[Info] Empires modding enviroment

Hey guys,
Building a modding enviroment beside your Empires installation to test script changings, without interference with your ususal multiplayer installation or the risk of being overwriten by updates, is quite easily

1. goto Empires directory "...\Steam\steamapps\common\Empires"
   (in there are already 2 "game" folders, called "empires" and "hl2" - they just work like what you want to do)
2. create a new folder there and name it whatever you want, then copy the "gameinfo.txt" from "empires" subdirectory in that folder and change "game" to whatever you called your mod, search for the "gamebin" and replace "|gameinfo_path|bin" with "empires/bin"
   (the folder can be named differently, just the "game" must match, but also the searchpaths if you ever want to create a mod of the mod of the mod )
   - or use Smithy's Gameinfo.txt and change whatever you want
3. there are now 2 ways to start this:
   create a new text file (.txt) in main directory (where the hl2.ese is located), copy
   Code:

   hl2.exe -game *YOUR MOD* -novid -insecure

   inside it and rename its file extension to ".bat" (a batch file)
   this file acts as the "startbutton" - it needs to be in the same directory like the hl2.exe, so if you want a desktop shortcut make it from that batch or you can also made one from the hl2.exe and just add the params listed above after the " ;-)
   (should look like "...\Steam\steamapps\common\Empires\hl2.exe" -game *YOUR MOD* -novid -insecure)

Spoiler: old request

thx to @Thexa4 to provide this and @Smithy for addidional info about the custom folder, usefull for mapping ;-)

Empires Wiki:
after the suggestion by Max Maton via HipChat, i created a "Modding" Wikipage
meant for every bit information that help possible contributors to create & test theire changes
at least i tryed to give it some "structure", but i clearly need help with structurating the page for future content and at formatting the already existing one (possibly rewriting)

 

exactly what i want to do - cause at start i only want to test a few file changings - without brakeing the original empires and to ensure i can still play in MP without it
batch is more handy - thx for the params

im not sure about the code structure - first fps and also source game i wanna mod...
actually confused by the .txt files in scrips directory...
(they look more like data storages than being scripts!)

 

the txt files in the scripts directory are scripts. i have no idea what you mean by data storage as i'm sure none of them really contain an array.

 

what do you have to modify inside the gameinfo .txt?

 

well, my knowledge about scripts is to decent - so lets just skip this!


i guess search paths have to be changed - at least for the binarys if you don't want to copy them ;-)

Code:

        // The code that loads this file automatically does a few things here:
        //
        // 1. For each "Game" search path, it adds a "GameBin" path, in <dir>\bin
        // 2. For each "Game" search path, it adds another "Game" path in front of it with _<langage> at the end.
        //    For example: c:\hl2\cstrike on a french machine would get a c:\hl2\cstrike_french path added to it.
        // 3. For the first "Game" search path, it adds a search path called "MOD".
        // 4. For the first "Game" search path, it adds a search path called "DEFAULT_WRITE_PATH".
        //

        //
        // Search paths are relative to the base directory, which is where hl2.exe is found.
        //
        // |gameinfo_path| points at the directory where gameinfo.txt is.
        // We always want to mount that directory relative to gameinfo.txt, so
        // people can mount stuff in c:\mymod, and the main game resources are in
        // someplace like c:\program files\valve\steam\steamapps\half-life 2.

 

very unsure what i have to add to the gameinfo.txt so that it loads like empires + looking in the new directory for changed files

at least have changed "game" (name), "gamebin" to empires and added "mod+mod_write+default_write_path"&"game+game_write" to "gameinfo_path", do i have t specify a "mod" path to "empires" or change all paths to empires and add mine as "mod_path"?

Spoiler: actual "gameinfo.txt"

Code:

"GameInfo" {

   game     "Empires_mod"
   gamelogo   1
   developer   "Empiresmod Foundation"
   developer_url   "http://www.empiresmod.com"
   icon     "resource/steam_icon"
   manual     "https://empiresmod.com/docs/quickstart/en/quick_start.html"
   type     multiplayer_only

   FileSystem {

     SteamAppId   17740 // GCF for TF2, required for ep2 sdk
     ToolsAppId   211 // Tools will load this (ie: source SDK caches) to get things like materials\debug, materials\editor, etc.

     //
     // The code that loads this file automatically does a few things here:
     //
     // 1. For each "Game" search path, it adds a "GameBin" path, in <dir>\bin
     // 2. For each "Game" search path, it adds another "Game" path in front of it with _<langage> at the end.
     //  For example: c:\hl2\cstrike on a french machine would get a c:\hl2\cstrike_french path added to it.
     // 3. For the first "Game" search path, it adds a search path called "MOD".
     // 4. For the first "Game" search path, it adds a search path called "DEFAULT_WRITE_PATH".
     //

     //
     // Search paths are relative to the base directory, which is where hl2.exe is found.
     //
     // |gameinfo_path| points at the directory where gameinfo.txt is.
     // We always want to mount that directory relative to gameinfo.txt, so
     // people can mount stuff in c:\mymod, and the main game resources are in
     // someplace like c:\program files\valve\steam\steamapps\half-life 2.
     //
     SearchPaths
     {
       // First, mount all user customizations.  This will search for VPKs and subfolders
       // and mount them in alphabetical order.  The easiest way to distribute a mod is to
       // pack up the custom content into a VPK.  To "install" a mod, just drop it in this
       // folder.
       //
       // Note that this folder is scanned only when the game is booted.
       game+mod         |gameinfo_path|custom/*
       game+mod+mod_write+default_write_path   |gameinfo_path|.
       gamebin           |empires|bin

       // We search VPK files before ordinary folders, because most files will be found in
       // VPK and we can avoid making thousands of file system calls to attempt to open files
       // in folders where they don't exist.  (Searching a VPK is much faster than making an operating
       // system call.)
       game_lv     hl2/hl2_lv.vpk
       game+mod   hl2mp/hl2mp_english.vpk
       game+mod   hl2mp/hl2mp_pak.vpk
       game+mod   |gameinfo_path|sourcetest/sourcetest_pak_dir.vpk
       game     |all_source_engine_paths|hl2/hl2_english.vpk
       game     |all_source_engine_paths|hl2/hl2_pak.vpk
       game     |all_source_engine_paths|hl2/hl2_textures.vpk
       game     |all_source_engine_paths|hl2/hl2_sound_vo_english.vpk
       game     |all_source_engine_paths|hl2/hl2_sound_misc.vpk
       game     |all_source_engine_paths|hl2/hl2_misc.vpk
       platform   |all_source_engine_paths|platform/platform_misc.vpk

       // Now search loose files.  We'll set the directory containing the gameinfo.txt file
       // as the first "mod" search path (after any user customizations).  This is also the one
       // that's used when writing to the "mod" path.
       mod+mod_write+default_write_path     |gameinfo_path|.

       // Add the HL2 directory as a game search path.  This is also where where writes
       // to the "game" path go.
       game+game_write     |gameinfo_path|.

       // Where the game's binaries are
       // gamebin         hl2/bin

       // Last, mount in shared HL2 loose files
       game     |all_source_engine_paths|hl2mp
       game     |all_source_engine_paths|hl2
       platform   |all_source_engine_paths|platform
       game     |all_source_engine_paths|sourcetest
     }
   }
}

 

so i could make a "custom" folder in my empires ( C:\Steam\SteamApps\common\Empires\empires ) and then add a folder such a scripts?

 

updated topic:
added how-to, credit&link

if anything wrong or could be improved, let me know

 

i use git for that, version control and everything muh naggir

 

on what is this related to?

 

>Building an modding enviroment beside your Empires installation
>without interference with your ususal multiplayer installation or the risk of being overwriten by updates

i use git for that, so i can run empiresmod versions and scripts from as old as 2.24 while only having 1 folder needed and scripts of their versions just 'work'.

 

well, tryed git - not suited for my simple needings, just uploading code and be able to split in versions where needed (actually to much effort for very little payout)
maybe later when there is something for "version control"!
(at least git is easy to understand and there are some good GUI's available like tortoise or git extension)

is there a repository where i can get the stoneaged 2.24? - would be interesting to look what changed in detail

 

maybe link it somewhere in the coding forum?
(google? - what was SVN again? google: Apache Subversion - thx google)