ahh, grooovy. just got my lightwave model into the game, im well chuffed now. o.k. textures no matter what settings i use to convert texture to 256x256 png they always turn out black, ie no texture, so my ship model just stay's untextured. another question, is hard points, i believe in 3ds max u can create hardpoints with dummy objects, but im a lightwave user. so unsure on how to do this, so im getting there. can any one offer any advise or tips please

Please tell me : did you punch all the ugly xml.data with notepad or does stardock have a nice eye-caring frontend that makes editing those xml files a breeze ? ..btw if one manages to reduce the max. population supported by food to zero the populationlimit seems to be disabled.

I find microsoft word works nicely, and it's much easier on the eye than notepad. Though it's a little awkward setting fields and stuff sometimes...

I have discovered the problem, thanks to another modder, I needed to add three lines in the raceconfig.xml file. My Borg race conversion is nearly finished.

In most (all?) cases the game generates thumbnails for those componenets that have none.

Can someone explain how the ability-bonus really works:

1) is it a percentage ? or something different

i made following test (using 1.2) - i changed an early tech to give +300 to speed ability :
a previously 3-movement points per turn ship got a boost to 33! mp.
This is a real bonus of 1000% instead the intended 300% for this test !

2) can i expect this weird behaviour with all the other abilities too ?

3) i would really appreciate if the devs would show some formulas how such things are calculated

4) did i mention that a nice xml-editor interface would be helpful for modding

Excellent guide! Thanks CariElf!

Bo

does anyone know what the RaceSpecific xml tag is supposed to do?

wrong thead

Hi! First, great post! This has helped out the Star Trek Mod so much!

Now can you help a little more? I'm curious about the Tech Robots... Is there an XML file that points to them, or is that hard coded to those file names? I'd like to be able to point different races to a different "Tech Robot".... I have tried, I've went through the Modding guide several times (sorry if I missed it!)...but I can't find a way to alter this in the XML. I know we can't always get our way as modders, but if there is already a way to do this, we can greatly save on download size, we are 1.9gigs now and want to add more!

I've went through and have found a way to cut about 120megs out of it, but need to find something to do with these dang Tech Robots to really make a difference in size.....


Okay... So... while I'm at it.... Any chance that the StarBases for different races work with adding for example
S0_EconomyStarbase0 - For Feder...I mean Terrans and
S1_EconomyStarbase0 - For Bor.... I mean Drengin...

Everytime I try to do that I crash... I'm still trying to find a way though because I think this would be a GREAT assist for the game, and even if all of the base ones in game use the same design, modders could really add more!

Umm, I doubt too many computers would take kindly to running a 72x72 sector map. In fact I think most would crash from low virtual memory.

What is the difference between
< SpeedAbility > located in the Tech tree under Impulse Drive and Warp Drive

and

< Speed > located on the Ship Components?

I know the < Speed > relates to how far you can move, and I think that the < SpeedAbility > tag is for combat speed, but does it make any difference? Any at all? Or is it one of those tags that originally had a purpose but is no longer used because of a problem with how AI used it?

It should give a defense bonus, methinks.