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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
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REBELLION MODDING TOPICS
Rebellion Modding Q & A
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Changing Diplomacy Files to Rebellion
IT REALLY HURTS MY BRAIN--HOW TO START
An Idiot's Guide To Getting Started
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Directory of Planet Mods
STEAM
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THIRD PARTY TOOLS
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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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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
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WIKI'S
Sins of a Solar Empire Official Wiki
You appear to have a Pre-diplomacy 1.3x English.str. These entries map back to StringInfo's that start with "IDS_TAUNT_TECH_AllianceAcceptMetalPact".
Updating your English.str with the Diplomacy 1.31 content and adding your new String entries should resolve this particular issue.
New Question:
I am currently working on music for a mod and am running an issue: race specific music is playing for all races.
I completely replaced all the original Sins music in SoundMusic.sounddata, and then cleared Game.musicdata so it had no tracks listed. All the music calls currently come from the player.entity files. The tracks in the player.entity files are partially unique and partially overlapped. so, for example:
music_race1_battle music_shared1_battle
etc in playerrace1.entity and then
music_race2_battlemusic_shared1_battle
etc in playerrace2.entity. where the shared1 is supposed to be played across both races.
the problem that i am having is with a select few battle and trouble tracks that are playing in races which they are not called.
I thought it might be because the game did not like their being no tracks in Game.musicdata (assert errors because of this), so I tried adding a 0.1 second track of silence hoping that once there was a global track in Game.musicdata this would resolve the issue; but it didn't.
I haven't added this 0.1 second tack of silence for all the music types (trouble, battle, quite, etc) so perhaps that is where the problem is, but I'm doubting that will resolve anything.
I also made sure that no race had a unique actionlevel/range or emotionlevel/range that might be throwing things off.
thanks,
philothanic
Yeah, just realized that... Thanks anyways though
I have noticed that sometimes if you are in a battle with a faction, the game will play one of the music themes from that faction. It seems to be a hardcoded engine feature but to an extent its kind of nice from a thematic point of view.
I've done the exact same thing and I get no errors, so I know its not that.
I have got a really simple question but I couldn't find a solution for it anywhere on the forum so I figured I should post it anyway:
I have modded a Capital ship's .entity file and it works the way it should, but it works in the Original Sins game only. I couldn't find any capital ship entity files in the diplomacy folder, and that happens to be the game I want the modified file to work in...
Any help would be greatly appreciated
FYI: I have put the modified entity file both in the modding directory of the Original Sins game and in the one of Diplomacy, so don't ask me if I know how to enable mods...
^Then its probably in the Entrenchment GameInfo folder file.
Your issue is the proper CapitalShip file is included in Entrenchment. The way the game works for Diplomacy is it first looks for the referenced file in the Diplomacy/GameInfo folder. If it doesn't find it there it then looks in the Entrenchment/GameInfo folder. Finally it looks in the root GameInfo folder if it wasn't found in the previous two.
If you are modding both Sins and it's expansions, you will need to take special care to see if the file was modified in either Entrenchment or Diplomacy or mini-dumps may result do to structure changes introduced with the expansions.
Dang I feel silly now, Thanks a bunch though. I had the feeling it must've been something I just overlooked
And real nice of the both of you that you react so quickly
looks like my "bug" might be a feature.... I'll probably end up playing around with it a little bit more, but what you said makes sense and lines up with what i've done so far.
thanks for the help and quick reply
Are there any special tricks to adding abilities to SC? I'm working on making a supremacy fighter. Its obviously possible, but I'm just wondering because I keep getting minidumps as soon as I try to build the SC with the ability.
You cannot apply a buff to individual SC. You have to buff the entire squadron.
Correct?
Anyone else who can support me?
Correct.
Ability must be AoE and its for the squad.
To clarify, the main thing with strikecraft is that you cannot apply the buff to itself. This is because technically the ability is owned by the squad entity, which doesn't physically exist. The only way to buff the individual fighters in a specific squadron is to give an ability ot the carrier which applies a buff to linked squadrons (see Sova's heavy strikecraft).
That said there are additional apply buff types that will work besides simple area of effect, though they tend to work in the same way (for example apply buff to target at orbit body).
Well, all I'm doing right now is a missile ability that would fire off at six other SC. Whenever a fighter is built with this, it minidumps on me.
I was also thinking of making a "Deploy Flares" ability (that would decrease the odds of the squad getting hit by 30% or so). Would what you said mean that that can't be done?
Remember you are really working with the squadron, not the fighters themselves. As squadrons do not have ability points travel effects cannot be used.
Well as mentioned putting an ability on the carrier will always work. If that's not an option though you'll have to be more creative. It can certainly be done, just not with the normal methods you use with other entities.
For a reference, you could look at the EWS and Gunships found in the DS mod.
I did, but the descriptions of them wasn't terribly clear.
Would it be possible to make an ability easily then to simply ramp up the damage of the ships themselves for a short while then?
The problem isn't what you can do with them, its how you do it. You can put any sort of buff on them that you like, its just you are limited in how you can apply it, since you have to use other means besides apply buff to self. Are you modding Vanilla fighters? If so which faction?
Well, eventually all factions, and yes vanilla. For now, I'm just working on TEC.
Well then any buffs you want to apply the the fighters themselves can easily be done by a linked ability on the carriers and hangars. Capitalships can work as well, but if its the same mod you were working on before I think you were already using the passive 5th ability. Also if you want it to affect all fighters in a gravity well regardless of type, you can give the fighter an ability that applies a buff to all friendly strikecraft in the orbit body.
Now that I realize what you are really asking here, yes, but the ability has to be on the carriers, not the squad.
My modding team came up with an ability that might do what you want. We have an ability that spawns fighters with a decreased hit % buff.
The trick is to have a buff that does two things: spawn the fighter squadran and also spawn a buff to radius for fighters only.
buffInstantActionType "ApplyBuffToTargetsInRadius" instantActionTriggerType "OnDelay" delayTime 0.500000 buffType "BuffStealthFighter" targetFilter numOwnerships 1 ownership "Player" numObjects 1 object "Fighter" numSpaces 1 space "Normal" numConstraints 0 range Level:0 50.000000
It works most of the time. Occasionally a spawned fighter might be outside of the radius. To prevent normal fighters from getting the ability we limit the number of fighters it can apply to in the buff. Overall it gets the job done.
edited to remove code box, now I know why no one uses it
That is pretty clever. I had at least one ability stomped by the extra limitation that spawned fighter squads do not have abilities, I guess that might be a way around it in certain situations.
@Goa: Well, currently, I have the supremacy fighter loaded up with an AVL autocannon and an AL missile launcher. I was originally thinking of doing something similar to Phase Missile Swarm, but I wasn't aware you couldn't do travel effects with squads...
Since I already have a rocket on it and I can't do a travel ability, I was just wondering if I could do something instead to temporarily boost their power. And I'm thinking of having the supremacy fighter being launched from capital carriers only, so that causes a problem with the carrier creating the buff... For now this will be an independent mod, but I've got a few other things in the pipes and completed in addition to the researchable caps that'll hopefully all get thrown together some day into a functioning mod.
And the flares I want to be an active ability of the squads themselves where it drastically temporarily decreases the likelihood of getting shot. This of course being the TEC version. I might just do a passive "Phase Dodging" ability or something for the Vasari fighter when I finally get around to it, but I really do want flares of some kind for the TEC.
And is there really no way to make a squad directly buff a member of that squad?
@philo: Do you mean the buff only stays active on, say, 6 SC at a time so it would rebuff them if a replacement fighter was built for one of the original six that got blown up?
@Anybody: I really am not familiar with what mechanisms the game currently uses to buff SC. Obviously, there are things that are simple like flak burst where they simply do damage, but for an ability that is actively used by the squad itself, I don't know how to do that I guess...
Yeah, phase missile swarm like ability is not going to happen. You could make weapons more interesting via a passive ability like incendiary shells that apply a buff on impact, but getting it on just that fighter type would still be a challenge. Philothanic's method would be the easiest way if its a spawned fighter, but otherwise, well you know your terrible options.
None. Its why strikecraft are by far the hardest entity type to work with.
Its been modding conventional wisdom that squads can only have passive abilities. Its been so long I honestly don't remember what tests arrived at that conclusion (it probably hasn't really been tested since Vanilla), but try giving a squad an area of effect active ability like flak burst and see what happens. More than likely it will dump, either at load, when a squad gets created, or when the ability is used. If the conventional wisdom is right the only way you could get those flares to work is to give the ability to the carrier.
So, if I were to give the something like incendiary shells I wouldn't have to give it to the carrier? I could just give it straight to the squad and all the fighters would be capable of it?
And I know its possible... DS has its fighters with active abilities...
I just tried making a variant of flak burst as the ability of the squad, but it MD'd as well...
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