This is the place to ask and recieve specific modding (mod making) questions and answers. If you have a mod making question, post it here.
If your question involves long snippets of entity files and the like, please don't paste the entire file contents here but put them at the incredibly easy to use http://pastebin.com and then provide the link to your paste in your question posted here.
Please do limit "just comments" here to brief posts please. If you don't know the answer or can't point to help--don't post. Please note that a random, uninformed guess isn't an actual answer.
You can refer people to another source--IF it actually helps answer their question. This could be in the form of links, outside sites, specific modding-useful programs, direction towards another post or poster, etc., etc.
Remember--specific questions, specific answers. Only respond to the ones you can help solve. Also, feel free to amplify, clarify, suggest alternatives to or correct answers seen here if such actions are merited and help provide a real solution. No flaming, insults or put downs here in the answers or other posts please.
Thanks in advance for your help and cooperation. The reason for the rigid rules here is those this thread becomes a usable resource in the future to new people looking for answers.
NOTE: If an answer resolves your issue, please share it here. These answers will help others coming along later too. Karma is a great way to respond to people providing help without clogging the thread or bombing their forum mailbox here. Thanks!
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
STEAM Sins Forums
DEVELOPERS
Sins Developer Journals Forum 2007 to Present
REFERENCE FILES
Research Modifier List
MyFist0's Exported Models & Files
Modifier List
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
User-updatable Ship Reference Chart
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
PARTICLE FORGE
Particle Forge Help Thread
GALAXY FORGE
Adding Artifacts
Working Template Examples
SemazRalan's Template Guide
Pirates Base Start Template
SOUND RESOURCES
[SFX] Black Sun SFX/Music Resource for Modders
MODELING & TEXTURING--SOFTIMAGE XSI, 3DS MAX
XSI Texturing, Tutorial
3dS Model Exporter
3DS Max Rigging, Texturing & Exporting, Guide
Modding/Modelling/Texturing/Converting, Tutorials
WIKI'S
Sins of a Solar Empire Official Wiki
Wow. Those smartass programmers and their annoyingly and unnecessarily difficult programs!
I'll copy what you wrote into notepad and save it for later; never know when something absolutely disastrous will occur. But I'm mostly using the Command Prompt for this one thing; in my nearly two decades of using Windows, I've never needed this or even actually known about this. This is a pretty big shock, learning that I can run everything manually. Ack.
It's fine; I was at fault for being woefully ill-informed and lazy. Thanks for taking the time and entertaining my ignorance!
One question; last one, I swear!
How do you recompile text files back into the coded versions? Everywhere I look it's like people just assume you know how. Makes me feel like a dullard.
You don't actually need to do this for the changes to take affect. The game can read files in either bin (AKA binary, what you called "Coded") or txt (text, what we can read). The reason the game and some mods use binary is because it results in smaller file sizes, which are more efficient. However, if you're just playing with stat changes for your own use that is complete overkill to convert them back to bin.
If you did want to go back to bin though, just replace the txt at the end of the parameters list (or in the .bat file) with bin.
What exactly does the entityBoolModifier PhaseDodge do? I can't see it being used by any ability/buff; not even in regular Sins v1.195. My reason for asking this is, if it does absolutely nothing, that I could reuse the constraint it has for something useful.
It is depreciated from the Skirantra's Microphasing Aura ability. Yes you're free to rename it/use it for whatever you want, in fact I'm surprised you didn't know of this Lavo. It has been one of those secret modding tricks for a while now.
Well, originally I was going to use Jump Interference, then I noticed Phase Dodge, and figured that would work well. Went to check if it actually did anything and came up short. Seeing as how it in fact does nothing, this makes it perfect.
Ok, quick question. Anyone know why having multiple instantAction "PlayPersistantBeamEffect" to RandomMesh points in a single buff causes the game to crash? I was playing around with trying to make a "tractor beam" effect by have half a dozen or more beams attach to multiple points on a target. But if I do this in the same buff file the game crashes when the buff is supposed to end (works fine until the timeElapsed finishCondition is reached). If I create a buff chain it works but there is a noticeable delay between effects even if delayTime is set to 0. On a related note, anyone know what "CenterOffsetBySpacialRadius" is compared to "Center". I couldn't tell a difference between the 2. I did try removing everything but the actual "beam" effect from the extra instantActions so as not to have an issue where the same muzzle/impact/sounds are trying to play simultaneously thinking that was the problem but no dice.
Thanks for any insight.
It could be that two beams end up getting randomly assigned to the same "point" or some other case the devs haven't anticipated. It's hard to say if this is an unknown hard limit with the engine or something wrong with your code, but unless you know of another mod that has gotten this kind of thing to work, it may just not be possible.
IIRC Center offset simply lets you specify how close to the center you want the effect to be. For example you can set it so that the impact will be within 20 meters of the center, but it won't always be exactly at the center.
The center offset thing is mainly used for planets (look at raze planet)...basically it has the effect play at the radius of the object, something useful if you are trying to imitate bombing effects on a planet...
So.....
Anyone know how to get "moons" to orbit planets? Getting the moon to spawn is easy enough (I'm using the asteroid def), but it just sits there and rotates about itself (just like asteroids and the like do), it doesn't rotate around the planet...
I know there was a planet mod that succeeded in doing this but I don't remember which one...
I thought maybe I could try moving the center of the mesh to some outrageous point far away from the rest of the mesh, then set the radial distance to 0 in the asteroid def...this isn't working out for me though....any ideas would be much appreciated...at the very least, if anyone remembers which planet mod successfully accomplished this....
Couldn't you do that by giving the entity an engine that would move the moon at a constant speed tangential to the planet, and then have the mesh rotate at a speed so that the engine always remains tangential to the planet? If your rotational speed is ω radians per second, by my calculations, you'll want your tangential speed to be ωr units per second, where r is the distance between the planet's center and the moon's center. This means that you could have moons orbit at any speed (via ω), direction (via -ω), and/or distance (via r) you want so long as you set up the tangential speed correctly, but it also means that all moons will have a "dark side", ie. they will always have the same side facing the planet at all times.
These are the things you can control in AsteroidDef
cluster meshGroupName "RandomSpherical" asteroidCount 50 minDistance -1.2 maxDistance 1.0 maxZOffset 1.0 minAngle -10 maxAngle 10 minAngularSpeed 0.2 maxAngularSpeed 0.35
Now, the mod I'm thinking of (and can't remember which one) had its moons at min/maxDistance of 0...this implied to me that the "center" of the mesh was really really far from the "rest" of the moon, so when the mesh rotated about its center, the moon would orbit around the planet (rotating at same rate between min/maxAngularSpeed)...as you can see, there is no tangential speed because they didn't really intend this for orbiting objects (just still objects that rotate in place)....
Unfortunately, I've tried giving outrageous values to the "center" point in the mesh file, but it hasn't accomplished anything...
Just in case this ever causes anyone trouble, it appears buffInstantActionType "ApplyBuffToTargetsAtAdjacentOrbitBodies" does not work when the buff is on a planet entity type. I guess for whatever reason planets do not know what is adjacent to them.
I've run into an odd problem. Somehow my mod has broken the factionRelationsModifier for all races, despite not changing this section of the player entity files at all. I.e. everyone has a faction relations penalty of 0, even the TEC Rebels which usually have that -10 penalty to all non-TEC factions.
Greetings, Not sure really where to start with something like this, so I'll just come right out and say this. I'm looking for some experienced help making a mod for Rebellion that is far beyond my capabilities, as I've never made a mod before.
I've got what I believe to be a great concept for a Race mod I would love to see, But I haven't the first idea of how to really get started. Problem solving, concepts, etc I can do fairly well. Artistic talent... Not so much. I know nothing about coding, modeling, soundtrack or effect. Unfortunately I'm also somewhat of a perfectionist, which is why I never do art. Unless I can get it right, it never feels worth starting. I'm willing to learn, and tend to do so fairly quickly, though not usually without someone to actually walk me through stuff.
So, with that said, is there anyone that would be willing and interested in learning more about a rather large project from some random guy who's never made a mod before with far too much vision for his understanding, a strange sense of humor and enough balls to try and make this work?
If there are such people among you, feel free to reply to this post, Email me at 'dmmwilliams@yahoo.co.uk', or add me on Skype via the same email. I have a few friends interested in helping already, but I know we're severely out of our depth.
Thank you for your time,
Kreldin Foxclaw.
Hello sins community
Can someone please so kindly help me with an ability that will increase ships fire rate?
What I’m looking for is an ability , that consumes antimatter and gives bonus rate of fire for all weapons on ship that uses it when enemy ships are nearby.
I looked at Tech anility Finest Hour and played with it , but adopting it to frigates made the game throw minidumps at me without the ability actually working. And I’m not even sure if it really changes the fire rate.
Q. So can ability like this be done on frigates?
Q. If yes can someone post what code should I change in AbilityLastStand and BuffLastStandSelf for them to work on frigates , but to get rid of all other buffs?
I added this new ability to entity.manifest file just in case. I can post my new ability and buff file here if needed.
I'm not trying to be mean here, but just having an idea for a mod isn't going to get anyone interested. Everyone has ideas for mods, why should talented modelers, programmers and artists listen to your idea and do all the work for it instead of creating their own ideas? In short, the chances of you getting people to care about your project when you have no skills yourself is zero.
If you're willing to learn as you say though, why not try volunteering to help some of the other mods that are already out? Once you know enough to get the mod started and contribute to it in a meaningful way, people might then start to join your mod if it really is a good idea.
It crashed because of the levelsource type. You unlock finest hour by leveling up a capitalship, but frigates don't have levels. Look at a frigate ability like the TEC Repair cruiser's repair ability, which uses "fixedlevel0", and set up the ability file to look more like that.
What he said
That's probably not the case. You can give frigates abilities that have an Intrinsic level source type, and regardless of the level requirement, the frigate will be given the first level of the ability.
So I am playing Armada 3 at the moment and I have noticed that the AI even on the hardest setting does not care much about military research like increased weapon damage and more hull/shields/armor. I would like to change that on my own rather than hoping the devs will do it some day. Where can I change the research behavior?
You cannot. The AI always prioritizes getting new ships, structures, colonizeable planet research over damage/hull/shield upgrades. The only way around this is to make an AI only tech that unlocks a dummy ship which has research you want the AI to acquire as a prerequisite. Otherwise the AI often waits until it has maxed out its fleet before working on those kind of research.
What GoaFan said is true, but not exactly precise. The AI is hardcoded to prioritize techs that unlock new ships and structures or are prerequisites to unlock techs, but that shouldn't stop the AI from researching other techs.
The issue I believe lies in the AI's "Research Check Frequency", which can be changed in Gameplay.constants. To confirm my suspicions, open up the mod's Gameplay.constants file in Notepad and scroll down to the line that reads "playerAISharedDef". Under that line, you'll see four sections, each starting with "table-"; (almost) all of these are "Check Frequency" values for the four AI presets. Choose up to three presets (you'll need an unchanged one for "control" purposes) and multiply the value next to "UpgradeResearch" by 10 or 100. Then, set up a game that has at least one changed preset and one unchanged preset and see if the changed presets are unlocking a lot more techs than the unchanged ones.
Based on my observations, the way AI does tech in Sins is kind of odd: every <time interval set by UpgradeResearch in Gameplay.constants>, the AI will run a "tech roulette" of sorts, where it will randomly select a tech from each tech tree (or only one tech tree at a time, I'm a bit unclear on this). It will then decide whether it wants to research that randomly selected tech or not based on calculations that I haven't discovered yet. The "tech roulette" isn't completely random though, since techs are weighted by their priority parameter (defined in the tech's .entity file) during the roulette: a tech with a priority value of 2 will be twice as likely to be selected as a tech with a priority value of 1, while a tech with a priority value of 0 will never be selected. Remember that the AI won't necessary want to research the tech it selects by random though, so increasing a tech's priority value won't make the AI want to research it more per say, it will just make sure that when the AI does want to research the tech, it is more likely to be selected. Oh yes, and this is all independent of any hardcoding: techs with hardcoded priority (colonization unlocks, interstellar travel unlock, wormhole travel unlock, ship unlocks, etc.) have their own little system that I haven't bothered to decipher in detail yet. This is why all hardcoded techs have a priority value of 0 in the unmodded game: since the AI is hardcoded to research the tech anyway, having it included in the "tech roulette" is a waste of space and inhibits the AI from selecting a non-hardcoded tech to research.
If you're interested in doing an AI modmod for Armada 3, even if it'll be for personal use only, I highly recommend you check out Section 3 of my Artificial Unintelligence post, which is essentially a giant collection of my observations about which game parameters affect the AI in what way.
Been a while since i modded SoaSE and unfortunately my mass converter.bat files have gotten lost somewhere, can't find them at all. Could someone just remind me what the code for that was bat files that convert everything in their current folder?
Also on that note, if a mod sees this, the modding tutorial thread needs an update/cull as it's all links which are all broken by the users site being shut down.
...and this is mainly why it's better to know the underlying program and syntax than to blindly "use a bat file" for data conversion.
Anyway, the .bat file uses the program ConvertData_Rebellion.exe (or older ConvertData executables), which is located in your SoaSE base directory. It is a command line application, meaning if you run it manually, you must run it from command prompt. It's main syntax is ConvertData_Rebellion.exe <file to convert> <output name of the file (if it's the same as "file to convert", you'll simply overwrite the old file with the new one> <format to convert to (bin for binary, txt for text)>. If you are unfamiliar with the way command prompt works, there are millions of tutorials online; not all of them are good, mind you (stay away from video tutorials), but you should probably be fine.
If you're feeling up for some improvisation, you could edit your existing .bat files to use the new ConvertData .exe and it'll likely start working again (unless the syntax has also changed since you've last modded SoaSE, in which case you'll also need to fix its syntax).
Let me quote my prior post:
They where simple files i'd just double click and they'd convert everything in the folder to either txt or bin format depending on which file i used. I know full well how to use the .exe, it's purpose, e.t.c., got a tutorial on that saved on disk. Sadly i forgot to save the code since i had the .bat files handy with it in, only now their lost . Unfortunately that means doing it one file at a time, and since i'm editing a lot of files that's awfully inefficient time wise. I'm just looking for a copy of the code i'd need to input into a .bat file so that i can get that mass convert capability back.
The best i've been able to find via Google so far are some .bats that let me drag and drop, which is faster than typing by command line but still painfully slow.
for %%a in (*.entity) do ConvertData_Rebellion entity %%a %%a txt
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