are there any good skins for the human ships?

Skins? There is no way to apply new skins we you wish. You would need to edit the current ships in a compatible editor. I am not sure what one is needed as TurgotZ is the only graphic creator the community had and he has been missing for a long time now. His forums and website is hosted by NeoTech.

NeoTech Gaming http://neotechgaming.com A sci-fi themed website featuring Galactic Civilizations

There are the ships in the .... is it the omega ship pack? it has the B5 ship skins that replace the graphics of some current ships.

It is in the so called "OmegaShipPack" the guy used the base B5 ships, someone set up and changed them to the Omega ships.

Now I'f I could get my hands on TurgotZ We could have real Omega Pack sips (:(

Oh my bad! I am not a Modder I should not have answered. I try to help when I can!

I worked on a skin at some point when I made the graphic editing suite but I got bored with it to tell you the truth heh .

Hey Dark Rain, the graphic editing suite have you done any updates to it and what are the limitations? I will place a link to your program at my site. NeoTech http://neotechgaming.com when I can get to it.. we just moved into new software and a new host.

I have one person who wants to begin creating ships for us. I just need to find the information for them to get busy. They do not own galciv they are filling in as no one is making ANY graphics. Thanks.

Interesting... I'm reallly close to having this ship designing business figured out. I tested my first Borg Cube ship last night! It worked! Ah, but I haven't quite figured out the "Mask" and "Alpha Channel" features (not being a guy up to speed on terms related to graphics). My ship had a white back-drop instead of stars, but apart from that, it was perfect (could be bigger.. I will figure that out eventually). I figure I need a graphics converter program that will let me convert "Bit Maps" to "Png" files, or whatnot (hope that is the problem). In any case, I'm planning to shop CompUSA tomarrow looking for a low cost graphic program utility that hopefully will do the task and allow me to create specific pal files to go with each of my ships (I was using the ones the GC Ships already use). Sooo, eventually I will be able to offer new ship mdl files. We shall see (crossing my fingers)... and! I will provide simple instruction for how to go about this otherwise confusing process (as it seems to me anyway); and, then, what I could do is get some of you really creative artists out there to do some cool ship designs and then send the single picture to me, and I'll do the rest (I will state the size parameters at that time, etc, required for the picture). Of course... this all depends on my figuring out how to get my ship's back-drop to be transparent when originally created with the most basic software; i.e., Microsoft Paint (comes with Windows). I may have no choice but the buy a full blown graphics program, but I'd like to avoid that kind of expensive stuff... I have to figure there is a way to do it on a basic level (I hope so, anyway); this way we all can eventually give it a try since we have the tools for doing it as offered in some other threads.

Great news!! Keep us informed.. as I stated in another thread I have someone busy working on Star Trek Mod. Akula is the nic we have been working on a Mod for Space Empires together for about 1 year or so.

"Mr Squatty" has a Star Trek mod out? That's not it then, I take it?

Yes, he released the beta version of it. Lacks a few ships, images etc. If you happen to need a forum to discuss your work privately or publicly let me know.

The Trek Mod has been basically given to the community to finish up. I have a few ideas for a scenario based on the Mod.

yeah those are mine. Id make some more, but Iam completely tapped out this semester with my .NET project and other stuff that I dont find the time for it.

anyway, Iam probably gonna wait for GC2 eitherway in hope we will have 3D Ships and better (and hopefully built in) modding capabilities.

The "skins" don't replace the ships graphics until a lot of additional work is done to install them into either existing ship mdl files or as new ship mdl files (with associated ship and tech files added as well). Or am I mistaken? I have those new B5 ships mods, but they certainly don't appear in the game.

I would like permission to bring some of those B5 ships into existing ship mdl files, giving you credit for the initial graphics, of course

[Message Edited]

:?

if unzipping them into the mdl archives is alot of work for you then yes. for me its 2 mouse clicks

Hmm? The "offical" ones I down-loaded are not associated with any ship mdl, existing or otherwise! I'm talking about the White Star B5 ship. Was that one your's? That "Mod" doesn't "Do" anything, and it doesn't come with a readme file with instructions for what a gamer is supposed to do.

What is provide is *.png files, *.bmp, *.spr1, *.pal, *.jpp - not ship *.mdl files! That's a huge difference! Now the *.spr1 has the info and graphics for one race, but what about the other 7 races? As I understand it - correct me if I'm am mistaken, each ship (mdl) file requires a model for each race and for each race several versions of the graphic are needed (icon, the main ship graphic, and "blue print" kind of graphic); and, each graphic has to be coded into the mdl file with a specific name like:

1Ship14_Icon24Trans_A1C1....

Perhaps it was your intent to provide the stuff for only one race and have the gamer swap it for existing graphics within an existing MDL. That's all well and fine, but you did not say any of that in a readme file or provide infomation on how to pack or unpack mdl files, etc, etc. It is only now afer some of my own efforts and investigations that I finally have the require programs and basic knowledge to actually make a ship mdl, but it is time consuming, especially trying to get the right "off-set" numbers determined (trial and error is the best I've been able to manage so far).

I'm not complaining here, but I am saying it is not as simple as you seem to be saying for any player of the game to simply unzip the graphic ship mod file into the correct folder and then, presto, have a new ship graphic that functions in the game. BTW, I'm thankful what you did do! Really! So well done!

But it might have been easier if you had explained some things and had already placed the ship graphic into an mdl file which could then be swapped out in name for an existing mdl file.

An aside for those keeping tabs...

I've got all 3 png pictures required for my Borg Cube and have created a seperate BorgCube.MDL. To use the MDL, a player will need a ship file. I will place these at my ftp site in a zip file for those wishing to take a peak. It won't cause issues with any existing installation of GC or AP with or without mods. The Borg Cube requires no tech to build and can be built on the first few turns of the game in order to be looked upon and tried. It will change color when you give it to an AI player, but not as much as I hoped. I haven't got the colors set as close as I would like for each race yet. The final verision will include a whole tech string (including existing nano-technology mods already released by others), the borg cube graphics, associated Borg improvements (like the Hive Mind Complex)... including a Trans-Warp Hub mudule for the Star Base and an MDL for Trans-Phazic Torpedos (for attacking Borg cubes). Due to the complex interaction inside the technology tree and the fact I use mods already released by others; and that such other mods had to be modified for play balance and to be compatable with my mods and other mods related to my Borg and Telapath mods (for use against the Borg for play balance by players aligned on the "good side").... so... the Borg Mod will likely have to be an entire package release combining many elements here as mods in the public domain plus my own (existing mods by others will reference the respective authors for due credit, of course).

Download the Borg preliminary mod zip file here:

http://users.rcn.com/aulonacara/Galatic%20Civ/