Alpha Centauri 2

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri & Alien Crossfire => Modding => Topic started by: Kilkakon on July 25, 2025, 06:21:42 pm

Title: Lost Eden Gold development thread
Post by: Kilkakon on July 25, 2025, 06:21:42 pm
I've resumed work on Lost Eden of late, trying to polish it up for a re-release on my site. While I can't show too much of it here I thought I can at least share some pieces over time, such as terrain work and the like. I'm more than happy to talk about the changes I've made, and I can link the new profile pages if that's alright.

Felt I should start up the thread considering I was working all day on that CVR editor that Ford made a while back. I've made a command line version that allows me to do translations of a range of colours at a time, with a view of making some recolours of the various mechanical units and make them more steampunk looking. It's fiddly work, but I've made some progress:
(http://kilkakon.com/kocb/recolours1.png)

I find the flat gold part gets caught by the lighting engine too much, so will continue to experiment, but as a proof of concept this works.

The main reason I wanted to do this was actually to recolour the alien colony pod. I've repurposed it as an "Infested Citadel"--this way I can use a voxel for the Fungal Tower instead of a sprite, freeing it up for a unit. Sprite slots are in very short supply, and as I mentioned in my other thread, I was able to find a 10th slot, but no more than that. But without further ado, a before and after:
(http://kilkakon.com/kocb/infested_citadel_before_after.png)

The idea of this one is it's a ruined structure sitting in the middle of the vine mass, and destroying it will clear out the worst of the viney nonsense.

(http://kilkakon.com/kocb/recolours4.png)

Here's all the mechanical units in Lost Eden. I'm thinking about how to recolour these to be unique and hopefully less futuristic looking. What colours would be nice for the Colony Pod and Workers you think? Input welcome.
Title: Re: Lost Eden Gold development thread
Post by: Buster's Uncle on July 25, 2025, 06:39:59 pm
Obviously, any duller color on the dome of the supply crawler would steampunk a little; the Victorians loved decorative brass - a good general idea for everything, I think.

Say, why don't you have a glance at my paused SMACivilization project in CivII - it's possible your superior knowledge of what can be done w/ the .cvr editor could be of help when/if I ever get rolling again.
Title: Re: Lost Eden Gold development thread
Post by: Kilkakon on August 02, 2025, 04:09:06 pm
Had a go at it

Not convinced on every one of these, and some of them are a bit work in progress, but here you go (primarily working on the supply crawler)

(http://kilkakon.com/kocb/recolours5.png)
Title: Re: Lost Eden Gold development thread
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 02, 2025, 04:24:12 pm
BTW, I promoted this thread to Front Page...
Title: Re: Lost Eden Gold development thread
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 02, 2025, 04:30:14 pm
I truly wish the .cvr editor would allow pasting in art from other graphics editors - that would work around ALL its shortcomings, if, for instance, you could accentuate/brighten the highlights on the high ridges of the supply crawler dome to make it way brassier/metalic in Photoshop or whatever and paste in...

You're definitely already halfway there...
Title: Re: Lost Eden Gold development thread
Post by: Geo on August 02, 2025, 06:54:12 pm
I like the new coloring of the formers. The crawler/trawler pod ain't bad either.
What function have the units left of the seaformer and right of the hovertank? I think I see a gun-like protrusion on the front, but I'm not sure.
Title: Re: Lost Eden Gold development thread
Post by: Green1 on August 03, 2025, 04:01:53 am
Quote from: Geo on August 02, 2025, 06:54:12 pm
I like the new coloring of the formers. The crawler/trawler pod ain't bad either.
What function have the units left of the seaformer and right of the hovertank? I think I see a gun-like protrusion on the front, but I'm not sure.

It might not be a gun knowing LE... (runs away and hides) LOL

But seriously.  I think the graphics will add identity. I mean, whole mod is about nekked pokemon-like beings blowing each other up over ideologies.
Title: Re: Lost Eden Gold development thread
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 03, 2025, 04:05:27 am
;wince Yeah. ;wince
Title: Re: Lost Eden Gold development thread
Post by: Kilkakon on August 04, 2025, 02:51:28 pm
Quote from: Buster's Uncle on August 02, 2025, 04:24:12 pm
BTW, I promoted this thread to Front Page...
Cheers! O:-)

Quote from: Buster's Uncle on August 02, 2025, 04:30:14 pm
I truly wish the .cvr editor would allow pasting in art from other graphics editors - that would work around ALL its shortcomings, if, for instance, you could accentuate/brighten the highlights on the high ridges of the supply crawler dome to make it way brassier/metalic in Photoshop or whatever and paste in...
Yeah in the end I was able to build off of Ford Prefect's earlier work without too much trouble. I will probably release what I've done when time permits, but it's certainly nothing like you describe there

Quote from: Geo on August 02, 2025, 06:54:12 pm
I like the new coloring of the formers. The crawler/trawler pod ain't bad either.
What function have the units left of the seaformer and right of the hovertank? I think I see a gun-like protrusion on the front, but I'm not sure.
Thank you! I like the orange, although I am concerned it might blend too much into the charmander colour... but there isn't really a safe colour otherwise to use than the default yellow and orange, as it also needs to contrast with the ocean for sea formers... I'm open to suggestions!

For the Colony Pod I am thinking either brown or purple.

As for the units you spotted, those are the Propaganda Wagon (0/2/2) and the Clockwork Carrier (0/4/2). They're garrison units that aren't able to attack. I was able to achieve this effect and visuals by giving it the Tectonic Warhead weapon. That little metallic rod is normally hidden by the missile chassis reactor.

Quote from: Green1 on August 03, 2025, 04:01:53 am
It might not be a gun knowing LE... (runs away and hides) LOL

But seriously.  I think the graphics will add identity. I mean, whole mod is about nekked pokemon-like beings blowing each other up over ideologies.
Yeah I certainly don't regret having redone most of the unit art now. I was using old Yugioh card art for some of the units but have done fresh unique art now, does look much nicer  ;nod
Title: Re: Lost Eden Gold development thread
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 04, 2025, 03:02:00 pm
Quote from: Kilkakon on August 04, 2025, 02:51:28 pm
Quote from: Buster's Uncle on August 02, 2025, 04:30:14 pm
I truly wish the .cvr editor would allow pasting in art from other graphics editors - that would work around ALL its shortcomings, if, for instance, you could accentuate/brighten the highlights on the high ridges of the supply crawler dome to make it way brassier/metalic in Photoshop or whatever and paste in...
Yeah in the end I was able to build off of Ford Prefect's earlier work without too much trouble. I will probably release what I've done when time permits, but it's certainly nothing like you describe there
I'm extremely interested.
Title: Re: Lost Eden Gold development thread
Post by: Kilkakon on August 09, 2025, 02:04:57 pm
(http://kilkakon.com/kocb/recolours7.png)

For now this is the lot ;nod Suggestions welcome but most things have been done now

I decided to try and make the former a bit more steampunky, and change the orange to purple so it's not the same colour as charmanders and still pops visually against the terrain and fitting in with LE's fantasy vibes

I had quite the saga trying to figure out the colour for cruisers. They're using the faction's "vehicle colour" from the PCX, but I discovered after much testing that this doesn't actually work. While it will on the first time you load a faction, after it's been used once the game generates a .TMP file in the game folder that then makes it take one of the faction colours from system.txt. And what's worse is that these colours don't even seem to be related to which faction is in which slot, resulting in a "player 1, player 2" style sequence rather than anything based off the faction. For the effect you see here I equalised them all to colour 62 which gave a nice wooden look. Either way it's very strange.

(http://kilkakon.com/kocb/artefactcirclething.png)
I did find this voxel in the folder, seems to have been a selection reticule that goes unused in the game (Something for The Cutting Room Floor perhaps?) It would make for a nice ancient artefact for my game, if only I could find some way to have no reactor. Looks a bit odd with a reactor sitting in there randomly.



Title: Re: Lost Eden Gold development thread
Post by: Geo on August 10, 2025, 06:16:40 pm
Quote from: Kilkakon on August 09, 2025, 02:04:57 pm
(http://kilkakon.com/kocb/recolours7.png)

For now this is the lot ;nod Suggestions welcome but most things have been done now

I decided to try and make the former a bit more steampunky, and change the orange to purple so it's not the same colour as charmanders and still pops visually against the terrain and fitting in with LE's fantasy vibes

I had quite the saga trying to figure out the colour for cruisers. They're using the faction's "vehicle colour" from the PCX, but I discovered after much testing that this doesn't actually work. While it will on the first time you load a faction, after it's been used once the game generates a .TMP file in the game folder that then makes it take one of the faction colours from system.txt. And what's worse is that these colours don't even seem to be related to which faction is in which slot, resulting in a "player 1, player 2" style sequence rather than anything based off the faction. For the effect you see here I equalised them all to colour 62 which gave a nice wooden look. Either way it's very strange.


I like that recolor the recolors of the reactor, threads, and weapon/cargo modules. I'm the least fond of the colony -and former vehicle covers. The Colony pod covers seems to dark compared with the colony pod module, and the former covering really clashes. But that's just my aesthetics I guess. Most pleasing combination (to me) is the bottom left vehicle. The color of the armor goes really well with the color of the pod module.

Quote from: Kilkakon on August 09, 2025, 02:04:57 pm
(http://kilkakon.com/kocb/artefactcirclething.png)
I did find this voxel in the folder, seems to have been a selection reticule that goes unused in the game (Something for The Cutting Room Floor perhaps?) It would make for a nice ancient artefact for my game, if only I could find some way to have no reactor. Looks a bit odd with a reactor sitting in there randomly.


My guess is that's a tryout voxel for the game's selector UI.
Title: Re: Lost Eden Gold development thread
Post by: Kilkakon on August 13, 2025, 01:14:33 pm
Quote from: Geo on August 10, 2025, 06:16:40 pm
I like that recolor the recolors of the reactor, threads, and weapon/cargo modules. I'm the least fond of the colony -and former vehicle covers. The Colony pod covers seems to dark compared with the colony pod module, and the former covering really clashes. But that's just my aesthetics I guess. Most pleasing combination (to me) is the bottom left vehicle. The color of the armor goes really well with the color of the pod module.

Glad you like most of the attempts! ;nod I'll have a test game or two to see if I like the colony pod/workers, the main thing I wanted is to make them look less like the vanilla ones really.

I've been debating the Ironclad's armour colour, alternating between black and red. Contrast between the Ironclad and the regular Steamboat is still important after all, hmm...

A friend suggested merging the circle and the artefact weapon at once... which led to my having a brainwave that some of the abilities aren't actually used by my units so I can give one to the artefact that's not used by anything...
(http://kilkakon.com/kocb/artefactcirclething2.png)

I'm really happy with the result! The artefact still looks peculiar but now is substantial enough to not look like a little augmented potato
Title: Re: Lost Eden Gold development thread
Post by: Geo on August 13, 2025, 11:11:06 pm
Good combination with the Artifact there.  ;b;
Title: Re: Lost Eden Gold development thread
Post by: jds on August 15, 2025, 08:41:37 pm
I really like how this is turning out so far.  ;b;
Title: Re: Lost Eden Gold development thread
Post by: Kilkakon on August 19, 2025, 06:27:43 pm
A bit of a long shot but seeing if anyone knows how to address this... I have updated interface.pcx and text.pcx for my mod to be more fantasy, and to change the colour of minerals to pink, which works well, except when the number of production rows grows too large and the game stops using the pcx and changes to raw colours

(http://kilkakon.com/kocb/hudcolours.png)

Any ideas?
Title: Re: Lost Eden Gold development thread
Post by: Kilkakon on August 25, 2025, 03:33:00 pm
Might as well cover some of how the writing is coming along. After all this new version has revamped a lot, including the faction lineup, and I have like... 60 quotes to write to cover all the new factions and techs and wonders ;nod

One of the big changes has been the removal of the female gender. It took a long time to go through all the dialogs in the game and update them with the new plural gender, allowing me to have plural leaders in the game now. I've had this idea a long time ago after trying out some of those plural leader factions from the Network Node. Here's some sample dialogue, showing how it can go both ways:

(https://kilkakon.com/kocb/plural.png)

When it comes to the faction list, I had several goals. Some of the old characters had frankly bad writing and I wanted to give them a face lift, other characters didn't resonate with me personally anymore, and others were female or human which I wanted to drop to focus more on the pokeboy theme. Some of the new factions were also included to try new experimental gameplay styles.

Cut factions include:

Reworked factions include:

New factions include:

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