[Solved] Problem designating tiledesigns in XML

from Elemental Forums

Hey guys. I've modified the CoreShards XML to produce "Mana Shards" rather than Elemental Shards... a necessary step for expanding the magic system of the game. Unfortunately, since we can't control how shards spawn, I'm attempting to edit all of the elemental shards individually (thanks, kenata!). I thought that I had all of the shards referencing the same set of tile designs (the Air Shard type) until I started editing the medallion pictures. But, I may have just not encountered the problem until now.

My question is, given that all the shard resources in the XML are designed as the air shard type, why am I still seeing other shards spawn? Their internal names and descriptions appear to be correct, although their tile designs are not.

3,046 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

I know that some xml files have redundancy-checks. It is possible that coreshards.xml is one of them. it is also possible that resourceshardtype isn't over-writable in any way.

After you've edited the file, what happens when you open it up in the map editor? Do you still see the old resources when you place them, or do you get the new ones?

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Ok, the results of this test were very strange. I went through the xml and put a unique tile design in for each of the entries. I tried placing the entire set of 14 in the map editor in two groups.

For the first group, 2/14 took the custom tile. For the second group, 5/14 took the custom tile. So... I can't really make sense of it.

When I've started actual games with the xml in the mods folder, all shards seem to display the modified names, medallions, and descriptions, whether the tiles have taken the custom tile designs or not.

Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Alright, just a quick update. When placing shards with a custom tile design in the map maker (and presumably when they are spawned in-game), the game seems to alternate between the standard design and custom design. So, it's not that some of the shards are referencing one and the rest the other, but that the tile design is selected at random between all of the designs loaded into the game at start up.

I'm guessing that this is related to the problem with game modifier tags being added to improvements (in the form of costs or production) rather than them being overwritten.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Third update: I removed the CoreShards file from the data/English directory and the shards did indeed load correctly.

So, the TileDesign tag is treated like GameModifier tags in that they are both loaded and used by the program. Just a little info for anyone that is interested.