Mod

Mods are modifications or additional functionality that a user can choose to add to a game to make it more enjoyable. Modding is the process of altering the game and its data files to use these mods. Changes can vary from being completely cosmetic, to fundamental modifications to gameplay, such as changes to the technology tree.

In Galactic Civilizations II mods may allow the user to use more ship textures or different hulls (other than the ones that come with the game). These are just some of the possible mods as there might be other mods in the future that change different aspects of the game. The Mod folder that may provide these abilities has not yet been documented.

Modding Overview

Your Galactic Civilizations II directory structure probably looks something like this:

\program files\stardock\galciv2

or

\program files\stardock\totalgaming\galciv2

The sub-directories of interest are:

galciv2\screens
galciv2\data\English
galciv2\gfx

All the static images in the game are stored as .PNG. This is a common graphics format that Photoshop or any other graphics editor can handle.

The 3D models are stored as .X files which is a standard 3D format that 3D Studio Max, Maya, and other graphics packages can work with.

The data that you would want to modify is in XML and stored in \galciv2\data\English

You should NOT modify anything in the metaverse directory (galciv2\metaversedata) because that data is used for Metaverse games and cannot be touched. If the data is touched, it will result in a "cheat" flag being turned on. So make sure not to mess with that.

There will soon be documentation on how to make use of a galciv2\mods directory which will essentially (eventually) allow people to store multiple copies of their data so that they can switch between mods (i.e. "Star Trek" or "Star Wars" or "Babylon 5" or "Transformers" or whatever) when starting a game. This is still being tweaked out based on player feedback. Keep an eye on this space.

More information is located in the guides on the specifics of modding.

Guides, Tutorials, Documentation

• Data Modding
  • Campaign and Scenario Modding
  • Commonly used numbers
• Graphics Modding
• User Interface Modding

• External:
• Mormegil's sample ship and textures - To aid in ship modding
• Make Your Own Space Oddity - Guide posted on the Galciv 2 forums by CaretFarmer
• Tweakin' Planets - Also posted by CaretFarmer
• Creating Custom Planets in GalCiv 2 - Again, posted by CaretFarmer on the game's forums
• Let's Mod Galciv 2 Video Tutorial by Altarn - Videos explaining some modding in Galciv 2.

External links

• The Galactic Core
• The official Galciv2 Library - For uploading and downloading of mods