If I had to make a vote for anything... I'd vote for a better DLL-hacking utility than FLED-IDS, that was much simpler to use, much more transparent to end-users... and a whole lot less intimidating. Something that asked, "what are you describing?" and then prompted you for the entries that a given object required.

But since I'm talking about your software...

Well, it'd be *nice* if XML Scriptor was made with an "idiot-proof" mode for idiots like me- with prebuilt objects ready to edit. To do this, it'd just load up an example object (say, like a ship) and it'd just ask you questions (hopefully phrased in a way that clearly explains the alternative choices), and then you'd give it answers (with drop-down menus or radio buttons) and it'd just build the script.

It'd be super-nice if this could be done for any game object, from the common things like Ships and Weapons to things like Solars and Sounds. It need not try to "compete" with FLE- it shouldn't be used to hack up new Systems or whatever. But you should be able to add a new Base to a System (complete with XML infocard data) in simple "you'd have to be an idiot not to know what I'm asking for" steps.

In short... take the XML out of the picture, and let game designers concentrate on building things for people to play. There are lots of us who're complete idiots when it comes to scripting- my mod, for example, currently doesn't use a bit of XML... because when I looked at doing my mod that way... it looked like too much of a pain in the rear to even bother with. Give me an XML scriptor that takes learning XML out of my way that actually works... and I'll use it.

But I'd really prefer if somebody with coding skills would write a better program for building infocards and icons- it'd be really super-sweet if us game-designer types with poor technical skills (besides modeling, skinning, sound, content, writing and of course game-balance and design... we're not idiots) could just take a picture we whipped up in Photoshop... and a written description of something... and it'd just make the appropriate 3DB and the DLL entries.

Combine both of these things into one... awesomely idiot-proof piece of software... and I'll name something in my mod for you

I think with your faction editor, you can change a couple of things to make it easier:

why not automate some of the stuff - ask what factions are to be changed, so you dont have to do them all.
Maybe ask in a menu - which are allies, which are enemies, which are to be unchanged - you can then automate stuff from there.

Then after finishing, show in a brief summary, like in a table, what the results are. so you can then adjust them if you want. But more importantly, you can see the affect on all factions together.

XML:
I have tried to use XML, in fact a lot of my mod was in XML and then I just had too many problems, because I dont know XML that well, I was spending much of my time learning XML rather than modding

The XML in its current form doesnt work well for FL, because of the way FL deals with it.
For instance - commodities will not show up on the base lists, they will only show up on the base you visit.
From my understanding of XML, this is due to the nature of the MSXML format? (could be wrong).
You may be better spending time developing a find replace/append editor rather than XML. In essence they both do the same thing, the difference would be that the editor would physically change the .ini and then back it up, then restore it after.
This would certainly change the problem of things like commodities not showing.

Oh yeah... and a "find, do some math on, and THEN replace" for quickly altering the values for hundreds of INI entries would be super-sweet.

For example: I've just made a mod with new ships, and changed stats for engines and powerplants. All of that's fine, but the resulting game would play better if I could double the damage-per-shot of every LASER weapon in the game.

It'd be sweet to have the software find each entry that matches these required values, parse out the corrrect value, multiply it by the correct amount... and then parse it back in, either through XML or direct over-writing of the INI.

OK, so this is pretty crude... and only useful for globally-applied changes. But it's still useful. How many major mods, for example, have really poor game-balance, mainly because of all of the weapons that don't do enough damage/have too high or low ROF/etc.? And the mod designers never get around to fixing it, because doing it manually for a mod that has hundreds of such entries in it gets to be very cumbersome to edit after awhile. Make it easier, with automated tools- doing search-and-replace is only useful if you're replacing something very specific (that's not used for anything that you don't want changed)... instead, make it possible to do some math- like add/subtract 0.25 from a weapon's ROF time, or add 3 seconds to every Missile's active state... or add 300 to every Shield's hitpoints... or.... you get the picture. If I had a tool like that... I'd drool, because it would make game-balancing much easier...

Edited by - Argh on 11/25/2004 5:14:14 PM

Find and replace/replace all in Notepad is great for this, but if you include the point about calculations in this function that would be outstanding.