Want to get into modding.

[Brachra]

Aside from the tools/resources here to help teach people to actually mod the game
I was wondering if anyone had any resources for stuff to learn to understand the stuff better.
what languages/tools/etc should be learned to have a better understanding of all of this?

[nonnex]

Ufff,

hard to tell you any thing when looking to you post, except telling you "take a goal and work till you reach it".

Beside that it depends on what skills you already have to reach that goal.


Regarding making assets or programming in x4 I would make the following steps (pls fill in yourself):

1. You will need to have XML and Regular Expressions knowlege for making basic stuff. (easy)
2. Advanced knowledge of logical structures (scripting) if you want to make things that have to be more decisive (LUA, XML) (easy++).
3. Much more additional skills above scripting, now we are coding. Making things "who who" with C++ (hard)
4. Make your "Who who" skill great (5 years plus)
5. Combining "who who" magic with solid knowlege of 3D Arts (3DMAX, Blender) and good artistic taste (hard+++)
6, Make your 3D Art great (5 years plus)
7. Now You can make a game on your own


I would advise to start with 1 after you have extracted the container X4 files (just for refreshing).

XML
https://www.w3schools.com/xml/xml_whatis.asp

XPATH (makes use of regex)
https://www.w3schools.com/xml/xml_xpath.asp

REGEX (Regular Expressions)
https://regexr.com/

[Brachra]

Thank you for your response

there was a time when I was more knowledgeable in these things. in college over a decade ago I got heavy into this stuff, coding, scripting, programming of multiple sorts...

working a deadend job and not giving a crap about anything over the years and I cant even do simple things anymore. oh well no time like the present to re-educate myself right?! and I can do it for free

Thank you again for your response!

[nonnex]

hey, no problem,

out of coding business for yrs, by myself.

My post was kind of sarcastic but honest.

I would start with extracting the game container files.

the result will be a bunch of dirs and files. the main (readable) files will be the *.xml files (beside binanries like meshes, anims and so on).
Locate and learn how the files are connected to each other. Read around the xmls and references (lets say Ship params) then go on.

Code: Select all

For example : c:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\X4 Foundations\extracted\assets\units\size_l\macros\

"extracted" is my choosen extraction dirname

Learn how to make a mod (placing files with the right content) into the "extensions" folder to override public methods by xml diff. Create that folder manually inside the "x4 Foundations" game dir if it does not exist, like as follows:

Code: Select all

c:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\X4 Foundations\extentions

Download simple mods from other modders to learn how to do, make contact to them and|or make a respectful "thank you". (like U've done to me 2day)

I have mentioned XML and more to be stressed "XPATH", use it!

Good luck pal. Feel free to ask anything.

[morbideth]

My advice. (Please use exact change)

• Start small, with something easy.
• Make sure what you start with will have some immediate, observable effects. This is just a psychological thing. Getting started it hard, so seeing yourself make meaningful progress goes a long way towards ensuring you stick with it.
• Use notepad++ find in files or similar to search the existing scripts for examples on how to do thing.
• Do something that you feel strongly about. There are a lot of nice ideas floating around, pick one that is important to you personally.

[shealladh]

Coding, if you've done before, is like riding a bike. Pull out the training wheels and start small until you get back up to speed.
You'll be surprised how quickly you can awaken those grey cells

Even if you start with making some simple change to one part of a script and build up.
Then it's a matter of where or when you wanna stop

[nonnex]

Regarding Tools:

Personally I do make use of notepad++ with the xml-tools plugin for editing:
https://notepad-plus-plus.org/

xml-tools Plugin:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/npp-pl ... L%20Tools/

Here is how to make use of the xml-tools plugin for np++ (xml and xpath)
https://actualrandy.wordpress.com/tag/notepad/


For example: Beside other smart things the xpath regex evaluation tool from the xml plugin is very helpful: