Improved Tech Description Mod Released!

[Todd Hawks]

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/showthread.php?threadid=270365&perpage=30&pagenumber=1

(v3 has been removed after 16 downloads)

[Asmodean]

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

[Corentor]

Thanks to the guys that made this.

[ChaotikVisions]

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.

[Malleus]

Got it. Testing now.

K

[vmxa1]

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

[Todd Hawks]

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.

[vmxa1]

No problem, you are going us the favor.

[asleepathewheel]

Thanks a lot, this is great stuff.

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

[Todd Hawks]

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.

[vmxa1]

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.

[Malleus]

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

[Todd Hawks]

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!

[Malleus]

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

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

K

[Todd Hawks]

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.)