You can now use an ability/buff combo to cause a planet to be stripped to the core (destroyed).

Awesome!

Whoa! Fantastic! 

This is a huge thing for me as well! Really looking forward to 1.83 or whatever version number it is.

I don't know how much we can get away with asking here, but if we are going to make this a modding wishlist, I have some suggestions below. Though they aren't as important as what has already been discussed.

If that's off the table, perhaps you could do some research for us on what you can do with the Galaxy Forge 4 triggers? To be honest, we don't know as much as we should about the capabilities of the new galaxy forge. We only recently figured out how to add resource asteroids to a planet beyond what is defined in the entity file for example.

I've heard some mod teams have been experimenting with things like getting win/lose map conditions to work, since a few actions seems to be available in the "Trigger Properties" drop down. However, I'm sure we'd all like to know more about what actions and conditions are available, if they are operable at all. And perhaps more importantly, what the syntax for the .galaxy file is, since I wouldn't be surprised if the engine supports more features than what the Galaxy Forge shows. I realize Stardock might have done most of the work on this, but I don't think they know either. :p

Modding Wishlist

• A HasBuff target filter. We were excited when we got a "HasBuff" aiUseTargetCondition; however, I believe it is still possible for players to manually cast an ability on a target without the buff. So it is still not really feasible to make an ability which can only be used if the target has Buff X, which would be incredible useful. Further, a target filter would give us this sort of flexibility in buffs as well as abilities.
• An entity modifier for strikecraft construction time. Or simply update the ShipBuildTime modifier to affect fighter build times on non-planet entities. It would be nice to have something other than giving instant fighter build time or disabling fighter launch.  
• A "Grant Experience" instant action.
• Let us define the fleet supply and capital crew requirements in useCostType "ResourcesAndMustHaveCapitalCrew". This ability useCostType is currently hard coded to require 50 fleet supply and 1 command point. This is obviously fine for spawning vanilla capitalships, however, some of us modders have capitalships that use different amounts of fleet supply. In addition, some of us actually use abilities to spawn titans (which need two command points), so being able to specify the required amount of capital crew points required would be a nice extra. 

Looking forward to seeing more of Ironclad around again, whatever your future plans are. 

Hi Goa, I've already submitted the build for testing. The new build will be 1.83 but I suspect I will be doing a 1.84 and I'll add your list to my own - they don't seem that difficult on first glance.

Oh and yes, the triggers were coded by Stardock. I was involved in almost everything else done for Rebellion (mostly design but some coding as well) so it is relatively easier for me to adjust or make changes for everything but triggers. They will take more time as I will have to educate myself on how they work (from a code perspective).

I certainly understand, trying to figure out how a feature works (or was supposed to work) just from reading code is often not fun.   

I'm not really asking for any changes to it though, at this point we'd just love to know what it can do, if anything. 

Ok, I did some quick research on triggers. Check out https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/473060/page/1/

I've now implemented:

"Let us define the fleet supply and capital crew requirements in useCostType "ResourcesAndMustHaveCapitalCrew". This ability useCostType is currently hard coded to require 50 fleet supply and 1 command point. This is obviously fine for spawning vanilla capitalships, however, some of us modders have capitalships that use different amounts of fleet supply. In addition, some of us actually use abilities to spawn titans (which need two command points), so being able to specify the required amount of capital crew points required would be a nice extra."

I just added a new buffInstanceActionType "GiveExperience". Example of use shown below:

buffInstantActionType "GiveExperience"
instantActionTriggerType "AlwaysPerform"
experienceToGive 3000

Thank you very much!   This one especially will make my life much easier.

I have another suggesting to the list. I don't think it would be that hard to do, but if it is, I do have a work around for it so don't spend a lot of effort on it.

I discovered while designing a faction that was supposed to have 4 titans to choose from that the Titan build menu is hard coded to only allow two entries. I found this strange since there is room in the UI for 9, just like the frigate/cruiser/capitalship menus. Probably has something to do with the original design for Rebellion having subfactions be an in game choice, and thus two titans would be all that was needed in the original design. Trying to give a faction (player entity) more than two titans will cause the game to crash, either on start up or when trying to start a game with that faction (don't remember exactly).

I also thought of two longstanding minor bugs in the vanilla game you may want to look at.

1. The EntityModifier "PlanetBombingDamageAbsorption", used by the TEC planet Shield Generator, does not display on info cards, either on the ability description, or on the planet infocard when active. This means players cannot actually tell how much damage it is reducing. I also happen to have modded abilities that use a negative bonus to increase damage dealt, and in this case the player being affected by it will have no idea it is even there.
2. Corvette attack behavior will sometimes get them to get "stuck", usually when fairly close to a target. Since they are just sitting there, this means that many not get to properly use all their weapons.

Hello there from Sins of the Prophets! My apologize if this is outside the scope of the current batch of changes, but the AI stops building ships while she is building a titan. This is a pretty major issue for us, since ships die quite fast in the Halo universe. The AI will often run out of steam. It would seem to be a bug, since that seems like very odd intended behavior.

Honastly one of the things i would really love to see is a proper

entityBoolModifier "Cloaked" 

which turns the ship invisible, with a "phase effect" for the owner and completly invisible on the map and or empire tree to all but the owner.

If possible a buff that allows for changing of a planet type "example"  replace planettype X with Y with limitations (not allowed on say asteroids gas giants)

And if at all possible a fix with the shaders in regards to the depth buffer of Non-addative particles (they always go "infront" of non addative particles) 

if any of these are possible that would be great!

I'd guess hiding it from the Empire tree/icons would be pretty difficult, but yeah, the ability to hide a ship to everyone except the owner would be nice. The current "IsInvisible" modifier used by the Eradica Titan makes the ship mesh invisible to all players, which is not ideal for cloaking.

Alright, I'll take a look at most of this to at least see how much work it would be. I doubt any will make the upcoming v1.83 update but perhaps the shortly following v1.84.

Ok, you can now choose from up to 9 titans.

PlanetBombingAbsorption now shows up in tooltips. What's an example from your mod where a negative bonus not showing up? Show me the exact implementation you used.

Does this happen in an unmodded game? If it does, send a save game of it happening to [email protected]

[/quote]

Not sure what you mean here.

Awesome. 

I assume the negative bonus would not show up for the same reason the positive bonus also did not show up. But here's the buff. It will be applied to an enemy planet.

TXT
entityType "Buff"
onReapplyDuplicateType "PrioritizeOldBuffs"
buffStackingLimitType "ForAllPlayers"
stackingLimit 1
allowFirstSpawnerToStack FALSE
buffExclusivityForAIType "NotExclusive"
isInterruptable FALSE
isChannelling FALSE
numInstantActions 0
numPeriodicActions 0
numOverTimeActions 0
numEntityModifiers 1
entityModifier
buffEntityModifierType "PlanetBombingDamageAbsorption"
value
Level:0 -0.150000
Level:1 -0.300000
Level:2 -0.450000
Level:3 -0.600000
numEntityBoolModifiers 0
numFinishConditions 2
finishCondition
finishConditionType "FirstSpawnerNoLongerHasBuff"
buffTypeToQuery "Buff_ING_BombardmentProtocolApply"
finishCondition
finishConditionType "OwnerIsFriendlyToFirstSpawner"

I believe I first tested this in Entrenchment or Diplomacy just by doing the math on the damage numbers with and without the buff, and found that it worked as you would expect. Using negative numbers increases damage on the planet, but since there was no debuff text on the planet, a player would have no idea their planet was being affected by the ability unless there was a particle, like the TEC shield generator does.

With the shader the issue is that even though in 3d space the addative particle is supposed to be in front the non additive particle always shows up in front. 

Say you have a black smoke particle behind your ship and your ship fires a beam the beam would appear to go behind the smoke even though if you rotate the camera the smoke is far behind the ship. It seems that the 3d space of the particle isn't being used.

Ooooooh, this and the SttC via buff bits will be fantastic! Thank you so much!

Negative PlanetBombingDamageAbsorption values will now show up red.

I have one important request...

Could you please, please, please remove the hardcode limitation that prevents a starbase jumping to another grav well when there is a starbase present?

Currently, even if the grav well can support more than one starbase, if one is present you cannot jump another in. If you could make it only restricted when starbase limit is reached for the planet/grav well that would be fantastic!

I was originally planing on making all the capital ships in my mod 'starbases' so that each capital ship could be named and have unique upgrades that can be bought... but due to the hardcode getting added in one of the patches (as a failed attempt to nerf the Vasari Rebels) it kind of ruined my plans.

Oh, also wouldn't mind if the EarnResources overtime buff could actually pick which resources to earn. That would be cool but not a highly important.

EDIT: Sorry, one more request... if possible could you make negative trade values work to remove credits similar to how underdeveloped planets do? 

In particular the BaseTradeIncomeRate property for starbases. Since I was going to use it to give my 'starbase' based capital ships an upkeep cost (since they don't use up supply) but at the moment negative values do nothing.

if i was to request something maybe a option of making weapon styled ability better by adding a option of being able to target a certain direction, example front back left or right, as it is a bit annoying to have a beam ability target and shot at something behind it when the beams are at the front of the ships. If this is possible it would be hopeful in my modding endeavours.