Modder's "Get-an-Answer" Thread

An attempt to answer your question Sinperium.

For all of the "caster" abilities attempt to change:

numOwnerships 0

To:

numOwnerships 1
ownership "Enemy"

This should make the ability/black hole target all the enemies of the owner, while not harming the owner. If my understanding is correct, setting numOwnerships to 0 effectively makes the ability target everything that is in range. Hope this helps.

I'm answering my own question here in case it's a benefit to someone.  The mod files were apparently corrupted during one of my installs/uninstalls.  That's the first time it's happened to me.  My solution was to get a clean copy of the Diplomacy (my mod is for this) entity files (which is all I edited) and compare them.  Some lines were completely missing from some of the files and others had additional lines.

I overwrote the corrupted mod files with the original game ones and just re-edited them.  Problem solved--the culture centers now require only one logistic slot and work as intended.

This was a helpful answer as I did not know this but I am still testing.  Thanks.

1. Can a buff target structures anywhere in the galaxy? if not, can a buff target planets (similar to psi ability) to target structures owned by you?
2. Can a buff wait for a sub-buff to complete? I know sub-buffs can wait for the parent buff to complete, but I haven't tried the opposite.

1. Might be totally off here, but if you could make the building a unique one, say an un-buildable structure that takes up 0 log. slots, and get the ability to always target the planet this structure is at, it could theoretically work. Though once again, I know jack when it comes to abilities and buffs, so I might be totally off.
2. If my understanding is correct, you'd need to use some sort of FirstSpawnerNoLongerHasBuff finish condition to get this to work. The question is if this would work or not as the "main" buff is the first spawner, OR, the game doesn't differentiate between buffs, and the FirstSpawnerNoLHB will do the trick. 

1. The Ability, "AbilityTechOrbitalCannon" can target planets anywhere in the galaxy. It's limited to planets, but that could be changed by changing the number of objects to two, and including "PlanetModule" as one of the objects. That should allow your ability and buff to target both planets and structures.

2. I don't have an answer for this one, so I won't even speculate.

1. You can most certainly make an ability target a planet then effect all structures owned by you (very similar to the Kostura). Targeting individual structures on different planets probably not.

2. I really don't know, couldn't you just switch the child and parent around and get the same effect? Need more specifics on this one.

Sorry, I was willing to try this disjointed thread... But I don't think it will work. You'd have to go back to the ask a question thread. This one pertains to Ryat wanting a way to limit a race to one and only one flagship but allowing a new one to be built should the original die.

Edit- I finally had a chance to look at the buff possibilities and I don't see a way to target the right planet or structure so this most likely wouldn't work anyway.

Ok, I have an ability on my Nephilim Battleship called Immortality, basically the idea is once researched it will raise from the dead if killed. Well long story short I couldn't get it to work the way I wanted back then and never really came back to it until today (plus someone complained on moddb ) . It turns out the trick was to use the requiredShip versus the randomShip setting. Huzzah!

You could use this approach as the passive fifth ability on your flagships such that when a flagship is killed you automatically get a new one. This would of course ensure you only have one, but it does also mean you will always have one.

Either way I'm happy to have this working right for me.

I have 2 small questions:

1) I know how to make grav wells take more than one starbase, but is it possible to have it set so they have to be different ones? i.e. I provide 2 different starbases in my mod, I don't want to have 2 of the same built in a grav well.

2) Where is the tech tree/ diplomacy background located (folder/name)? I've accidentally incorporated the Star Wars Requiem background and now I cannot find it to get rid of it.

thanks!

ZombieRus makes a Zombie capitalship. Hmm...

1. Impossible I'm afraid.

2. BackdropInGame and BackdropFrontEnd in the textures folder.

From IskatuMesk

Question 1

I want to remove Influence entirely. I guess the easiest way to do this would be to remove the distance-based influence loss on planets and then all related modifiers. I'm not sure where the best place to start this would be.

Answer: Not able to remove entirely. It is hardcoded. Can reduce to minimal influence by use of Gameplay.constants file.

Question 2

I think part of this is contained in researches but I'm not sure. I want to entirely remove fleet upkeep and change the supply caps to something like 200+20 per research or somesuch.

Answer: You actually control fleet upkeep per individual ship. Capital ships will always cost one Capital ship point though.
            basePrice
            credits 550.000000
            metal 70.000000
            crystal 10.000000
            slotCount 12.000000 <---- upkeep control for each ship at their respective entity file.

            The files you are looking for for the supply caps is found under these file headings.
            RESEARCHSUBJECT_MAXCAPITALSHIPS
            RESEARCHSUBJECT_MAXSHIPSLOTS
            Look for these headings and I am sure you can handle the rest.

Question 3

Having zero experience in ability editing, is it possible to create a channeled beam ability that steals life from a target enemy ship?

Answer: Yes, see Vulkoras' Ultimate Ability Disintegration for an example.

To add on to Ryat's response to IskatuMesk:

Question 1:

While influence is hardcoded, it can be made pointless. As Ryat noted, via changes in Gameplay.constants. Here's what I believe would do the trick:

        allegiancePassiveGainRate 0.000
        allegiancePassiveLossRate 0.000
        allegianceFriendlyMaxGainRate 0.000
        allegianceEnemyMaxLossRate 0.000
        allegianceGainFromCultureMax 0.0

This in essence makes culture spread not hurt planets at all, while ensuring that culture can still be used, albeit for other uses (such as additional antimatter regen).

        planetBaseAllegianceAtDistanceCount 1
        allegiance 1.00

This forces all planets to have 100% allegiance.

Question 2:

To remove fleet upkeep costs entirely requires editing the supply count/slot research files, as Ryat mentioned, like so:

researchModifier
    modifierType "IncomePercLost"
    baseValue 0.000000
    perLevelValue 0.000000

Actually that's the supply/cap cost (right?), the Upkeep I was referring to was the income reduction from increasing the cap, but Lavo caught that one it seems. Thanks to you both!

You are correct Lavo, by editing the Distant Stars entity "caster" files the black hole does not affect the planet owner's forces and then you just change (in Distant Stars) the black hole's entity file value under "is colonizable" to "TRUE". 

I set up a test map and watched my little constructor float happily by the singularity.  it's beautiful man...sniff..beautiful.

That was ridiculously easy.

Lavo and his family will be spared in the great galactic purge.

I've updated the "TOS" for this thread and questions and answers can be posted here now.  Please follow the spirit of the guidelines so we have a usable forum resource for modders here.

This has already been a success in my own mind as I have received an answer to which no one had answered in months and several others have gotten advanced help.

Your modding questions can be complex ones--modder to modder--this is a resource for all levels of modding.  It also isn't "my thread".  I fully hope it will be developed and carried by the quality of the people who participate in providing resources in it.

Along that line I will be placing links to modding sites/utilities and the like (such as those provided by Harpo, ZombieRus, MyFist0, etc.) in the opening post.  Stay tuned as I go through them.

I am pondering a creative reward for those contributing and I have one in mind but it will require some organizing and development before I can announce it.  For now, karma is the quickest reward and please give karma to those providing you help.  My prize I'm working on won't be karma...it's more tangible.

Thanks for those who have already helped.  Totally awesome.

There is any way to make some update like PSIDAR updates, but that work limited by range, instead of working being limited by number phase jumps?

I do not think so... even if there was, I don't think you would want to do that, as the range between planets can vary quite a bit depending on the map.

Does "range" (outside of number of jumps) exist beyond a star's gravity well?

I got the Forge Tools 3 pack earlier today, and set about changing the capital ship stats and some of the abilities. All I did was change a few numbers, saved it into a GameInfo folder, and placed it in the proper Mod directory. I ran the game, found it right where i put it, and enabled the mod. entered the game, and nothing changed. i thought that maybe i could force the game to use the mod, and after backing up the main GameInfo folder, i pasted my mod .entity files into it and overwrote the original ones. that got me a mini-dump as soon as I opened the game. Can anyone help me get the mod working on the game?

Forge Tools reference files are badly outdated. The top of http://soase.weebly.com/modding-tools.html explains what is still good and what is crap.

Original Sins 1.191	Entrenchment 1.051	Diplomacy 1.2

Well it physically exists (its how the game renders several planets on screen at once, and how frigates can attempt to go to different planets without engaging phase drives), though you can't use it to apply buffs on other gravity wells for example. PSIDAR seems to operate beyond gravity wells though, and as I haven't messed with those techs/abilities all I can say is that its probably not possible and it won't be practical even if you get it to work.

Yeah--an interesting concept using actual range outside a gravity well but I suspect it doesn't apply to everything.

i've got a little problem. i'm trying to mod diplomacy v1.2, and i have good reference files. here's the debug.txt:

Text FileArchive missing Label.

...\CAPITALSHIP_TECHSIEGE.entity
Label: m_weaponIndexForRange
Line Number:212
Line Contents: 

 and here's the actual file, the problem being in red:

 muzzleSounds
 soundCount 3
 sound "WEAPON_TECHCAPITALAUTOCANNONHeavy_MUZZLE"
 sound "WEAPON_TECHCAPITALAUTOCANNONHeavy_MUZZLE_ALT1"
 sound "WEAPON_TECHCAPITALAUTOCANNONHeavy_MUZZLE_ALT2"
 hitEffectName "Weapon_TechCapitalAutoCannonHeavy_Hit"
 hitHullEffectSounds
 soundCount 1
 sound "WEAPONIMPACT_PHYSICALHeavy_HITHULL"
 hitShieldsEffectSounds
 soundCount 1
 sound "WEAPONIMPACT_GENERICHeavy_HITSHIELDS"
 projectileTravelEffectName "Weapon_TechCapitalAutoCannonHeavy_Travel"
m_weaponIndexForRange 0
firingAlignmentType "Default"
TargetCountPerBank:FRONT 1
TargetCountPerBank:BACK 0
TargetCountPerBank:LEFT 1
TargetCountPerBank:RIGHT 1
canOnlyTargetStructures FALSE

 what exactly is the problem with this? can anyone help me?

For future reference, this is where you ask questions. Now to answer your question, that sort of error usually indicates that there's a line of code missing. In order to properly analyze this thing, go to line 212 and see if m_weaponIndexForRange is actually there. If not, it means you likely deleted a line or something, if yes, then I have absolutely no idea what's wrong with it, as iirc 0 is the standard value for ships. 

Nah, the dual thread thing was a bit much. Just keep the questions and answers concise. If you want a conversation ask a question link to the thread for a conversation please.

hard to see just with this snippet. Can you give the whole file. Use http://pastebin.com/ please and it will keep the post small. Or like above start a thread so we can ask questions and make sure to edit the answer back in if it's not provided here.

@Sinperium can you add a link about using pastebin or dropbox to share full files without littering the post. It's very hard to troubleshoot issues with vague descriptions or code snippets.