Ship Set incompatibility to german version |
| Project: | Space Empires V |
| Version: | 1.63 |
| Component: | Code |
| Category: | bug |
| Priority: | minor |
| Assigned: | Suppenkoch |
| Status: | by design |
Description
I've detected two major problems conflicting the compatibility between US-designed ship sets and the german version. As a good friend of me has the US version of the game, I was able to compare both (DE and US) SE5 versions.
1) If I install ship sets (/empires) the german version can't open following files:
empirename_AI_DesignNames.txt
empirename_AI_General.txt
empirename_AI_Main.txt
empirename_AI_Speech.txt
The game says a errormessage like this:
Allgemeine KI-Einstellungen
Dateiname: c:\spiele\space empires 5\empires\arackterra\arackterra_ai_general.txt
-------------------------
Cannot find *BEGIN*
If I open them directly, the *BEGIN* definitively exists. After comparing working *_ai_*.txt with non-working, I noticed, there is absolute no difference.
I can solve the problem, If I make copies of the non-working *_ai_*.txt, delete the non-working originals, copying working *_ai_*.txt into the empire subfolder of the previous deleted non-working originals, rename them to exactly the same name of the non-working originals, open them and replace the whole content with the content of the copies of the non-working *_ai_*.txt.
The same ship set worked without problems on the US-version of SE5.
I've tried the US- and the DE-version on my pc.
So you see, I can't really say, what the problem is, maybe a minor file difference inside the *_ai_*.txt, but which not affects the content of the file.
2) I don't know why, and who did this, but someone translated a bit too much of the game.
After bringing the files to work, I noticed the game quits with following error message:
Allgemeine KI-Einstellungen
Dateiname: c:\spiele\space empires 5\empires\alliance\alliance_ai_general.txt
-------------------------
Unbekannter Wert "Hive" für Government Type in Eintrag "Alliance".
Unbekannter Wert "Xenophobes" für Society Type in Eintrag "Alliance".
I'll translate, he says, "Hive" is a unknown value for government type in the file, the same is for "Xenophobes" for society type. For me it makes no sense to translate this "script value" (?). The original german version empire files uses only german names for the government and society types, what results in the problem, that all non-german created ship sets are incompatible to the german version of the game. To solve this problem I please you, make them both compatbible (english and german names in german version, or maybe compatible to all language version, because it's also possible someone will create ship sets/empires in a non-english language).
Updates
| Version: | 1.33 | » 1.63 |
| Priority: | normal | » critical |
The problem is still existent.
It also concerns modifications with a different language.
| Priority: | critical | » minor |
| Statut: | active | » by design |
This is not something that can be fixed without completely redoing how the data files are structured and processed, or having Empire Interactive undo most of the translated text in the data files. The way the translations were done also prevents anyone from playing multiplayer games with anyone that doesn't have the same language version, regardless of any multilingual ability. This is an inherent structural flaw that is unlikely to ever be fixed for SE5.
A workaround exists, in the ability to install the English language version from the EU game disk. You can either have separate English and German installs, or just have one English install. Once you patch it to the 1.44 patch provided by Empire Interactive, you can install the official US version patches, keeping up to date without having to rely on EI. You can also use all English language version mods and shipsets with this version, unlike the French/German/Spanish/etc. versions.
This is not something that can be fixed without completely redoing how the data files are structured and processed, or having Empire Interactive undo most of the translated text in the data files. The way the translations were done also prevents anyone from playing multiplayer games with anyone that doesn't have the same language version, regardless of any multilingual ability. This is an inherent structural flaw that is unlikely to ever be fixed for SE5.
A workaround exists, in the ability to install the English language version from the EU game disk. You can either have separate English and German installs, or just have one English install. Once you patch it to the 1.44 patch provided by Empire Interactive, you can install the official US version patches, keeping up to date without having to rely on EI. You can also use all English language version mods and shipsets with this version, unlike the French/German/Spanish/etc. versions.



