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A note to modders!

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unmerged(255172)

unmerged(255172)

Turbo Tape Games Dev
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Jan 26, 2011
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turbotapegames.com
  • Naval War: Arctic Circle
I know some of you guys are having fun playing with the settings in the xml files, and that is great.

Just be warned that when a new patch arrives, any changes to the existing files will be overwritten.

I would strongly recommend you do changes in different files (a copy) with the same extension, making sure you supply your variant units/weapons/whatever with a different unique id (unless you need to see it in existing scenarios). There must not exist two units (etc) with the same Id in these files; the outcome will then be unpredictable.

You are obviously aware that any errors you may make to these files will make the game crash. If that should happen, you can always tell Steam to verify your files and bliss will be restored.

Also keep a copy of whatever you want to keep in a separate folder somewhere on your disk, because anything in "our" folders can be overwritten at any time, and tampering may also prevent multiplayer from working.

We'll make a system where modded database files are in separate folders, but we'll have to work out how to do this the best way.

PS: The files I am talking about are in your Steam folder (most likely C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam) under \steamapps\common\naval war arctic circle\BattleSets\NWAC\

Enjoy!
 
General Baker said:
I'm interested as to what/how exactly you're editing, Gibsnag :)
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I'm really just playing around, getting a feel for how the various assets are structured. Some kind of primitive asset browser should be possible, would at least be helpful for other modders to find their way around the scenarios / units / campaigns etc...
 
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Gibsnag said:
Do you have a policy on user developed tools? Just been fiddling with your NWComms and NWData assemblies...
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I have to come back to you with the details on this, Gibsnag. Thanks for asking!

The bottom line is: We don't have any objections to people developing tools or modifying the game. The line is not crossed before anyone tries to create a game that can be played
independently of a legally obtained licence of NWAC.

We'll come up with a policy text that is a bit more robust, but that would be the spirit of it.
 
Been fiddling with the idea of an asset browser, would this be useful to modders in the short term? At least before the devs release something more official. :p
 

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There are some games, with a different engine of course but xml based (e.g. Lua), that when a new version of a particular xml file is found, the engine takes the new one instead of the official (e.g. Empire at War). Could be this possible as can make modding easier?
 
If you didn't use Steam exclusively we wouldn't have to worry about patches overwriting files. BTW, you don't have to make patches mandatory on Steam and that is your option to do so or not. A user can set the game to not auto-update and it won't overwrite their mods but if you make the patches bypass that option it will overwrite their mods.
 
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Labinski said:
If you didn't use Steam exclusively we wouldn't have to worry about patches overwriting files. BTW, you don't have to make patches mandatory on Steam and that is your option to do so or not. A user can set the game to not auto-update and it won't overwrite their mods but if you make the patches bypass that option it will overwrite their mods.

Oh yea, I already discovered your hidden DRM in the nwac.exe. FFS! I was all ready to boycott Steam and then find out the only way I can use it is via Steam and then on top of it you require active internet connection to play the SP game too!
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Thats odd i just cold started my laptop, and it runs without steam (steam was sitting at the [go online] [go offline] popup) and an internet connection... very odd
 
See my other thread about it. It is some issue with it needing to communicate with .NET or something and is not an IC required issue as I thought. Perhaps the developer can explain. I still have to allow both incoming/outgoing in my firewall or else the missions do not load and go back to the menu instead. I can disco my IC though and they will play so long as I allow nwac.exe through my firewall. Never seen that issue arise with a game before.
 
The approach I've taken is just to duplicate all the data for modding purposes. So instead of a unit with id f22 I have a second one in a second file with id mod_f22 (which is armed with mod_aim120d, etc). This way the originals remain untouched. The only issue is of course that the modded units will only show up in scenarios you alter to include them (or new ones you make), but thats worth it imho.
 
The game doesn't require "internet" in single player. It requires tcp/ip and communicates with its own built-in server through loopback (127.0.0.1). Some stupid firewalls interfere with that, and need an exception for the game. That has nothing to do with drm, obviously, as everybody has tcp/ip installed, even if you're offline.
 
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