This is a general Q&A document. Please update this as nessissary if you find an answer to a question (For example, on the forums).
The Table of Contents holds a list of the questions:
Helpfully provided by 
the-tempest, this list should help:
The different types of modding are as follows;Modeling – Creating new buildings and units (or scenery, etc) to use ingame, and rigging/animating them so they'll be able to move, fire, fight. You can get the best and currently only supported tool (trial version, 30 days) at
Texturing – This is adding textures to models. After using Max to unwrap your model, you can texture it with a nifty looking skin, and make it teamcolourable so you can use the army painter with it. Photoshop, at
Sound Editing – Making new sounds by distorting sound effects you create, creating theme songs on electric pianos and then editing them on computer. You'll need a lot of gear for this, and probably adobe audition, trial also available at
Coding – Cheapest. This is for editing unit and building statistics in the game, creating new units, making new abilities, races... absolutely necessary. Its also getting the modeled/textured units ingame. You will need Relic's mod tools to do this. Get them at
Mapping – Creating battlefields for your soldiers to fight over. Not quite modding, but still sort of the same. Pretty simple, only needs mod tools as well.
Thats the different types of modding, pick one you like best. If you are going solo, check out coding first, and fool around with that a bit. REMEMBER TO READ THE README that comes with the tools, so you can figure out what you are doing. Start simple, work your way up. Check out Palii's tutorials on
Remeber to check out the wiki for more information where available, and the External Pages / Tutorials for other site's information.
See the Troubleshooting section for any information on why your mission editor, max script or anything isn't working. Also please search the forums!
See the Audio Tool documentation, and read the section on Conversion: Exsisting FDA to usable sound files.
See this page for links.
There are a few ways of activating a mod (in version 1.3 or higher).
The best way is to run the game's exe file (called “W40k.exe”) with the parameter:
So create a shortcut to the exe (or a copy of an exsisting shortcut) and edit it so it looks like this:
In the “Target” line. This will load the “modname” .module file, and whatever is contained in the file.
The second way is to use the Mod Manager in-game – a useful thing to note in any readme's so people can easily swap between active mods at any time without restarting the game! To access it, go to the main menu in Dawn of War and select “Mod Manager” from the main menu options. If you don't have it, get the latest patch (it is added in version 1.3 or greater), and looks like this:
Dawn of War's Mod ManagerHere, you can select and activate a single module at a time, the default game, if you wish to turn off all mods, is called Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War. However, sometimes for some items it needs to load them at run time, whatever was loaded at run time may be present instead of what the module has. Search the forums for more information.
Q: How do I put text information into the game?
You need to use a UCS file – see this documentation.
Q: Group Weapons
- Do close combat group weapons work? (it seems, only the “name_for_this_weapon_choice” from the hardpoint options gets through)
- Making the weapon priority lists is delicate, anything special to watch out for?
A:
Group Weapons – The idea is you set up targeting priorities on the child weapons and once a target has been selected / issued to the unit it will use the weapon with the best armour type matching. It does have a few bugs that have not yet been addressed so your milage may vary. It's only for shooting weapons, it will not work for melee weapons.Q: Old Lua Bugs
- Enable_infiltration modifier only works for buildings. (servo-skull wants to use it, but can't)
- Is_display_requirement doesn't work for weapon uprgade icons.
- Default_hardpoint_weapon_modifier1,2,3... doesn't work if used by an ability.
A:
- Enable infiltration *should* work fine on buildings or squads. Check W40k – all entities have the infiltration extension and in the modifier_apply_ext 'modifiers' table it get's turned off by default for buildings.
- “– Is_display_requirement doesn't work for weapon uprgade icons.” – No, they are not technically research.
- “– Default_hardpoint_weapon_modifier1,2,3... doesn't work if used by an ability.” The should, what is the application type?
Q: FX issues
- When a sgm mesh is added to an FX, the FX Editor crashes when trying to render it.
- Meshes inside an FX only appear (in OE or the game) if their marker doesn't move. In OE, when I drag the “frame bar”, it is there in every frame, but not when the play button is released.
- Can all FX types be scaled to the target like a beam FX?
A:
- “– When a sgm mesh is added to an FX, the FX Editor crashes when trying to render it.” – Will look into it.
- «– Meshes inside an FX only appear (in OE or the game) if their marker doesn't move.» – Will look into it.
- “– Can all FX types be scaled to the target like a beam FX?” Only beams have a length, therefore only they can be scaled. Everything else is lifetime dependent.
Q: Various Console Errors
- LOCALIZER — Failed to load W40k\Locale\english\XXXXXX.ucs due to parsing error
- This is caused by a badly made USC file. Make sure to follow the directions in the USC file documentation, such points as using the W40k.usc file, and Notepad may be the problems. Note: english is replaced by appropriate local language.
- LOCALIZER — Requested string ID 'XXXXXXXXXX' does not fit in a valid key range!
- The string ID XXXXXXXXXX (A USC range number) in a file (.SCAR,. LUA,. RGB) doesn't match up to something in any of the loaded USC files. If the previous error stops the loading of one or more USC files, that will be the probable cause. Else, check your files for references to number XXXXXXXXXX, and check the USC file to see if it has a reference number XXXXXXXXXX. See also this documentation.
- GAME — Warning: Unable to load campaign file 'DATA:SCENARIOS\SP\XXXXXX.camp'.
- The campaign file is not in the correct format. See this information on the .camp file for more information how to fix errors.
Links
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