Sinperium Sinperium

Modder's "Get-an-Answer" Thread

Modder's "Get-an-Answer" Thread

Answers from Modders, for Modders who "Ask a Question"

This is the place to ask and recieve specific modding (mod making) questions and answers. If you have a mod making question, post it here.

If your question involves long snippets of entity files and the like, please don't paste the entire file contents here but put them at the incredibly easy to use http://pastebin.com and then provide the link to your paste in your question posted here.

Please do limit  "just comments" here to brief posts please.  If you don't know the answer or can't point to help--don't post.  Please note that a random, uninformed guess isn't an actual answer.  

You can refer people to another source--IF it actually helps answer their question.  This could be in the form of links, outside sites, specific modding-useful programs, direction towards another post or poster, etc., etc.

Remember--specific questions, specific answers.  Only respond to the ones you can help solve.  Also, feel free to amplify, clarify, suggest alternatives to or correct answers seen here if such actions are merited and help provide a real solution. No flaming, insults or put downs here in the answers or other posts please.

Thanks in advance for your help and cooperation.  The reason for the rigid rules here is those this thread becomes a usable resource in the future to new people looking for answers.

NOTE: If an answer resolves your issue, please share it here.  These answers will help others coming along later too.  Karma is a great way to respond to people providing help without clogging the thread or bombing their forum mailbox here. Thanks!

 

OTHER SINS HELPFUL MODDING LINKS*

*Links are updated when requested.





The Soase Idiot's Guide

Confused?  No idea where to even start?

Determined to work at it?

This is the place!

 


 

 
   

Sins Modding Wiki

ZombieRus's Eclipse Wizardry

 

     


Tutorials

MyFist0's full modding site.

Emphasis on modeling  and

texturing.                            

 

 

 




                    

REBELLION MODDING TOPICS

Rebellion Modding Q & A

Mesh Editing

Changing Diplomacy Files to Rebellion

IT REALLY HURTS MY BRAIN--HOW TO START

An Idiot's Guide To Getting Started

MyFist0's Modding Megasite!

MOD DOWNLOADS

ZombieRus5's Mod Yard

Directory of Planet Mods

STEAM

STEAM Sins Forums

DEVELOPERS

Sins Developer Journals Forum 2007 to Present

REFERENCE FILES

Research Modifier List

MyFist0's Exported Models & Files

Modifier List

Harpo's Converted Sins Reference Files 2011

THIRD PARTY TOOLS

3dS Texturing Toool & Tips

Ship Fleet Calculator

SoaSE Eclipse Plugin Project

Mesh Resizing Tool--courtesy of the Reqiuem team.

Harpo's Sins Utility Package -- Dropbox

The Sins Optimization Project (TSOP)

Artificial Unintelligence (Mod and AI info)

Sins Data Converter by BCXtreme

EXPLANATIONS & DISCUSSIONS

Rebellion Updates by Blair Frazier

How to Add a Fourth Race

User-updatable Ship Reference Chart

Sins Modding Dictionary

Adding phase Effects to other weapon types

Culture, Explanation/Discussion

Weapons, Explanation/Discusion

Shield Mitigation & Armor, Explanation/Discussion-1

Shield Mitigation & Armor, Explanation/Discussion -2

Graphic Chart of Sin's Counters

Annotated Guide to the Developer.exe

In-Game Map Creator

Weapons Banks & DPS

Combat Mechanics

Rebellion Shield Mitigation & Focus Fire testing

PARTICLE FORGE

Particle Forge Help Thread

GALAXY FORGE

Adding Artifacts

Working Template Examples

SemazRalan's Template Guide

Pirates Base Start Template

SOUND RESOURCES

[SFX] Black Sun SFX/Music Resource for Modders

MODELING & TEXTURING--SOFTIMAGE XSI, 3DS MAX

XSI Texturing, Tutorial

3dS Model Exporter

3DS Max Rigging, Texturing & Exporting, Guide

Modding/Modelling/Texturing/Converting, Tutorials

WIKI'S

Sins of a Solar Empire Official Wiki

 

7,607,224 views 2,761 replies
Reply #151 Top

Ok i found it. In my PlayerEmpire.entity the randomCapitalShipNamePrefix "IDS_CAPITALSHIPNAME_EMP" couldn't find references in my string, i forgot to add them from requiem mod. I understand for RandomStream, but for range > 0 and MaxV >= MinV it is a bit obscure ....

Reply #152 Top

Quoting ZombiesRus5, reply 147
Try looking at Game.musicdata in the Vanilla GameInfo folder. It seems to be what you are looking for.

Ah, thanks ZombieRus. I had no idea that file even existed... :O

Reply #153 Top

Ok--I'll start general here in case there's an obvious answer I just don't know about. 

I took the black hole damage ability from DS and modified it to try on a fighter as an experiment.  It has three entities, the ability and two buffs. 

No minidump, no dev errors, no crashes--but also, no effects.

Fighters have some particular things they are limited to--no single target abilities, etc. but usually the dev run will show you the problem issue or prompt you something is out of whack.

Any off-the-cuff comments on this?  Here's the ability file (it's short).  I pointed to the name strings and all  for nano disassembler so as to not to have to create new desc's for the moment.

Here are all three files: http://pastebin.com/32PwZqEj

No visible errors, I must be getting better.

Reply #154 Top

Sinperium, fighters cannot use ApplyBuffToSelf remember, which that ability relies on. Doing so creates the exact problem you describe, no errors, but no effects either.

The reason for this is simply because with fighters, you don't give abilities to the individual craft. Instead, you have to give it to the squad, which has no physical presence in the game. Thus when a squad attempts to give a buff to itself, there is nothing for the buff to interact with, and what you really want to give the buff too. It would be nice if the Devs programmed an exception so that if a squad gets a buff applied to it, the individual fighters get the buff as well, but oh well.

That said, AoE abilities do work just fine on squads (I guess they do have a theoretical location in the game), so you maybe able to reconstruct the ability based on that instead of ApplyBuffToSelf.

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Reply #155 Top

Yeah--I was aware of that and had originally changed it.  I had other problems then so I switched back and was surprised it didn't prompt me--usually I get a dev error "strike craft can't apply buff to self"--this time I didn't.

I have things like flak burst that work flawlessly on fighters (though I am not using it).  I ran pasted over some of the abilities from DS and SoE and ironically get errors on them running them exactly as given--but I haven't tried running the actual mods they are from in Dev mode to see if it's an issue. Some errors are tolerable to the game but I really want a working solution not a workaround that the game can "tolerate".

I have two classes that I'd like to put specific abilities on  the Heavy Bombers and the Support craft.  The heavy bombers will have planet/infrastructure interfering capabilities and the support craft abilities that effect fleet combat.

I'll put up a wish list (there are only six abilities I need for this unless I go bonkers).  I am very slowly learning some of the nuances but some mods have things in the buff that are in abilities on another mod and vice versa--hard for me to know what the rationale is sometimes.

Thanks for the input--always helpful.

Reply #156 Top

Hi guys can sombody tell me how can i make a "randommilitia" unit immune for a player used ability.

Or make the ability to dont work on this units.

I dont want those units to be captured by the bording party ability.

"randommilitia"---- i mean those unit whats guarding the uncolonised plantes.

Thx

Reply #157 Top

Quoting lordcronos, reply 156
Hi guys can sombody tell me how can i make a "randommilitia" unit immune for a player used ability.

Or make the ability to dont work on this units.

Easiest way would be to make the unit a capitalship, structure or starbase as by default only the Advent have an ability that can capture units, and it is limited to frigates. Starbase would be ideal as random militia do not leave their gravity wells anyway.

Reply #158 Top

This is abaout a mod. Is there a chance to make an exception to the ability to using against to random militia frigates?

Reply #159 Top

Quoting lordcronos, reply 158
This is abaout a mod. Is there a chance to make an exception to the ability to using against to random militia frigates?

Nope. Only other way would be to make the ship have an ability that disables all other abilities in the gravity well.

Reply #161 Top

Quoting Dunkelzahn63, reply 145
Assert @ C:\Projects\P4\SinsDiplomacy\Release\CodeSource\Engine/Math/RandomStream.h(75)

maxV >= minV

 

Those asserts pop up while launching the exe and launching a new game.

The number of pop up is random, sometimes 1 of each, sometimes 2,3,4 or five of each.

This sounds like a random number generator issue.

Can't remember the exact error I got but while importing Celestial Bodies in my mod I had those math errors and it turned out to be the asteroids at a planet. The max asteroids was set at 3 or something and below that there was metal at 5 and crystal at 3. The metal at 5 is greater than the total max 3 which also caused different amounts of errors due to the random number generated.

Again not sure.

Reply #162 Top

I found the problem, you missed my post above :) :

Quoting Dunkelzahn63, reply 151
Ok i found it. In my PlayerEmpire.entity the randomCapitalShipNamePrefix "IDS_CAPITALSHIPNAME_EMP" couldn't find references in my string, i forgot to add them from requiem mod. I understand for RandomStream, but for range > 0 and MaxV >= MinV it is a bit obscure ....

It was only missing strings for capitalship names for playerEmpire, i forgot to copy/paste them from requiem original string to my mod string. The error messages are sometimes a bit betrayer :)

Reply #163 Top

Hehe, ya Ima dumbass. I was on page 6 thinking it was the last page for some strange reason. :S

Reply #164 Top

Ok...here is an example of errors with the fighter abilities in my fighter mod WIP that don't crash the game and still allow my effect to work--but I would like to eliminate the errors if that's possible. 

I have other abilities I have created and from other mods that "work" but also generate similar errors.  Is there a fix or reason to not be concerned?  All errors-occur when in targets enter the  range of effect.

Here is the pastebin of the ability and buff and following below are the errors for those.

http://pastebin.com/M02UxBrR

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Assert @ C:\Projects\P4\SinsDiplomacy\Release\CodeSource\GS/Entity/Interfaces/IBuff.cpp(5072)

_firstSpawner == NULL || CanEntityBeAttached(_firstSpawner)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Assert @ C:\Projects\P4\SinsDiplomacy\Release\CodeSource\GS/Entity/Interfaces/IBuff.cpp(5073)

_lastSpawner == NULL || CanEntityBeAttached(_lastSpawner)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Assert @ C:\Projects\P4\SinsDiplomacy\Release\CodeSource\GS/Entity/Interfaces/IDamage.cpp(1274)

pDamageDealer == NULL || CanEntityBeDamageDealer(pDamageDealer)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reply #166 Top

Make it an interrupt, not a disable.

Reply #168 Top

No/yes?

I seem to remember something about disable abilities that said "isInterrupt" look at the Radiance's detonate antimatter ability.

Reply #169 Top

I know the immediate answer will be "no" but for those of you with deep modding understanding...is there any possibility of creating an ability that will scale planetary orbital and ship production costs relative to it's current culture level?

Meaning: if a planet has low morale, can a buff make the costs of construction increase proportionately there?

I know we have vanilla buffs that affect production and others that allow us to view planets within influence of culture so I wonder if it can be done.

I love the idea of ships becoming more costly as enemy culture bears down and think it would be a great feature.

 

Reply #170 Top

It's possible to slowly ramp up construction time and cost, but as for linking that to allegiance,

I draw a blank.

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Reply #171 Top

Quoting Sinperium, reply 169
I know the immediate answer will be "no" but for those of you with deep modding understanding...is there any possibility of creating an ability that will scale planetary orbital and ship production costs relative to it's current culture level?

No. We don't really have any way to "get" a specific data number from an entity, and we certainty don't have any way to use logic to change a buff even if we did. Basically we would need access to some sort of scripting to do this, which is completely lacking.

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Reply #172 Top

Thanks Goa for the answer--sounds about right to me too.   More a hard coding feature than an entity use.  Darn.

I think it would be a great feature to add for Rebellion.

Reply #173 Top

Hi guys!

Pls sommebody explain to me what is that mean the shieldMitigation. And what the diference between maxMitigation 0.000000 and maxMitigation 65.000000???

 

Thx

Reply #174 Top

Quoting lordcronos, reply 173
Hi guys!

Pls sommebody explain to me what is that mean the shieldMitigation. And what the diference between maxMitigation 0.000000 and maxMitigation 65.000000???

 

Thx

Shield mitigation is a mechanic in Sins that reduces the damage received.

Shield mitigation starts at 15% and goes up to 65% when receiving damage (or higher depending on research and capital ship level).

Here are the lines in the Player[Race].entity file that controls the base mitigation and modifiers.

shieldData
    shieldAbsorbGrowthPerDamage 0.001000
    shieldAbsorbDecayRate 0.012500
    shieldAbsorbBaseMin 0.150000

A maxMitigation of 0 would not reduce any damage after shields are down.

This thread explains quite a bit about how damage calculations occur and how mitigation effects it...

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/383347