Import a ship from one mod to another

The first thing you're going to need to do is manipulate the Marza's entity file in the GameInfo folder. If you can't do this, anything else you do won't matter. :p This is what defines the Marza in game, and gives reference to its mesh, its abilities, defines how many fighters it can hold, what weapons it has etc.

To actually get the Marza to look like a warlock, you'll need to go to the mesh folder of the Babylon 5 mod and find the appropriate mesh file. You'll also need to go into the textures folder and find the textures it uses. Usually they are in multiples of 3. You'll then copy the mesh into your mod's mesh folder and the textures into your mods texture folder etc.

Then, its simply a matter of changing the entity file to reference the warlocks mesh and you're done. Granted you won't have the Babylon 5 weapons effects, or fighters, and it will still be called the Marza Dreadnaught, I'll save that for when you've actually done this.

EDIT:

All right, seems fairly straightforward, I THINK I've found the file for the warlock and the DDS files, put them in a TEXTURES folder, found the mesh file and put it in a MESH folder. Looking through CAPITALSHIP_TECHSIEGE, I see a whole pile of barely coherent coding. Granted, I'm using notepad to do this...

Ah. You said you lurked on the modding forums a lot, so I assumed you knew that the entity files are stored in binary format to save memory. You need to convert them (sorry this tutorial is a little out of date, just ignore stuff about earlier expansions and get the ConvertData_Rebellion in your install directory) or for vanilla files download the reference data.

I would also try to skim all the stuff in this sticky if you get a chance.

Okay, now I'll admit I'm totally lost; I've read about converting data but am not certain what that involved, I know when the game was patched modders had to update all their content to the new version, it's why some mods have really lagged behind, others have died completely.

Anyways, this convertdata_rebellion in the Rebellion folder.... doesn't seem to do anything. Double-click it, DOS window pops up for half a second, then closes, and... that's it. I'm assuming I'm missing something. And what does the reference data get me? If I can import the warlock, I might try it with a couple other ships here and there too, assuming I figure it out.

Convertdata is a command line program. That means you have to call it with arguments from command prompt, as show in that first link.

The reference data is the vanilla files already converted so you don't have to do that, but if you ever need to look at a mod's entity files you'll need to learn how to convert them yourself.

Oh, okay, that makes a bit more sense, because the reference file looks nothing like the version I have in the actual game.

So I need to convert the MOD file? I'm so confused.

Heh, +respect for modders, I can barely wrap my head around just this. I debated whether PMing someone to do it and offering them twenty bucks for it but IDK if there'd be any takers...

there is also my text bin gui that was designed for converting mods (and copies of the game files outside of the program files folders) between bin and text modes. it is also in my modding utilities pack.

harpo

I'm still confused as to why anything needs to be converted... and whenever I try using the convertdata exe via an elevated command prompt... it crashes. So unless I'm missing something...

Going back up in this, I've got to do something with entity files; the entity file for the Marza looks nothing like the one in the reference files... Anyone have any thoughts? Call me a hardcore noob at this... haha

There are two "modes" if you will for most files in the game, "Text" and "Bin". The game can use either version of the files. The "converted" file are the text files, which are more in less in English so you can edit them as you like. Those are the ones you want while you are modding.

The stuff that looks like gibberish is the "Bin" or Binary format of the file. It's the same information but saved as binary data, which makes the file size smaller so it results in faster loading times and better performance. So the base game and most serious mods will have their files in binary so the game works better for their players.

For your little mod its probably fine to leave your entity file in text format, but you will likely need to find some way that works for you of converting files from binary to text.

So by my understanding (been doing some reading around here) the entity files for ships are, by default, in BIN format. I need to convert my selected ship using the convertdata exe to make sense of it. From there, I point the files it's referencing (for the model, textures, etc) to my target ship to swap them out.

How far off am I?

correct

harpo

Perfect! Now I just gotta figure out where I'm going wrong with my command-line entries. But I'll reread some material when I have more time and see what I can come up with. I know I read it somewhere...

What about actually making it into a mod folder? How will the game know to replace mesh A with mesh B based on what's in some random folder?

"Your Mod Name Here" -> "GameInfo" -> "Your Entity Files"

When you enable the mod with the file structure set up like above, the game will load the files from the mod. If it finds the a file with the same name like the Marza, it uses the one in the mod instead.

Ah, I understand now. Well, once I figure out this conversion tool, I'm sure I'll be laughing...

Here is a LINK to my Sins File Batch Converters for Rebellion v1.82  ....... Really simple, 1.] just place the file you would like to convert into the corresponding folder ( .entity into the entity folder, .mesh into the mesh folder or .particle into the particle folder), 2.] double click the batch file of what you want to do ( Text to Bin or Bin to Text.) and watch the magic happen.

EDIT: Success! Got it to work. Had to tweak some settings, change some weapon hardpoints around, but I got it to work.

One thing I've noticed though is there is no weapons fire coming out the rear of the ship. The stock Marza doesn't have any weapons that fire backward, but I changed the lasers' damage settings so there is damage firing backwards as well. Still no luck. Anyone have any thoughts?

Also looking to swap out the Radiation bomb ability with something along the lines of a lower-powered version of the Advents cleansing brilliance.

And if possible, swap out the word "Marza" ingame for "Warlock." Can anyone help a newbie out?

the ship model also needs rear facing weapons hardpoints for the weapon(s) added to the rear, if there are no rear facing hardpoints the ship will not fire to the rear.

the marza name is in the STRING file, again just copy the stock string to the entity folder in your mod, then do a search/replace inside the strings for marza.

harpo

This is actually not quite correct.

Sins has no problem firing even if there is no weapon point for a given direction. However, it will always use the Center of the mesh as the default location if there is no weapon point, which is probably not ideal, but you will see the weapon effect (though often the muzzle effect is inside the ship) and it will still do damage.

Thanks Harpo! I knew that that's where names were for planets, stars and ships, but couldn't remember where it was.

That makes sense, as my Warlock has a laser battery inside the ship that fires out the sides, instead of from any of the actual turrets on the model itself. Doesn't have very much that fires to the sides, and nothing fires out the rear. What I have so far is this:

        WeaponClassType "BEAM"
    DamagePerBank:FRONT 332.299988
    DamagePerBank:BACK 332.299988
    DamagePerBank:LEFT 0.000000
    DamagePerBank:RIGHT 0.000000

As you can see, I copy-pasted the FRONT weapon damage to the BACK spot as well, yet still no beam out the back. No big deal if I can't get THAT to work... however, this:

        WeaponClassType "LASERTECH"
    DamagePerBank:FRONT 72.000000
    DamagePerBank:BACK 36.000000
    DamagePerBank:LEFT 28.799999
    DamagePerBank:RIGHT 28.799999

This tells me that there should be fire coming out the sides in a bit greater number than there is presently (I think) and that I should have fire coming out the back as well, but no such luck. And how about modifying abilities? Anyone have any thoughts?

Not to bump this, but here's a small query - where are the ships' build buttons found? And the icons for them when zoomed out ingame? In what folder might they be found?