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OTHER SINS HELPFUL MODDING LINKS*
*Links are updated when requested.
The Soase Idiot's Guide
Confused? No idea where to even start?
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This is the place!
Sins Modding Wiki
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Tutorials
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Emphasis on modeling and
texturing.
REBELLION MODDING TOPICS
Rebellion Modding Q & A
Mesh Editing
Changing Diplomacy Files to Rebellion
IT REALLY HURTS MY BRAIN--HOW TO START
An Idiot's Guide To Getting Started
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MOD DOWNLOADS
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Directory of Planet Mods
STEAM
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REFERENCE FILES
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Modifier List
Harpo's Converted Sins Reference Files 2011
THIRD PARTY TOOLS
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Ship Fleet Calculator
SoaSE Eclipse Plugin Project
Mesh Resizing Tool--courtesy of the Reqiuem team.
Harpo's Sins Utility Package -- Dropbox
The Sins Optimization Project (TSOP)
Artificial Unintelligence (Mod and AI info)
Sins Data Converter by BCXtreme
EXPLANATIONS & DISCUSSIONS
Rebellion Updates by Blair Frazier
How to Add a Fourth Race
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Sins Modding Dictionary
Adding phase Effects to other weapon types
Culture, Explanation/Discussion
Weapons, Explanation/Discusion
Shield Mitigation & Armor, Explanation/Discussion-1
Shield Mitigation & Armor, Explanation/Discussion -2
Graphic Chart of Sin's Counters
Annotated Guide to the Developer.exe
In-Game Map Creator
Weapons Banks & DPS
Combat Mechanics
Rebellion Shield Mitigation & Focus Fire testing
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Particle Forge Help Thread
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SemazRalan's Template Guide
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MODELING & TEXTURING--SOFTIMAGE XSI, 3DS MAX
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WIKI'S
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Hrm, that answers the question. I'm not sure if the 3D object converter can convert those, though if it can, I know how to get the ships to work for Sins; it's the same way as .alo files.
lavo would you try and have a go with one to see if its possible?
Edit- i've just noticed a ship with the .spk file format. Is this any better?
Okay, I have a quick question regarding normal maps. All the tutorials seem to suggest you can either A. Copy the red channel from the cl texture, put it in a new texture file, and rename in Alpha or B. Use the Nvidia photoshop normal map generator. As I can use either of these methods, I'm wondering what the in game difference or any feedback on which one is better?
Hello, and thanks to the community for taking the time to support this thread.
I have recently started modding Sins Diplomacy to make some rebalances and tweaks for our local LAN group. I am new to the mod process.
I decided to start by rebalancing starbases since we all like them. I changed some general stats such as adding more upgrade slots, and then completely rebalanced all of the Vasari upgrades. So far, things were going swimmingly.
When I moved on to the TEC, I was fine until I hit the "Resupply" ability, where apparently I got greedy with changes. I decided to mod the ability itself along with adding extra upgrade levels to make it more powerful at the top level upgrade.
I first changed StarBaseUpgradeTechSupply.entity to add the upgrade levels for Resupply making sure to add the HUDIcon button references in the brush file and also add to the Strings file for new verbiage. No problems so far - the mod works and I can build and upgrade Resupply 4 times, with correct graphics and base abilities.
Then I decided to edit the three files that I think affect the raw healing power and range of the resupply ability:
The changes I made to the first file work properly with the mod and seem to have the correct effect. The other two files cause a minidump every time I attempt to overwrite the original mod.
A link to all of the relevant files is here: http://pastebin.com/ZGTBVCn4
I think my problem may have something to do with the level counters as they don't seem to match between files. In AbilityResupply.entity we have:
which matches with the 4 upgrade levels I have; however there are of course actually 5 levels total (zero - 4). The original AbilityResupply.entity file has this value set to 2 which matches the 2 upgrade levels of the original game. However AbilityResupply.entity also references things like:
I don't understand why one file apparently references a level "0" and one does not. So I suspect that to be the problem.
The other possibility is that I mucked up something in one of the Buff*.entity files which I don't yet understand.
Any help or advice would be appreciated. The end goal is to allow a level 3 and level 4 of resupply which increase the range, antimatter restore, and hull point restore beyond the original resupply ability.
I am working off of a copy of the most recent Distant Stars build for Diplomacy 1.31 if that is important as it is the version we play the most often.
I'd be happy to do that, just send me a ship to check, doesn't matter what file type it is.
Also I was wondering, what exactly does the frigateRoleType 'AntiMine' do? I'm assuming it means that it tells the AI that said ship can detect and thus engage mines, though I'm not too sure about that.
Did you increment the value in this section of the upgrade file?
upgradeProperty propertyType "AbilityALevel" value 1.000000
This tells the game which ability level it is using. Also I've never made an ability with 5 levels before, so I'm unsure if that's possible or not. Also you should run the game with the developer.exe, so you can tell us any error messages.
The Star Base Upgrade for Resupply can have four levels if you want, but the AbilityALevel can only go to a maxium value of 3 which will map to Level:2 in the ability file. You could for example increase AntiMatterRestoreRate and MaxAntiMatterPoints for a 4th upgrade if you wanted.
Abilities are hard coded for a maximum of 3 levels of improvement currently though this might change with Rebellion.
http://code.google.com/p/soaseplugin/wiki/GenericLevel
@Lavo How do i send you the file?
Via an attachment on a email?
I have staarbase upgades with NINE(9) (0 to 8) levels, but have not altered any abilities, so can not help with info on them
harpo
That could work. Or you can upload it somewhere like mediafire and post a link to that.
I have two theoretical questions.
1) Is it possible to give weapons seperate damage against hull and shields. For example if I wanted to create a dedicated anti-shield ship, would I be able to give it a "normal" weapon that does high shield damage and low hull damage, or is that only possible with abilities (like the phase-out of the Mauroder)?
2) I searched and failed to find the place in the game were the weapons are defined. The only thing I found was the weapons.entity, which is pretty much empty except for a single line saying entityType "Weapon" and the gameplay.constant were you can fiddle with the attack types. What I did not find is the place were terms like "Plasma", "Lasertech", "Flashbeam" or "Spiritblade" are marked as being weapontypes.
Is that hardcoded and if not, could someone point me to the according file?
You can make a weapon only do hull damage or only do shield damage without an ability, but not say 80% shield and 20% hull. Otherwise you'll need an ability to directly do that like phase out hull or indirectly by giving the weapon a buff to apply like the Marza's incendiary shells.
It is hardcoded, but there several weapon types that are unused (I.e. Ion, Dart). You can see the whole list by searching for say LaserPsi in the string file. You can then rename any weapon type you like by changing the values there. Really weapon types are just used to categorize which weapons are effected by research, they have no properties associated with them besides their name.
1.
I thought it wasn't possible outside of an ability?
edit: never mind I looked over the code and saw it. Never had paid attention to it in the past.
2. Hardcoded. There is one or two that are not used but that is all that can be done.
Yes, this is possible. You can give it two separate weapons; one which does high shield damage, and one which does low hull damage. For this you need the DamageAffectType "AFFECTS_ONLY_SHIELDS" and "AFFECTS_ONLY_HULL", respectfully.
What do you mean "defined"? You can find the string entries for these weapons in the main string file. Otherwise, these are only used in research and as ability conditions.
Also I'm still wondering what AntiMine means exactly, as noted here, if anyone knows. =/
Well, sort of... You could make two different weapons of the same weapon type with one affecting only shields and one only affecting hull.
The best way to do it is an ability. If so, you could give the ship a passive ability that buffs itself with applybufftotargetonweaponfired which then applies a buff to the target that has a DoDamage that Affects_Only_Shields. That way, you end up with a ship that pounds shields, but since that ability doesn't apply hull, it would end up dealing less damage when shields are down.
It doesn't work so well the other way though since Affects_Only_Hull bypasses shields... You could probably do something that checks for existing shield damage, but that would be incredibly complicated and might not even actually work in the end...
I guess you could do something that knocks down armor... I mean, it's effectively going to increase damage to hull and obviously armor doesn't come into play when firing on shields...
I doubt anyone has really tested it, but as scouts are the only thing that have it, it probably tells the AI that any unit with it can clear mines, and thus should build some if it needs to clear out a minefield.
Antimine tells the AI that its priority when not engaged in other tasks (i.e. exploring) is to destroy mines. It also tells the AI that this ship is ability-equipped to deal with them. (Since they are phased out, the AI has to use an ability to be able to shoot them.)
That is obviously something that you would already know, but it's important. It creates problems if the ship is antimine and doesn't have an antimine ability. Try removing the ability from a scout. The scout will then proceed to ram into mines and explode.
Excellent, this clears things up for me. I think it might be possibe to still accomplish what I want by having the first two levels of upgrade use ability#1, and then have the next two levels of upgrade use ability#2, which is a new ability copying the first yet being more powerful as a base ability. I will play around with this and see what happens.
In general adding more upgrade levels to the starbases is quite interesting for gameplay, we have had some fun with it as it makes a big difference especially at key chokepoints.
Thanks to everyone who responded.
That's what I figured, thanks. I asked as I'm reworking all the frigateRoleTypes in this mod, though I've noticed that for some reason "AntiMine" wasn't used at all, even though there are indeed ships which can detect mines.
This brings me to another question. For frigates which have the "Siege" role-type and something else (let's say, Heavy), will the AI properly use the ships as both frontline ships and later on for planet bombing? Or will it just rush to bomb the planet upon arrival (I've noticed the AI does this with ships that can bomb planets, but don't have the Siege frigateRoleType).
no
I tried to make it so that the Skarovas Enforcer would be a HC and a Siege frigate, but it always prioritized siege over being a heavy cruiser.
Rats! And here I was hoping this might be a solution to the AI's death rushing.
Have you tried using Invalid for the roletype? That's what capitalships use, yet the AI doesn't use them for bombardment until all hostile units have been cleared from the gravity well.
Though it will try to colonize before enemy ships have been cleared...
It doesn't work for Frigates and Cruisers.
I set the Skarovas to invalid, and it sat there like a Colony Frigate with Auto-attack off.
I gave it an ability and it set about applying it and then returning to its original position.
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