I seem to be taking up quite a few of these slots lately with my questions, so why break the chain, here's another.

I've noticed that the 4X enhanced mod and Star Wars Interregnum ( These are the two I've played with.  I assume other mods do so as well. ) adds more artifacts to the game than the base game has.

How precisely would I go about doing similar, and is there any limits I should be aware of?  ( I poked around some of their code a bit but I'm not the most knowledgeable about this stuff so for me my progress is hit or miss on my own, more miss than hit. )

I think I got the artifact thing working, so trying my hand at something else.

Trying to change the Vasari Starbase upgrade that makes temporary phase stabilizer so that the starbase is a permanent phase stabilizer.

Evidently... this is trickier than I thought, as this is my first mod attempt that caused the game to crash.

These are the files I thought I needed.

AbilityPhaseGateStarBase

http://freetexthost.com/iuz3ucv3p5

BuffPhaseGateStarBaseSelf

http://freetexthost.com/y5qfo4hemc

StarBaseUpgradePhasePhaseGate

http://freetexthost.com/hs5o52teyu

After spending about two hours troubleshooting it and trying different ways of getting it to work, I got nothing.  Halp?

I was having issues with this account for awhile and I just got it fixed back.  If I missed anything needed, let me know.  Thanks.

OK--I have an old question that, back when I originally asked in 2012 or so no one knew the answer to.  Here it is again as Rebellion is mature and it should be there somewhere.

When creating a custom map template (by text editor), what are the conditions to set the starting race on a particular planet as a fixed faction type?  

For example prior to Rebellion:

 condition
            type "PlanetOwnerIsRaceQuickStart"
            param "Tech"
        owner "PlanetOwner"

This is the old style template and "Tech" achieved this function.  Now that we have Tech "loyalists" and "rebels" (and the other factions have the same permutations) how should each of those six conditions be rendered?

Hopefully someone out there has the answers and is still around.  I had tried the new ones (which I no longer have the references for) back in the day and they didn't work.

Thanks in advance!

Um...  that ever worked?

That condition determines when something spawns, so if your planet is owned by Tech, whatever is there will spawn on game start.  Pretty sure there isn't, and never has been a way to lock the factions, but if there is someone figured it out and never shared with the class.  It's been a frequently bitched about shortcoming in the map designer.

Hmmm.  It's been more than a couple of years so you may be right.  Thanks for the reply.

But going back to the basic question, if I wanted to use the above, what goes in the place of "Tech", "Psi" and "Phase" when you're dealing with Rebellion variant factions?

Well, it would be TechRebel or PhaseLoyalist, etc., but the galaxyscenariodef file overrides what is set in the map, and further more, player selection overrides that, so if you are trying to force a faction on someone, it just won't work and the game won't (or at least isn't supposed to) crash if you call out for something that doesn't really exist (like if you made a typo).

Now aside from the initial DS conversion to Rebellion without actually having Rebellion to test with, that's kind of what I figured out back in the day. Things may have changed in the time since, but I doubt it.  And of course I don't have any of my Distant Stars mod files or tools anymore, forgot to save them when I upgraded to Win10, so I'm just going off of memory here since I have nothing to look at for reference.

This only works on non-random maps. In the playerCount section at the end you put the overrideRaceName in like you did previously. Use the TechRebel, TechLoyalist like stant said.

You may end up with weird player portraits though if the same faction isn't chosen in the game setup. Basically the race will override the setup selection but you'll end up with the player portrait randomly chosen at game start.

I did some playing around with non-selectable minor factions using this setup. Basically you could create fully AI'd versions of a non-player selectable race that will expand/etc but could have a far limited setup from a full faction. The odd thing is you would get a player portrait/player icon from the available pool of selectable factions.

The overrideRaceName apparently was used in the tutorials and probably wasn't fleshed out for normal map play. It would be nice if the overrideRacename also used the associated player portraits and player icon.

Thanks guys.  I'd tried updating some maps back when Rebellion came out and the TechRebel, etc. didn't work at that point.  Confusion cleared up.  Didn't want to spend hours trial and erroring it.

And I look forward to crushing Stant, driving him before me and hearing the lamentations of his women in Star Citizen.  

I also am an equal opportunity slayer and if you're in SC Zombie, you will feel your pain as well.

Is there a "Bare Minimum" reference files for Sins of a Solar Empire Rebellion that I can download? What I mean by Bare Minimum is that all the races with there corresponding strings and entities have been taken out of the files so someone can just start adding in new races

ZombieRus has a mod with a fourth race that is mostly stripped (I think).  Check the links in the first post here about adding a race.

Unfortunately, there isn't (that I know of) a fully stripped out version to use as a template--particularly relating to Rebellion.

There is a tutorial on how to add a race and that will help a lot.  It is in the header here somewhere.  Everything here has a learning curve, exceptions, rules and a lot of it is context sensitive--what you mix together is as important as adding or taking things out.  So it's hard to have a generic template.

Hi i would like to remove or deactivate some technologies from being researched. In particular, i'm making my own map and i would like that only wormholes would allow interstellar travel. So i must deactivate galaxy travel. I've found various reference research modifiers list, but not where to put theese modifiers. Seek game files, no technologies txt apparent.

If it is a custom map why not remove any phase lanes from the star to the planet(s) in that system?

Hi, I am currently experimenting with buffchains.

Is there a limit hwo complicated a buffchain can be except my imagination? I read there is a limit for the maximal number of  actions a single buff can do, does this limit still exist?

Check out SOA2 and look at the AbilityX1 set of files.

There are limits on individual file contents, such as five instant actions and two periodic actions, but you can chain them together pretty much endlessly.  At some point there has to be a limit to what you can do, but we're talking long integer kind of limit, not really practical.

You can have 3 periodicActions in a buff in Rebellion. I know as I have a ability in SoGE, ABILITY_FLEETCOORDINATEALL, that has this. It also had 4 at one point which did trigger an error message that said the maximum is 3.

Oh right, they changed it...

Thanks for the replies. I have another question. Is there some workaround to emulate a "HasBuff" finish condition for buffs?

If i use the "ResearchNotMet" finish condition in buffs that are applied to enemy targets, does it check if i have researched the tech or does it check if the enemy has researched the tech?

If you are casting the buff, I imagine it should check if you have not researched the tech.

Buffs know who owns them, everything is always from the perspective of the caster, even if their ownership changes.

I recently found a cause for the infamous FixedArray error. It can occur when you have a sound effect that Sins doesn't like. I specifically am having this occur with a bomber's engine sound.

Hi, while i tried some modding again i run in some issues and would be glad if you can answer some questions.

I tried to apply a buff with "ApplyBuffToSelfWithFilter" but  the buff is not applied. Basicly it is just a copy-paste from a working exisiting ability.

numInstantActions 1
    instantAction
    buffInstantActionType "ApplyBuffToSelfWithFilter"
        instantActionTriggerType "AlwaysPerform"
        buffType "BuffTest2"
        targetFilter
        numOwnerships 1
        ownership "Friendly"
        numObjects 5
        object "CapitalShip"
        object "Frigate"
        object "PlanetModule"
        object "Titan"
        object "Corvette"
        numSpaces 2
        space "Normal"
        space "Phase"
        numConstraints 0

Also i would like to know what the costraints "HasAntiMatterShortage" and "HasAntiMatterPool" checks. How low needs antimatter to fall to be considered as shortage or how high to be considered as antimatterpool?

Also i found in Zombie's EclipsePlugin files with a "ResearchUnlock" research tree. Is it possible to use this research tree?

Your trigger type is for periodics.

instantActionTriggerType "AlwaysPerform"

Works now with triggertype "OnDelay" and delaytime zero.

It's dead as far as I know. It was something early on in Rebellion where they were considering a new research tree and having the player choose it's faction alignment in game...