Localization / Translation

[justkevin]

There's a localization sub-forum, but I think most people don't look at the sub-forum lists, so I decided to create temporarily pinned topic for localization.

The game was originally written in English, the only language that I am fluent in. It has been professionally translated into German. It may eventually be translated into other languages, but because of the huge amount of in-game text (currently around 90,000 words), there are always going to be many languages that it just doesn't make financial sense for me to hire a professional translator.

Currently the game has a half-dozen non-officially supported languages that have been ML translated via Google Translate. Reports that Google translation is "okay" to the extent of making the game playable, but awkward. Some people have suggested that Deepl does a better job. One challenge of only being fluent in English is that I'm not really qualified to judge when a localization is terrible, mediocre, good enough or great.

I suspect that some languages could be made "good enough" with a combination of an ML starting point and volunteer effort to clean up the more egregious problems.

If you're fluent in another language and would like to help with volunteer translation, reach out to me at [e-mail].

How Localization of Starcom: Unknown Space Works

All of the game's text, like most of its content, is stored externally as text json files in Starcom Unknown Space_Data/StreamingAssets/Localization

There you'll find the translation json, locales defintion, and drop down icon image. But if you modify those files, your changes will be overwritten every time the game updates. So don't do that.

If the game finds the directory "custom_localizations" in the local data directory: C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\LocalLow\Wx3 Labs, LLC\Starcom Unknown Space\, it will try to load localization from there after it has loaded any existing localization. So if you create a fr.json file in that folder and edit it, the game will use those changes.

If you modify custom localizations while the game is running, you can tell it to re-import with the dev command (F11) "RefreshLocales()". You should do this from in a game, as this may produce errors if done from the main menu. For example if you find the symbol "UNITS->VOID_EFFECT" and change its text, then tell the game to RefreshLocales(), you shoud immediately see the change in your HUD display. Not all text picks up changes instantly. You can change languages mid-game with "SetLocale('fr')" or "SetLocale()" to return to English.

If you're adding a language that doesn't exist at all in game, you'll also need to create a "locales.json" file in the custom_localizations folder, with the appropriate entry.

If a language requires the extended Latin alphabet, such as Cyrillic, this needs to be set in the language json file by changing the "characterSet" from "0" to "1".

Potentially important: Make sure your text editor is saving the file as UTF-8! If it saves as another format, extended characters may not be displayed correctly.

As of Kepler 17318, there's only support for the extended Latin alphabet, but I expect to add additional character sets soon.

[Illizii]

Спасибо переводчику на русский и автору за работу, по русскому в файле locales.json по умолчанию его нет , надо добавить строчку в конце
,
{
"code": "ru",
"language": "Russian"
}
Для русскоговорящих так же , не забудьте в файле ru.json добавить characterSet 1
У меня взлетело

[Nebthtet]

I can assure you that DeepL is much better - it "understands" more context and the translations are more natural. So even in you'd have only machine translation it could improve the quality a lot.

DeepL algorithm also deals better with creative texts (and most of this game is built out of those).

[PizDuke Nukem]

Originally posted by Illizii:

Спасибо переводчику на русский и автору за работу, по русскому в файле locales.json по умолчанию его нет , надо добавить строчку в конце
,
{
"code": "ru",
"language": "Russian"
}
Для русскоговорящих так же , не забудьте в файле ru.json добавить characterSet 1
У меня взлетело

Дружище, спасибо большое. Подскажи пожалуйста, у меня вместо большинства символов квадратики или просто символы отсутствуют, это проблема шрифтов?

[PizDuke Nukem]

Разобрался, в файле ru.json нужно "characterSet" сменить с "0" на "1".

[Didli-Dudly]

Originally posted by Illizii:

Спасибо переводчику на русский и автору за работу, по русскому в файле locales.json по умолчанию его нет , надо добавить строчку в конце
,
{
"code": "ru",
"language": "Russian"
}
Для русскоговорящих так же , не забудьте в файле ru.json добавить characterSet 1
У меня взлетело

А формат .json чем открывать? Стандартный блокнот подойдет?

[Sipovec]

Originally posted by Didli-Dudly:

Originally posted by Illizii:

Спасибо переводчику на русский и автору за работу, по русскому в файле locales.json по умолчанию его нет , надо добавить строчку в конце
,
{
"code": "ru",
"language": "Russian"
}
Для русскоговорящих так же , не забудьте в файле ru.json добавить characterSet 1
У меня взлетело

А формат .json чем открывать? Стандартный блокнот подойдет?

Да.
Ещё можно скачать уже готовые файлы с некоторыми исправлениями строк: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3323821707

[Arsat]

It would be financially important to indicate the other languages on the store page. Especially if, like German, it was implemented professionally.

[Illizii]

Originally posted by Pizduke Nukem:

Originally posted by Illizii:

Спасибо переводчику на русский и автору за работу, по русскому в файле locales.json по умолчанию его нет , надо добавить строчку в конце
,
{
"code": "ru",
"language": "Russian"
}
Для русскоговорящих так же , не забудьте в файле ru.json добавить characterSet 1
У меня взлетело

Дружище, спасибо большое. Подскажи пожалуйста, у меня вместо большинства символов квадратики или просто символы отсутствуют, это проблема шрифтов?

Шрифтов и перевод немного кривоват, я у себя в некоторых местах поменял вручную перевод

[Nischenliebhaber]

I was actually looking forward to the German version. However, this joy only lasted a very short time, because I noticed that it is riddled with so-called “gender language”.

This is a relatively new trend, originating from academic elites who are waging a campaign against the generic masculine.

Here's an example of the generic masculine:
"Der Kommandant gibt seinen Ersten Offizier einen Befehl" (“The commander gives an order to his first officer”)

The generic masculine says nothing about a person's gender identity. It refers to everyone. The only problem is that supporters of “gender language” confuse genus with sexuality. So while language does not recognize a biological sex, they make a biological gender out of it.

With “gender language”, the above sentence becomes the following:
"Der:die Kommandant:in gibt seine:n Erste:n Offizier:in einen Befehl"

This makes reading extremely difficult and excludes people who, for example, suffer from dyslexia (my sister have this problem) or do not understand German very well for other reasons (e.g. immigrants who are learning German).

This form of language is also rejected by the German Spelling Council and is therefore not part of the official spelling standard ( https://www.rechtschreibrat.com/geschlechtergerechte-schreibung-erlaeuterungen-begruendung-und-kriterien-vom-15-12-2023 ). It is therefore also considered incorrect in schools in many federal states such as Saxony, Thuringia and Bavaria.

Many surveys also show that around 80% of the German population completely reject this form of language.

It would therefore be nice if this form of language were removed in a patch.

After all, you have certainly paid a lot of money for the German translation. Therefore, you should know that this language form is incorrect German and far from "professional".

[rambo20022002]

Schade eigentlich wollte ich es mir kaufen, aber Gender-Sprache geht gar nicht. Sorry kein Geld von mir

[Stefan1200]

I don't even understand the need of gender language in a game. Does the game don't know the gender of a person to use the right gender in a sentence?

[justkevin]

Originally posted by Stefan1200:

I don't even understand the need of gender language in a game. Does the game don't know the gender of a person to use the right gender in a sentence?

There are two cases where it doesn't:

The player. The game never asks the player's gender because it never comes up in English, the player is only ever referred to as "you" or "the commander", etc.

The command crew. The logic of the game was designed around the possibility that who was acting as a particular expert could change. I.e., Astro might not always be Pirx. In this case, dialogues use "they" to subsequent references. E.g., "[CREW_ASTRO] attempts to open the door. After trying the handle, they notice that..."

[Mazaka]

Hi Kevin,

i found a problem in the german localization that probably affects other localizations too.

Surveyd anomalys (mostly Planets) get a localized name shown on the map, but not in the logbook. The header of logbook-entrys is still in english, so typing the name from the map into the Logbook-search doesent find the relevant entry.

[justkevin]

Originally posted by Mazaka:

Hi Kevin,

i found a problem in the german localization that probably affects other localizations too.

Surveyd anomalys (mostly Planets) get a localized name shown on the map, but not in the logbook. The header of logbook-entrys is still in english, so typing the name from the map into the Logbook-search doesent find the relevant entry.

Thanks, I've added that to my investigate list.

[Ted Flint]

About that topic, I had a look at localization sub-forum and confirm DeepL translation is way better than Google Translate after examining fr.json files. Google Translate in french is very bad, it's hard to grab story that way. In DeepL, it's like twice better.