Creating an ENGLISH File

Crash Course in ENGLISH File Creation

Making an .english file is probably the hardest stage of the process. Please read this section carefully and it may help you to download the .english template which you can just fill in. Let's get started...

The .english file has two main sections - [Header] and [Options]. The [Header] section has information about the players and AIs (money, names, etc.) and the [Options] section has the entry box (with the plot and the quote you know) and also other boxes for when you get defeated, win, and several more advanced boxes not covered in this section of the page. Use a txt editor to make the .english file, make sure you save it as a .english and not a .english.txt

The filename must be the same as that of the .fort file you just created (look in the netstorm\d directory).

To let people with the German copy of the game play your campaign, copy your .english file to a .german file of the same name (or translate it if you can).

The [Header] has these variables:

missionType - this always equals 'Tutorial' ie. missionType="Tutorial"
missionNumber
- the number of the mission in the campaign, if this is a 1 mission campaign just make it 1.
moreGeysers
- to control whether geysers appear during the game, 1 for yes, 0 for no.
myStartMoney
- starting money for the player.
myTech
- the player's knowledge. Please download tech.txt for a list of the unit names.
title
- the title of the map.

ainName - the name of the nth AI player. Replace the yellow n with a number from 2 to 8.
ai
nTech - the nth AI's knowledge.
ai
nStartMoney - the nth AI's starting money.
ai
nGeyserAttachments - the number of times the nth AI will attach to a geyser.
ai
nCollectors - the number of collectors the AI will build to collect storm crystals.
ai
nTimeBetweenMoves - the time between the AI's moves (reaction time basically). Range approx. 1-5.
ai
nAllyList - the list of allies this AI has. '1' is the player.
ai
ncolor - the colour of this AI, make sure you get the right colours for the right players!

Be sure to change the yellow n to a number from 2 to 8. Obviously you can have more than 1 AI in a game, just copy the variables and change the yellow n number and the values.

The [Options] section has these mini-sections:

[A.] - This section is the entry box, and it uses HTML code (basically) for the text in the box. The tags are <I>, <P>, <H1>, <H2>, <H3> and <C>. Please go to a page on learning HTML if you don't know how and check out the .english template if you are unsure what to do.

Also you will need to add these 2 lines after the HTML code in the [A.] section:

$Button=Review Knowledge,ShowTechnology,55
$Button=Play Mission,DoNothing,0

These are the buttons to play the mission and review the knowledge.

[Succeeded][BadTeamDead] - These are really two sections but if you have killed the bad team you usually win. This section uses HTML code just like the [A.] section.

Add these 2 lines after the HTML code:

<$Config,Done{mission.fileName}=1>
$Button=Leave Missions,MissionAbort,1

[Failed] - The section for if you fail the mission. Just like the others put some HTML code here.

And add this line:

$Button=Continue,Tell,TryAgain

[END] - Finally add [END] to the .english file. Do not type anything after this. Phew, you are finished at last!

The Template

Download the template and make your life easier! Just fill it in and you are done! Download it.

Back