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

 

7,613,566 views 2,761 replies
Reply #2101 Top

from what I remember reading in vanilla sins it was 10 hardpoints per facing and three weapons, I think it was increased for either entrnechment or rebellion to 20 hardpoints per facing.

harpo

 

Reply #2102 Top

I get this error with the dev.exe

 

Assert @ D:\projects\SINS\SinsRebellion\main\CodeSource\GS/Entity/Interfaces/IResearchSubject.cpp(131)

m_Tier == researchWindowLocation.pos.m_X

I can skip it and it works but I want to know why this error exists and how I can get rid of it.

 

I converted the Titans into Capships with an additional Research, with the last of the Titan-Research as prereq.

The location of the new Research is free and is at the location I want it to be.

I re-used the existing Titan-Icons, reduced the Mesh-Size of the models (and re-named them and the new ships point to them correctly) and redid the Abilities/Buffs, and added everything into the Manifest/PLayer.entities. No more errors from typos in that regard

Reply #2103 Top

Something more important:

 

Where can i find, which neutral/pirate ship types get distributed on the planets. I want to remove the Siege Frigates and increase the count a bit through all levels.

 

I usually play maps from the map Designer and I know that I can controll the amount of npcs through that nice slider but I want some more direct control over the ship types, maybe throw in a few ships from the other races as well.

 

I think I read already something about that topic but neither searching nor my dozen bookmarked threads deliver satisfactory result.

Reply #2105 Top

Quoting Razeful, reply 2102
Assert @ D:\projects\SINS\SinsRebellion\main\CodeSource\GS/Entity/Interfaces/IResearchSubject.cpp(131)

m_Tier == researchWindowLocation.pos.m_X

The game doesn't like where you put a research. This may happen if you made an AI only research that is off the screen or if something is blocking a research prerequisite arrow, etc.

Quoting Razeful, reply 2103
Where can i find, which neutral/pirate ship types get distributed on the planets. I want to remove the Siege Frigates and increase the count a bit through all levels.

GalaxyScenarioDef

Quoting ParadePartizan, reply 2104

Does it work to use a rebellion model for trinity?

Haven't tried it, but probably not without a little work.

+1 Loading…
Reply #2106 Top

lol overuse and failed use of the search function lo: https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/407617/page/1/
Anywaaaays here it is lol :)

 

Hey guys, i made a new race and for some reason when i get in game using it, i start without any ships, constructors or facilities around my initial planet.

 

All i did was copy the PsiLoyalist and rename all the relevant stuff.I also added a new ship mesh to replace the light frigate which works fine once the constructors finally spawn.

Sorry if this is a spam question, I tried a search for constructors which brought back so many results and refining it didn't prove to be much helpful either im afraid.

Any help is much appreciated :)

 

Reply #2107 Top

Quoting StefanMucha, reply 2106

lol overuse and failed use of the search function lo: https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/407617/page/1/
Anywaaaays here it is lol

Hey guys, i made a new race and for some reason when i get in game using it, i start without any ships, constructors or facilities around my initial planet.

All i did was copy the PsiLoyalist and rename all the relevant stuff.I also added a new ship mesh to replace the light frigate which works fine once the constructors finally spawn.

Sorry if this is a spam question, I tried a search for constructors which brought back so many results and refining it didn't prove to be much helpful either im afraid.

Any help is much appreciated

Damn search  :P

 

Anyways, I believe you need to update the GalaxyScenarioDef to incorporate your new race by adding planet items (like Psi:Frigate:Constructor) and planet templates (like Template:DefaultHomePlanetSetup). Adding a parameter for your race in the template should allow you to spawn the planet items you create. Just be sure to update all your counts accordingly or you'll get swamped in errors when you run your mod.

Reply #2108 Top

Ah i see the section now, that makes sense.Thanks for the reply WOEaintME :)

Ive edited in my new race and as its just a copy of the psi race im using their tree with the new race name in place, but no change took place.

  • I increased the groups 12 to 14.
  • I tried to increase planetItemsTemplateCount 58 to 60 but it spitted out a few errors about the bottom of the section and neither way made any difference in game.

And edited in the following section (and the same copy of the psi quick start):

 

        group
            condition
                type "PlanetOwnerIsRaceNormalStart"
                param "RaceNameLoyalist"
            owner "PlanetOwner"
            colonizeChance 1
            items 4
                item "Psi:Module:FrigateFactory"
                item "Psi:Module:FrigateFactory"
                item "Psi:Frigate:Constructor"
                item "Psi:Frigate:Constructor"

 

Anything i am missing?

Thanks for the help \o/

Reply #2109 Top

You should only need to increment the number of groups unless you have new planets you'd like to have a default setup for.

Did you add your race name to the playerType?

playerTypeCount 7
playerType
     designName "TechLoyalist"
     entityDefName "PlayerTechLoyalist"

If you don't add to this section then the "param" field in the group may not work properly because the race isn't defined.

Reply #2110 Top

Haha thank you buddy, it was the playerType section i made the mistake in.

 

I added in the rebel faction too even though i hadn't made the entity file for it yet, thank you so much bud :D Was wreaking my brain over that one lol, im so blind ^^

Reply #2111 Top

Hello modding gurus of sins!
The resources presented are absolutely awesome! It has therefore to be completely my fault that I don't quite understand the way I get the texture correctly hooked up to the mesh. I have tried a video tutorial and looked at this example file
and tried to read up on it on the various threads and links on the topic. But it always shows only the same combination of named .dds files that I can't make much sense of.

Yet I'm still not successful. So my setup looks like this: I made a model in blender, made a UV texture for it, made a normal map and a colormap from that and imported the model via .dae into the xsi tool. Loading the color map was no problem. I haven't tried loading the normal and the other map (what does DA stand for btw?) into it. So that might be a possible source of my failure. In any case, there really shouldn't be any normal changes on the normal map and i don't really care for specularity right now. I'd file that under "advanced". Are they absolutely required for sins or the converter to make sense of the file(s)? Do they have to be .dds for this to work? Why are the .dds maps in the example file just the test grid? Is there a step I'm missing? What's a tangent map do? Is there a special site that explains the xsi modding tool that I can't find easily with google?

I was able to bring the untextured model into sins already, so converting the untextured model worked fine.

Thank you for your input!

Reply #2112 Top

Quoting Grinser, reply 2111

Hello modding gurus of sins!
The resources presented are absolutely awesome! It has therefore to be completely my fault that I don't quite understand the way I get the texture correctly hooked up to the mesh. I have tried a video tutorial and looked at this example file
and tried to read up on it on the various threads and links on the topic. But it always shows only the same combination of named .dds files that I can't make much sense of.

Yet I'm still not successful. So my setup looks like this: I made a model in blender, made a UV texture for it, made a normal map and a colormap from that and imported the model via .dae into the xsi tool. Loading the color map was no problem. I haven't tried loading the normal and the other map (what does DA stand for btw?) into it. So that might be a possible source of my failure. In any case, there really shouldn't be any normal changes on the normal map and i don't really care for specularity right now. I'd file that under "advanced". Are they absolutely required for sins or the converter to make sense of the file(s)? Do they have to be .dds for this to work? Why are the .dds maps in the example file just the test grid? Is there a step I'm missing? What's a tangent map do? Is there a special site that explains the xsi modding tool that I can't find easily with google?

I was able to bring the untextured model into sins already, so converting the untextured model worked fine.

Thank you for your input!

http://soase.x90x.net/?i=xsi/Tutorials/Hooking-up_Textures.html

 

Yes, the DA map is very important. Especially in Rebellion since there is actual lighting. DA stands for data btw. You can find some more helpful tutorials on this page.

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/376221/page/1

 

Reply #2113 Top

Quoting GoaFan77, reply 2105


Quoting Razeful, reply 2102Assert @ D:\projects\SINS\SinsRebellion\main\CodeSource\GS/Entity/Interfaces/IResearchSubject.cpp(131)

m_Tier == researchWindowLocation.pos.m_X

The game doesn't like where you put a research. This may happen if you made an AI only research that is off the screen or if something is blocking a research prerequisite arrow, etc.


Quoting Razeful, reply 2103Where can i find, which neutral/pirate ship types get distributed on the planets. I want to remove the Siege Frigates and increase the count a bit through all levels.

GalaxyScenarioDef

 

Yeah, seems to be the blocking of a research repreq arrow. I moved the offender already to another line because it looked "bad".

Didn't try it again with the dev exe as my settings always get reset.

 

Thx a lot for the GalaxyScenarioDef

Reply #2115 Top

Quoting Razeful, reply 2114

wich programm do I need to open those minidump files?

You don't. And even if you could, I'm told they wouldn't make any sense unless you have access to the game's source code.

Reply #2116 Top

damn, i just get the message that an error has occurred anddthe minidump but no other info with the dev.exe

 

strange, the mod has already worked

Reply #2117 Top

ok, found the files from yesterday, time to compare, i just changed a few things, probably a typo somewhere

Reply #2118 Top

Wondering if someone can help me, I'm trying to make starbases and orbital structures have ambient sounds (kinda like the ships engine noise)

I've tried using a passive ability with a sound attached but it seems to play the sound globally rather than locally (ie: you can hear the sound even when you zoom out or move to a different part of the map)

 

Any ideas on how I can fix this?

Reply #2119 Top

Look in the relevant sounddata file in GameInfo...logically, you'd want it to be an effect so I'd think you'd want it your entries to be in that sounddata file...

In there, you can classify which type of sound it is (effect, music, etc.) to determine which of the volume controls in game settings will affect it...

I would suggest that you mimic the same settings as other effects...it probably has the settings of music or dialogue which is "global" and who's volume is independent of zoom level...

Reply #2120 Top

Quoting Seleuceia, reply 2119

Look in the relevant sounddata file in GameInfo...logically, you'd want it to be an effect so I'd think you'd want it your entries to be in that sounddata file...

In there, you can classify which type of sound it is (effect, music, etc.) to determine which of the volume controls in game settings will affect it...

I would suggest that you mimic the same settings as other effects...it probably has the settings of music or dialogue which is "global" and who's volume is independent of zoom level...

 

No that's not the issue... it is an engine effect and it works fine on a ship as an engine effect, but when I try to attach it to a starbase via passive it doesn't seem to work... the odd thing is that I'm sure I had it working in a different version way back...

Reply #2121 Top

I'm looking at the destra's ability Ruthlessness right now, because I know its sound works fine...here's what they got there:

  • The sound effect is in the ability file, not the buff file
  • The attachtype for the effect is Center, not Invalid (can't imagine this would affect a sound but you never know)
  • In the SoundEffects file, it is NOT looping and is NOT resident

If I look at an engine sound in the SoundEffects file, I see all the engine effects are looping and are resident, which is contrast to Ruthlessness...

So, perhaps that helps, I don't know...

 

Reply #2122 Top

ok, seems I'm an idiot again

 

the dev.exe givs me the following error

 

Assert @ D:\projects\SINS\SinsRebellion\main\CodeSource\Engine/String/StringLibrary.h(83)

result == 1

 

any ideas what this may cause it? I only changed resource roid counts in the planet-files. I can skip it in the dev.exe and the normal exe sometimes crashes on me and sometimes not

Reply #2123 Top

I feel like I knew the answer to this at one point, but does anyone know what you have to do to remove the cosmetic titans from the front end map (while keeping a randomly generated map there)? Appearently removing them from the GSD and entity manifest are not enough.

 

Quoting Razeful, reply 2122
Assert @ D:\projects\SINS\SinsRebellion\main\CodeSource\Engine/String/StringLibrary.h(83)

result == 1

 

any ideas what this may cause it? I only changed resource roid counts in the planet-files. I can skip it in the dev.exe and the normal exe sometimes crashes on me and sometimes not

No idea, but the obvious thing is to go back and do whatever you changed one line at a time until the error appears. Also, if you ever figure out a cryptic dev error, post about it in this thread.

 

 

Reply #2124 Top

Edit their entities and use blank models?

Reply #2125 Top

Quoting IskatuMesk, reply 2124
Edit their entities and use blank models?

Putting on a passive ability with the wonderful line IsInvisible achieves this easily.