Cheers, your a star *Hugs*

Note for anyone else reading this, the above will convert the contents of the file, but they'll still be listed as.entity files .

Isn't that what your old one did? Your files should always stay as .entity files.

Probably, it's been over a year so i only remember bits and pieces, mostly the nuts and bolts of the files themselves. It was just that if someone finds this after finding the drag and drop .bat version they'll be used to conversion changing them to .txt files .

There's a difference between txt and .txt files. Entity files have two forms, bin, which is unreadable, and txt, which is readable, but they are still .entity files. If your files have a .txt extension, the game will not read them when you mod them.

Sorry to be clear, the drag and drop .bat's i'd been using previously, (i.e. while in searched for the mass converter, which as i said where too slow), the bin to txt converter will convert the entity files to .txt, (with  txt content), but when you use the txt to bin converter file it changes the extension back along with the contents. Hope that makes sense.

the game CAN read both TXT and BIN mode entity files, so while testing it is easier to test wehile the files are TXT, but when you want  to release you can BIN the files

and there is also my text bin gui (https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/353296)

harpo

You could technically still release your mod with your .entity files in txt, but having them in bin for your release version reduces your filesize and loads your mod slightly faster.

If you dislike the way the .bat files work, you could always just edit them to produce results to your liking, eg. having your txt entities saved in a separate folder (just change the second %%a in the syntax to <directory>\%%a), the entity's extension (this one's a bit more complicated and involves splitting the substring via tokens and delimiters, you'd have to change the command from 'for %%a' to 'for "tokens=1,2 delims=." %%a', with the caveat that having a period in your filename will mess up the command), etc. Replacing .entity with .txt is a bit trickier, but is still doable, though you'll have to read up on replacing substrings in batch files.

Way back at the beginning of Diplomacy, I added a Convert folder to each folder in SOA2 that had convertible files, so any of our users could modify our files easily FOR PERSONAL USE, (ya, apparently I need to state that everywhere now  .)

Any of our users can easily drag and drop 1 or more files in the Convert folder, double click the appropriate BAT, and whala, everyone is a modder.

EDIT: BTW, here is the guide to do it old school 

Convert Data Steam Guide

Looks like it needs a little editing, part of the old trinity tutorial is still in there. If a knowledgeable modder would like to contribute to the guides I have up, let me know and I will add you.

Is there  a possibility of Changing ABILITY under an other effect, like the impact on the overcharge influence on Titan buff** content. but on ability (range, targets, conditions)?+

And  instantActionTriggerType "OnChance" works like random Chance?

"periodicAction
    actionCountType "Finite"
    actionCount
        Level:0 n.000000

actionIntervalTime
        Level:0 0.250000"

and explain how it works if possible.

Updated OP with thread link to here: https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/453834/ regarding testing shield mitigation and focus fire by RespawnTitanL10.

I've been trying to build (as a separate piece of software) a mini-simulator and optimal solution solver for stand-and-shoot matches (see https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/453834/). One critical constant that I'm unable to find is how much shield mitigation goes up or down (i.e. its slope values) in response to damage taken or lack thereof. I know that the maximum mitigation is a per-ship/entity value. But what about its rate of change? That doesn't seem to be set per-ship and I can't find anything in Gameplay.constants either. One thing I was able to guess is that the mitigation is changed proportionally (I suppose linearly) to the pending damage. The latter figure can be displayed in the dev exe for each ship/object. The game updates this pending damage roughly once per second or so (again, how often this gets updated seems to be a hardcoded constant, although if someone knows otherwise, please reply...)

The amount it increases per damage is defined in a faction's PlayerRACE.entity file.

Thanks for the pointer. I'm guessing shieldAbsorbGrowthPerDamage is the mitigation increase rate per unit of damage (normally this parameter has a value of 0.001000) and shieldAbsorbDecayRate is the decrease rate (normally 0.012500), this one per second I presume. That would explain why a Cobalt firing on another makes the mitigation hover around 15-17% because 9.5 * 0.001 = 0.0095 is slightly less than .0125. The burst damage from a Cobalt is 52.25 though, which would push the instant mitigation to 20.225%, but I'm guessing there either a delay or fudge factor I'm missing.

I've done another calculation for two Cobalts firing on one, and it seems to match the experimental observation that it takes about a full minute for the shield mitigation to rise to the (max of) 57% under these circumstances. Two Cobalts output about 19 * 60 = 1,140 damage in a minute, which would rise the mitigation to 114 (were it not capped or subject to a constant decreasing per time), but in the same amount of time mitigation naturally decreases by 75, which gives a difference of 39, which added to the base of 15 gives a final mitigation of 54%, which seems close enough to the number observed in the game.

Also, after no longer being fired upon, I've measured it takes 32 seconds for the Cobalt's shield mitigation to decrease from the max value back down to the base level, which again fits the assumption that shieldAbsorbDecayRate is per second, as 0.0125 * 32 = 0.4 gives a decrease of roughly 40% ~ 57% - 15 %.

Ok, on a different tack, I'm having trouble adjusting the explosion from the Corsev demolition team. It does a lot less than the rated value even against pirates, who don't have shield mitigation.

For example: a serious upmodded bang of 1800 raw damage does 957 actual damage to an armor of 4 and 833 damage to armor of 6, both of which correspond to a damage before armor of 1148 (or 1147.9). So what causes the drop from 1800 to 1148 (before armor) on a pirate? There is a DamagePercentBonus:CAPITALABILITY:Pirate 0.75 in Gameplay.constants, but that's not what's getting applied, because it should be bit more in that case (1350 not 1148). And it doesn't seem to be modulated by the DamagePercentBonus:ANTIHEAVY:Pirate 0.60 (I'm blowing up a board Cobalt amid pirates) because that's a bit less (1080 not 1148). The bang percentage is actually 63.77% of rated dmg vs. pirates (before armor), but I have no idea where this is coming from. Any ideas?

Update: DamagePercentBonus:CAPITALABILITY:Pirate definitely affects the outcome. Increasing it to 1.0 result in a big shazzam on all the pirates in my previous test, so I had to lower the demo team damage to 1000 to see what happens. And it's still intriguing. From a damage of 1000 with DamagePercentBonus:CAPITALABILITY:Pirate set to 1.0, on an armor of 4 the bang did 709 damage, and on an armor of 6 it did 654 damage, both corresponding to a damage before armor of 850.8 (or 850.2). So it seems that besides the multiplier from DamagePercentBonus:CAPITALABILITY:Pirate, there's another 15% damage reduction from something affecting the pirates. So it seems all pirates get a 15% damage mitigation from their non-existent shields (??) except this mitigation doesn't go up under fire?

Anyway, the math checks out for the previous test as well (the one with with DamagePercentBonus:CAPITALABILITY:Pirate 0.75), because 0.75 * 0.85 = 0.6375, which is almost precisely the 63.77% reduction observed there. So the 15% minimum damage mitigation provided by shields appears to apply to all ships in this game, regardless whether they actually have any shields and possibly to structures as well (that remains to be tested)...

Yep, shield mitigation is always active. I would personally recommend just to disable shields entirely to any mod looking for real numbers balance in Sins.

You can disable shield mitigation entirely by removing the minimum 15% from each PlayerRACE entity.

That's what I've done in SotSS. removed the minimum and the mitigation growth from the player entity too. No mitigation at all (except through special abilities >=D )

Someone LIED TO ME then. Those scoundrels. It sure seemed like more than 15%, anyways.

Ah well.

Is there a mod out there that increases game speed? So maybe "fastest" setting instead of "faster"?

1) You can always increase in-game speed to 2x, 4x, or 8x via the tiny buttons right above the unit portrait icon. At least I think that's where they are, it's been a while since I've last used them. IIRC, PageUp and PageDown are the hotkeys, though you should probably make sure by checking the game's hotkeys section in the options menu.

2) If you want to tweak the various speed settings of a mod, open up its Gameplay.constants file in the GameInfo folder and scroll down to the 571st line or around that area to find the xyzSpeed entries, where you can edit to your heart's content. For example, if you want Build Rate on Faster to have double the effect on the game's build rates, just multiply shipBuildRateGameSpeedScalar and moduleBuildRateGameSpeedScalar under buildSpeedData-Faster by two (note this won't double the build rate, it'll double the difference between Slow and Faster for build rates instead). If you want to create your own mod with these settings instead of modifying an existing one, create a new folder in your Sins mod folder, name it whatever you want (this is your mod folder), create a new folder called GameInfo inside your mod folder, copy over Gameplay.constants from [SoaSE base directory]\GameInfo to your mod's GameInfo folder, and make all your edits there. Don't forget to enable your mod once you're done, else you won't see any of your changes in-game.

Is it possible to hide the effects of a buff from the info card? I have a vague remembrance that I did this or tried to do this at one point, but I do not remember the results or even what ability I tried to do it on.

Hello.... i'm creating a mod for multiple titans for rebellion 1.80... Gaofan has enlightened me to use summoning titans instead on creating them in the foundry... However i'm a bit green on modifying skills and putting new skills on the existing buildings...

how do i do this?

Hi, new to models and how to convert to a Sins format. Got a question. I got some models from EvE Online, managed to sort out the textures etc by using Zombies video on moddb but he didn't cover what a "root point" is. Kind of lost on that front, can anyone help? Bit confused by it, something about auras as well.

A rootpoint is just a null named rootpoint which is used as the 'parent' of all other hardpoints

Think of it like a folder structure. the 'rootpoint' is the folder, all the hardpoints (weapons, exhaust etc) go into the 'rootpoint'

Sorry for slow reply, work shifts got me buggered. Cheers for reply man.

Um, I'm like really rookie with this stuff, how do I make those, is there a tutorial around you could suggest?

Also got a new question, this ones a bit of a doozy though. I've been exporting models from EvE Online and a few of them are multi texture models. I get the basics of how to make alpha layers, data maps and normal maps from the video, but what do I do with multi texture objects, how do I try get all those textures onto one model? I hope I'm explaining ok as I don't know much in the way of terminology or how this all works, real work in progress learning if you get me

Thanks for your patience gentlemen.