how to mod ATG?

[w7r_]

[ernie]

That is a hard question to answer. There is a whole editor to explore, and it is pretty wide in its scope. In short everything is something you can mod... or get creative and find a way around it to find a similar effect. At least that is what I found.

You can get into the editor by loading a scenario, and instead of hitting the play button, hit the edit button. Unless you want to start from scratch, then just hit the Editor button on the main menu.

[ormand]

You can also get some tips on things that you can do on the Matrix website under Mods, where there are several tutorials on things that you can do in the editor.

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=10260

You can basically change everything. You can edit all the properties of the subformations, change their pictures, etc. A lot of it has to be done by hand, which can be a bit tedious. BUT, if you learn how to use the event editor, you can create event that can automate a lot of it. You can also use stringlists as a temporary (even quasi permanent) storage area that you can read in and then use to set data. For example, I have a stringlist that stores the movement costs for each terrain type and movement type. If I want to adjust one, I edit the stringlist (by exporting it and editing the file in an editor, or even excel), then import the stringlist and run and event to apply the movement costs to each terrain by running an event that reads the stringlist and then applying it with an Exec function. You can do this by clicking on the yellow = button, which will run the event "now". In short, there is a lot that you can do with the editor that can transform the entire game. It does, however, take patience and some thought. There is a bit of a learning curve with the editor, and if you have some experience coding, the event language isn't that hard to use, it is just a bit clunky because you need to use the mouse to "edit" the event command lines. It isn't so easy to use another system as it has to be interpreted by the ATG engine and call ATG functions and subroutines.

I did make several changes to the editor in the beta that makes the editor a bit easier to use, more powerful, and debug. For example, you can use a popup message that can tell you what a particular variable is so that you can be sure that it is doing what you thought it was.