Sinperium Sinperium

Modder's "Get-an-Answer" Thread

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Modder's "Get-an-Answer" Thread

Answers from Modders, for Modders who "Ask a Question"

from Sins Forums

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

 

modding
7,604,822 views 2,761 replies
Reply #1401 from Sins Forums Top

ok how do I go about doing that please. I am still learning so please dummy proof it for me please.

Reply #1402 from Sins Forums Top

second thought their wouldn't be a way to keep the AI from spamming them though even if I limit me to spawning a second ship. I guess the best I could hope for is picking witch titan I feel is better for the situation in game at the time. still a very powerful abvantage especially after i am done with merging all the rebel tech trees with the loyalist tech trees. though would still be good info to know.

TouchTasks - Access tasks with ease on Windows touchscreens.
Reply #1403 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting wkellykatz, reply 1400
Hi all long time player but new to modding. I have just bought rebellion and started playing the real sins mod. though I love rebellion I do not like having two factions of all the races and decided to try to merge the rebel factions into the loyalist factions. this is for a personal mod for me to play of course. my issue is with the titans. I want to allow the new merged factions to be able to build two titans one of each I have managed to make the rebel titans show up as build able but am limited to building one titan or another. anyone have any idea how to raise the cap on amount of titans you can build? any help would be great

As Lavo said, the only way around the limit is to spawn them via ability, exactly like returning armada in fact. Get the reference files and look at the "AbilityDarkCombatFleet" or whatever. However, this is different from building titans in two ways. First, you can build unlimited numbers of them. Second, they will not keep their levels on death like when you rebuild a titan, each titan will always start at level 1.

AI spamming could be an issue depending on how you set it up. As it would be now, if the AI has the resources to use the ability, it automatically will. This could mean you'd never see the AI save up for one, or if your AI is rich it would build a ton of them. You can get fancy with ability work to limit it to an arbitrary number, but I wouldn't recommend that for a novice.

Reply #1404 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting GoaFan77, reply 1389
Anyone ever seen this before? I tried to give a titan with 4 weapons a 5th one, but despite increasing the weapon count and adding the mesh point right I get this error.

Invalid Mesh Point Data String Found by IWeapon (Weapon Index Out of Bounds)

Mesh = C:\Users\Nathanael\Documents\My Games\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire Rebellion\Mods-Rebellion v1.04 Dev\Enhanced 4X Mod Dev\Mesh\Titan_PhaseLoyalist.mesh
MeshPointString = 'Weapon-4'
Parsed Weapon Index = 4
Max Weapon Index = 3

 

 

GoaFan....       this... is an EPIC moment for me....  all the 1000s of times you casually fixed my issues.....

 

:)

 

you get this error because your TITAN_PHASELOYALIST_COSMETIC.entity still has numweapons 4 and the Dev checks this vs the Mesh file.

 

Update all your _COSMETIC.entity to numweapons 5 and this error will vanish.

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Reply #1405 from Sins Forums Top

What tech/pact allows allies to share phase gate routes?

Reply #1406 from Sins Forums Top

RESEARCHSUBJECT_SHARED_NETWORK

 

Vasari Loyalist

    block 0
    pos [ 4 , 3 ]
ResearchField "Diplomacy"

researchModifier
    modifierType "AllowAlliesToUsePhaseGates"

 

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Reply #1407 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting silencedhawk, reply 1405

Quoting GoaFan77, reply 1389Anyone ever seen this before? I tried to give a titan with 4 weapons a 5th one, but despite increasing the weapon count and adding the mesh point right I get this error.

Invalid Mesh Point Data String Found by IWeapon (Weapon Index Out of Bounds)

Mesh = C:\Users\Nathanael\Documents\My Games\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire Rebellion\Mods-Rebellion v1.04 Dev\Enhanced 4X Mod Dev\Mesh\Titan_PhaseLoyalist.mesh
MeshPointString = 'Weapon-4'
Parsed Weapon Index = 4
Max Weapon Index = 3



 

 

GoaFan....       this... is an EPIC moment for me....  all the 1000s of times you casually fixed my issues.....

 



 

you get this error because your TITAN_PHASELOYALIST_COSMETIC.entity still has numweapons 4 and the Dev checks this vs the Mesh file.

 

Update all your _COSMETIC.entity to numweapons 5 and this error will vanish.

Oh duh. Yes, that would do it.

Quoting Lavo_2, reply 1406
What tech/pact allows allies to share phase gate routes?

researchBoolModifiers 1
researchModifier
    modifierType "AllowAlliesToUsePhaseGates"

 

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Reply #1408 from Sins Forums Top

I'm trying to convert a mesh file to a text format so that i can edit it, for rebellion.  i've tried using harpos tool doesn't seem to work.

Reply #1409 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting ladyarcueid, reply 1409
I'm trying to convert a mesh file to a text format so that i can edit it, for rebellion.  i've tried using harpos tool doesn't seem to work.

Use the ConvertData_Rebellion.exe included in the base game folder.

Reply #1410 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting silencedhawk, reply 1405
GoaFan....       this... is an EPIC moment for me....  all the 1000s of times you casually fixed my issues.....

 

k1

Reply #1411 from Sins Forums Top

Small question though it may be big, is there a converter tool to convert .png files to .dds format. I looked all throughout the forums and found nothing of help. Maybe I am blind.

Reply #1412 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting kcirtap42593, reply 1412
Small question though it may be big, is there a converter tool to convert .png files to .dds format. I looked all throughout the forums and found nothing of help. Maybe I am blind.

Any image editor that can save in .dds can do that. Just open it up and hit save as, select .dds. Note some editors like GIMP seem to need a plugin.

Reply #1413 from Sins Forums Top

hey zombie i tried using the ConvertData_Rebellion.exe  doesnt work for me not sure why.  I guess i should clarify im trying to add a few ship meshes form one of your mods (hypercorp race) actually to the base rebellion game.  it loads up but when i go to start a new game in minidumps.

Reply #1414 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting ladyarcueid, reply 1414
hey zombie i tried using the ConvertData_Rebellion.exe  doesnt work for me not sure why.  I guess i should clarify im trying to add a few ship meshes form one of your mods (hypercorp race) actually to the base rebellion game.  it loads up but when i go to start a new game in minidumps.

ah, in that case you need to convert them with the ConvertData_Diplomacy.exe.

Binary mesh files in the Trinity format do cause mini-dumps in Rebellion as you've observed. Text versions from Trinity work fine however.

 

Reply #1415 from Sins Forums Top

Goa is becoming the uber hero of Sins modding.

Reply #1416 from Sins Forums Top

thk that worked was going crazy trying to figure it out. :)

Reply #1417 from Sins Forums Top

I attempted using abilities to spawn 1 titan instead it is spawning 10 titans any help would be nice on how to fix this

 

Reply #1418 from Sins Forums Top

Is it a passive ability or active?  Are you making any uses of periodic actions? 

Without more information, my guess is an issue with your finish conditions (which perhaps are not terminating a buff)...

Reply #1419 from Sins Forums Top

i am merging all the rebel factions with the loyalist factions as a work around to the cap on titans i wrote an ability based on dark fleet for all the loyalist factions only thing i changed in the ability from dark fleet is the ships called the name of the ability and the tech needed to unlock the ability the ability i based it on is called " AbilityDarkCapitalShip "

Reply #1420 from Sins Forums Top

Make sure you set the fleet supply in the ability to be the exact amount required by the titan.

Reply #1422 from Sins Forums Top

I have a question about ship names. I'm in the process of adding a race, but I can't figure out what points to the StringInfo line to pick ship names.

What file has contains the command line that points to the "StringInfo ID "IDS_CAPITALSHIPNAME_NAME01" in the English.str file?

Reply #1423 from Sins Forums Top

Player.entity file of that race.

randomCapitalShipNamePrefix "IDS_CAPITALSHIPNAME_ALL"

Then I guess it just loads from everything that starts with that substring.

Reply #1424 from Sins Forums Top

Are there any blatant issues or roadblocks with turning a Titan into a Capital Ship? Would I still be able to have it use the titan armor, weapons, etc? What issues will I run into with the abilities? Could some of those be set as Tech Tree research items? My goal is to be able to build more than one, but switching the Capital Ship Factory model to that of the Titan Foundry.

 

Just trying to get a feel for a future project for once the snow flies and free time opens up.

Reply #1425 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting boshimi336, reply 1425
Would I still be able to have it use the titan armor, weapons, etc?

Yes.

Quoting boshimi336, reply 1425
What issues will I run into with the abilities?

You'll have to convert all of them to be "Intrinsic" rather than being set up as titan upgrades. And of course there are no extra passive upgrades and you only get 1 point per level.

Quoting boshimi336, reply 1425
Could some of those be set as Tech Tree research items?

Yes.

 

The biggest thing will be the target filter, you cannot change that. But you want them to be glorified capitalships anyways. A shame but more power to you.