[GALACTIC ADVENTURES] Space Stage Timeline Fix

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Liskomato
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[GALACTIC ADVENTURES] Space Stage Timeline Fix

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DOWNLOAD LINK: https://drive.google.com/uc?export=down ... 6WbLGuv1az


Ever since 10 years ago, when Spore: Galactic Adventures expansion pack first got into the hands of the players, a small bug has been ruining many players' experiences with the campaign, namely the Timeline Scramble bug. You see, when you socialize with a creature in an adventure tasked to you in the Space Stage, Spore will keep record of that befriended creature in your timeline. But as it just happens that the Creature Stage uses that same event to record when you've socialized creatures there, the timeline gets confused as for which stage that occured in, and places the socialization record found in the adventure TO the creature stage section, creating an incredible mess in the process that is very hard to read. It will recover itself on time, but your creature's history has been forever ruined for the creature part.

Image
A fixed space stage timeline with the mod.

This mod itself is very simple, tweaking the related timeline file so that it points to the space stage as its parent, rather than the creature stage, fixing the timeline for the space stage in the process but scrambling the creature stage timeline instead. However, I've found out that this way the timeline is much less messier than it is normally, and with one of my campaigns it resolved itself by the civ stage. I think that could also be credited with my other tweaks in the file, however, making it so that the socialized creatures counted in the event will not reset until the creature stage's end, and then acting like it belonged to the Space Stage timeline in the first place.

Image
An example of the creature stage timeline with the mod.

You could also try to avoid the scramble this way by restricting yourself from befriending creatures in the creature stage altogether, which is pretty easy if you go with the carnivore/predator path. Also, one thing to note is that allying allied creatures/adding them to the posse/crew doesn't leave a record in the timeline either, so feel free to do that as much as you like. It's also why Concert in the Park doesn't scramble your timeline, as you're only really tasked to add the singers to your crew, nothing else. Not sure if the Spoffit in that same adventure can do that, so keep that in mind.

This mod was originally created by Wolferajd and shared in the Sporum, but as that site got shut down and his original mod link has died, I've decided to recreate this mod myself. Here's what he said about it in this archived Sporum post, found from this link: https://web.archive.org/web/20180901151 ... 80021.page
Wolferajd wrote:This mod will fix timeline mashup casued when playing Advanture under Space stage,
but will instead damage timeline on Creature stage.

The bug is very simple, in crg_befriendsomething.prop key "parent" points to Creature stage,
and at the same time Galactic Advantures uses crg_befriendsomething.prop

This mod does NOT fix the bug, but it instead replaces parent to point to Space stage and remove some other properties from it.

Mod can be download at [Link deleted. The file is gone, and the site could potentially host malware in it.]
This mod is intended only for Galactic Advantures and should be placed in Data folder of Spore_EP1

This mod changes only display of befriend event on Timeline and you can disable it at any time by simply deleting it or changing extension package to old

This may be especially useful if you don't care about Creature stage timeline, but want to make sure Space stage is fine. Creature stage timeline mashup along timeline fix itself somewhere around Tribe stage, so I think it's good trade-off.

I don't think that this glitch can be trully fixed with modding, you'd had to change exe file so that it'll read additional prop with different parent. There exist additional prop that has also parent as creature stage #AE2329C6 but it does not appear to be used by game at all + even if it would be used, it still points to creature stage, which won't fix the issue.

A third prop specifically designed for Advantures and change of game code would be only way to fix it, but that's something only EA/Maxis could do. I guess we can't count on that.

However, perhaps I'm wrong and there's something in packages that could repoint it to third prop? I haven't found so far.


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