the XML buffer, which is some number shy of 4096 (header and/or footer data presumably takes up some characters). If you hit the limit, the game will crash on load at the splash screen. If that happens, the first thing to do is eliminate the whitespace characters, including carriage returns.


What are the “whitespace characters” and “carriage returns”?
My question is: can the commas be removed without causing trouble to the campaign file?
Well, I’ve tried the campaign with 217 planets and trade routes from all 6 campaigns, i.e. GFFA, Core Worlds, Mid Rim, Outer rim, Skyhook, Shadow hand and Thrawn... and the game crashed while loading (on splash screen).
I’ve copied Planets and Trade routes from XML file to word document to see the number of characters, which is 8794 including spaces... and also commas after each line of planet and trade route (7291 without spaces).
What is even more strange, is that the campaign file that Chich has trimmed, has 5887 characters including spaces and commas (4830 without spaces).
Can anyone explain, what’s wrong?

Darth Stalin

Posted 12 August 2012 - 05:24 PM

Hey, guys!
Unfortunately the real-life work consumed more of my tme than I'd predicted... but now I'm gonna slowly be back into business.

So far optimizing with heroes' planets of origin and made a list of planets for each faction... with at least some planets completely "empty" due to canonically quite insignificant forces there.

However, I have one trouble:
I wanted to include Corporate Sector Authority as a "fourth" faction in GFFA campaign and copied appropriate lines of code from Core Worlds campaign (the only one where the CSA is as a faction, though on-playable). But... the game crashed-to-desktop during initial start (even before the initial start screen).

So, can the reason be that there are other files related to CSA that are conected only with Core Worlds campaign and "adding" CSA into GFFA requires more work than jst placing "starting planet" etc?

Darth Stalin

Posted 28 June 2012 - 08:33 PM

At least a week or two - now I have lots of my job-work to do (half a dozen actions to be started as well as full stack of other legal and judicial works, including some nice contracts on real estates...) and I have completely no time to work with it, though I've made a framework of it - I know what planets I want and how will they look like - I hope to get quite nice space for the AI opponent to expand and thus nice area of fighting the "real" enemy (I mean Rebels/Empire, not the "independent" pirates).

mrazek666

Posted 28 June 2012 - 03:17 PM

Hey Darth Stalin any progress with your sweet looking campaign?I have just wiped out the rebel scum from the galaxy far far away and I am not too sure whether to start a new campaign or wait for your release...

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