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Author Topic: Raw File Mini-Rant  (Read 1111 times)

Eagleon

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Raw File Mini-Rant
« on: August 24, 2009, 11:03:50 pm »

Ok, most of you will probably completely ignore this because it's bitchy and not really that important. It's just a minor thing, very inconsequential, but it's DRIVING ME NUTS right now.

Some of you don't do this. I love you. Thank you so much. But for those that do...

You do not have to replace files in the RAW folder to add new items! At least for most mods.

It needs to be said. Almost every mod I've downloaded has had this. I know, it's easy to do it that way, especially for very big mods that make a lot of changes. You probably have no problem with it yourself, and the majority of mod-users don't care. But the only mods that should be doing this, are the ones that modify items that already exist in the game (if this is your mod, I have no problem)

Maybe I'm alone here, but I'm a mod addict. I like to add as much community-made stuff as possible to games that I play, until they barely run and I find stuff I didn't even know I had put in. As a result, I've merged a lot of mods into my main DF game, and I've gotten pretty decent at organizing them.

In general, if you're creating a new creature (notice that I'm not saying modifying/rebalancing existing ones), it doesn't have to go in one of the existing raws. If you're creating a new body part/template, it doesn't have to go in the existing raws. If you're making new items, entities, plants, reactions, metals, etc., you don't really need to change any of the existing raws. The exception is stone and metal, but only because of ore types - if you want an ore to produce a new type of metal occasionally, that's something you might reasonably want to change.

But other than that, please do go nuts with making new files instead of tagging onto existing ones and releasing the entire stock DF raw folder for just a few changes. Most of the time it's not quite -that- bad, but I've seen it, and it's incredibly aggravating. What's worst is when the two techniques are mixed, where some entirely new creature is put into something like creature_large_tundra, when a creature_large_tundra_extended is also available in the same mod.

There are practical reasons for this you might enjoy too. You don't have to page down through hundreds of other creatures to find yours. You can have other people's mods going at the same time that you make your own. You can insert whatever weird formatting you like into the file, without breaking style with the rest of the file.

What I would suggest for people that make large mods that do affect existing files, is to do two things: Place your changes at the end of the file, and make another file listing which existing entries/files you've edited (and ideally how). That way you don't need to include unedited files with your release, which decreases the size of the file (albeit maybe not by much) and makes things much easier for people to go through and change where they have to.


Once again, sorry for the irritated tone. I am thankful for the opportunity to do any kind of merging with mods. I have great respect for people that do large mod projects, like Dig Deeper and Civilization Forge. I also have respect for the small mods, which are adding a lot of flavor to my game at the moment. Thank you guys. This is just a silly vent that will hopefully remind people that it can be a problem.
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Mohreb el Yasim

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Re: Raw File Mini-Rant
« Reply #1 on: August 25, 2009, 03:31:13 am »

Actualy it is true, not for big, so called "overhaul" mods but small mod-addons, it is likely to be more usable if separation is in, but i don't feel that the situation is so bad, many modders do alredy that way (for example the primitive civilisation mod come in mind, or the zoo mod) i think it is just for the first few mods people make that this is a problem, later anybody finds out that this is the way to mod, because they will want to reuse their mods ... so don't be so mad about it, just make sure you make it in the rigth way ...
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Greiger

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Re: Raw File Mini-Rant
« Reply #2 on: August 25, 2009, 08:24:12 am »

I agree completely with the OP.  I don't even release my mods and I make new files whenever possible.  Its just so much easier to keep track of things when you have a separate file called "creature_custom_entity_greimod.txt" instead of searching through a massive single text file that has vanilla stuff as well as every creature you ever made for a single tweak to a custom entity creature.

For existing vanilla creatures (giving the dragon true heat immunity wings and a red color for example) I add "//modified" before the entry, right aligned. It's helpful because it looks out of place when you scroll by it at high speed, so you don't have to carefully look at every entry in creature_standard for the one you worked on before.  Just zip down the file until the only one with text on the right side of the screen flashes by.  Putting a listing at the bottom of the file seems to be a good idea too, I should do that.  I used to just list them all in Toady's readme.
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Rowanas

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Re: Raw File Mini-Rant
« Reply #3 on: August 25, 2009, 09:07:59 am »

I agree, but I've been working on a Call Of Cthulhu mod and for some reason DF won't pick up the .txt files I put in. I checked all the tags, all the headings, everything, but nothing seems to work, so I've had to replace the standard.txt

It's not my fault, don't blame the poor modders for whom things go wrong.
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sunshaker

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Re: Raw File Mini-Rant
« Reply #4 on: August 25, 2009, 10:54:24 am »

I agree, but I've been working on a Call Of Cthulhu mod and for some reason DF won't pick up the .txt files I put in. I checked all the tags, all the headings, everything, but nothing seems to work, so I've had to replace the standard.txt

It's not my fault, don't blame the poor modders for whom things go wrong.

I have had this problem as well, it has something to do with the exact characters in the first few lines and the exact characters in the file name, sometimes there is a space in the first line which is not found in the file name (or something equally silly). Also if you rename a file and change the first few lines of the file to match the new file name it won't work. This has forced me to make a new file which I have typed the first few lines by hand then copy and paste all of the contents of the old file (minus the first few lines) and then copy and paste the first line into the filename spot when saving. Pain in the ass, not sure what is going on here (I suspect it has to do with how my word processor handles file saves and backups) but at least I have figured out a way to make it work. You may also have to delete the files in your .../data/objects folder.
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Greiger

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Re: Raw File Mini-Rant
« Reply #5 on: August 25, 2009, 11:14:57 am »

It seemed to happen to me whenever I don't use the proper first word in the filename.  creature_ entity_ reaction_ matgloss_ ect.

After I always started my filenames with those I haven't had issues.
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mission0

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Re: Raw File Mini-Rant
« Reply #6 on: August 25, 2009, 03:02:53 pm »

I'm one of the ones guilty of this. I can go back and fix my Dracan mod so that there are only a few files that are needed as well as most of the matgloss txts. The main problem though is that at first it wasn't a mod that I was going to release to the community so there are a few mods that I have made that I will probably not remember. For instance I can remember I changed the Dwarves around a bit, as well as gobbos. Just don't remember exactly what I did.
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Protactinium

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Re: Raw File Mini-Rant
« Reply #7 on: August 25, 2009, 06:50:15 pm »

My personal compilation of DF mods is incomplete, and I haven't played in weeks as I've been sorting out the wanted and unwanted stuff from different mods. I have all the original files in their own text files, updated by the It's The Small Things prefstring additions, and then I have all modded creatures/materials/items in their appropriate [Name]_extended versions, with all the additions in alphabetical order. The alphabetical order allows me to quickly discern if I am adding in a repeat or not.
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Blargityblarg

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Re: Raw File Mini-Rant
« Reply #8 on: August 26, 2009, 05:13:52 am »

Given that some mods (i.e. mine via prefstrings) change everything, it's more than fair. I also like consolidation into the existing files, because I don't particularly feel like scrolling through a giant raw folder rather than a giant raw file.

Call me irrational, but it's how I roll.
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LegoLord

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Re: Raw File Mini-Rant
« Reply #9 on: August 27, 2009, 04:17:07 pm »

I'm one of the ones guilty of this. I can go back and fix my Dracan mod so that there are only a few files that are needed as well as most of the matgloss txts. The main problem though is that at first it wasn't a mod that I was going to release to the community so there are a few mods that I have made that I will probably not remember. For instance I can remember I changed the Dwarves around a bit, as well as gobbos. Just don't remember exactly what I did.
Oh yes.  Raw files, it seems, must be named alphabetically according to object type.  If you want new raw files to be at the end, just put "creature_z(modfilename)"

I first noticed this while trying to mod in fire spiders from Jim C. Hines' Goblin Quest trilogy.  It only added one entry, and I didn't want to lose it dowloading a conversion or balance mod, so I gave it it's own file (quest_goblin.txt).  This put it way behind creatures, so the game was "confused" seeing a vermin object in between matglosses and reactions.  It seems to like to deal with objects in alphabetical order
« Last Edit: August 27, 2009, 04:19:55 pm by LegoLord »
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Fedor

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Re: Raw File Mini-Rant
« Reply #10 on: August 27, 2009, 08:14:31 pm »

I'm very sympathetic to the OP's point.  I had to think carefully about how I was going to handle files before getting into the big edits.

In the end, I decided not to go with new files and instead replace the existing files (contrary to the OP's quite reasonable desire) because
1) the majority of the changes were to existing items - edits en masse, even wholesale removal,
2) it was important to my goal of user friendliness that items appear in alphabetical order (or in some other logical arrangement) in game lists and interfaces, and
3) I wanted the mod to be complete in what it did.  If I changed one part of the game, I was going to re-think, re-balance, and re-vamp everything in that particular category.

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The13thRonin

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Re: Raw File Mini-Rant
« Reply #11 on: August 27, 2009, 08:18:25 pm »

I'm getting my mod Dig Deeper to the stages were it is fully separate to the RAWS (apart from the changes and removals). I would say only about 5-10% of the mod adds things to the vanilla RAW files.
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