Hey everyone! I'm new to modding, but I spent about 8 hours yesterday reading and teaching myself how to extract and install mods into the right directory and how to even get started on messing with strings to mod in-game stats (I suck with computers but I learn quickly).
There's a lot I've got to learn yet, and you experienced, brilliant minds can save me tons of hours of trial and error by letting me know if these sweet ideas are even a possibility. This is for now, the closest thing I can get to creating my "own" fun as hell game( WITHOUT CHANGING GRAPHICS OR TEXTURES!), so please help make my dream come true!
Without further ado, I bring you just some of my great ideas. Possible? or just a dream:
(most values I just pulled out of my ass to use as an example)
PHEW!!
Okay, so I know that was a lot to take in. but if I could implement even just some of these things into the game it would add HUNDREDS of hours of play time for me and my buddies. Sorry for the goofy layout, lol. probably my 3rd time ever posting on a website
I've got quite a few more sick ideas for abilities, but I'll save those and see what you guys say is actually possible from the list above. I've read many posts and there is a really nice community of helpful modders here. Hope you brainy fellas can help me out!
1. Yes
2. ?
3. yes
4. ?
5. Err sort of, you would have to make them all capital ships, after that no
6. ?
7. um.......IDK I doubt it though
8. ?
9. yes
10. ?
11. yes
12. ?
13. no
14. ?
15. yes
16. ?
17. yes. Beam weapons
18. ?
19. um sort of ... it would still be healed by other things like repair bays/ships
20. ?
21. yes
22. ?
23. no
Thanks a bunch for the quick response! How certain are you in your modding abilities?
I'm so glad there were only a few "no"s, but that last idea sounded like it'd be a blast
Anyone else feel like putting in their input in the form of answers or an example of how i'd code some of these? like I said I pick things up quick.. so if someone could point me in the right direction I should be able to do most of the work..... eventually.
Hopeing that the uzi, harpo, zombierus or myfist0 guys take a shot at some of these. from the posts I've read those guys really know their stuff!
again thanks for the input so far Ryat!
Its pretty good actually. I am part of the Distant Stars mod team. Some of the things you asked about we already implemented into ours (1, 3, and 11). Feel free to download and study it. Others that are 'yes' actually are already abilities that are in game (9, 21). Number 15 is merely an integer item. Majority of the time if you study some of the abilities that are already there you can figure out those other concepts fairly quickly.
PS - Uzi is gone but the others are still around. I work with them a lot.
mosiba, LISTEN to ryat. he is a more experience modder than myself.
I am a file tweaker, utility programmer and occasional player only, and myfist0 has also done a fair bit to help modders and players, but he started posting after several of my utilities had been released.
harpo
17.
THAT IS NOT HOW BEAM WEAPONS WORK!!!!!!!
You would have to redo several values and create a reload time of say: 0.1 secs. Beam weapons apply damage at a more spread out rate, but still not continuous.
yes thank Syneptus, I was giving him a starting point to go from.
sorry if I blew up...
its, okay
tbh I only had a vague idea of how to get what he wanted and I knew it had to do with beam weapons. You added more for him to look into.
Again, thank you folks for all of the help. Ryat I'm really glad you brought up your mod because yesterday I spent hours looking for existing mods with similar ideas that I could branch off of, but couldn't find any.
I'll be downloading yours as soon as I find it after this post. I've got some reaaaalllly awesome ability ideas for ships but still I'd like to see if anyone's willing to maybe show me exactly how I'd create one of the abilities mentioned in my post so I could go off of that before I bring any other ideas out into the open (hopefully tonight I can teach myself how to somewhat tweak an ability to do what I want it to though).
You guys are the best, thanks for supporting me - I know how hard/irritating/frustrating it can be to have tons of n00bs asking you all to show them how to do something, I've been in your shoes but only in other types of games. That's why I have been trying to teach myself how to do this stuff but it's tough when you know nothing about computers!
I think once I can really get all of this down, creating abilities and sick effects for this game will be a new hobby of mine for the next few months.
keep the input coming! =D
No problem. Just pass us a concept or an issue you are having and we will be glad to help.
So far I haven't been able to learn anything tonight =/
I downloaded Distant stars 1.01 and it won't work for me after I enable & apply the mod. My computer just freezes till I hit ctr alt del.when I start up my game it says Trinity v1.011 on the bottom right if that means anything.
I also tried to just view the entities but they're all in .bin. Spent 2 and a half hours messing with harpo's bin to txt converter and followed myfist0's .bat method of converting bin to txt with no luck with either of them >=/
If I have to I'll convert each file manually with fist's method but screw that for now, kinda burnt out >.<
think I'll just spend another hour or two on here for the night, looking at the default abilities in diplomacy and see if I can make anything out of it
doodoo:(
moshiba, for my textbingui just make a COPY of the mod in the mods folder, the start the textbingui select the COPY folder, text mode and click the convert files, the worst limit for converting distant stars would be about 40 minutes on a celeron 1.8ghz laptop system.
Quoting harpo99999, reply 4mosiba, LISTEN to ryat. he is a more experience modder than myself.I am a file tweaker, utility programmer and occasional player only, and myfist0 has also done a fair bit to help modders and players, but he started posting after several of my utilities had been released.harpo
MoSHiBa, I received your PM. Can't agree more with harpo here... Ryat is a very experienced modder and harpo's tools have been invaluable.
I'm a software developer that got into modding Sins (first time modding a game too) around a year ago so there are still many neuances to Sins I am still discovering. I find the best way to learn something is pick a small achievable project and give it a go, and then expand from there. The more you mod the better base of knowledge you will develop. Don't be afraid to post when you hit issues with your modding endeavors.
Also, on the starbase question (19) you could mod the races to exclude starbases from healing based abilities (targetFilter in AbilityXXX.entity or BuffXXX.entity) and tweak the Hull and Shield Restore rates (StarBaseUpgrade) to meet your needs. Pros/cons aside on this concept, this would actually be a good modding exercise for you to perform and build some initial success from.
On a side note, it might take more than a few months of modding to create what you want especially when you mix real life in. I've been working on my main mod for nearly a year now which is young in comparison to many of the mods that are already in the works. This is one reason why I suggest picking small achievable projects to build successes upon.
Good luck,
Zmb5
you guys are the shit!
If you wish to do beam weapons as continuous streams,(I would have done it as projectiles) you MUST change duration to be the same as the cooldown time. For example, cooldown = 0.1 and duration = 0.1.
Particle effects are a different thing entirely...
For the beam, as an ability you could just make something along the beam blast abiltity, but with an infinite time and a out of range finish condition. If you don't wan't to damage all targets you could just make it apply a buff with deals damage every secound or so and ends when the one having the weapon stops firing/ no longer has the beam buff.
thanks for your help guys, I'll try these suggestions as soon as I can
something I was wondering - do you guys use this "developer.exe"? I downloaded the 2 from the site (sins 1.7 and entrecnhment¿?) and put them in the sins directory and when I go to use them it asks me to activate my product.
I put in my serial number but it says invalid product! I just bought trinity like 5 days ago. I have been trying to take research from the advent and give it to the TEC and I'm getting really frustrated because I don't understand why I get a "minidump" when I go to start my game.
I did some researching and found out about these "developer.exes" that people use so they can see crash logs to help them find out where they're going wrong...
so I'm really missing out by not being able to use this right? I'm justt taking stabs in the dark and getting repeated minidumps and it's pissing me off because I want to give the TEC the reduced research time skill that the advent tech tree has =/
Think I might cry from the frustration and lack of sleep
I have been hard at work on this whole learning how to mod thing all friggen night! got caught up in trying to succeed
about 9 hours straight lol
its 9:01 AM now and I have to leave for work in 1 hour with no sleep ahaha fml
Sorry about that. The version you pulled down was for the Original that is still a bit behind the curve. I believe Stant123 is still working that one out. Try the Diplomacy 0.7 version as that is the latest. Also at the very bottom we have it in TXT format for easy modding.
Heck, here is the link for you.http://distantstars.mmobase.com/diplomacy/Distant_Stars_(D)_Beta_0.7_%5B36951860%5D.7z the gamehttp://distantstars.mmobase.com/diplomacy/convertdata/ConvertData_Diplomacy_1.01.7z The TXT version
The TXT version just loads a bit slower is the only difference.
The developer exes are a must for modding. I think the exes you DLed are out of date. The game should come with them now or in an update in the install root folder. May need to delete old devs and verify install with impulse.
Never used them myself.
Yeah, vanilla DS. I got that. Maybe release it mid to late November pending the next round of updates from stardock?
If you need help figuring out Harpo's tools, PM me to get detailed instructions on how to use them. I'd volunteer Harpo too, but I'm not in the habit of giving people more work. As for the Dev.exe's, the most up to date versions do come in your sins folder, like myfist0 said, they're a must for modding. Not because you have to use them, but because tracking errors in real time makes solving them much easier then reading the log file after your game is over.
i think i read somewhere that the game engine only checks for damage once every second, so even if you made the duration and cooldown less than 1 second it would still only apply damage once per sec?
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
