MonkeyBiz

You apparently lack the reading comprehension skills that the rest of us picked up in elementary school, so I'm going to spell this one out reaaaaaally clearly for you, using quotes from this thread. "the FoC Eclipse has one hardpoint, for the superlaser. Only one. No spawn points, no weapons hardpoints, no nothing." "which would probably explain if you put in in GC why it crashes the game" "they didn't make it useable in the first place" Now, do you think after I finished playing the Corrupt campaign, the FIRST thing I did was rip all the models and textures, and then see what I could do with them? Because I'm pretty sure I did, and the only hardpoints on the complete Eclipse model are tied to the Superlaser. So, anytime you'd like to stop acting like a n00b and start reading, that would just be a-okay by me.

In case people don't know, the only SSD you can build in GC right out of the box is the Hero Vader unit which comes with the Executor. I'm working on rigging it so that Vader spawns at level 5 and you can build the other 12 SSDs on Kuat or Fondor.

Remember that the Consortium units rely on cash. Run out of cash, and you're dead in the water.

Right. If you make a model from scratch, it's up to you to release it when you want. But if you convert it from somewhere else, then you should release it to the community. We have EvilleJedi doing great work, making great models, but they're being converted by mod teams that aren't releasing them. You get a few here and there', but it's not enough.

In a word, yes. I wanted the real deal. An Eclipse with dozens of hard points, capable of engaging entire fleets. Hoorah!

So I was adding the Forces of Corruption Eclipse to the game. Turns out, the FoC Eclipse has one hardpoint, for the superlaser. Only one. No spawn points, no weapons hardpoints, no nothing. I would have to humbly ask the guys at Petroglyph, "What in the sam hill were you thinking when you put a toothless Eclipse in the game?!?" Consequently, I am taking the Eclipse out of the game. Stupid design decision, Petroglyph.

I thought I mentioned this last night, but for whatever reason it didn't post. I propose that anyone that converts a model from a publically available source, such as Warlords, should resubmit the finished model to the community for everyone's use. If a mod team creates their own model and skin, then it's theirs until they release the mod.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/xml It has a link to Microsoft's XML notepad. It has a built in syntax checker.

Okay, here's an idea. If you convert a Warlords model, you should release it as public domain. If it's your own model, you can release it with your mod, and after that it becomes public domain. Thoughts?

I've solved the biggest problem in modding EaW, thanks to Forces of Corruption. If you boot up FoC with a bad XML, it'll tell you which XML is has a problem with. Using the Microsoft XML Notepad, you can pull up the XML and it'll tell you where the syntax errors are. So now I've got balancing things to go fix. Hooray.

Forces of Corruption has a built in mod parser that checks all the XML files and tells you which one is causing a problem. The problem for me is that in this case, it's Hardpoints.xml. And I don't know where the logfile is to tell me where the problem is. Arg!

It tells you where the problems in the XML files are! IT HAS AN XML PARSER! WE'RE SAVED!

I'm working on converting my mod to FoC. It's ridiculous. Blargh!

Bwahahahaha... I've apparently opened Pandora's Box. The long and the short of it is that the big mod teams tie up the modelers making their mods. So, what happens is that the rest of us have to make do with table scraps and whatever we can get from other released mods. Let's say you have three mod teams, and each team has a modeler and a skinner. Let's say one is doing KotOR era, another is doing Clone Wars, and another is doing Yuuzhan Vong. That's totally okay, because that's three distinct eras. Now, let's say you've got all three working in the Galactic Civil War era. So now you have three different Star Destroyers and Mon Cal Cruisers and all sorts of other stuff that's being duplicated. One of the team members from Legacy of War has offered to host mods. I'm asking, humbly, on behalf of the community, to host models and code instead. A community run model and code exchange. So you're looking for a Bulwark cruiser? Hey, here's the model and the code. You want to give X-Wings turbolasers? Here's the code! And sure, there might be copycats. There might be some people that dupe mods and upload them as their own. But is it really that big a deal? I know I don't care if someone uses my code. When I released that private Golan thing a few weeks ago, I said that the code is open to the public. So, there you go. And EvilleJedi has done so much. Let him just do his thing, and let us worry about converting. And what's the difference appearance wise between the Mark I and the Mark II?

I'd be in favor of that. The problem is there aren't enough people who know 3D Max well enough to convert the Warlords models. If I did, I would. But I don't, and don't have the time like I did in college to mess around with it until I get it right.

Is a good model art? Yes. Could you potentially print out a photoshopped copy of the model and frame it and put it on your wall? Yes. But that's not what it's for. A model can be used by one person, or by many people. It's DESIGNED to be used. It's supposed to be shared.

1) People are getting their dander up. Stop it. Calm down. 2) Don't you like how I just used the word "dander"? I had a boss once that had a medic alert bracelet that says "Allergic to horse dander". I looked up "dander", and it turns out that it means "anger". So, I can understand why he would be allergic to angry horses. 3) I used Legacy of War and Dark Empire as they are the proverbial 800 pound gorillas in the room. They also happened to illustrate my point. 4) This is a community. A community shares. If the big mod teams are willing to release their models, then we as a community have a responsibility for improving the quality of our own releases. We have a responsibility to improve the quality of our code. We have a responsibility to have our own work reviewed by others. When we have better materials at our disposal, we have a responsibility to raise our own level of work. I will gladly put my own coding skills to the test and hold myself to the same standard and offer anything I release publically up for community review first, before it's uploaded anywhere public.

I think people are taking this the wrong direction. I'm not attacking Dark Empire or Legacy of War or Imperial Assault. It's our right as end users to modify the game however we want. They chose to create teams and do something better than any of us could do individually. However, because of the limited number of skinners and modelers, models should be treated like a public resource. Free for everyone to use, from the n00best n00b to the l33test l33t. We need to band together, as a community, and share our insights and discoveries with one another. So I say, unbind your models and skins from their shackles! Let them run free amongst the community, so that all can profit from them and learn from their great works. We're all Star Wars fans here. We mod because we love the universe and we love this game. Let us join hands and march into a new age of cooperation and understanding, where every man, woman, Jedi, and non-gendered species can join hands, tentacles, claws, etc. and be equal, from the mightiest mod leader to the lowliest n00b.

Let's say Legacy of War or Dark Empire released things as they're done, rather than all at once. Instead of fifty new units, we got ten. And rather than having nothing, we got to see something. Also, you guys make it sound like you can just pop the Warlords models into 3D Studio Max, hit "Convert to EaW" and that's it. Those take time too. Moreover, public models actually speed development. Imagine if we all had the same Star Destroyer model, the same Mon Cal Cruiser model, etc. LoW could spend all their time doing the Vong units. Dark Empire could spend all their time doing all the crazy stuff from Dark Empire. And then those get added to the public domain. Eventually, you've got tons of models that anyone can use. Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations.

In Mission 9, where Tyber faces Thrawn, if you retreat, Tyber disappears and you can't continue because he doesn't respawn. So now I have to start all over again. Dammit.

So I'm playing the Forces of Corruption campaign, and I had to retreat from Mission 9 over Caridia. As soon as it jumped out to the galactic map, Tyber unspawned, and won't respawn. I need a way to either build him or get him to respawn. Ideas anyone?

I feel like people aren't reading what I'm writing. The models don't make the mod. It's what you do with them that does. Personally, I'd be all in favor of a community code repository where you can ask "How do you do xyz?" and there's the code that someone figured out. I'd be more than happy to contribute what I've done. And if you're getting depressed over the fact that people aren't downloading your mod for a game, you have other issues that may require professional help. Modding is a labor of love. You do it because you love it; either the game, or the subject, or whatever. I mod because I want to change the game to fit my vision of the Star Wars Universe. I mod because I'm not old enough to have seen the original trilogy in theaters, but I saw the Special Edition, and every Prequel on opening night. I mod because there are crappy mods out there that have no business being released, but occasionally one of them does something different that makes you stop and say "Huh... That's not a bad idea." We talk about the community dying; well, we have a brand new expansion pack full of goodies. But we don't have the models to make our individual visions come true. Now, I ask, so what if ten different mods use the same model? One mod might have Star Destroyers with nothing but proton torpedo launchers; another might have fifty turbolaser hardpoints; another might make them super fast and have ten different variants. It's not the model; it's what you do with it.

They did individual files for all the new units. It's the same format as the original (XMLs), but there are twice as many files. I forsee potential problems.

Is going to suck. There are 622 XML files in the new Config.meg, up from 367. Oy.

The honest truth is that if someone asked for my code (like for the Golan mod) I'd have no problem releasing it and letting other people use it. I code because I love it. I create because it gives me a sense of satisfaction. If someone else wants to use it for their own ends, go ahead. I've freely offered code here before. And there are some models floating around. So sure, if you use a model in a mod that someone else created, you give them credit. Also, I called out Dark Empire and Legacy of War because they're the only ones that I know of that have shown model teasers that, to the best of my knowledge, don't exist anywhere else. The problem is that modelers, skinners, and riggers are in woefully short supply. There just aren't very many in the community. Everyone and their dog is a coder. We all know our way around the XMLs. But it's the true creators that are in the highest demand. They get locked up by mod teams, and they're never seen again. Occasionally you get someone like Keeper of Faith, who released some decent free models, but even those were okay conversions of Warlords models. So, swfan, I understand your point. But the needs of the community outweigh the needs of the mods. And right now, the community needs quality models.