Lavo

Got them; slotted them in, thanks Ludo! They've made it in time to be included in the final Ent version.

We will be dropping all support of Entrenchment once the Rebellion version is released. The old download link will remain however, for those who only have Trinity/Entrenchment. Early July is a good assumption for the public release. The speed depends primarily on when IC/SD releases the new ConvertXSI, and the restoration of the SVN server. At this rate, I'll have a Rebellion version ready before the SVN is back up; I expect the beta up late June if the SVN is functioning at that point in time.

Due to today's release of Rebellion, I will be releasing the final Entrenchment version in a few days, and I will shift my focus towards setting things up for Rebellion. I will be uploading one more patch, which will bring you uptodate with the final version I will be posting (aka. you won't have to re-dl the whole thing).

So I think this is what you're looking for Warb, or so I hope. Here's an exported and re-imported Praetor, in .max and .obj, the latter there encase you can't import the .max file.

I mean more that for the Venator, the team color was just the "red" parts from the red channel used as the alpha layer. I theorized that he was able to "select" the portions of that channel by selecting the desired portions in the green channel, as they all show up black there, then going back to the red channel and copying them. I realize this likely makes little sense, but that's how I got it. Shouldn't be too hard to make it darker. I see. I have no idea how to get what you're asking for, because what you said truly went over my head.

The Fleet Training pic is still down. One of the texture files you did must've killed it somehow. Also, the ForgeTool's converter is out of date; don't use it. You can find all the reference files, converted, here.

So using the Sins max tool I have exports it with proper engines, but, the tangents on the model are awful. Here's the model from softimage, and here's the one from the Sins max tool. Also, I figured out how EJ possibly made the team colors for the Venator, I used that method to make one for the Praetor, tell me what you think of it. Warb, would it be possible to remove the Open Circle Fleet insignia from the Praetor's skin? http://i919.photobucket.com/albums/ad33/Lavo_02/SoGE/prae-tc.png

Basically, yeah. As I'm taking the rigging from the pre-existing .mesh, it's already at 0,0,0. Well my fix didn't work... Tried making the engines their own polygons in XSI, with an engine texture, they just turned out warped. Edit: Trying to export it with whatever version of max tool I have.

So I've run into an odd error, likely UV related, but for some reason the engines are looking wonky ingame, but looks fine in XSI. I'm going to try and fix it myself; I think I know a way how. Comparisons: http://i919.photobucket.com/albums/ad33/Lavo_02/SoGE/praetor-ig.png http://i919.photobucket.com/albums/ad33/Lavo_02/SoGE/praetor-xsi.png

Well Ludo, seems you actually kept the old separators in the fixed package, or I managed to fix whatever was hiding them, as they're showing up now, and they look very nice.

It's not your fault; the sins import tool for some reason imports everything off-center. You have to re-center the model (aka. set all the transform coordinates to 0) before exporting, or else I have to re-rig the thing from scratch. It looks beautiful ingame.

Ludo, for future reference, please use Entrenchment's or Diplomacy's texture files to edit things versus vanilla Sins'. Breaks things much less that way. :v

With the xsi file I should be able to get the model in. So long as the model is literally the same "size" as the old one it will be fine... If there's positioning problems I'll bug you for the .max file. Edit: I need the .max file.

Got the old texture pack; you did a good job with it! Mind you I had to wad through the strings file, did a handful of corrections... For future reference, when changing something like "crystal" don't do a replace all... You'll break a lot of string IDs that way. >_> I see you broke a bunch of HUD icons, though that shouldn't be too hard to fix. I'll look at the new texture pack soon. I also noticed that the fleet research tab is suddenly missing the two big supply and fleet icons. Could you fix that? I'd also like to request, for the research tabs with multiple research "pages" (military and civilian tabs), to put some sort of separator between them, or a "box" like base Sins. Would look prettier that way, and is helpful to literally see which item is in which page. For the constructor, agreed on the Heavy Lifter. I can't say I'm too fond of the vanilla one, just haven't brought it up as I personally had no idea there was a nice SW equivalent. I think Ludo's idea for the Vong could work very well.

Oh, I see what you mean now. Well, I'll tell you the core of the "problem" of bringing back the old bonuses back, even if you want to do it yourself. When you open up a planet entity, there's the following bit on the bottom (example from LargeAcademy.entity): requiredPlanetBonusesCount 1 bonus "PlanetCharAcademy" possibleRandomPlanetBonusesCount 0 possibleRandomPlanetBonusesCount is what you would have to modify to put the old planet bonuses back in, but for every single planet entity. The names used in this specific case are merely the names of the entity file, no funny GSD business involved. To actually add them back in, all you will need is the actual planet bonus entities, an edited entity.manifest (add in these bonuses), and finally, edit every single planet entity you want to have the bonus. With a program like Notepad++, the latter isn't all that difficult, but it's a pain. In addition, assuming you keep the entity.manifest uptodate, you could theoretically make it a stackable mini-mod, so that this way you can "give" people the planet characteristics without overwriting the base files, as I don't plan to put the old planet bonuses back in. I'd be happy to explain this more and help you build the initial version of this mini-mod; maintaining it of course will then be your responsibility (I'd suggest releasing it alongside full public releases, as continuously updating it for the beta would likely be a pain). Now, back to the pre-made maps that are all broken, basically what I have in mind is to make planet bonuses which gets rid of the underdevelopment penalty, and possibly, boost total population, boost population growth, boost planet health, etc, as necessary to restore the pre-NU setting of these maps, or at least make them playable.

For the Dauntless; it's neither actually. I'm waiting for the move to Rebellion to rig up the Dauntless model I have because it will likely have more than three weapons. As such, I'd rather rig it all in one go so to speak, versus doing three of the weapon slots now and 1-2 of them later. I haven't taken a good look at it, it's an old one from z3r0x's mod, I can send it to you/post a pic of it if you're curious. Also, seeing that shipyard, I have an idea. Perhaps I can/should re-scale the Telgorn to be used as the frigate factory, and that one as the capital ship yard? It certainly looks as if it can handle the size of the various supercaps without looking entirely out of place. I'll try to explain Rebellion's Titans for you. In a nutshell, they are extremely powerful units, something along the lines of an uber capital ship, and are their own entity type. They are, normally, spawned by the Titan Factory. Each faction can only have a single Titan at any time. When a Titan is destroyed, and you then rebuild it, the Titan will spawn with the same amount of XP that the previous Titan had upon it's death.I plan to use the supercaps as Titans upon our move to Rebellion. I think you can imagine the issues that could occur with say, a Viscount being destroyed and then suddenly rebuilt with full XP. Or, how the Republic, CIS, and Alliance are at a serious disadvantage under this system as their "best" supercap is not nearly as powerful in comparison to, for example, the Executor one on one. Both of these issues however, can be circumvented by making Titans spawned via ability instead of being "built" at a Titan facility. The ability of course would cost a large amount of resources, and if my understanding of Rebellion is correct, the required amount of fleet supply and capital ship crews. The ability would not be able to autocast if these conditions are not met. Further, with this ability, one can play around with the buffs in such a way that the ability only allows for X amount of ships of said type to be in existance at a given moment. I'm thinking of putting in the following Titan caps: Executor/Viscount/World Ship - 1, Mandator/Malevolence/Mon Remonda - 2, and Praetor/Mediator/Geo SDN (post nerf)/Allegiance/Ro'ik Va'lh/Independance - 4. In addition, I will make it so that people can only construct one of their faction's two supercaps, either by using Rebellion's faction tech requirement or by making separate factions that have access to one supercap or the other. However, even though the ability is set to autocast, the AI has a tendency to be mentally deficient. As such, it will have access to a Titan Factory, unlocked by the AI-only research item. This way it will be able to build Titans normally if necessary.

I look forward to seeing those string and art changes Ludo! Also, while I've been a bit too busy/lazy to do it, I've been planning to rename metal to neutronium and crystal as lommite. Odds are I'll rename the refinery to be "Durasteel Foundry", however feel free to change/differentiate these, strings are your playground to have fun with! They will not. For SoGE, Titans in Rebellion will be buildable via an ability on the capital ship factory. This is due to the one Titan limit, Titans re-spawning with their pre-death XP, and Titan factories being a tactical structure, which abilities circumvent. The AI will have access to a unique "capital ship" factory, which is actually a Titan factory, encase the autocasting ability to build Titans does not want to work. This is what I meant by being able to change the "size" of the Viscount and Executor; as they are being spawned via an OnDelay buff, I will be able to spawn a particle effect on the center point of the factory which will display the ship in dry dock, being built. When this ability fires, it will temporarily halt all ongoing construction, as you can't be building two ships at the same time. The Mon Cal yards could work. Is the inner station "part" of the yard hollow? Or is it only

Alright so, I think I've figured out a possible work around. With planet bonuses, I can make a new, custom, planet characteristic that boosts a planet's tax income to make it actually make money, and depending on the planet, boost it's population count as well. I'll need a list of how many are necessary, how much of a population count boost and population growth rate boost, are needed. The hard part of course, is making the new characteristics actually spawn. I believe it may be possible to make it an item in the GalaxyScenarioDef then edit each planet in question with a group that includes this item which is set to always spawn. Of course, if it does work, then the question become who is going to fix all of these maps and what have you... Though a friend of mine's making me a tool which might be useful for this. If it does work, I should be able to fix these up fairly quickly, if not someone else will have to do it as I really cannot be arsed to manually edit each galaxy file.

Nova has said he isn't willing to re-implament planet bonuses. They would take far too long to devise, balance, and put in. There are hundreds of planet entities to edit, just to put them in. Further, planet characteristics are in fact planet bonuses, just ones set to spawn no matter what. Seeing the variety of planets ingame, I'm inclined to agree with him, particularly as this is his work. While I'm against modifying planet upgrades, both in terms of population and development, I must admit that most pre-made maps are pretty damn broken by the current planet setup. Hrmm... There might be a way to fix this without modifying the planet entities themselves, I need some time to think about this.

I personally despise the size of the capital shipyard, but I made it this big due to the Viscount... Any smaller and the Viscount doesn't fit well. With the move to Rebellion, and supercaps being spawned via abilities, I will change their scale; I will be able to "change" the size of supercaps while they are being "built" at the shipyards, namely the Viscount and Executor, which will mean that I can also downscale the shipyard itself. Yeah, I've deleted and moved some files, so it doesn't surprise me that an old version of the Vong causes a crash, though I wouldn't expect it to. I haven't thought of an idea for a new frigate factory, mainly as I'm satisfied with the current one. That being said, if someone is willing and/or wishes to make one, by all means do so; I'd be happy to put it in. Actually, now that I think about it, a little while ago Warb made the Silus Van yard; it lacked a "hole" for ships to "exit" from. In hindsight, that could work very well for frigates. Also, that very same repair platform is already ingame, if you haven't seen it yet Ludo.

The galaxy map you put in... Looks beautiful. It's absolutely stunning and will certainly be implemented, kudos on it! Got the idea from ZombieRus5/myfist0, figured it would work decently, and it does. Plus, as long as someone else is willing to supply an updated entity.manifest, brush.manifest, and strings file, they can make an entire sub-faction, complete with UI elements, and stack it on top of the CORE module while taking advantage of the already present planets and maps. The Empire will always be present of course, but that's due to them being too integrated in the CORE module to be viably separated.

More Galaxy.dds fixes? Dohohoho! I'll look into this when get back Monday. Assuming it doesn't have a lower quality than the current one; I'll slap it in. Also, I'm upping a new patch; it'll be cumulative and fixes an issue related to artifacts not showing up when discovered. Edit: It's up.

I'm sure you're all impatiently waiting for the SVN to come back online, like myself, so I've gone out and uploaded the beta elsewhere. As mentioned in this thread, it's been broken up into a few modules, so you don't have to load all of the mod's assets when playing, to save on RAM usage. Further, you will be able to checkout to these folders once the SVN comes back up; so you won't be using up too much more of your bandwidth. Make sure the CORE module is at the bottom of your mod list, like so. CORE: http://www.mediafire.com/?1qx4mr43wmicm18 http://www.mediafire.com/?js288vx6rnx06a5 http://www.mediafire.com/?x1n6zou741xj4e8 http://www.mediafire.com/?f428j839tajnu1y This one has been broken up into parts; download all four then open the first link in this list to extract. Alliance: http://www.mediafire.com/?kmh35nltxh1nck1 CIS: http://www.mediafire.com/?aaduxul62yo2tjn Republic: http://www.mediafire.com/?h6z4ev1x5fe77sk NR: http://www.mediafire.com/?7tsw8u07g4ngkug Also, soon after uploading I noticed a small bug regarding artifacts. Once you have downloaded all of the mods' folders, please extract this patch, overwriting when prompted. The Vong haven't been uploaded as I'm not ready to release 'em for testing just yet. They do work fine, but they haven't gotten the AI overhaul the others have. There have been a lot of changes, such as: entirely redoing frigate build and supply costs (most frigates cost <1 supply; still need to update the strings to reflect this), making the Trafed II FG have antiveryheavy damage (makes it much more useful), removal of the MC80 SFRS (Liberator has been buffed up, has full squadrons), fixed up the MC80 Diplo capital, added the Dauntless capital ship (uses a filler model atm, costs need to be balanced), removal of the Torpedo Sphere capital and creation of the Torpedo Sphere cruiser, among many others.

It's extremely overpowered. At most I'd give it to a supercap, and make it a level 8 ability.

That's possible but would completely kill game mechanics. The AI would also rush planets with them, and there is also no way to factor in culture/allegiance into abilities. It also might colonize the planet even if it isn't destroyed, however I highly doubt this.