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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?
Determined to work at it?
This is the place!
Sins Modding Wiki
ZombieRus's Eclipse Wizardry
Tutorials
MyFist0's full modding site.
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
MyFist0's Modding Megasite!
MOD DOWNLOADS
ZombieRus5's Mod Yard
Directory of Planet Mods
STEAM
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REFERENCE FILES
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Harpo's Converted Sins Reference Files 2011
THIRD PARTY TOOLS
3dS Texturing Toool & Tips
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
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Culture, Explanation/Discussion
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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
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Particle Forge Help Thread
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SemazRalan's Template Guide
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WIKI'S
Sins of a Solar Empire Official Wiki
Do you remember what error you noticed?
Also, I'm about 90% certain it is tied to my planet bonuses...don't know how, but removing them from the planet entity files (and leaving everything else) seems to solve the problem....I think....I need to do some more testing...
Alright, this is really embarassing, but I think I found the issue...apparently Space Ponies is hardcoded, and if you don't include the file in the manifest then bad things occur...it would seem you have to keep the original name of the planet bonus (though you probably could change the string and icon locations)....
Still occasionally getting a bResult==True error...not sure what that's about...
Just search gameplay.constants for a ;
It's moments like these I feel really really dumb....thanks for your help, I feel like I wasted your time and I apologize...
Is there a thread that has a list of common errors (the ones that aren't obvious, like i>=0 and bResult==True and the StringT one or whatever) and what they generally mean? The thread that volt made had 3-4 errors identified by psychoak but it'd be nice if there was something more general and comprehensive...and linked by this OP...
Seleuceia, do not feel embarrased you help so much in the community and silly things like this can get us all, sometimes we are looking for a much more complicated answer than it actually is, plus you obviously needed to take a break on the problem, I find that sometimes helps!
Support an Error thread!
Are there any unused Abilitys or Buffs that I can use without adding to the Manifest?
so far as I can tell
entityName "AbilityTargetWeapons.entity"entityName "BuffTargetWeaponsSelf.entity"entityName "BuffTargetWeaponsTarget.entity"entityName "AbilityTargetHangarBays.entity"entityName "BuffTargetHangarBaysSelf.entity"entityName "BuffTargetHangarBaysTarget.entity"entityName "AbilityTargetBridge.entity"entityName "BuffTargetBridgeSelf.entity"entityName "BuffTargetBridgeTarget.entity"
are unused?
AbilityTargetBridge is still using Incendiary shells Icons and IDS
Probably but why would you want to do that? That'll just make things a lot more confusing for you later on.
I make alot of Modular mods, mainly because thats how I was taught to code but I also play a online mods with friends so... if I combine it all as 1 mod then change a few tiny little elements I have to upload an entire 300mb mod every time I change somthing
-2 new capital ships
-Changes to stock capitals in another
-an Orb as a starting structure that auto captures the first planet connected to the home system
-an ability for Shieldgenerator/AMrecharger/Nanojammer that increases local defense range 200%
-new titan for each race
-Changes to Titans that need a new Buff file
-Planets
-Economy
-Changes to starbases in 1
-A new race!
-Changes to gameplay.constants
sometimes I want 2-3 on sometimes I want all on.
I want to be able to turn them on an off without any clashing Entity Manifest stuff
I know you can create a Base mod that has all the strings and Manifest for everything above it but this means you can't use this structure when Debugging and testing without turning off the Alerts in dev.exe which I kinda like since they alert me to .... Bugs!
tho I agree using the wrong names for abilitys/buffs is going to get confusing
You may consider this...
For each "module", include a "manifest" that has only the new files added by that mod...it'd be helpful to also include how much the mod will increase the count...
When someone wants to mix and match any of your modular mods, all they have to do is copy the lines from the respective "manifests", add up the counts, and put it all in one manifest...still more work than a simple enable/disable but it's about the best I think you can do...
Also I think IonBlast (or IonBurst?) is unused...both exist, one of them is the akkan's ion bolt and the other is unused...
On planet files what is and better what is the difference between
moveAreaRadius
AND
hyperspaceExitRadius
???
moveAreaRadius is the area that you can give move orders in...you cannot select areas outside that radius for move orders....
hyperspaceExitRadius is the minimum distance you must be from the planet in order to phase jump....
Obviously, moveAreaRadius is larger...
This minimum distance in hyperspaceExitRadius is from the center to the outside of the gravity well or from the end of gravity well to center of it?
Also this gave me a idea to test: Changing the gravity well of the planets to a huge one and then make a map where all those planets gravity wells touching the other planets gravity wells, have having just ultra small phase lane that connect the planets.
I don't understand what you mean by this...
It is my understanding that both moveAreaRadius and hyperspaceExitRadius are measured from the center of the planet (ie they are not relative to eachother)....
Your answered my question.
hyperspaceExitRadius is measured from inside to outside.
So Ive come up with a mod idea that I think every one would like but it's a little out of my skill lvl So if a Modder who has some free time wouldent mind PM'ing so we could discuss my idea that would be great
Why don't you give a brief overview of what you want/need done? Thing is, very few people have the free time to fully work on a mod project continuously...you may have to "divide and conquer" ie someone help you with planet entities, someone help you with the abilities, someone help you with textures, someone help you with icons, etc...
Alright what i want to do is take out the Empire building and make the focuson running a Single Capital and then a fleet when you get enough exp
plus i want to add missions if thats possible
Here's an over veiw (I primary play as the TEC so I'm usng them as the example)
You start out as a capitan of a single capital ship amoung a fleet then with the more exp/prestige you can recruit ships into your own fleet
It will be in series form
Tide of Iron- will be set before vanilla sins but after the converted there ships that way you can choose all of the types of Capitals You start out as a new captian of a Capital ship sent to combat the alien threat and after a few missions you'll be sent to the undefended sectors to recuperate and then the advent attack
Steel Inferno-Set during Entrenchment
Out of the Dark (name not set)-set during diplomacy
Titanium Typhoon-set during Rebellion
In at the Death-Set during when ever the dev's decide to add what ever have the visari running like skinned cats
Also you'll be able to change your Ships abilities I.E the Kol can have one of its abilities switched out with Ion Bolt
So anyone want to help on this?
Simple question, how do you change the races in the race selection from the originals to new ones or, change the selection screen to the original. Which would be easier?
PlayerSetup.window
useRaceSelectDialog FALSE
A lot of people have a lot of good ideas they would like to implement in Sins. Unfortunately due to engine limitations many will never be possible. My suggestion is to play Sins of a Solar Empire, then tinker with a few small modding ideas to get your feet wet. When you have a better grasp of what is actually possible with Sins you might be able to refine some of what you are wanting to accomplish and/or better present your ideas.
One more question what does everyone use to edit the pictures in the Window folder?
Thanks Zombie
Those aren't pictures...those are Brush files and can be viewed with a text editor (like notepad)...of course, they are in BIN format (just like entity files) and need to be converted to TXT...
Each brush file specifies a texture file, and then each "entry" in the brush file specifies a certain rectangle on that texture (basically, a small, specific area)...brush files are used for in-game icons where 100s of, say, ability/research icons are in one file....you'll note that entity files have lines where you indicate the "entry" that specifies the appropriate icon or whatever...
Entity files do not specify the location of the "entry", only it's name...the "entries" can be in any brush file you want (though I believe a brush file can only refer to one specific texture file), so it is usually better to just add brush files (update the brush manifest) and textures if you are adding content instead of trying to put it all in a pre-existing brush file...
For example, if you added 2 planet types, it is easier to make a new texture with icons for just those two planets and a new brush file for those handful of entries instead of trying to copy the existing planet icons to a larger texture and then updating the current planet brush files...
So what program is good to edit/create new brush files?
Whatever is your favorite text editor (I.e. same thing you use for entity files). Before I started to use Eclipse for all modding I just used regular notepad.
If you expand the range of the VL Titans Micro Phase Jump ability to say 900,000 you Can teleport into another gravity well but you can't attack anything in that well and any command to attack causes the titan to warp out then warp back in.
I am guessing the same will happen with overlapping Grav wells.
You can also Micro-Jump into undiscovered planets wells with them still being greyed out and unexplored.
Seems to be a Coded limit that a Jump must take place for a system swap
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