Minimizing Mines mod, good idea or bad idea?

just an idea that came to me

from Sins Forums

I was looking at the mines recently and remembered all the memory they eat up in long term games. Then I thought"does anyone really spend much time looking at the mines other than the icons?"

So my idea would be to reduce the size of the mine's 3D models, their meshs and such and see if we could cut their parameters in half at least while keeping their impact on gameplay the same. Would anyone really miss the mines if the late game stayed quick despite 1000+mines in the system?

Anyway, give your thoughts, ideas, how-to directions, or possible ways to easily reduce the size or remove the model/mesh in easy to understand directions(pictures with steps welcomed for beginner modders)

modding
9,771 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

I use the simplest mine I could make. TetraMine.

I never ever once zoomed in on a mine before getting TSOPs reduced mines in-game for SivCorp.

I actually hide the icons as well. Makes for some nasty surprises.  X(

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

lol that's the kinda fun I like(a sun with a full gravity well of 500 homing mines is scary enough even seeing them) any way you could tell me how to hide the mine icons only and maybe make the mine's "entity" vanish as much as it can?(maybe just a blinking light or something to that effect)

Fences - Organize your desktop icons today!
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

You can edit the icon in the MainViewIcon-Generic.brushes file, the specific entries being MainViewIconSpaceMineX. Change the last two numbers (28 , 28 in my file) to 1, 1. This will turn the icon into a 1 pixel-sized icon, which is in essence invisible.

Though with an attentive player, you can't truly eliminate the mine's icons, as they can click the Empire tree icon (even if there is a blank icon) which would reveal the mines' positions. The AI will always know where the mines are... Though they tend to run into minefields anyways.

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Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

what I'm mainly  after isn't the icons though. I'd like to make the actual model shrink significantly in size to the point of even just being a small flashing particle effect of some kind like a beacon. I'm sure that even with them flashing they would be difficult to discern from the background and stars. I want their overall memory consumption to drop, even if they turn into cubes or pyramids for 3-d models so long as the image is super tiny i don't think anyone would mind. Also, being made into a mod people would have the choice of using the "invisible mines" or not

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

Create a small (really small) primitive and attach a flair to it then. That would create your blinking beacon. You could look at other particle effects too, the flair just seems like the beacon type (or is it really bacon you are after ;))

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

lol, just some ominous"hey Jeff, what's that blinking light off the port side?" kinda think out there is what I'm after, but sadly Rus...I only have a laptop now, and it by no means has the capacity for 3d modeling or any sort of modding of the sort right now ;.;

My domain is, and shall remain, text and setting files until I procure a decent desktop with a good vid card