Hey I just wanted to post to see who is around and still tinkering with this game and what kind of interest in having a mod or two. I still find a certain charm in this game that draws me in and I want to give it a little more respect to hopefully make it more approachable by others who could appreciate this little gem.
My thoughts are to make a Quality of Life mod that cleans up some of the poor english button labels and general discription text. Try to make things a little more smooth on basic GUI usages. General icons cleanup, etc.
Other areas I want to go:
- An item and weapons pass that re-balances or at least simplifies the weapons and items so there's not so much overlap.
- A redesign of all systems and quests related to them.
- Potentially redesign/Add ships and Bots
This will all depend on how MODable things really are as I poke around with the files. Most of this looks doable and I've modded this game in the past but never got it to a finished state. Major game mechanics won't change much as they are hard wired in the game engine. The systems and quest redesign has the potential to be a massive undertaking as the editor for the game isn't available any more so it would take going through each system file and manually adding blocks of code. Do able but it will take some smarts to make sure its efficient. If it ends up taking too much time then MAYBE I could try to make an editor for them. That's not a promise though. Time will always be an issue and I don't want to slog around getting stuck on things too much. This is just for fun after all.
I'll try and post regularly with any progress and ideas.
Please feel free to comment and post any ideas and things you would like to see improved. I've already redesigned the classes to make them more interesting and their description text more clear at profile creation. The main menu button labels are more clear now as well. I'm still making lists of things I want to clean up but something soon should be released for a Quality of Life mod.
Again, who's around and willing to test, let me know and enjoy!
I still play it, I like it, but for the moment I^m busy with Evochron Legacy.
I never tried to mod, because you can use the console mode to do a lot of things. Enter console mode with the tilde key ~
The game combat part is challenging, but if more mission types could be designed in some way it would be good.
XenonS
Yea console, if used, does eliminate many needs for modding. Mostly its the cosmetic GUI things that could be cleaned up. As far as missions, there's no way to add missions with new mechanics to them that I know of. Just more of the kill such and such a thing are possible. It is what it is.
Thanks for the comment!
I've just taken a brief look at the game files, some are open for modifications, others are crypted. For the GUI, maybe take a look at the Editor folder: the various icons etc. are in bmp or html format that can be edited. The script folder can also be modded, but is it worth the big involvement? I think not because the game is designed to have 2000+ missions to be done at various locations. Although it^s a high number, the mission types are surely less than 10. For example attacking a building will cause fighter planes spawning after 1 minute or so, and this until the building is destroyed or you are forced to flee...Editing this huge file is rather tricky...
For other aspects of the game, I don't know.
XenonS
I have a pretty good handle of file locations and whats mod-able, yeah its the time investment that's the personal call. For some this isn't worth the time investment. I won't tackle the complicated stuff like quests and weapon/ship balance until I've done some of the quick and simple modifications. This gives me time to weigh if its worth the effort. I still may take it on if to try and be pure to the spirit of the game.
I'm not asking you to commit to anything by the way, this is all just informative and fun.
Enjoy!
Their is two version of this game now, the older disk version and the updated Steam version, will the mods work with both or just one of them?. also anyone know if the old mods work with the Steam version?. http://spacesimcentral.com/ssc/files/category/84-space-force-rogue-universe/
I have both steam versions so I'll be testing that out when I complete my adjustments. Its something I certainly have in mind but will take a bit of testing to get answers for. Will inform when I know more of course. 🙂
Yeah there was a few mods for this game at one time, but a few were lost because of the closure of their website without notice and some of the mods didn't have a good install instructions. So any mods to help with the small details would be great, I have this installed on my desktop right now.
Feel free to upload any mods here: http://spacesimcentral.com/ssc/files/category/84-space-force-rogue-universe/
Thanks for the link. I'll definitely utilize that space when I'm ready. Currently I'm working on the following mods:
Quality of Life changes. Least invasive to Vanilla experience.
- Main Menu Text rewording. DONE
- Inventory screen text rewording. DONE
- Tutorial text rewording.
- Load screen tips rewording.
- Civ text description rewrite.
- G - News text rewrite.
GUI Icon & Image. Least invasive to Vanilla experience.
- Includes new more detailed icons for Docking and Trading. First pass Done
- Inventory screen icons redesign
- A few items icon redesign, not too crazy.
Class Rebalance. Some invasive to Vanilla experience. First pass DONE.
Item Rebalance and sort order adjustment. Some invasive to Vanilla experience. Sort order begun, rebalance unstarted.
- Changing the sort order of items so frequently used items like mining tools, nano bots, guns & missiles appear at the top of the list rather then having to scroll down the commodity list to find them.
Weapon Rebalance. Very Invasive to Vanilla experience. Unstarted.
Ship Rebalance. Very Invasive to Vanilla experience. Unstarted.
All Star System/Quest/Missions redesign. Obliterates Vanilla experience. Unstarted.
Subject to change of course. There are lots of limits to what can be done though so the challenge is to find and work with whats there, trying to enhance the unalterable game mechanics so it makes a more compelling experience. I have a few ideas that could be interesting. More testing will be needed. I still have a lot of old notes about what files do and how to edit them, its just a matter of finding which settings are hard coded into the engine. That's the real limits and unfortunately there's quite a lot still hard coded. Most of these won't be changing the core game mechanics much. Its also a matter of making judgement calls about what to preserve and what needs to change from the vanilla experience. I know some people won't like the idea of enhancing the text flavor and background so its more coherent and ledgable but I'm going to give it a shot.
I'll post a more central MOD thread on these when I have them fleshed out more. Enjoy!
Great update, maybe slow going but you are listing a lot of great improvements and fixes so take your time 🙂
Could people actually create new sectors? Does a modder need any special tools to work on SFRU?
The QoL mod is imminent, I'm just creating patch notes and install instructions along with some balance tweaking. Most of the changes I'm adding to it are made. Not all of the changes mentioned above are in it though. I may let it marinate for a few days just to get a good read on it and polish a bit. It won't change the core game but it gives a nice subtle strength to the flow of information in the game now. More to come soon!
Great update, maybe slow going but you are listing a lot of great improvements and fixes so take your time 🙂
Could people actually create new sectors? Does a modder need any special tools to work on SFRU?
You CAN create new sectors and customize populating them. Its very very tedious but only requires a text editor and patience working with text blocks. The next mod I make is a full weapons/ship/system remake balance pass. It will take more time cause I need to reverse engineer some of the system map files but I have great notes from modding the game in the past so its completely doable.
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