How to add a race to Sins of a Solar Empire

By ZombiesRus5

Current Version

This should work with Diplomacy 1.34, however the envoy abilities for the race templates are all the old versions which still should work in my experience.

Races Mod for Entrenchment 1.051 and Diplomacy 1.34

Note: This is the stacking version only for Entrenchment and Diplomacy.
If you don't want the stacked version for Diplomacy simply copy the
Diplomacy files over the Entrenchment to make a single combined mod

Previous Versions

Races Mod for Entrenchment 1.051 and Diplomacy 1.32

Entrenchment Starter Races Mod

Races Mod (E) v0.4 (Download)
Patches a few references such as entry vehicles to existing races.
Races Mod (E) v0.3 (Download)

Diplomacy Starter Races Mod

Stack is meant to support Entrenchment and Diplomacy versions of your mod 
allowing you to only modify files necessary for Diplomacy.
Races Mod Stack (D 1.2) v0.3 (Download)
Races Mod Stack (D) v0.2 (Download)
Races Mod Stack (D) v0.1 (Download)

Full is a standalone version of the races mod and should be used when you
don't care about maintaining an Entrenchment release.
Races Mod Full (D 1.2) v0.3 (Download)
Races Mod Full (D) v0.2 (Download)
Races Mod Full (D) v0.1 (Download)

* Important Diplomacy 1.2 message * If you have already started your mod with these files you do not need to upgrade. Instead try adding the QuestEnded event (after QuestFailed) to your new Player[Race].entity files and regenerate the entity.manifest with any manifest generator such as Harpos. The Diplomacy 1.2 versions should really be considered as a resource for new mods only!

Introduction

Welcome to the tutorial for adding races to Sins of a Solar Empire. This tutorial will go over some of the basics associated with adding new races to the existing game for Entrenchment and Diplomacy (Sorry, won't cover vanilla modding).

I plan on adding content to this tutorial as time permits (see list below).

References
http://soase.weebly.com/modding.html

http://soase.weebly.com/sins-mod-set.html

http://soase.weebly.com/research-button.html - Good for any picture manipulation in sins.

http://code.google.com/p/soaseplugin/wiki/Syntax

Adding a race
Ok, I've done most the work for you here. Start by downloading the starter race mod for the version you wish to mod. The starter races mod contains 3 addon races that you can modify and still keep the existing Tech, Advent and Vasari races in the game.

The three starter races are clones of the Tech, Advent and Vasari races having identical abiltiies, buffs, ships, structures, starbases and research. You can directly modify these files or copy them to meet your needs.

Optional step:

Also, all entries and file names follow Race1, Race2, Race3 making it possible to convert Race1 to Terran. For example: replace Race1 and RACE2 in file names with Terran and TERRAN (case sensitive). All references in the text files will also need Race1 and RACE2 changed to Terran and TERRAN as well.

Changing the name of files and associated references is recommended if you plan on making more than three races.

What are the key pieces to understand when working with a new Race? (click on subjects below)

Understanding the Player entity and Galaxy Scenario Def
How to add/edit a ship
How to add/edit a module
How to add/edit an ability and buff (tbd)
How to add/edit a research subject (tbd)
How to add/edit a fighter/squad (tbd)
How to add/edit a starbase and starbase upgrade  (tbd)

What the hell is a manifest and why do I need to change it?

Manifest files is Sins way of telling the engine it needs to load the file into memory. If you add a new entity, brush, player picture, player theme, or skybox to your mod you MUST add an entry for that file in it's associated manifest (or mini-dump).

• brush.manifest
• entity.manifest
• galaxy.manifest
• playerPictures.manifest
• playerThemese.manifest
• skybox.manifest

* After every Sins patch it's important to check these files to see if any new entries were added or removed so the same change can be applied in your mod.