How to make a custom gamestart ?

[Sixters]

Hi there,

I would like to make some custom game starts to further customise my experience, and i admit speed up a bit the early-game because i've made separate playtroughs of the early game, and now i just wanna go straight to mid/late.
Does anybody know of a good tutorial for this, or could explain here to do it ?
If that matter, i would like to make a custom gamestart for a quite heavily modded game with DeadAirGateOverhaul, so sectors and faction positions etc are not vanilla.

I found this quite complete (and complex) guide but it's for XR so i dont know if this is accurate and still okay for X4 or not at all : viewtopic.php?t=382132

Thanks to everyone that read this

[Newinger]

I would be interested in such a guide, too. For me it would be sufficient to explain what one needs to change in the xml files of existing downloadable game starts in order to get a different starting sector/station type, different character name, different species, different owned ships/stations, and biography text.

[Sixters]

I'm currently following the linked guide and comparing line by line with a random custom start mod i found for X4.
For the moment it looks quite similar, so i will make some test and tell my journey there.

Still, it's like walking with eyes closed for me. Like for exemple what is the "Location galaxy" in the gamestarts.xml ? I found the value here different between the tutorial and the custom start i'm looking at. Might be related to the fact tutorial was for XR so i will use X4's custom mods values (i'm currently looking at the Dead Air custom start and another start called Nopileos true fortune)

[FlynTie]

Fun fact, Egosoft actually has a "creative" gamestart that let's you setup a lot of things (Name, Starting Ship including fitting, Starting Sector, Money, Relations and more) before you start your game but it's set to hidden/debug. I'm sure there's a reason for that but since modding sometimes allows us to uncover the hidden secrets i've very quickly made a mod that enables this Gamestart.

https://mega.nz/file/dppwATAI#tlKyx4y4C ... AAe3iuiAv4

Install it like any other mod by dropping it in your extensions folder inside your game folder.

Again remember there might be a reason why it's set to hidden, so don't expect support from Egosoft. But from what i've seen it shouldn't create any issues.

As for the How-To make your own Gamestart, i'd recommend digging through the gamefiles yourself.
gamestarts.xml inside the libraries folder is a good start but also DeadAir's Gate Overhaul is a good learning resource.

[Newinger]

Fun fact, Egosoft actually has a "creative" gamestart that let's you setup a lot of things (Name, Starting Ship including fitting, Starting Sector, Money, Relations and more) before you start your game but it's set to hidden/debug. I'm sure there's a reason for that but since modding sometimes allows us to uncover the hidden secrets i've very quickly made a mod that enables this Gamestart.

https://mega.nz/file/dppwATAI#tlKyx4y4C ... AAe3iuiAv4

Install it like any other mod by dropping it in your extensions folder inside your game folder.

Awesome -- you really made my day. This is what I always wished for. Simply creating a new game with some starting parameters, like in "Alternate Start" mods for Skyrim or Oblivion Don't know if it will have any unwanted side effects yet, but I'll try

[FlynTie]

Awesome -- you really made my day. This is what I always wished for. Simply creating a new game with some starting parameters, like in "Alternate Start" mods for Skyrim or Oblivion Don't know if it will have any unwanted side effects yet, but I'll try

Don't thank me this is all on Egosoft, i've merely removed the debug flag so that it shows up in the list. But it certainly is a neat feature and i too would love to see it find its way into the game.

[NightmareNight91]

I just want to be able to change the gender of the player char, I want to play the Zyarth start but dont want to be a woman. Likewise for the accomplished scientist start.

[Lord Micha]

Absolute fantastic! Thanks a lot lot lot!!!!!