02-03-2003 22:58									#1
	Improved Tech Description Mod Released! Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

Improved Tech Description Mod
----------------------------------

by Kalbear and Todd Hawks



This mod does three things:

- Adds prefixes to the tech names depicting school of research and level of school. (e.g. E39 Continuous Megabolt Cannon -> Energy school, level 39)
Useful when bargaining for techs with the other empires.

- Improves tech description by adding what the tech really does. No more "This tech improves your efficiency slightly... figure out what "slightly" means by yourself."
All the relevant info from techtables.txt has been added to the descriptions

- Corrects a number of wrong descriptions (mainly ship component statistics).


_____________________________
Installation:

-create a folder \your_Master_of_Orion_3_folder\GameDataSets\Classi
c_01\GameData\English\wStrings.
-unzip wsTechnology.txt to the folder.

Uninstallation:

-simply delete the file
______________________________


NOTE: No file will be overwritten, so it is perfectly safe to use this file. If you don't want it anymore, just delete it.

Enjoy!

Edit:
*NEW* Version 4 is up (minor update).
*NEW* Addon released (see post below)

- small bugfixes
- ground combat tech level prefixes added

Related IGMoo thread:
http://www.ina-community.com/forums...30&pagenumber=1

(v3 has been removed after 16 downloads)

Attachment: improved_tech_description_v4.zip
This has been downloaded 477 time(s).

Last edited by Todd Hawks on 03-03-2003 at 14:00

	02-03-2003 23:12									#2
	Got spare money?

Installed and tested. Works fine. Great addition to the game. Only minor quirk: When you select technologies with long names (in the upper part of the tech screen) they no longer fit inside the light blue box. Other than that: No problems.

Asmodean

	02-03-2003 23:32									#3
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Thanks to the guys that made this.

	03-03-2003 01:07									#4
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Looks pretty good, also you can browse someone elses tech tree from the tech matrix, thats whats the "View By" selection is for, to help in tech trading. But that said, i'll have to get this.

	03-03-2003 01:35									#5
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

Got it. Testing now.

K

	03-03-2003 02:02									#6
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

Man I had just dropped V3 in, ok got v4 now.

	03-03-2003 02:27									#7
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

Sorry for that. But it isn't that big and you don't have to start a new game, so it shouldn't matter. The changes are very minor so if you *really* don't want to get the new version, you won't miss anything important.

	03-03-2003 02:38									#8
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

No problem, you are going us the favor.

	03-03-2003 02:45									#9
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

Thanks a lot, this is great stuff.

It seems that much like HOI, the users are filling in many of the gaps.

	03-03-2003 02:48									#10
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

Vmxa1: That may well be the case but I know how annoying it is to have to re-download something all the time because there are new versions every other hour.

I hope that's the last one for some time. I myself won't change anything in the near future (only if there's a bug or a feature that simply *has* to go in there) as it already took a looong time to make this. But maybe Kalbear will want to change something, so no guarantee that this is the last version.


Oh, yeah, while I am at it: In case you don't understand one of the tech descriptions (the added part, that is) or find a bug, post and I'll check whether it's just you or really something that needs to be changed.

	03-03-2003 04:01									#11
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

I have not done much since I dropped it in, but I have seen the rifles do not have the code are they suppose to? It is not a biggie anyway, but in case you cared.

	03-03-2003 04:15									#12
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Only some of the techs list the prefix. Many earlier techs do not, but not all.

Also, some prefixes do not match up with where they are in tech matrix.

Feedback.

K

	03-03-2003 11:15									#13
	Suffering from ads?

To address the points mentioned:

1. TECH DESTRIBUTION IS RANDOM. It will move up or down a few levels each time you play the game.

The reason we added the tech level to be displayed is that you get a general idea of how "valuable" the tech is and to have a sense of achievement when you see it in SitRep. We KNOW that it is not necessarily the correct tech level for your particular game.

Now we *could* put in something like E12 +/- 3, but first of all I don't know the variation and secondly (and much more important): It would clutter it up much more.
If the distribution is fixed (i.e. it is ALWAYS +/- 3) then it would be useless, too, as you can just add or subtract 3 yourself. Note that I don't know if that is the case but don't think they defined different distribution variations for each tech and I didn't find any evidence for it.

2. Level 0 Techs don't have a prefix because you have them from the start of the game and because it looks annoying to have P00 all over the place (have you seen how many physical level 0 techs there are?).

3. I've noticed the Ground Combat missing prefix levels, too. The reason for that is that these tech names are stored in a different file (wsGroundCombat). Don't ask me why.

Problem is that if we change these, the tech level prefix will appear on the ground combat screen as well and I am not sure if that is what you want. Therefore I'll release it as an optional add-on (see attachment).

4: This was (and is) quite difficult to mod, so if you see a tech prefix missing or something else not being displayed that you think it should, it could be a bug, but it could as well be due to the strange file structure (why are ground combat unit techs not in the tech description file, e.g.? What other surprises wait for us deep out there? ).

Here's the optional add-on:

-------------------------------------
Improved Tech Description Mod - Addon
-------------------------------------

by Kalbear and Todd Hawks


This Add-On adds the tech level prefixes for ground combat techs which are stored in a different file.

!!Important!!:
The tech prefixes will appear wherever the name of the ground combat unit is displayed, e.g. on the ground force creation screen.
You have to know for yourself whether you want that or not and therefore this is released as an add-on to the Improved Tech Description Mod.

______________________________
Installation:

-create a folder \your_Master_of_Orion_3_folder\GameDataSets\Classi
c_01\GameData\English\wStrings.
-unzip wsGroundCombat.txt to the folder.

Uninstallation:

-simply delete the file
_____________________________

Enjoy!

Attachment: improved_tech_description_add_on.zip
This has been downloaded 75 time(s).

Last edited by Todd Hawks on 03-03-2003 at 18:29

	03-03-2003 19:51									#14
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

Thanks for the response. Some of these things I guessed.

Of course, I enjoy having P06 Cruiser in my menus everywhere

K

	04-03-2003 00:31									#15
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

You're welcome.

If any of you don't like the tech levels in front of the names, you can get a version without them at www.orionsector.com.
(Note: The version without tech levels was made by GrandPotato, so if there are any problems, you have to ask him.)

Last edited by Todd Hawks on 04-03-2003 at 01:05

	04-03-2003 02:48									#16
	Support Apolyton

Hmm, can't unzip the wsTechnology.txt from GrandPotato's version. Says it's not Zip 2.0 type.

	04-03-2003 10:04									#17
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

Happens to me, too. It seems to be corrupt.

Edit: He seems to have put up a working version (haven't tried it myself)

Last edited by Todd Hawks on 04-03-2003 at 13:02