[TOOL] [DISCONTINUED] Empyrion Playfield Designer Alpha7 v1.36.1 [deprecated version]

Accorindg to your crash log, it's not the description, but that line, will look into it tomorrow. My guess is that either an empty 'DronePlanetVessel []' does not work or DronePlanetVessel in Space doesn't work.

At the moment as a workaround delete that line from yaml manually.

Does anyone here have a clue, what DronePLanetVessel is exactly. I don't seem to find it anymore in 5.5 playfields. Maybe it could be thrown out completely?

THX

/jmc

 

It seems to add a random DroneBaseAkua in to the random section of the drone base spawns. Even though it doesn't exist in the original yaml file!

 

I'll keep tinkering and keep you posted

 

That's intentional respectively a Known Issue (for the moment).

Explanation:
Nearly every item is initialized by me to a default value on startup and on every load of a playfield. If e.g. space, that doesn't contain as many settings as a planet, it still gets all the initial values of a planet, too. I described that in the known issue list of an earlier Version. If you load a space playfield, it just overwrites the values stored in space, but leaves the rest of the initially set values untouched.

There will be some sort of differentiation between planet and space of course some day, but first i would have to know, what's allowed and not in space.
I could include a 'manual reset all to null' option in the tool, but then it would be up to you to include everything that's needed for a playfield to start/work.

It's less of a problem, if there are too many (unnecessary) settings in the playfield, than, if i don't initialize a value, you forget to add it (Biome for example) and game crashes on startup.

But as i said, i'm working on it, and there will be a differentiation of planet and space and in that matter a selection of initially set properties in yaml.

Solution:
For the time beeing, simply delete unnecessary/unwanted items in the tool.

But as far as i know, if you use fixed DroneBases by checking the 'Use Fixed' Checkbox, then the excess random DroneBase or any other Random Setting in playfield yaml shouldn't be loaded into game anyways and thus have no effect in game.

Thx for testing

/jmc

 

UPDATE (v1.05.0)

CHANGES:

• First implementation of Space/Planet differentiation of UI.
  On Load of a playfield based on the Playfield Type Setting 'Space' or 'Planet', only the controls needed for that specific Playfield Type are drawn and saved to yaml later on.

Tested with some space/planet playfields on my TestServer, seems to load and work without issues so far. Please test and let me know, if anything comes up.


KNOWN ISSUES:

• Switching Playfields while editing doesn't change UI or Controls. So if you were editing a space playfield and want to switch to planet then, you have to change the playfieldtype to planet, save it, then reload it to get all the planet controls back.
• Maybe i haven't set all Properties to the right playfieldTypes. So maybe in Space some Properties are missing or redundant. Please tell me, and i'll include, exclude.

HANDLING OF FIXED POIs in SPACE (IMPORTANT):

• If you're editing/creating a space playfield, and add a fixed POI, make sure, that on Asteroids and some other POIs like AsteroidfieldRing, ... 'Mode' has to be set to 'None'. If any gamemode other than 'None' is set, game will start and playfield will load, but POIs don't get loaded.

Planet Mode:

Space Mode:



Download Link:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxUpWMGez5I0LWxYOXJScGdtbVk/view?usp=sharing

/jmc

 

Is it possible to create a planet from scratch using this tool yet?

If so, how?

 

Creating a new playfield/planet:
If you start EPD, a default (fresh) playfield is loaded on the right and ready to be changed to your liking (add, edit delete values) and then save as new playfield.
Or open an existing playfield, edit and save as new.

But if you mean, to start with all the values emptied out to zero or null from the start, that's not possible (yet?).

It's kind of intentional, because if you don't set values to some properties, the game/server won't even start or crash on loading the playfield. So to make it easier for people to create playfields, i predefined all values to some kind of an Akua copy planet.

But if you want to, you could delete every single field or List item in EPD, if you know what you're doing. It involves some clicking, but it could be done.

I could easily include a reset all button, if it's requrested, but it's not implemented yet.

Do you think, a reset button would be useful?

if you have any further questions, i'm glad to help.

/jmc

 

Without knowing the difficulty of coding this: it might be useful to have a button that would create a default space and/or planet map. maybe even a right-click on the sector map that brings up a menu to create a new playfield, then being able to open that playfield, then place planets, moons, stations, etc. graphically. Then have the drop down menus on the side to fill in the details. Also the ability to drag things around the graphical sector and orbit maps would be immensely useful IMO. YMMV.

 

OK, i get what you mean. At the moment this tool can only create the playfields/biomes. For a sector editor, use Jaschas Empyrion playfield generator. With that you can add the planet created with EPD to the sector map. Graphically by adding and dragging planets around and such.

But our tools will be joined into one some day to get exactly the functionality you describe above. But at the moment you would have to use both of our tools seperately.

/jmc

 

UPDATE (v1.06.0)

CHANGES:

• Added Drag & Drop of playfield yaml files into EPD directly from Explorer
• Main Window is now resizable to your liking. Items rearrange automatically.
• Added Input Validators as a first test to some fields/properties already. Those include:
  • Check of Min/Max value -> input limitation, where applicable, e.g. Biome Altitude Range, Slope Range, ...
  • Check of correct datatype (e.g. prevent you from entering text in number fields, ...)
• Added Tooltip System for information:
  If you hover over a text label of a property, it shows you some information of limits and use of this property. Not implemented all yet, need information on that topic. Just proof of concept and test for the time beeing.
• On the bottom of the Main Window it shows you the playfield (name & path) you imported to edit.
• Added a 'New...' button to reset playfield to initial defaults (to start over or create a new playfield)
• Added CultureInfo to input boxes for correct interpretation of international number formats.
  Need some testing on this topic from you guys, to see if it's working correctly. Specially decimal numbers, check if dot respectively comma as decimal seprarator is working for you on input of values and later on when saved into playfield. please test and comment below.

KNOWN ISSUES:

• Not all the values and properties in EPD have input validators or tooltips yet. I'd like to check in with you, if this concept is working for you..

SCREENS:



Download Link:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxUpWMGez5I0NEM1NXhYWkJSSDA/view?usp=sharing


/jmc

 

The tooltips are very handy, thanks for adding those

 

Something that would be helpful I think would be to update the initial post with the download link. Great work on this tool!!!

 

Thx for the input, added the download link to first post.

/jmc

 

Is there an updated source of each deco item? Closest thing I've found is this, but it does not contain everything: http://empyriononline.com/threads/planet-creation-deco-images.7330/

 

I'm sorry, i don't have any other images at the moment, either.

It is a planned feature that they're all integrated directly into the Itemselectors in EPD. The Itemselectors are already fully prepared for this and the databases ready. All that's missing is the images.

I'm in contact with the devs to get all the images out of the game some day, but understandably they are quite busy at the moment with Alpha 6.0.

/jmc

 

Ok then, other than creating a blank world with one item and taking screenshots, which would be pretty time consuming, is there an easier way to get them directly from the game files?

 

nope, none that i know of.

Maybe @LiftPizzas knows more about that, as he already posted a lot of them in your aforementioned post. Hopefully he has a better idea, until i get images.

Maybe if he's alright with it, i could at least integrate the images from his post into the tool, until a better source turns up.

Taking screenshots one at the time was my first idea also, but then decided to wait for the images, as it would take days, maybe even weeks to get them all out. .

/jmc

 

UPDATE (v1.06.2)

CHANGES:

• Added a 'Unique' Validator for e.g. Resources, Biomes, ... to limit you in some Lists on one item with exactly the same characteristics. Helps preventing crashes.
• Added a lot more ToolTip descriptions and min/max value limitations and other Validators. If anyone knows more on the topic, please share. This is just what i found out by testing, but may be either too limiting, incorrect or not even useful in some cases. So test and let me know.
• Changed 'Group' UI looks a bit to be more clear, what group which property belongs to.

FIXES:

• Fixed a bug that Lists were not immediately updated after adding or editing.
• FixedResources were missing altogether in playfield. Must have missed them somehow. Only used, when playfields 'Use Fixed POIs & Resources' was checked.
• Set playfield's 'Creature Spawning's' initial 'Biome Cluster Name' to 'BiomeClusterName' (=Name defined as initial in Biomes). Game crashed on load of playfield, if biome name defined for 'Creature Spawning' does not exist in biome section.
• [HOTFIX EDIT] 'Asteroid Resources' caused a crash when clicking on 'Edit'.

Download Link:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxUpWMGez5I0OGt1OTFTNWxjV0U/view?usp=sharing

/jmc

 

UPDATE (v1.10.0) experimental

To shorten the wait for Alpha 6.0 a bit, i'll offer you something else to play around with for the time beeing.



CHANGES:

• New Feature: Surprise Me! creates random worlds with some logic behind. This is the first experimental Test. Please be arware that it is still possible and likely that the tool creates a combination, which won't start. Although 90% of the worlds created lately did start with no problem. The results on the other hand, can be quite strange.
  But the intention was, that you won't have to go through all the details from the start and set everything by hand, but instead give you a basis to start from, tweak and play around with. Hopefully creating will be faster and less complicated for beginners. The Pros out there can of course do everythinig by hand from the start.
• All properties except of MainBiome and BiomeTextureReplacements are beeing randomized (with some additional logic behind) for now.
• My latest test runs showed more than 90% of the generated playfields were working on first start. Most of the time the playfield needs some tweaking after your first start
• If you stumble across any gamebreaking issues, please send/post the playfields and your server/game logs and i check them out to further optimize the code to reduce errors.
• There can and will be some strange combinations of Deco, Terrain, Water, POIs and Fog:

But hey, we're in space in a galaxy far far away, who knows what strange worlds we come across.​

Usage of Surprise Me!:

• Best thing is to load up an existing playfield like Temperate of Barren, ...
• If you wish you can now enter a custom seed for the Generator, or if you leave blank on each click on Go! it will pick a random seed to calculate from.
  If you have found a seed you like or find interesting, share it here with us.
• In the Listboxes (Special Effects, Resources, Biomes, ..):
  If you want more items than there are already from the existing playfield, just add more items to your liking. Which type you add (IronResource, Sathium, DandelionsFew, ...) doesn't matter, the items get randomized anyways on clicking 'Go!'. It's just the amount that matters, because it's the number of items in the ListBox that will be randomized.
• Click on Go! and let the magic happen.
• Be aware that most List Items are set to 'unique', so don't set more List items than there are options (more than there are number of Ore Types for example) available, otherwise the Generator will be having a hard time finding another unique item as it goes down the list and maybe could get stuck somewhere in the process. It's a known issue at the time beeing and will be fixed later on.
• After generating a random world please do check manually if PlayfieldType (e.g.) 'Space' matches PlanetType. It maybe won't work (crash on startup) or create undesired results if you have e.g. playfield type set to space and planet type set to anything other than space. There will be further checks and improvements in the future.

FIXES:

• FIX: Some properties were set to wrong datatypes.
• General bugfixing

Download Link:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxUpWMGez5I0ZHJpUFAxR2VBcUE/view?usp=sharing

Have Fun!

/jmc

 

Since u have now changed the Drone Base as a drop down list aswell i cant add my own anymore
When i could type it i could