What files or entrys determine gravity well size?

from Sins Forums
Just as the topic says..

I looked through all of the planet, star, and galaxy entity's, but i cant seem to find the entry's that govern the gravity wells radius. What i want to do is have a star that has a gravity well reasonably large enough to engulf all orbiting planets (this is for the trek mod btw). Stars themselves will be the only objects "connected" (unless we can mod out the phase lanes altogether). If anyone has info post it, or give me a private message. TIA

modding
10,842 views 14 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
Blair to the rescue:

Blair Fraser wrote:
Grav wells can be changed - its on a per planet type basis so open the appropriate file and look for something like farorbitoffset.


I forgot this too. Hmm... gives me some ideas.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
(immitates mad scientist laugh) MUAH HA HA HA! I had a feeling thats what it was, but i wasnt sure thanks
DeskScapes - Bring your desktop background to life.
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
tars themselves will be the only objects "connected" (unless we can mod out the phase lanes altogether)


By default, stars will all be connected to one another in the next patch -- no more phase lanes between stars, it'll be open road.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
Ok i tried my experiment, and it failed... Miserably. I set all of the stars farorbitoffset to 2000000 (default is 20000), and it had no effect at all. The the stars grav well remained the same radius. To top that planets with a grav well still need to be connected to the star. Otherwise ships wont travel into the stars grav well. What i want is for several planets to be inside a stars very large grav well where ships can travel freely at sublight, build, colonize, etc. as per the normal game. The only phase lane connections i want are between the stars themselves. Is it possible for a star to spawn planets like a planet spawns resource asteroids?

In the trek mod you cant warp while still in a solar system (As stated in ST:TMP it is very risky to do so). Most if not all of the battles will take place within a solar system (at least until we can figure out how to do deep space battles).


Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
you may want to try a smaller area, there is probably a set max and min.

You almost certainly cannot add planets to the same gravwell by overlapping them, you will probably have to wait until they make it possible to have 2 planet or more systems?
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
you may want to try a smaller area, there is probably a set max and min.


No, the game ignores those entries for stars. Dunno why.

You almost certainly cannot add planets to the same gravwell by overlapping them, you will probably have to wait until they make it possible to have 2 planet or more systems?


Yep, you can't. Current behavior is hard coded.
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top


Yep, you can't. Current behavior is hard coded.


And all of my ambitious plans get shot down right there. Time for plan B (just need to figure out what plan B is )
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
And all of my ambitious plans get shot down right there. Time for plan B (just need to figure out what plan B is )


Plan B, as always, is to mod some structure as the new super weapon.

So let's change the research station to a planet destroyer.
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
Nyah, I see your idea, you want a single large solar system, more room for manuvers and such... If you can't change the star size, try doubling the planet/roid gravwell sizes... and make a map where virtually every system has as many connections as possible...

Thats closer at any rate; though you should probablly wait for Beta 3, which will likely change star behavoir and who knows what else... we might get new terrain to play with.
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
Ill just have to use the current map system as it is for now :/ (unless some big changes happen between now and release day)

I am also interested in experimenting with a fully connected map. If anyone knows how to do this give me a PM.
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
I am also interested in experimenting with a fully connected map. If anyone knows how to do this give me a PM.


AFAIK it is only possible currently with custom scenarios (where it's very bothersome to do, using a script to generate the connections helps a bit), not with the auto generated normal maps.
Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top
Mod maps are going to be a big challenge depending on the genre people are planning to mod. Most if not all modders want fully connected maps for their mods of genres that dont use jump gates like star trek, or star wars. Babylon 5 uses gates so this wouldn't be an issue.

Hopefully the forge tools will have a way to auto generate the connections for a fully connected custom map.
Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top
are we getting tools with the game?
Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top
The Forge Tools will be released either shortly before or sometime after release. We'll have to see how things pan out in the next few months, but we plan to release them.