Space Empires IV: A New Space Race

A New Space Race for Space Empires IV Fans
Free Download of a Manifesto Games Exclusive

The Atonix race for Space Empires IV can be downloaded here. Once downloaded, unzip it; the Atonix folder contains four files and a subfolder of images. Save Atonix.emp to your game folder, and the three .txt files in the Data folder. Finally, copy the images folder in the Pictures\Races\ directory.

PC games rule! I have always believed that PCs rule, even when the so-called PCs were Apple II, Atari 800, and Commodore 64/VIC-20 computers. And the main reason I always felt like PCs rule was customization. In the early days of Avalon Hill, Tom Cleaver designed a game called Galaxy. It was a grid-based game of interstellar conquest where each letter of the alphabet appearing on the X,Y coordinates represented a quantity of economic points which could, in turn, be used for building more ships for assault or defense. Galaxy was a good game as it was published, but my friends and I disliked the fact that (because the Gunnery Factor [the % chance of hitting an enemy ship] was randomly determined) your chance of hitting an enemy ship might be 92% in one battle, but 11% in the next. When we discovered that the game was written in Applesoft Basic, I quickly modified the one line of code so that the differential between each side’s Gunnery Factor could never be greater than 40%. Of course, had the game been published in compiled code, that wouldn’t have been as easy.

I quickly discovered two truths. First, Galaxy wasn’t the only game that could be modified. Second, I wasn’t a particularly good scenario designer. Yet, whether it was creating poorly balanced Battlefront scenarios or adapting Stainless Steel Rat stories for Galactic Gladiators (in honor of my humble efforts, Harry Harrison autographed my copy of Stainless Steel Rat for President, “To the guy who wrote the game”) on the Apple II+, I was always excited about the potential for redesigning, “enhancing,” or customizing games. My only professionally published “game” design was in the early days of the 486 processor when I was asked to design a scenario for Empire Deluxe. “Vortex” was designed as a logistics challenge where units competed on a planet with near concentric-circles of land. My Heroes of Might & Magic scenario had almost no resources, requiring one to make extremely difficult military decisions on a stylized map of Wales.

So, it is no wonder that I was excited about the potential for Space Empires IV. With Space Empires IV, you can add additional civilizations and choose their general demeanors. You can change the appearance of their ships and bases. You can change their priorities. And it isn’t done with smoke and mirrors. It isn’t based on difficult coding. All you need is a paint program that will create .bmp files and either Wordpad or Notepad so that you can modify .txt files. Anyone can do it.

Custom Sun Ships for Space Empires IV

Of course, that’s easy to say. How easy is it to do? First of all, the on-disk documentation gives you file structures and lets you know what files actually affect game play and what files are for aesthetic consideration. Second, all of the graphics go into one folder in one spot, identified by the name of your empire (under Pictures/Races/Racename with Racename being your civilization’s name). So, if you follow the naming conventions and the basic file sizes, you can easily create your own look.

Now, some of you are already saying that you can’t draw stick figures. If there is a heavy graphics component to the customization of Space Empires IV, how can you create it without having artistic talent? Truth be told, I have the same problem. But, I look around for opportunities.

Birth of the Atonix Race

I wanted to create a civilization with an Egyptian flavor. Recycling earth civilizations and mythologies into my science-fiction campaigns (in role-playing games like Traveller T-20 and Gurps Space or in any PC game where you are allowed to name characters and ships) is probably a side-effect from growing up with the original Star Trek television series. I decided that my alien race would be humanoid and would have a name from the Egyptian pantheon in the name of their empire. Thus, the initial idea for the Atonix was born.

But, I still had the artistic challenge. Fortunately, I had a solution. A few weeks ago, I mentioned an independent game designer named Thom Robertson of 18 Giants. Thom recently shared how he develops space ships for an arcade game by using procedurally-drawn ships. The simple little program (which he allows you to download from the site) creates 12 ships at a time and allows you to apply several different textures to those ship designs. I downloaded Thom’s program and would wait till I had several ship designs on-screen that I liked. Then, I would toggle through the textures until the one that I had chosen was available. Since, I wanted to do something with an Egyptian theme, I chose a texture that reminded me of the sun.

Thom Robertson's Spaceship Generator

STAND IN REVIEW Working from a screen capture of Thom Robertson’s procedurally generated spaceships, you only need to crop and resize to the 128x128 and 36x36 pixel sizes used for the RaceName_Portrait_shiptype.bmp and RaceName_Mini_shiptype.bmp files in the game. The black background masks perfectly with the game mechanics if you do this.

Then, I would capture the screen and paste it into my paint program. I saved it as a bitmap file (.bmp) and then, cropped out the specific ships I wanted to fill out the list of 37 ship and object types needed for the game files. Using JASC Paint Shop Pro, I resized all of the Atonix_Portrait_shiptype.bmp files to the 128x128 pixel dimensions and saved them all in my SE4 folder under a new Atonix (the name of my race) subfolder (x:\Program Files\Strategy First\se4\Pictures\Races\Atonix). I did all of the 37 portrait images (128x128 pixels) first (this required 8 screenshots of 12 ships each to get the 37 ships/objects I wanted) and saved the images to the Atonix subfolder. Then, I opened all of them in my paint program. One by one, I resized them to the 36x36 pixel (Mini) format and saved them as Atonix_Mini_shiptype.bmp into that folder. For those interested in doing the same thing, a list of the required ship types follows this article.

Although the main purpose of these ships is to provide a graphic variety compared to the others in the game, I really like keeping the Egyptian theme. So, as I call each ship out of the archives via the in-game design menu, I give them names from Egyptian mythology: Mnevis, Ptah, Osiris, Isis, Seth, Nut, Shu, Hathor, Thoth, Anubis, Horus, Maat, Amon, Re, Akh (or Akhu for “spirits”), Taurt, Apis, Heqt, and others.

That left only a couple of graphics obstacles for Mr. Artistically Challenged. The folder for each SE4 race contains a portrait picture of what the “race” looks like (the same picture in three different sizes), a unique explosion sequence for each race, and a symbolic representation for the race. I decided I would modify an old comics image to represent my cosmic Pharaoh. So, I scanned the image, opened it in my paint program, cropped it to the desired shape (basically, a head shot), and modified the headpiece and background to look like I wanted it to look. Then, I resized it to fit the 128x128, 36x36, and 20x20 pixel requirements. If you prefer something ready-made, some other options are available at http://jdtaylor.home.mindspring.com and fit beautifully into the game’s look and feel.

Opening Menu with Custom Race

ATONIX COMICS Although my choice of racial portrait didn’t match the 3D art included with the game, I wanted my race to have a different look. Just putting my folder of images in the Pictures\Races\ subfolder caused the race to show up as a graphics choice.

The other two solutions were somewhat more makeshift. The file called Racename_Main.bmp represents national symbols used in various places in the game. Since I didn’t understand all of the functionality, I merely copied Racename_Main.bmp file from another race’s folder and loaded it into my paint program. I changed their national symbol on the far left into a pyramid to represent my Egyptian theme and replaced the other race’s “colors” with my own red, yellow, and orange “sun” palette. In the same way, I loaded in another race’s Racename_BigExplosion.bmp file and replaced their colors with my “sun” palette.
Paint Shop Pro Explosions

SWITCH-A-BOOM Since I didn’t know how to make the right kind of explosion effects to work in the game, I merely changed the colors of the pixels in an existing game file.

Once you have all of these files saved in the right format and placed in your Racename subfolder under the game’s Pictures\Races folder, you are basically in business. However, there are three more minor tasks to perform should you want to be able to choose your empire’s name, the title of your emperor, and the name of your emperor from the menu’s pull-down memory. First, open the Data subfolder within the game folder. There you will find a number of .txt files. The three you particularly need are EmperorNames.txt, EmperorTitles.txt, and EmpireNames.txt.

All three files are merely text lists. Open them up using Wordpad or Notepad and enter the name(s) you would like to use for your emperor in EmperorNames.txt. Save it. Then, enter the title(s) you would like to use for your emperor in EmperorTitles.txt, and save it. Finally, type in the name of your empire in EmpireNames.txt and save it. Now, when you open the game, you can choose the desired selections from the pull-down menu.

In the Atonix mod folder (download here), there is one folder with four loose files and a subfolder of images. One of the loose files is the Atonix.emp file. Save it to the Empires folder in your game folder. Then, save the three .txt files in the Data folder. These will replace your existing files but will not damage game play. Finally, copy the Atonix folder into your Pictures\Races\ subdirectory. Now, you’re ready to become an Egyptian in outer space. Here’s hoping you enjoy downloading my zip file, atonix.zip available for free download on this site.

Checklist for Images

Racename_BigExplosion.bmp
Racename_Main.bmp
Racename_Mini_battlecruiser.bmp
Racename_Mini_battleship.bmp
Racename_Mini_battlestation.bmp
Racename_Mini_carrier.bmp
Racename_Mini_carrierheavy.bmp
Racename_Mini_carrierlight.bmp
Racename_Mini_colonyship.bmp
Racename_Mini_cruiser.bmp
Racename_Mini_destroyer.bmp
Racename_Mini_dreadnaught.bmp
Racename_Mini_drone.bmp
Racename_Mini_escort.bmp
Racename_Mini_fighter.bmp
Racename_Mini_fighterlarge.bmp
Racename_Mini_fightermedium.bmp
Racename_Mini_fightersmall.bmp
Racename_Mini_fleet.bmp
Racename_Mini_frigate.bmp
Racename_Mini_lightcruiser.bmp
Racename_Mini_mine.bmp
Racename_Mini_minegroup.bmp
Racename_Mini_satellite.bmp
Racename_Mini_satellitegroup.bmp
Racename_Mini_spacestation.bmp
Racename_Mini_starbase.bmp
Racename_Mini_transportlarge.bmp
Racename_Mini_transportmedium.bmp
Racename_Mini_transportsmall.bmp
Racename_Mini_troopshiplarge.bmp
Racename_Mini_troopshipmedium.bmp
Racename_Mini_troopshipsmall.bmp
Racename_Mini_weaponplatformlarge.bmp
Racename_Mini_weaponplatformmedium.bmp
Racename_Mini_weaponplatformsmall.bmp
Racename_Pop_Mini.bmp
Racename_Pop_Portrait.bmp
Racename_Portrait_battlecruiser.bmp
Racename_Portrait_battleship.bmp
Racename_Portrait_battlestation.bmp
Racename_Portrait_carrier.bmp
Racename_Portrait_carrierheavy.bmp
Racename_Portrait_carrierlight.bmp
Racename_Portrait_colony.bmp
Racename_Portrait_colonyship.bmp
Racename_Portrait_cruiser.bmp
Racename_Portrait_destroyer.bmp
Racename_Portrait_dreadnaught.bmp
Racename_Portrait_drone.bmp
Racename_Portrait_escort.bmp
Racename_Portrait_fighter.bmp
Racename_Portrait_fighterlarge.bmp
Racename_Portrait_fightermedium.bmp
Racename_Portrait_fightersmall.bmp
Racename_Portrait_fleet.bmp
Racename_Portrait_frigate.bmp
Racename_Portrait_lightcruiser.bmp
Racename_Portrait_mine.bmp
Racename_Portrait_minegroup.bmp
Racename_Portrait_satellite.bmp
Racename_Portrait_satellitegroup.bmp
Racename_Portrait_spacestation.bmp
Racename_Portrait_starbase.bmp
Racename_Portrait_transportlarge.bmp
Racename_Portrait_transportmedium.bmp
Racename_Portrait_transportsmall.bmp
Racename_Portrait_troopshiplarge.bmp
Racename_Portrait_troopshipmedium.bmp
Racename_Portrait_troopshipsmall.bmp
Racename_Portrait_weaponsplatformlarge.bmp
Racename_Portrait_weaponsplatformmedium.bmp
Racename_Portrait_weaponsplatformsmall.bmp
Atonix_Race_Portrait.bmp