Basic Modding Guide for dummies with no experience

Warhammer 40,000: Gladius Relics of War brings you to a world of terror and violence. Four factions will engage in a brutal war for dominance over the planets resources.
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Potatomcwhiskey
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Basic Modding Guide for dummies with no experience

Post by Potatomcwhiskey »

Required Software for this guide

Notepad++

https://notepad-plus-plus.org/

Aim of this guide:

To show players how to make basic edits to the gamefiles of the game.

Example: How to edit a unit's basic stats.

In this example we're going to be just doing simple edits to the unit "Guardsmen".

First you need to open the game files, this can be done by going to Steam, Right clicking the game in your library > Local Files > Browse Local Files.
If you don't have the game through steam you will need to go to the folder you installed the game. The folders name is "Warhammer 40000 Gladius - Relics of War"

Once you have the game file folder open go to Data>World>Units>AstraMilitarum.

Make a copy of the file Guardsman.xml and save it in a folder named "Backups" somewhere you can find easily. I typically preserve the file structure as well so I can navigate and find my backup files easily. I also use linked folders with shortcuts to easily navigate between my backup files and main game files. This is not necessary however I would highly recommend making backups.
Open the file Guardsman.xml in Notepad ++, you should see this: https://i.imgur.com/HGBmwZo.png

Using the find function (Or just searching manually) with ctrl+F, locate the string (A string is a name of a piece of data) "hitpointsMax", you should see something like this: https://i.imgur.com/50EsE2g.png

You can now edit the unit's health to whatever you want. An important note is that a Units health will be multiplied by the string "group", with the sub modifier "size = x" (x is placeholder). If you search for "size" you will find this: https://i.imgur.com/BQ43PgR.png

Since the "groups size = 8" if we set the units health to 10, the units total health in game would be 10*8= 80. See this image: https://i.imgur.com/Klc9huA.png

You now have all the basic skills necessary to edit any of the units basic statistics, including their Upkeep, their cost, their accuracy, their production costs and so on. Most of the strings are self explanatory.

I'm currently trying to figure out how to create entirely new units, but thats something I've been struggling with, if anyone has any information on how to do this I would be very grateful. I also need to know how to open the .anm files, and the .MSH files of the game. If I could figure out how to do that I could start work on an immersion mod to include all the units we can think of.
eddieballgame
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Re: Basic Modding Guide for dummies with no experience

Post by eddieballgame »

Good luck with this. I recommend, simply, backing up the Data folder with the following folders included.
Core
GUI
Scene
World ( the one, probably most used for now )
The entire size of this particular backup is approximately 5 mb. Then all one has to do is, conveniently, work from this source.
Rosseau
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Re: Basic Modding Guide for dummies with no experience

Post by Rosseau »

Not sure they will allow creation of all-new units. That's for the DLC, I presume.
Aekar
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Re: Basic Modding Guide for dummies with no experience

Post by Aekar »

Thank you for this post Potatom.
Guides are really important because it's easy to have crashes.

On Steam "Rok" (dev) asked for someone to take out writing guides.
So far someone named "Qai" wanted to take "editorial charge" (wonder if Qai has another nick here on Slitherine, and not sure if editorial charge means "chief" or that he'll write everything).
I like your approach, would you be willing to post guides on Gladius wiki too?
Please mention yourself on the Steam Modding topic Rok has contributed to.

My nick on Steam is "Elindos Phar" btw.


About new units:
As a refinement to the question, they allow new units.
We just don't know about new meshes (= new models).

I am no 3D artist so I did not delve here "yet", I reuse meshes.
I know we can add meshes it's just harder to know what source can export their formats easily, they said they will release their tools.
Another question is also about reskins of existing models, as it should be easier and possibly already allowed.

So far I created a faction with 60+ techs and 20 units but it was crash-painful and right now it's broken again (patches or other stuff).
Still the moddability in this title is just awesome.

About archives you need to save:
For new units and faction (and new traits and most new things) you need to save the "Data/Video" archive too.
Fortunately our content here on Video is "additive" and not "destructive" so it's a safe backup.
I've seen us forced to change "Data/Cinematics" for new faction as well and "Data/Audio" so if you want to go ar you need to backup this too.

Thats a lot of things.
Thats's also a lot of crashes for any missing dependency.


About patches:
Every patch you need to recheck your changes in Core files.
Sometimes patches replace these files with vanilla.


By the way, this post should be in the "Modding" section!
If a moderator gets here... :p
carcanosc
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Re: Basic Modding Guide for dummies with no experience

Post by carcanosc »

hello i would like edit files about time construction buildings and edit maintance loyalty/resources/population
I got edit resource maintance but I don't find time constructions buildings/units,
where edit files research? I want edit time
edit: productioncost: 6=1 turn. files: Relics of War\Data\World\Buildings\
I need to know how remove loyalty and energy buildings or how to A.I. it doesn't build energy and loyalty buildings
edit I know how remove loyalty and energy buildings, only need to know how edit population maintance

conclusion: I need edit files about growth pupulation and loyalty but I can't find files in data/world folder.
lawic
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Re: Basic Modding Guide for dummies with no experience

Post by lawic »

For loyalty, I guess you can get it in the tag Faction
-> Steam\steamapps\common\Warhammer 40000 Gladius - Relics of War\Data\World\Factions

For population, you can modify with populationLimit of the Headquarters.xml
-> Steam\steamapps\common\Warhammer 40000 Gladius - Relics of War\Data\World\Buildings\[Faction]\Headquarters.xml
Enjoy ;)
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