Shield mitigation is always in effect, regardless of whether the target still has shield points or not. The only way around it is via the phase missile shield bypass mechanic. Otherwise good info though.

Noted and edited.

O.K., I have finally gotten to working on my planet mod and am trying to add as few new textures and meshes as is possible.  My emphasis is more on planet bonus variations and stat changes rather than radical new planet definitions and types.  So for example, the "desert world" can be radically altered simply by the bonuses assigned to it and will re-use the same mesh and texture of a standard desert world.

This said, I am creating a large  number of new entity files and I am guessing the load time will increase.  I am under the impression that the 1.2 improvements specifically addressed some of the image caching and all and further assume that means it is tidier and better at handling the loading of planets at the start and throughout the game.  Am I right in that?

So does this mean that even though I am adding new planet entities that point to already existing meshes and textures, will the game still handle each entity as requiring separate loading of each texture and mesh or is it smart enough know when it has already loaded one that is used again elsewhere?

My concern is estimating how many worlds can I add before it does begin to bog down  the game.  I am trying to be minimalist here but I do have some specific world types that bump the number of planets up--though not the textures and meshes.

Any explanations here appreciated.

It loads all the textures regardless of whether you have entities pointing to it or not. So I'm not sure if smart is the right word, but the number of entities point to a texture/mesh is entirely irrelevant.

Great news for me then.  Thanks!

Lol, "smart" is a strong word.

how would i make a research file that increses the speed that ships move at if it is possible??

CapitalShipAngularThrustAdjustment

MassReduction

Those are the only research modifiers that have any effect on speed. If you just want Captialships its pretty easy, but otherwise I'm unsure just how much of an effect Mass Reduction has. Otherwise you could make an ability that increases speed that requires a research, but you'd have to give it to every single frigate for that race.

Ok, fine folks.

Any better documentation or how to, on using the Particle Forge. Ive been trying for a couple of weeks, and to be honest Im lost. Im sure its easy, but its kicking my ass. :'(

Talk to (Syneptus) KrdaxDrkrun. 

How do you (temporarily) get rid of the HUD overlay (aka. shows planet options, your credits/resources, etc)? I know it's shift plus something, but I forget the rest of the keys.

Z is what mine is set to.  You can change this in the keybindings I believe.

Question: is it possible to modify the number of banks on anything aside from starbases via an ability/researchable?

Question 2: how do you tell the game which HUD research icons file you draw from when adding an entirely new icon?

I think its ctrl+z by default, but I would definitely change it. I assume you want this for screenshots/movie making, for which my set up is 1 on the number pad to disable the hud, 2 to enable cinimatic mode (no hotkey by default), and 3 to take a screenshot. 100% clean screenshots on the fly.

The most recent diplomacy patch added capitalships via research, but that's it.

You need to define it in a .brushes file in the Window folder. The default one for ability icons for example is HUDIcon-Ability.brushes, so look at the for how the formatting works, but you may want to make an entirely new brushes file for your new icons so that way you don't have to change it with a new patch (like you would have had to do with 1.3).

Thanks 

Also, does anyone have 1.31 playerRACE.entity files published yet?  I've tried using Harpo's mod updater, but it doesn't seem to want to update those files...

Pretty sure Harpo also published the 1.3 reference data. Just look at all the threads he made you'll find it.

I'm here.

I know EVERYTHING about the Particle Forge. I even tried to disassemble it. (not so successful) Anyways, PM me with questions, or PM me for just a general usage explanation.

Maybe one of these days I should make a huge tutorial about the use of particle forge.

He did.  Thanks.  For anyone else, it's here:

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/378266

Is there a way to increase the amount of cargo ships a Refinery spawns via ability?

I ask as I've been thinking over Refineries, which are rather useless and underpowered, and recalled zombie's mine/refinery hybrid. With such an ability, refineries could be eliminated altogether, and instead all extractors become a mine/refinery hybrid after researching refineries (which unlocks the ability).

First I'll say I love the idea of a combo mine/refinery... Unfortunately, the AI does NOT. It's more like resource focus, as in human usable but not usable by the AI. *sigh*

It's still would be a fun modification though.

Edit - I just did some more testing. Appears the roles on the planet module conflict. I thought it was working previously because the refinery ships were spawning. It doesn't work right though as the planet module role type has to be Crystal or Metal Extractor to get the income and it has to be REFINERY to get the refinery bonus. Oh well, another idea down the drain... I need multiple role types on modules similar to frigates

So it doesn't work then... Shame. Might just scrap Refineries altogether then, as making them cost no logistic slots wouldn't work out well, and they're just useless in NU.

Another thing you could do is increase how many refineries can serviced by the asteroids. We use it to help in DS. Also maybe see if you can increase the range of the ships. See if that isn't hard-coded.

See, here's the thing, for balance many asteroids aren't serviceable by refineries, otherwise you'd get an obscene amount of resources. Will look into the range bit however, won't hold my breath.

Maybe I'm not fully understanding the root problem here, but wouldn't the obvious thing be to make refineries produce more resources? I can think of at least three different ways to do that, so I'm sure at least one of them has to work.

...That would be a great solution. You wouldn't happen to know a method that works with Entrenchment do you? As I know of at least one that works with Diplomacy, thanks to all the new research modifiers, but not so much with Ent.

Well Diplomacy does have the best solutions, but yes there are Entrenchment options.

A. Increase the refinery rate of resource asteroids in the planet.entity files. Increasing the maximum number of refineryships also allows them to be more useful is less optimal locations.

    metalResourceAsteroidSetup
        minCount 1
        maxCount 2
        extractionRate 0.400000
        refineryRate 0.060000
        maxRefineryCount 3

B. While you can't increase the number of cargo ships via ability, you can change the max number and respawn time of them in the refinery entity.

maxCargoShipCount 10
cargoShipRespawnTime 25.000000

C. You could give the refinery ship itself an ability that generates a small about of additional resources. The "EarnResources" overtime action is at least avaliable in Entrenchment.

D. While Diplomacy 1.3 added the first research modifier explicitly for refinery ships, there is still a modifier that affects both trade and refinery ships.

researchModifier
    modifierType "CargoShipCapacityAdjustment"
    baseValue 0.500000
    perLevelValue 0.075000

While I haven't done much testing with this, I believe if you put a baseValue on a tech with no prerequisites it gives you the baseValue bonus without having to research it. Thus in this case it would increase the effect of each refinery and trade ships by 50%. Naturally this would make Tradeships further OP, but unlike refinery ships we can do other things to affect the impact of trade, either by creating a second researchModifier that only affects tradeships to undo the bonus we just gave them, leaving only the refinery ships with a bonus.

researchModifier
    modifierType "TradeGoodsValueAdjustment"
    baseValue -0.500000
    perLevelValue 0.075000

Or more interestingly, you can reduce the stats of the tradeport itself. By setting the base trade rate to zero, (I think) you essentially make tradeships the sole generator of trade revenue, which can be a good thing if you want to make destroying tradeships worthwhile to the enemy.

maxCargoShipCount 5
cargoShipRespawnTime 25.000000
baseTradeIncomeRate 1.000000

I'm in the middle of updating a mod from 1.21 into 1.31 and when I think I'm done, I try running it and end up with the dev program spitting out:

Failed to convert 'AllianceAcceptMetalPact' to an enum value.
Failed to convert 'AllianceOfferMetalPact' to an enum value.
Failed to convert 'AllianceRejectMetalPact' to an enum value.
Failed to convert 'AllianceBreakMetalPact' to an enum value.
Failed to convert 'RejectQuest' to an enum value.

Any idea what file this is referencing?  I thought I updated the player files and the entity.manifest...  It's a relatively simple mod, so where else could the problem be.  Also, what exactly does the above error mean?

EDIT: nvm, found the problem