My own ships

http://soase.weebly.com/modeling.html

That website has everything you need to know about Sins modding, explore through the tabs to find stuff on things besides modeling. The Sins devs used the softimage XSI program to do their models, and the mod tool linked on that site is free so if you may as well start on that as you'll need it anyways for getting a model ready for Sins regardless of the program you use to create it.

Also FYI there are many mods that try to combine lots of different Sci-fi races, I'm guessing one of them will actually be complete enough to be a mod in its own right one day.

Also pro tip as far as the game is concerned there is no difference between frigates and cruisers, they are treated exactly the same.

Well I went there, and I think I'm looking at a realm I shouldn't be in. Lots of things to read on, I see much software to download, but from what I've read so far, I need a seperate 3D modeling software for making the items, then I need the XSI thing to convert the models for use in Sins. Okay but um, I don't know how to model, that's my primary concern. Again I don't wish to tax my laptop, I know it has limits and I've yet to reach them and would rather not do that.

You can use XSI to model, its just a lot of the pros prefer to use more expensive pro programs like 3DS max. Its a lot of stuff to learn, it took me a few years to be able to do just about everything it takes to mod just about everything.

I was just here http://soase.weebly.com/capital-ships.html and I had an idea. Now I have a feeling this wont work seeing as I'm a total noob but notice the Advent ship that is third one down? I thought about it, and it has a shape that I think could be tweaked to get as close to the Eclipse as possible. Here is the part that has me wondering: what am I supposed to do to make a superlaser? I know there's visual effects involved but where is that at?

The visual effects for a superlaser, to borrow upon the Geo SDN as an example, are achieved by setting up a Buff which has an instantAction to create a "PlayPersistantBeamEffect", which uses coding in the aforementioned Buff file plus some particle effects. The file in question is BUFF_SUPERLASERACTIVATED.entity for reference.

In the Buff's entity file, under the instantAction code, you can define the width and colors of the beam.

Well good example but The Eclipse uses it's superlaser rather differently. It has that...oh what is it called 'Superlaser canal' that runs from the sides of the ships tower superstructure on either side, then joins in a V point that then runs down the ventral length dead center till it reaches the nozzle on the bow. I also didn't understand anything you wrote. I'll just download the XSI program and that Advent ship and see what I can do. More likely this is gonna end with me making a mess and possibly killing my laptop, oh goodie.

Modding has many layers.  As soon as you figure out one of them, two of its friends come over and beat you up and trash your work.

Be honest, am I gonna throw a fit at some point during all this and just give up? The most I've ever done with any game is installing mods, un-installing, downloading things, editing a few entries using a text reader, that's about it.

Sins is a lot of exact text lines and one space break, miscapitalized letter or improper indent can mess it up.  In addition the abilities, buffs and manifests and the like require corresponding entries for changes and exact data to work properly.  Modeling requires working with more than three tools and some not always working properly.

Don't even try without using the "Dev.exe" to spot your errors.  Save often.  And when you have something working, make a new copy before adding to it and edit them separately so you can fall back to the unbroken version if your new work bjorks things up.

Try not to mod  when you are half asleep.  That's never a good idea

Hold on, you mean I add so much as one new ship, I have to manually update the manifest files in Sins, Diplomacy, and Entrenchment? O.o

A lot of people do. I myself didn't start out modding any particular project, I just wanted to edit some stat values at first, then merge two different mods, then make a new ship using an already existing mesh etc. I think the reason a lot of these people who come in wanting to make a huge mod with all these Sci-fi races give up because they set their sights to high, that's the only reason why I'd be worried with you.

No, just for the version you are working with. Basically a manifest is a list of all the files you want Sins to load.

Link to site explaining how I properly tamper with it please? I think to be safe, I'll only make 1 ship to start with and if I don't mess up my game, I'll move on from there. I was gonna start tonight but I'm nervous now.

~edit

I found the Manifest files for Entrechment and opened them using Notepad but I don't know what the data within means. MAybe I shouldn't bother and just let the pros make mods. I was all excited but I'm seeing things that are so beyond my league.

http://soase.weebly.com/add-edit-ships.html Now I seen this and I don't know what to make of any of it. Brush? And in what program am I supposed to make all this info?

In the media section of this website you'll find something called the "Forge Tools". Many of the things like the reference data is obselete, but their are some PDF tutorials made by the devs that will get you the basics of how to make a new ship. The only addition is the entity.manifest file. When you make your new ship, you'll copy a capitalship or frigate file and rename it. Then you simply add a new line to the manifest file that you copied from the mod or base game you're working with.

So first you'll have something like this

entityNameCount 1654
entityName "PlanetCyro.entity"

...

To add your ship you just change it to this

entityNameCount 1655

entityName "YourNewShip.entity"
entityName "PlanetCyro.entity"
...

Do one thing at a time until you understand it.  Some of the areas are:

Models (textures, mesh, particles, etc.)

Entities (abilities, artifacts, planet types, ship types, etc.)

Textures (the GUI, Icons, etc., etc.

Manifests, String and Definition Files, etc. etc. (where additions and changes in other areas are cited).

Sounds

Galaxy Maps (Galaxy Forge map maker, templates, etc. etc.)

There is more than this but this is an easy to begin description of the different areas you might change-mod-create in.  A mod can be some or all of these things.  Just depends on how ambitious you are.

I just downloaded and installed Blender, It's open but I don't know what to do with it, lmao! Even worse, at the weebly site, the link to the SoftImagesXSI converter tool is non-functioning but to my understanding I need that to convert my model into something Sins can use. I'm screwed. I really want to make a ship right now but I don't think I can do that. There's so much to read, AHHHHHH

This sucks, I have Blender and don't know what the hell to do with it.

Try Sketchup. 

It's very easy and free and after your model is made there you can "export" it as a kmz file.  Rename the kmz file to  zip and you can get your model out of the zip file as a dae file.

That dae file can be open and converted to an easy to work with format (like obj) by another free program called Meshlab.

From this point on you will have to try working with the XSI tools but if you can't get through these, you won't get through those.

Google helps in this situation.

http://www.moddb.com/downloads/xsi-mod-tool-601

If you're not willing to read a lot you will not get very far.

Well I just did some mucking around and have come to the conlcusion I'm not meant to do any of this so this thread is now irrelevant. I thank you all for your help but I guess it's not in me.

Good to figure that out before the frustration actually.  I used to have hair you know.

True, I mean I know my way around a computer enough to use it, but I shouldn't press my luck and jump ahead too far and blow my mind apart. Someday though, I will have the Eclipse...

Now I've been a rather rude git and forgot to hand out Karma so let me get to that...

Karma...yummm.

enjoy mate, enjoy indeed