Store Page
Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth
All Discussions Screenshots Artwork Broadcasts Videos Workshop News Guides Reviews

Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth

Store Page
Experience Worlds Beyond Earth
Game modifications, scenarios, interface, and so much more. Explore the modding world of Beyond Earth, and when you're ready, download the SDK to create and upload your own.
Home
Browse
Discussions
About
Workshop> Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth> All Discussions
TheAhn1995 9 Feb, 2015 @ 12:23am
Mod Development Discussion
hello everyone. im wondering if anyone would be interested in working together to create a mod for civ beyond earth. now the reason im bringing this up is that i myself got this game over christmas and have been playing it for the most part sense. ive poured hundreds of hours into this and have only till 2 weeks ago started using mods. ive tried an assortment of them ranging from ui mods to alien aggression, sponsor mods and even some explorer mods. now they are fun, but i kept continuosly hitting a wall or two. either the people making the mods were only focusing on one thing and one thing only requiring you to use several diffrent mods which end up probably not working right, or they put a lot of effort to creating mods that include over a dozen sponsors yet not actually do anything to the game itself. what im proposing is if anyone wishes to discuss or even work on this please feel free to do so. the mod i have in mind is what i would call a "universal" mod. basically, its a mod that endeavors to be one comprised of a amalgum of functions that addresses a lot of problems with the game. for example: a mod like this would alter the ui to be more accesible, streamlined to be more efficient and user friendly while rebalancing or even re-editting factors such as the sponsors or the affinity system to better represent the scope of the game. one thing i found odd about this game is that thier are progression for your units to reach level 18 on affinities yet they only gave you periphial rewards up to level 13 in all of them. another is the fact there is no auto management for trade routes or an ability to cancel them to re direct them elsewhere. these are just a few things i would like to discuss and work with others to create a mod that resolves these things and use it to support the community and firaxis even. i would like to see what each of you have to say.
< >
Showing 1-5 of 5 comments
Joko 5 14 Feb, 2015 @ 8:48am 
For the UI there is a good one call UI tweaks, for the trader there is one call Auto Trade. You are right, people focuz on one aspect of a mod, because modding take several hours or weeks depending what you are trying to do. A mod that takes the game as a whole to re-design or re-balance it, it may take months. (i am calculating based on my modding skills, maybe for others is easier and faster)

For example, i been working on one big project that will add over 83 buildings and 83 wonders. Its been 2 weeks and i am not even half way lol.

another problem i face is the walls the developers placed to the area you are modding. For example, you can add to an improvement 1 unhealth, but to a building you cant, so you are forced to add a 1% unhealth. That is why people focus on one area. I have made 3 mods (2 improvement mods and 1 forst yield boost mod) The first improvement mod took me 2 days to figure it out, the 2nd one only took me one hours to do. The forst one was easy because all i did was add to the existing XML of the forst itself.

but creating buuldings is a lot harder. Creating a sponsor, i am scared to even peek at it lol.
#1
TheAhn1995 14 Feb, 2015 @ 1:44pm 
i know of the mods you have mentioned and i wont deny they are good mods (pratically mandatory given the state of the game along with a few others) and i do understand it will take a while to do any type of mod given the fact it requires understanding of the xml format they have it, knowledge of which codes can be changed, and the time that it wouldtake to work on such a thing. however one thing i thought about with this mod ive been wanting to develop was having the concept of a team working on this mod together rather then just one person. i imagine if we had somwhere around 8 people to do this we would be able to designate given sectors of the mod to the individualso they arent having to work on everything. and once a given individual is done with thier section they share the resulting files with the rest of the team so we can make adjustments for the work weve already done on the other parts of the mod. admittedly half the time we would spend making this mod would be around making sure all the changes were making will cause as few bugs or oversights as possible. it sounds like it would be a lot of work but i honestly love this game enough to want to do this project despite not really knowing how to mod.
#2
WakeUpMrBubbles 14 Feb, 2015 @ 5:59pm 
I don't want to seem like I'm discouraging you, because I imagine there are plenty of people who would enjoy something like this for convenience sake. However, it gives me a bit of pause.

Often times when you create a mod that changes something you know going in that a percentage of people are going to agree with that change and enjoy it, and some will not and won't subcribe or use it. Obvious right? That's just how it is. People's tastes and preferences are different.

Now why does that matter? Well think about it. If even one small change can divide the user base by opinion and preference the more changes you make, the smaller the amount of people your mod will actually service. Because while the average person might like 9/10 changes your mod makes, the 10th one keeps them from using it because it might ruin their experience.

That's why mods are...well, modular. You can choose the features and changes you would like based on your taste INDIVIDUALLY, servicing the highest number of people. With the scope of changes you're discussing, needing 7-8 people, it seems doubtful to me there is a large group of people who would agree on ALL of those changes.

It might be better for you to simply make a collection of the mods you like and publish that collection as a group. And it's an awful lot less work. That being said. If you need a hand with any particular modding, although I'm not stellar at it, I'd be happy to help you if you run into trouble.
#3
Joko 5 14 Feb, 2015 @ 9:34pm 
MrBubbles has a point. It is better if you make 10 individual mods even if they get released at the same time, than make a mod that has 10 changes. Is like the 3 mods i released, one changes the forest yield, 1 add a forest improvement and another add a Snow improvement. (Forest Improve, Biowell Prototype and Terrascape Prototype) when you look at the downloads, the 3 of them has different amount of downloads, meaning that they liked 1-2 of the mods and didnt liked the other ones.

But if you feel and believe a overhaul of the whole game is what you want/need then go for it and you have my support. I am only 2 weeks old modding, i can help with buildings, because i been creating buildings for 2 weeks now for a big mod im going to release soon. It is a 83 building 83 wonders project. (1 extra building and wonder per tech) which going to change how people play the game. Wat i am trying to say is that because of my project, i have good skills making buildings and bad skills in any other area. Find the 8 people, give us our task and we will help you. But you need a full plan first, modding cant be done out of thin air.

#4
Joko 5 14 Feb, 2015 @ 9:41pm 
For example, before i started to even learn how to mod, i took the time to go tech by tech and see what it was about. I inspected the buildings in that tech, their bonuses, afinity lvl, etc. Then i went online to research the technology to see the real meaning of that technology. Once i knew what was what, i started to write down the buildings, the bonuses i could add, the resources cost, production cost, energy cost, afinity lvls. I have the 166+ buildings/wonders completed on a piece of paper. Now i am doing the XML part of it.

I crafted a plan and i am following that plan, but even with the plan i face some walls that forces me to change part of the original plan, That specific set-back is what slowing me down. Because XML for buildings are so limited that you cant do everything that you want to do.

So if you show us with a plan of what exactly you want, we may understand your point of view and help/support better. That should be your first job. Present to the community a whole plan of what you want to do and i am sure that people will come to you and say "i can help with this area of your mod". Because i know people here love to help, even if they dont agree with everything, they still help. You have my support when it comes to the buildings part of the mod.
#5
< >
Showing 1-5 of 5 comments
Per page: 1530 50

Date Posted: 9 Feb, 2015 @ 12:23am
Posts: 5
Start a New Discussion

Discussions Rules and Guidelines