Dont worry psychoak, I figured it out!

The solution is actually partly texture based.

The game knows not to render black/near-black textures. Black shows up as clear/transparent in the game. This is the key to Advent's instant beams. I'll explain:

Beams in the game are made up of 2 parts: Core and Glow. Supposedly one is meant to be the middle of the beam, and the other the...well... glow of the beam. However, glows can simply be applied to the textures themselves, so it seems a bit redundant to have glow right?

Thats what I thought at first. Until I looked closer at all the beams. Advent have their ACTUAL beams named "PsiCapitalBeam_Glow.dds". Their regular CORE texture (PsiCapitalBeam_Core.dds)? Its black/grayish. It doesnt render in the game.

-Okay, so Advent beams appear instantly because their TEXTURE is named to the glow category? Not quite.

The real defining factor for beams fading in or appearing instantly is in the .entity files for the ship, under their weapon effects for beams.

Under a beam's stats you're allowed to set their effects. There are 2 parts here, beamGlowTextureName, and beamCoreTextureName, the same way as stated above. Under these conditions are the key to instant beams: Any texture called to from beamGlowTextureName will appear INSTANTLY in game. Textures called to from beamCoreTextureName will fade in.

Simply:

beamGlowTextureName=Instant Beam Texture

beamCoreTextureName=Fading Beam Texture

You can see this displayed with TEC Starbase/Titan Beams as well as Vasari Planet bombing beams. Their .entity files have their main beam textures set to CORE, meaning they fade. Further, their textures are named "TechStarbaseBeam_Core" and "PhaseCapitalBombingBeam_Core", with their respective glow textures being nearly black.

-Okay, so how do I make TEC/Vasari Beams instant like Advent's?

There are 2 ways to do this.

1. The simpliest solution is simply to swap the names of the glow and core textures themselves. This way, any ship that uses fading beams will have the main beam texture appear instantly.

2. If you want specific ships to use fading beams and others instant beams without modifying the beams for the whole faction, you can go into each ships' .entity file and swap the textures that are called to under beamGlowTextureName and beamCoreTextureName in the ships beam weapon sections.

TL:DR

Advent beams appear instantly because the .entity files have their beams appear under beamGlowTextureName.

To get instant beams, use the texture you want under beamGlowTextureName in a ship's .entity file.

Perhaps a stupid question, but... does anyone have the reference files for Rebellion 1.85 with the files for all the DLCs available?

I can't figure out how to get the convert data thing in the gameinfo folder to work, and after scouring the forums for the past hour or so the latest I can find is Rebellion 1.83, which isn't what I'm looking for.  :(

You just need a batch file.

For GameInfo, it goes like so:

for %%a in (*.entity) do ConvertData_Rebellion entity %%a %%a txt

Make a new text file, copy this line into it, change the file type to .bat, and double click in a folder that contains ConvertData_Rebellion.exe and the offending entity files.

If you're really lazy, you can just get the SOA2 mod, which comes with conversion folders in each applicable directory that have the files set up for it.

Just a quickie: poked around a bit, is the ability to only train a single titan hard-coded? If not, the location where I can find the restriction would be useful, thanks.

Yes.  There are work-arounds though via ability spawned titans.

Does anyone know where I can change the unit limit for Titans?

Dude, that is literally the last question that was asked and answered...

It wasn't posted on the first page of replies...  So...  You know...

What's a search box?  Why would anyone ever use that?

Sorry new to the forums, that giant pinned post in this thread was annoying so I literally just scrolled all the way down to the respond button without actually reading through the thread, so my bad.

Is there any way to make the mines so that they are not invulnerable?

Remove their ability to phase out, or increase the scout's range for mine detection to something that covers entire gravity wells so you continue to use the intended game mechanic of making scouts a lot more useful. Either should work.

Okay thanks.

Is there any way I can prevent the AI from building carriers, or at least tell them to build less of them. Their carrier spam is causing my game to lag to the point where the game is unplayable since I am only getting 8 FPS late game.

Ok guys -a dumb question and if it's been asked before, then pelase excuse my ignoranceas I haven't been able to find it.

Now, perhaps it's hardcoded, but is there a way to change the surrender conditions of AI players? Often times I feel they give up too quickly. I'd like to make a very subtle mod thats something to the effect of "Go Down Fighting"-mod. It seems with the new DLC the AIs are at least more dynamic post-surrender (they will move ships around, defend planets) but I think there's more to do.

Thanks for any input!!!

Don't believe there is one, but if there is it's in gameplay.constants.

So after doing some searching I discovered that the AI chooses what to build based on the StatCountType value in the ship files.

Can anyone provide me with a complete list of the StatCountType (s), and which one it gives the lowest priority to or it chooses not to build at all?

Cause I heard that there are certain StatCountType (s) that are essential for the AI to work such as Scout, Colony, and Siege frigates... but what are the non-essential ones?

Also what does the Mass value do in the entity files? Does it affect stats like movement speed or anything? Or does it simply dictates how large the ship appears in game? Cause want to make fighters and bombers appear larger in game, is there anyway I can scale them up without having to mod their mesh files?

No, you have to scale up the mesh files. There are tools to do this easily however.

resize.exe

So I read the best way to prevent them from building carriers is just to create a duplicate faction for the AI, and remove their ability to build carriers all together.

So I made a copy of the player entity files for faction and removed the ability to build and research carriers for the AI factions... now what do I need to edit or do to make these special races show up in game so I set the AI as them without overriding the ordinary factions?

I would not agree with that advice. I'd just edit the carrier research entity files and change the priority line on them to 0.00000.

Currently GoaFan77, all priority lines for research (for frigate access) in the base files ARE at 0.00000, I've been looking through them to see if that would work... So annoying this is

I'd like to know where you read this, do you remember (or have access to) the link?

unit unlocks ignore priority

Adding a new player entity file is a little more complicated than you would think. You would need to extend or turn off the player selection popup that shows the Loyalist and Rebel race. After that you need to add it to the entity manifest then probably add a new stringinfo for a different AI player race name. Your biggest challenge is the player selection popup.

I figured out a solution, gonna make a high priority no tier research where the ai declares itself to an ai only faction that ends up removing the carrier as a research and build option.

kudo's to Lavo for helping me with the details.

You know, your actual problem, that whole performance thing, would be solved by reducing fighter counts and increasing their stats to preserve overall power.

That hasn't been my experience actually. Of course I'm only doing this for special strikecraft research, so it may be different for required roletype frigates.