ManSh00ter

Reply to [MOD] Sins of a Solar Empire: INVASION (new screenshots, May 28th, 2012.) in Sins Modding Sins Forums

If you want to kill Xin, you have to shoot them dead. :) They are a bit too advanced for Holywood tricks like viruses and, khm, computer hacks (he who guesses the name of the movie I am referring to first will get in the credits) ;). But don't worry - other races will have their toys as well! Strike craft are several in size and strength, and I will make sure they are as balanced as possible. All Xin squadrons will have more strike craft than usual and those are going to be also mor

Reply to [MOD] Sins of a Solar Empire: INVASION (new screenshots, May 28th, 2012.) in Sins Modding Sins Forums

Where is the edit button when you need one... I forgot to comment on Petsta's suggestion on having ships build stuff. Right now, only one Xin ship will have the ability to replenish basic drone forces and that is the Ark capital ship. So it will in essense be like a small mobile base. You will get the ability to produce a few attack drone types and Seeder pods for colonization. Basically, it ain't over while there is an Ark ship around. Aside from special structures like Forwar

Reply to [MOD] Sins of a Solar Empire: INVASION (new screenshots, May 28th, 2012.) in Sins Modding Sins Forums

Dragonics: 1. Yes, the concept of the Remnant has them pretty much zerg-ish, with lots of cheap but individually weak ships as opposed to the Xin with fewer but stringer units and Hegemony which fit somewhere in the middle. 2. I am not sure if there will be any new star types right now. There certainly are not going to be colonizable stars (though the new races will be able to build certain special structures in otherwise uncolonizable sectors). 3. I plan on incorporat

Reply to Help me with Particle forge in Sins Modding Sins Forums

The best way is to do the following: Step 1: make a separate folder for your mod, then in that folder create subfolders "Textures", "Particle", "TextureAnimations" and "Mesh" Step 2: copy all the corresponding files your particle effects will need to their folders. Textures to textures, texanims to their folder, meshes to theirs. Step 3: put the particle forge files to the mod root directory and don't forget to copy the "PipelineEffect" folder as well. Run the

Reply to [MOD] Sins of a Solar Empire: INVASION (new screenshots, May 28th, 2012.) in Sins Modding Sins Forums

That was an idea I considered, but you have to take into consideration such tactics which may cripple a Xin player, or make them overpowered. For example, if scouts deployed quantum gates for the rest of the Xin armada, then you might end up either with opponents destroying your scouts and gates too quickly, for example while your ships are en route and thus you end up giving a "free" sector-wide interdiction move to everyone but the Xin; or the Xin may end up spreading too quickly so you essent

Reply to Help me with Particle forge in Sins Modding Sins Forums

I found it is most expedient just to make a copy of the PF in your mod folder, then you can simply type in the name of your texture files, without the path, and it has no problem finding them. Plus, if you use paths specific to your system, they might not work on other computers. So you save yourself the hassle of having to edit the adresses of your texture files when you are done. And yes, the Particle Forge does seem to reset game options... strange.

Reply to [MOD] Sins of a Solar Empire: INVASION (new screenshots, May 28th, 2012.) in Sins Modding Sins Forums

The Last Stand will utilize entirely new destruction effects I am currently working on. You can see some preliminary results if you go back a page or two in this thread. To summarize, each race will have distinctively different explosions, cruisers are going to explode differently from frigates, the particle systems also use flotsam system (essentially lots of distinctive geometric pieces designed to simulate exploding fragmentation of a disintegrating ship), crew corpses (where applicable)

Reply to [MOD] Sins of a Solar Empire: INVASION (new screenshots, May 28th, 2012.) in Sins Modding Sins Forums

Well, not really. The Xin ships are curved all around, Hegemony will have curves only in certain places, otherwise it will be angular and flat surfaced. Also the color scheme will be different. Instead of silvery/white metal and blue lights, Hegemony will sport dark surfaces, red/yellow lights and golden/silver finish at certain decorative places.

Reply to Help me with Particle forge in Sins Modding Sins Forums

Make sure you have extracted all of the files, not just the exe, and also make sure you have placed them in the root directory of the mod you are currently working on.

Reply to Expandable Struts on TEC Shipyard and Fleetyards... in Sins Modding Sins Forums

Yes, that would work, although I don't know if you can incur resource costs with spawn abilities, haven't looked that up yet. But something like that is what I have in mind for the Titan construction process for my mod.

Reply to [MOD] Sins of a Solar Empire: INVASION (new screenshots, May 28th, 2012.) in Sins Modding Sins Forums

Unfortunately, game options are hardcoded right now - without some form of scripting it is not possible to add features like that. I agree that if it were possible it would make some problems easy to solve, but alas, it is not. As for guidelines: Remnant ships should be angular, with exaggerated engines, classic gun turrets and missile pods, exposed machinery etc. They should follow a very utilitarian philosophy, with little room left for aesthetic frills and unnecessary decora

Reply to Expandable Struts on TEC Shipyard and Fleetyards... in Sins Modding Sins Forums

I don't see how. You can animate things with particle systems, but you cannot use those systems in an adaptable way, nor detect anything with it. So it is possible to have an animated shipyard, but that animation would be exactly the same no matter what kind of ship was built.

Reply to What do you think about LucasArt terrible excuse for not having The Force Unleashed on PC? in PC Gaming Sins Forums

[quote]That's just flat out untrue.[/quote] Yeah, because, you know, the evil pirates would crack the game and nobody would buy a single copy! *rolleyes And this: [quote]Playing Tie Fighter with a mouse&keyboard is not the same game as playing it with a joystick. The latter is one of the best flight-sim shooters ever; the former is a bunch of tedious crap. Tie Fighter is most certainly a great game, so your conclusion is invalid.[/quote] Is a classic exa

Reply to [MOD] Sins of a Solar Empire: INVASION (new screenshots, May 28th, 2012.) in Sins Modding Sins Forums

Currently, depending on whether capital ship limit is expanded/lifted, there are two solutions I am considering: -one, to have a high-level capital ship be involved in the creation of a Titan; this way it would take time and planning to get there, rather than just research. This solution might prove problematic on small maps though. -two, if the capital ship limit is lifted, to have the Titan built at a Capital Shipyard. I am leaning towards the first one, because it r

Reply to [MOD] Sins of a Galatic Empire in Sins Modding Sins Forums

Thomas, I believe that with the new version of Forge tools (specifically, the txt/bin encoder) you can also decode from binary back into text, so tinker all you like... no mod is safe any more. :p

Reply to [MOD] Sins of a Solar Empire: INVASION (new screenshots, May 28th, 2012.) in Sins Modding Sins Forums

Darkstar, I am using XSI to make models and Photoshop for texturing. Flankers, the Carnage in Space mod is still in the works, and will probably be released very shortly after the 1.1 Sins update. This is because, word has it, the devs are going to lift certain restrictions which currently prevent me from making ALL the features work in the mini-mod, such as every faction having completely different explosions. In the meantime, work continues on the art assets, and with the release of P

Reply to What do you think about LucasArt terrible excuse for not having The Force Unleashed on PC? in PC Gaming Sins Forums

[quote]This is the mentality behind the typical PC gamer. They're never satisfied with having an actual, well-crafted game; the developer must spend their precious time to ship dozens of slightly different games that you switch between with a gigantic options screen.[/quote] According to this, the typical mentality of a console gamer is to eat up whatever developers throw at them and like it? Fact is, a massive portion of PC games supports multiple control schemes. So its not that d

Reply to What do you think about LucasArt terrible excuse for not having The Force Unleashed on PC? in PC Gaming Sins Forums

[quote]The interface is part of the experience of a game. If you're making a product that plays better with a gamepad than a mouse&keyboard, then does it not make since to make this product for the platforms that ensure that the player will be using a gamepad?[/quote] Err... no? I don't know about you, but I sort of dislike when developers imagine they know my preferences better than I do. Maybe I'm the sort of freak who enjoys playing with the "worse" controller and enjoys the game mor

Reply to [MOD] Sins of a Galatic Empire in Sins Modding Sins Forums

Well, the vanilla factions can always play the role of "independent systems militia"... you know, something for Imperials to stomp on while they are waiting for the Rebels to show up. ;)

Reply to [MOD] Bailknight`s Graphic Mod for Entrenchment ver 1.02 Fixed 1 in Sins Modding Sins Forums

Yeah, particle forge is a real time-saver. At last. :)

Reply to [MOD] Sins of a Solar Empire: INVASION (new screenshots, May 28th, 2012.) in Sins Modding Sins Forums

Asiriya, I agree that vanilla races tend to follow a sort of "template" when it comes to unit classes and their overall abilities. Though there is some difference, as you said, every ship has its exact counterpart. This is common in RTS games because it makes balancing a lot easier. The Last Stand, however, aims to do change that. So at the risk of having a few underpowered or overpowered units at release and having to iron them out later on after some public exposure, I will try to mak

Reply to [MOD] Sins of a Solar Empire: INVASION (new screenshots, May 28th, 2012.) in Sins Modding Sins Forums

Yes, as CanadaMan said, all races will get mines, including vanilla ones. The plan is to place them on one of the support cruisers. The other support cruiser (each race has two if I am not mistaken) will get the interdiction ability. This should boost their usefulness by a significant margin.

Reply to [MOD] Sins of a Solar Empire: INVASION (new screenshots, May 28th, 2012.) in Sins Modding Sins Forums

That's special Xin tactics at work. "Quick, target their bridge!" "Err... sir... which end is front?" ;) Your original assumption is correct - the hammerhead is the bow of the ship. What you are seeing are floodlights, not to be confused with the exhaust of engines (and when seen in motion with them engines blowing out plasma its not as confusing either). :)

Reply to Why PC Gaming is Dying in PC Gaming Sins Forums

But quality does suffer when the intent is profit. Profit makes companies rush products, cut stuff out, curb designer creativity and so on. Its not a coincidence that nowadays we get excellent looking titles with little or no original content (notable exceptions serve to confirm the rule) while in the olden days most games were developed on a very small budget compared to today and yet managed to be more innovative and imaginative that modern games. Why is that? Well, new stuff is risky

Reply to Why PC Gaming is Dying in PC Gaming Sins Forums

By the way, Blizzard just started their own digital download service, and I wouldn't be surprised if StarCraft II and later, World of Starcraft (:p) become available for purchase&download through that.