Map modding research thread

[ray243]

I was wondering if it would be possible for us to start researching on how to mod a map instead of waiting for CA to give us the tools. If anything, it seems like CA would never release any modding tools.

So perhaps we would start the research on our own. Hopefully, we can create a mapping tool after this has been done.

[erasmus777]

Good luck. If someone is interested in really digging into the regions.esf file, pm me and I'll send you the working alpha of the esf editor 1.5. It reveals all the values now (though as to whether or not they're all in the correct format...). All the binary values you see with the older versions of the esf editor are now believed to be arrays, many of which are clearly coordinates. Sadly, unless there's an unemployed software engineer who is really good at reverse engineering, I think you're going to have a tough time doing anything with them.

[husserlTW]

I was wondering if it would be possible for us to start researching on how to mod a map instead of waiting for CA to give us the tools. If anything, it seems like CA would never release any modding tools.

So perhaps we would start the research on our own. Hopefully, we can create a mapping tool after this has been done.

I've spend many nights on that with out lack. There are many files in campaign_maps (except regions.esf) and many records in startpos.esf that need to change and for some of them we have not understand yet what is about.

However I am in for one more effort. Even if we cannot make a mapping tool new things may be known. To make things easier I suggest to work on a game with the least entries and that is episode one. A startpos for free play with episode one is attached. Decompress main.7z, place startpos and scripting in data/campaigns/main and start a new grand campaign (remove any mod files). In this case the map files are in episode campaign_maps/episodic_map.

[Hazbones]

Here are some ideas for map research:

*someone work on a grid to show the relations between the known tables that contain region and campaign map data
>Knowing the relations better will help others by telling them where to look when doing their work

*Start a thread to keep track of the known facts taken from the world project in the other forum.
>Not to diss on the work those guys are doing in the world project, they are doing great but all those posts tend to bury any nuggets they might find.

*Try to locate the region boundry coordinates
>Posting any unknown strings that are found so that others can assist in figuring them out

*Try to locate the campaign map continent coordinates (I would assume they are somewhere around where the coastal boundries were found)
>Is it possible that there are no continent boundries? Perhaps the whole campaign map is earth terrain with ocean terrrain laid on top of it thus we only see coastal coordinates and no continent ones?

*Once the region coordinates are figured out, start tweaking the borders to create new proveneces.
>If each region itself is a model with a diffuse map painted on it then it should be pretty easy to create new regions. In this case we will need to be looking for model files for regions. Same goes for the continents.

These are just some ideas to help get the research started. I will try to pitch in too of course but my modding abilities are not too strong. There are others that could probably do this stuff in a fraction of the time that it would take me.