Transfer Build Templates Across Games

[Atoombom007]

Commanders!

I was wondering whether it is possible to transfer build templates between games. That is, I have one game installed on a laptop, while I have one installed on my desktop. Is it possible to localize the files for the build templates (if there are any), to copy them over to my desktop version? This way I would save a lot of time creating new templates. Has somebody tried this?

Thanks in advance!

[Ceejay]

What do you mean by build templates?

[Atoombom007]

Building templates, layouts. You know you can organize buildings, how they are placed in the world and make a template out of them? You just need 3 clicks to order an engineer to build a whole base (if necessary).

[Ceejay]

omg, I have played this game for years, Ive never heard of that feature, never even seen in mentioned on the forums. How have I missed this lol

Ah it seems you need a mod, that would explain it.

[TwinuX]

Originally posted by Ceejay:

omg, I have played this game for years, Ive never heard of that feature, never even seen in mentioned on the forums. How have I missed this lol

Ah it seems you need a mod, that would explain it.

No, they are in the vanilla game. Building setups can be added to a build template from the units bar and built with engineers via the fifth 'templates' tab.

[Ceejay]

Originally posted by TwinuX:

Originally posted by Ceejay:

omg, I have played this game for years, Ive never heard of that feature, never even seen in mentioned on the forums. How have I missed this lol

Ah it seems you need a mod, that would explain it.

No, they are in the vanilla game. Building setups can be added to a build template from the units bar and built with engineers via the fifth 'templates' tab.

I shall have to give it a go, all the vids I found they had FAforever installed. I am still amazed I have never come across this feaure, had the game since launch, played it at some of the I series events (hundreds of gamers in one building :) )

To think after all these years you can still learn something new about a game :p

[Hollow]

Eventually also missed: A repair order on the wreckage of a destroyed structure will cause the ordered unit to rebuild that structure if it can do so (capable of constructing, matching faction, matching tech level or higher).

[Atoombom007]

The building templates are an absolute charm to work with. If you have a nice looking layout, you can plot it down in seconds. Even better when in combination with T2 or T3 forward defense posts!

But back to the question: anybody an idea?

[Hollow]

Link
I'd like if build templates had a visible UI element allowing to manipulate the order in which things are built and allowing to replace certain structures with other structures of the same size by a single swap type selection, like replacing a T2 def build pattern with T3 def that only UEF has instead of creating yet another for UEF only, if build patterns could have categories, such as defense, economy, adjacency, buildup, recently added & uncategorized, whatever else. It'd also be a major improvement if engineers wouldn't constantly block another while building things by driving onto the spot where the next structure on the list is supposed to be built, by driving to the spot where already 100% gathered wreckage was but no longer is and that over and over for each engineer that wasn't part of the gathering engineers, eventually causing the other engineers to drop the build order for that blocked structure, if terrain deformations due to build order, leading to a pattern no longer constructible situation would get a warning indicator ahead of that happening (or better yet: NO terraforming for construction that causes this issue and other issues in the first place), if units would properly update their events while constructing, like when a construction is finished to proceed to the next on the list instead of keeping a repair order on that 100% health finished construction and trying to get close to it instead of trying to get to the next construction object right away (which is an issue that also leads to unplanned extra experimentals being built by construction units that arrive late / don't update their construction queue properly), if build mode setups could already be stored as templates instead of having to wait for something to be built to 100% before being able to create a template with that and if build patterns that couldn't be saved (in some cases a build pattern can't create a template; upgrade stages or repair stations, if I recall correctly) there should be some UI element, like a not-possible sound element, letting the user know that an action failed.

[Tydo]

Originally posted by Atoombom007:

The building templates are an absolute charm to work with. If you have a nice looking layout, you can plot it down in seconds. Even better when in combination with T2 or T3 forward defense posts!

But back to the question: anybody an idea?

path: %localappdata%\gas powered games\supreme commander forged alliance\
file: game.prefs

Open that with a plain text editor (like notepad) and copy the block that starts with 'build_templates = {'
Take take to include the matching '}'

Paste that into your game.prefs file on your laptop or vice versa.

You can copy the whole file, but then you end up with broken resolution settings on one of your machines - and the game does not handle that gracefully. Simpler to just do that bit of copy-paste described above.

[Tydo]

ps that is for steam SCFA. On FAF there might be a separate game.prefs elsewhere.