EMPEROR OF THE FADING SUNS
NOVA
The New Start
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EMPEROR OF THE FADING SUNS NOVA The New Start |
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Last updated: August 23, 1999
General Points ~ Unit.dat ~ Tech.dat ~ Strbuild.dat ~ Damage.dat ~ Res.dat ~ Arborium.dat ~ Farm.dat ~ Mine.dat ~ Well.dat ~ Prod.dat ~ Terrcost.dat ~ Unitspot.dat ~ Traits.dat ~ Efs.ini ~ Other Data Files ~ Notes on Terrain
I've spent a lot of time playing around with the data files, and now have a pretty good idea of how they work. So I thought I would share this info, to save other people repeating my work.
This file contains the details of all the units in the game. Each unit is listed on a separate line, but units are grouped so that all units having the same icon (graphic on the map) are listed together and surrounded by curly braces "{…}". For example, Noble and Blademaster are both in unit group 45, and therefore both have the same icon. There are 92 unit groups, numbered 0 to 91. You cannot add new groups.
Within each group, the individual units are identified by their position. I refer to this as their slot. There are 5 slots (0 to 4) in each unit group. So Noble occupies slot 0, while Blademaster occupies slot 1. You can create new units in any unoccupied slots.
In saved game files, units are identified by their group number and slot number. It is not a good idea to delete units from Unit.dat. If you attempt to load a game containing a unit whose slot is no longer occupied in the data file, the program will crash. Instead, if you want to get rid of a particular unit, it is better to make it unbuildable, by setting its Bldgs value to -1.
Some units have special characteristics which are not defined in Unit.dat, but which are hardwired into the program and associated with a particular group number. So, if you create a new unit in group 45 (by inserting it immediately after Blademaster), it will also have the special characteristics of a Noble, such as being able to vote in elections. Unit groups with special characteristics of this type include: 16 (space carriers, light spaceships can fight while on board them); 23 (submarines, can attack on Byzantium); 26 (naval carriers, air units can land on them); 28 (scepters, give you votes); 29 (holy relics); 45 (nobles); 49 (undercover units, can attack on Byzantium and have assassination ability); 51 (officer corps, give loyalty bonus); 53 (engineers, can build cities); 56 & 57 (PTS units, can fire at spaceships); 88 (plague bombs); 91 (cargo pods).
NOTE: The group number shown in the file (immediately after the opening curly brace) has no effect. A unit group number is determined solely by its position in the Unit.dat file. In general, this gives the same number as the one shown. However, Marauder Legion and Ranger Legion have group numbers 77 and 78 respectively (they are shown as being the other way around). [This has been corrected in Nova 2.3.]
Name. Full unit name (in quotes).
Plural extension. Indicates what character(s) to add to the name to form the plural: 0 = none; 1 = "s"; 2 = "es"; 3 = change "y" to "ies".
Abbrev. Short unit name (in quotes).
Movement type. Foot, wheel, tread, air, naval, space, hover, jump, crawler or lander
Move, Spot, Camo, Ag (=Agility), Armor, PsyDef. Basic values.
Water, Indirect, Air, Direct, Close, Psy, RangedSp, DirectSp, CloseSp. For each of these attack types, there are two values: accuracy and strength.
Cargo. How many units this unit can carry as cargo.
CanBCargo. 1 = this unit can be transported; 0 = it can't.
!Combat. 0 = combat unit; 1 = non-combat unit.
Cdr/Trn. Basic maintenance (unit pay) cost per turn. May be negative.
Cred. Not used.
Food, Energy, Metal, Trace, Exot, Chems, Bio, Elec, Csteel, Wet, Mono, Gems, Sing. Resources needed to build the unit.
Unit. Group number of required input unit (if any). -1 = none required.
Bldgs. The structure number of the type of city the unit must be built in. 99 = can be built in any city; -1 = cannot be built.
Turns2Bld. Number of turns it takes to build (minimum 1).
Req'd Tech. The tech numbers of the prerequisite technologies. Four numbers must be listed. 0 = not required.
Tax. Not used. (Units don't pay taxes.)
Flock. Not used (as far as I know).
Range. Not used (as far as I know).
Eat. 0 = unit consumes no food. Any other value = unit consumes 1 food per turn.
Rank. How close the unit stands to the front line in combat. 0 = front; 9 = back; >5 = can be picked out by assassin.
RoP. 0 = unit is not affected by plague.
Art. Name of file (in quotes) that contains artwork for unit (as shown in the Build window). These files are located in the Flc subdirectory.
This file defines all the technologies in the game, their costs and prerequisites. Each unit has an associated tech number, defined by its position in the file: 0 = Nothing (this is just a place-holder), 1 = Microbiology, 2 = Hospitals, etc.
You can't add new technologies to the file, but there are some tech numbers which are unused, and these can be brought into use, by changing the first Tech Needed number.
Name. The full name of the technology (in quotes).
Tech Needed. Tech numbers of prerequisite technologies, Three numbers must be listed. 0 = not required; 99x = technology category (Microbiology, Physics, Psychosocial Engineering, Applied Technology); 800 = not used.
Cost. Number of research points required.
Like. How much the Church likes this technology: 1-5 = always proscribed; 6-9 = may be proscribed during game; 10 = never proscribed.
Vol/Ch. The volume and chapter of Bishop Holst's archives that describes this technology. The text of the archives can be found in the Manowitz subdirectory, and can be edited. New chapters can be added to a volume (up to a maximum of 48), by creating a new chapter file (e.g. V4chp014.txt) and adding the name of the chapter to the end of the volume file (e.g. Volume4.txt).
Extra. Extra text which is displayed in the Tech display.
This file defines all the types of structure in the game. This means cities and special resource hexes. Each structure has an associated structure number, defined by its position in the file: 0 = Palace, 1 = Church, 2 = Monastery, etc.
Water. 1 = can be built in an ocean hex.
Land. 1 = can be built in a land hex.
Road. 1 = automatically has a road in the same hex.
Barren. 1 = can be built on barren planets.
Neutral. 1 = never controlled by any side.
Build. 1 = can be built by players. Note: you shouldn't increase the total number of cities that can be built by players, as they won't all fit on the Build City display.
Area. The radius of the exclusive area required by a city (normally 2 hexes for all harvesting cities). 0 = the city can be built as close as you like to any other city.
Crd/Trn. Cost per turn to maintain city (always 0 in standard EFS).
Credits. Not used.
Turns2Bld. Not used.
Tech. The tech number of any technology needed to build this city. 0 = no technology needed.
Value. Not used (as far as I can tell).
This file contains the Attack Damage Table, a kind of combat results table. When resolving combat, the program calculates the odds (attacker's firepower to defender's armor) and rounds them, to obtain a column on this table. It then generates a random number from 1 to 10, to select a row. The resulting value from the table is the amount of health lost by the defending unit.
This file defines the names of the different types of resource, their base price for selling to the League, and some comment text which is displayed when you right-click on the resource icon at the bottom of the screen.
These files define the amount of resources harvested in each hex by each of the 4 types of harvesting city. A different set of values is listed for each terrain type. Within each terrain type, five values are listed, one for each planet type ("tile set"). Note that Desert and Ocean planets are the same as Normal. For example, an Arborium produces 5 food from each grass hex on a Normal planet, but only 4 on a Megacity planet.
This file defines the amount of resources consumed and produced by each type of processing city. For example, in standard EFS, a Chemicals city consumes 10 energy and 5 trace to produce 10 chemicals.
This file defines the movement cost to enter the various terrain types. A value is given for each combination of terrain type, planet type ("tile set") and unit movement type. Where a hex contains more than one type of terrain, e.g. grass and mountain, the two (or more) values are multiplied together. The final result is rounded up. 0.0 = cannot enter.
When spotting is resolved, a unit's camo is multiplied by a terrain coefficient from this file. A coefficient is given for each combination of terrain type, planet type ("tile set") and unit movement type (i.e. the type of unit being spotted, not the type of unit doing the spotting).
Where a hex contains more than one type of terrain, e.g. grass and mountain, the two (or more) values are multiplied together. Note, however, that, due to a bug, each time the program multiplies by a value for an additional terrain layer, it then halves the result. This means that the values given for all but the basic terrain types should be set to double what you really want them to be. For example, in Nova we've set the value for foot units in road hexes to 2.0. This means that roads have no effect on the camo of foot units. Also, the coefficients given for "structures" (cities) seem to have no effect at all.
This file defines the default traits for each House at each difficulty level. The traits are in the same order as they are displayed in the traits selection screen and listed on pages 12-13 of the manual. The number of free traits is determined by the number of positive traits which you give a house minus the number of negative traits, so this may end up being different from the standard.
This file also defines the three default portrait names for each House.
This file contains many different parameters. Here they are, with their values as in standard EFS. I haven't investigated all of them, so some have no comments, though I can guess at what they might be.
video_on=1, grid=1, sound=1, autosave=0.
Player 1=0, Player 2=1, Player 3=1, Player 4=1, Player 5=1. 0 = default is human player. 1 = default is computer player. If you set all these to 1, you can have an all-computer game and just let it run....
turns_til_vote=10. Number of turns from one Regent election to the next.
turns_til_patriarch_dies=25.
normal_damage=50, feint_damage=75. These look as if they define the difference between Normal, Feint and Assault attacks. In practice, they seem to have no effect.
loyalty_noble_bonus=30, loyalty_officer_bonus=20. These values are added to a unit's loyalty when stacked with a noble or officer respectively. However, there appears to be a bug. It seems to me that the values being added are 9 points higher than these, i.e. +39 and +29. But I'm not sure. The issue is complicated by the following parameter.
default_leadership=90. I don't know about this one. But I have found that, at least some of the time, units only need a loyalty rating of 90 to be safe from routing. I wonder whether that has anything to do with this parameter. (I got fed up and didn't bother experimenting any further.)
starting_credits=5000. The amount of money players start the game with. But note that, if you start the game with a lab, your treasury will be 500 Fb less than this on your first turn, due to the cost of maintaining your lab. The League also starts with this number of Fb in its Warchest.
default_tax_rate=10. Players' default tax rate. A tax rate of 10 means you receive 100 Fb per full strength city. Changing this value does not alter your initial city loyalty.
default_tithe_rate=10. Church tithe rate. Calling it "default" is misleading, as it is fixed throughout a game. A tithe rate of 10 means that the Church's tithe is 100 Fb per full strength city. You can skim anywhere between 0% and 99% of this.
give_back_res_per=75. When you disband a unit, you receive this % of its cost back (rounded down).
default_church_like=100, default_league_like=100.
default_interest_rate=10, default_loan_turns=10. These affect repayment of League loans.
percent_asset_is_loan=50, minimum_loan_amount=1000. These affect the size of loan the League is willing to give you.
health_check_for_plague=25, health_loss_for_famine=20, immune_plague_bonus=25.
shield_radius=1. The protective radius of a Shield city (in hexes).
move_pause=500.
city_heal_rate=8. The number of health points gained by a damaged (or newly built) city each turn.
unit_heal_in_city=12, unit_heal=2. The number of health points gained by a damaged unit each turn, depending on whether it's in a city or not.
third_republic_min=300000, third_republic_max=500000. The League declares the Third Republic when its warchest is somewhere between these values.
not_enuf_garrison=20.
credits_received=2, per_tech_receieved=5, receive_unfound_city=1, promise_votes=5. These look as though they determine how much a computer player is influenced by what you offer him. But I haven't checked whether they work. (I wonder if per_tech_receieved is affected by the misspelling.)
leaguehall_stock=50. This seems to have no effect.
league_like_up=1, league_like_down=5, league_int_rate_up=5, league_int_rate_down=1.
excommunicate_expire=5.
excommunicate_turns=5. Should be the number of turns that excommunication lasts. But it actually lasts one turn more than this number (6 turns in standard EFS).
excom_peasant_loyalty_hit=30. The amount of city loyalty lost by an excommunicated player.
sign_holy_writ=50, default_sect=5.
Relics.dat. Defines the names and effects of all the Relics. I haven't investigated this file at all.
Tercolor.dat. Defines the colours used to represent different terrain types in the small Corner Map of the Planet Display.
Agility.dat, Roadcost.dat, Stock.dat. These files appear to have no effect.
Profile.dat, Unitrulz.dat. I haven't discovered any function for these files, but they look as though they might affect he AI in some way.
Each hex contains exactly one basic terrain (ocean, grass, arid grass, desert, ice or tundra) and optionally one or more additional layers (mountains, hills, trees, river, delta, road and/or city).
Some terrain types are used to represent different terrains on different types of planet. For example, tundra on a Jungle planet is really swamp. This can be confusing when referring to those data files which list terrains, since they don't mention these variations. So note the following:
Tundra on a Jungle or Megacity planet = swamp
Trees on a Jungle planet = jungle
Ice or tundra on a Barren planet = crust
Arid grass on a Megacity planet = concrete
Trees on a Megacity planet = urban sprawl
Mountain on a Megacity planet = tower