modding in mercenary...?

-Kama- · Post by **-Kama-** » Mon Oct 18, 2010 5:01 am

heya guys, been trollin your boards here the last few evenings with a friend and it's great to see a freeform space sim again.
If i may ask, what tools are you guys currently using for making new ships and th' like?
being said, we use 3ds max for lots of the content we create in games we used to/currently play. from fps to rpg and even back to some the older space sims like freespace and freelancer.
reason i asking is my friends and i have been on the hunt for a new game system to start tinkering with, and so far we are liking what we been seeing Evochron has to offer.
any comments about what tools you use for developement of new content would be appreciated.
-Kama-

Aesir Rising · Post by **Aesir Rising** » Mon Oct 18, 2010 12:01 pm

The Evochron Mercenary Customizing Kit hasn't released yet.

The common opinion on the boards suggests perusing the Evochron Legends Customization Kit to get a feel for what is to come, with the caveat that some things have changed.

Additionally, some tid-bits for Mercenary customization are strewn throughout the forum, including text editing the .dat files.

As well, the readme.htm in the game installation folder has some info on specific stuff (e.g., font customization).

Finally, the EvochronData.evo file is a zip format archive. Though it is encrypted with a password, you can still glean some metadata on the overall structure of the game's data, graphics, and audio content by seeing the file names and paths using a zip archive utility such as 7-zip. I had an open request for the password to that file, but I can't find the topic now.

Scavenger4711 · Post by **Scavenger4711** » Mon Oct 18, 2010 12:27 pm

The only things I know so far are that you can put in your own music as OGG data into a folder called "Music" which you create in your installation directory.
If you want to use different sound effects just have a look at the Evochron Legends Customization Kit as Aesir already mentioned.

Those two things are the only ones I tested yet. I don't have any idea how to mod other things in Mercenary.
But I think it won't take much longer until the Kit is released for Mercenary.

Post by **Marvin** » Mon Oct 18, 2010 3:37 pm

You can also modify the HUD graphics without borking your ability to log on to a default multiplayer server.

49rTbird · Post by **49rTbird** » Mon Oct 18, 2010 3:46 pm

Hello -Kama- , Welcome to the forum and hopefully the Sim. See you out there sometime.

Maarschalk · Post by **Maarschalk** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 1:11 am

Hi -Kama-, welcome to the forum and maybe we will see you out there once you decide to join the game....

-Kama- · Post by **-Kama-** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 2:09 am

thanks for the warm welcome guys, and no doubt that warmness will fade once our merry band of miscreants, "The Port Authority" guild/clan move into the neighboring systems mhuwaaahaaahaaa We already inhabit several other game platforms and are the group everyone LOVES to hate IG.

Post by **Marvin** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 4:58 am

Sounds like I'll be teaming up with BA for awhile.

-Zeus- · Post by **-Zeus-** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 12:28 pm

That's just like Kama...already out to make enemies...

Anyway, I also want to thank you all for the information. I only hope that it will end up being customizable enough to hold our modding interests. With any luck, we'll see you all in space soon enough.

BraveHart · Post by **BraveHart** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 2:30 pm

"Welcome Aboard -Kama- and -Zeus-"...looking forward to seeing you in MP

Post by **Marvin** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 3:42 pm

The Customizing Kit is due out soon!

That said, there seems to be a bit of concern about using mods in EM ... swapping them in and out without corrupting the default version of the game. I know of one generic program originally designed for Silent Hunter III that is supposed to work with just about any other game. There are two "current" versions (by virtue of the older version being the one listed for SH4) ... their descriptions and download links can be found over at SubSim, here:

[Links Removed - Potential Threat] ... [See the post, two down from here, for a safe direct link to the program]

I made minor use of an even older version, when swapping out mods for SH3, and had no problems. Denny, on the other hand, swears by the program and can probably answer any questions you might have about its use and reliability.

[Edited on 10-20-2010 by Marvin]

Aesir Rising · Post by **Aesir Rising** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 3:53 pm

Your browser may warn you about that site. Looks like their forums are getting spammed recently (up at least through 18 October) and the spam has links to malware scripts and exploit sites.

http://safebrowsing.clients.google.com/ ... p?t=156898

That may be an indication that their downloads need to be cleaned up as well, so ..fyi.

Post by **Marvin** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 4:25 pm

The spam comes from "kids" who find that one or more of the games not to their liking ... and complain. When members of the community respond in detail, with specifics of how almost every possible scenario has been discussed and researched, the kids usually resort to childish spamming of the forum. Moderators do their best to ban the perpetrators.

Veteran members of the community have a long, reputable association with SubSim. Jones is one of the best.

Edit: Okay, just to be sure the program is safe, I went to both SubSim links ... and both of them send you to:

http://www.users.on.net/~jscones/software/

That's the JoneSoft home page. The program I'm talking about is the first one on the list: Generic Mod Enabler. So, if you want the program but don't trust SubSim, maybe going directly to the source will suffice.

[Edited on 10-19-2010 by Marvin]

Aesir Rising · Post by **Aesir Rising** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 7:35 pm

You'll start to see more of those types of warnings in the coming weeks/months. Google has ramped up their site scans and Mozilla has embedded the service in Firefox. The two times I've seen this in the past weeks, both were valid sites that had forums... and spam bots auto-registered on their forum just posted links to malware scripts or other form of attack.

Anyway, if you want to help the subsim.com guys, direct them here:
http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/

Where they can find info about their site and get a google crawler to scan the site again to get rid of the block, once they resolve/remove the issues from their domain.

Post by **Marvin** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 9:32 pm

I'll probably do that. In the meantime, did you check the JoneSoft website? If it's clean, I'll edit the original post to make it a direct link.

Gnou · Post by **Gnou** » Wed Oct 20, 2010 9:00 am

Yea GME is as simple as great.

I discovered it with SH3 and IL2 a few year ago. It works absolutly fine.
Basicly it is just a copy/past tool, making auto-backup of files.

So it allow you to have multiple version of files/rep sharing the same name without any problem.

About downloading, the home page still the best as always.

Post by **Marvin** » Wed Oct 20, 2010 4:20 pm

Originally posted by Gnou

Yea GME is as simple as great...About downloading, the home page still the best as always.

I agree. Bypassing the "middle man" keeps things simple. But I'd like to be certain the home website poses no threat.

Aesir Rising · Post by **Aesir Rising** » Wed Oct 20, 2010 4:50 pm

@Marvin: the JoneSoft page didn't trip anything at all. Nor did the hosting provider (on.net).

[Edited on 10-20-2010 by Aesir Rising]

Post by **Marvin** » Wed Oct 20, 2010 7:07 pm

Okay, thanks. Now I can safely use the Mod Enabler for my Foundations mod instead of going out and spending $1500 on a laptop computer. Manually swapping out mods was cutting into my MP time (oik ... I'm late again).