Therax

[quote]Yeah that's the thing when I fill those fields for each material, I exptected the engine to use them but I'm not so sure anymore. It even makes sense, if you're just using color+data how would it know it's data and not a bump map. Plus discovering that there's normal maps makes it a certainty. Now I just have to find the material parameter that's responsible for setting that.[/quote] Wouldn't this just be positional? I.e. the first field is always the color texture, the second one th

The only directories checked that get CRC checked are GameInfo and Mesh. I don't see an issue with making the sound banks more varied; the engine already differentiates between the different events when selecting sounds.

[quote]I take it then that the DA, and normal files wont load if you just use the color texture reference. Nah, that would be too easy, and wishful thinking on my part. Hope you find your solutions. Maybe the dev's can help you out if they aren't knee deep in NDA.[/quote] Actually, back in reply #43, you'll note that Code and I found that some meshes don't use the data and/or normal map textures. They just leave the fields for those textures blank (empty string).

So Code Herder, how's the progress coming? I've got a couple of 3ds's I'd love to see in-engine, even if they aren't textured.

I'm with Annatar here. If the issue with the original system is that refineries are insufficient to replace extractor income as the asteroids deplete, then beef up the refineries. There are lots of ways to do this: 1) more refinery ships per refinery 2) increase refinery ship speed/acceleration 3) increase the frequency with which refinery ships can revisit an asteroid (i.e. reduce the time that an asteroid becomes "off limits" after a refinery ship visit) 4) increase amoun

I suggest learning yourself a scripting language (Perl, Python, Ruby, Lua, ...) and making a program that iterates over all the possible combinations and auto-generates these files for you. Less work in the long run.

[quote] What about the Phase Gate Upgrades.... those speed up ship transit more 'selectively' perhaps we could apply part of that ability to a ship itself.[/quote] This unfortunately appears to be phase gate specific: [font="courier new,courier,mono"] researchModifier modifierType "HyperspaceSpeedPhaseGateAdjustment" baseValue 0.0 perLevelValue 0.20 [/font]

I point to Civilization IV as a perfect example of why this doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing debate. The core game engine (3D engine, UI event system, multiplayer networking and lobby code, etc.) and executable are closed source. However, all of the game logic, including how buildings and combat behave, the visibility system, and the research system, are isolated into a DLL, and the code for that DLL *is* available. Civ IV's mod system even dynamically loads separate DLLs for each

That would be entirely doable, but this really isn't the right thread to discuss it.

I've seen this issue even in relatively small battles (2-3 dozen ships in a gravwell), so it's definitely not just you, Major Stress. As others stated in the Technical Feedback thread, it isn't just weapon FX, it's everything that falls under the particle system, including exhaust trails, engine flares, and (IIRC) the blinking nav lights ("flair").

Strike craft cannot attack planets or have abilities, so sadly, that won't happen without an engine change.

Right now there are only a limited set of allowed weapon types. Taking from English.str: [font="courier new,courier,mono"]StringInfo ID "IDS_WEAPONCLASSTYPE_AUTOCANNON" Value "AutoCannon" StringInfo ID "IDS_WEAPONCLASSTYPE_BEAM" Value "Beam" StringInfo ID "IDS_WEAPONCLASSTYPE_CAPITALABILITY" Value "Ability" StringInfo ID "IDS_WEAPONCLASSTYPE_DART" Value "Kinetic Bolt" StringI

Just think of TEC lasers as not true lasers, but laser-primed particle cannon. I think that's the "official" explanation for Star Wars "lasers" being bolts of energy. That seems to be the intended effect with the TEC lasers.

Avoid the whole webcam issue: capture directly from your screen's display. http://www.free-codecs.com/download/VH_Screen_Capture_Driver.htm

Vasari light frigates (Skirmishers) and heavy cruisers auto-cast their self-repair ability continuously when in combat, even if they haven't taken any damage. Since this disables their weapons and armor, this seems sub-ideal. Phase Missile Swarm seems to have no visible projectile effect. The Siege Platform, when dropped, does nothing. It cannot target enemy planets, nor any other ships. The running lights on Vasari Skirmishers often flash in perfect unison. They sh

Just look at the infocard. 305 dps from the beams at level 3? 439 dps at level 5? Not to mention that they have the Solar Radiation ability, so they continuously replenish their own antimatter and the antimatter of every ship in the system. Can we say "overpowered?"

To further the RoN parallel, I move that the mode be renamed Assassin, as in Rise of Nations, just to avoid confusion of terminology.

Bad news: it looks like firing arcs aren't actually based off of the emitters' exact rotation matrix. I made a ship with one turret pointed at 60 degrees right, and one pointed at 60 degrees left. In theory, with 180 degree firing arcs, this should give an arc of (-150,30) for the one pointed at -60 degrees, and (-30,150) for the one pointed at 60 degrees. Unfortunately, when I tested in game, both turrets could fire at any target in the (-90,90) degree range. It looks like t

[quote]Pretty neat find about the half plane firing arcs. I was 70% sure it worked that way but I hadn't gotten around to trying it yet.[/quote] I don't know what I was thinking when I called them "half-planes." A half-plane is a 2-D object. I think the appropriate term here is a " half-space ." But I'm glad you understood what I was talking about. [quote]The thing that concerns me now is multi-texturing (more than 1 texture she

[quote]To IC. What units did you use for scaling? are the ships "truescaled" EX: 1 unit in the modeling program = 1 meter, or did you make up something else for this?[/quote] Pulling up the Kol, the exhaust emitters for the engines are at -338 Z, and the emitters for the forward beam cannon are at 256, for an overall length of 594. I can't find any backstory information on ship sizes in real-world units, but a factor of between unity and 1 unit = 2 meters seems reasonable (Kol would have a

[quote]In Sins it seems all this data is in the model itself (which is a good thing IMO). I am assuming you are going to use normals for firing arcs like in VME, and HWSE?[/quote] Each emitter has a position (relative to the model center) and a 3x3 rotation matrix. The rotation matrix is applied to a forward-facing unit vector [0 0 1], and the result is treated as the normal vector for the half-plane in which a weapon can fire: Forward firing weapons have an identity matrix in plac

Waiting with bated breath, Herder. You're really pushing the envelope on what we can do with the Sins beta.

There is a difference in speed between when ships are phase jumping between stars (actually, when they are passing through the void between star systems), and when ships are phase jumping between planets at the same star. By default the interstellar jump speed is 35 times the interplanetary jump speed. I believe the "radius" parameter attached to stars determines when the ships switch to the higher speed. If they are closer to the star than "radius", then they are considered to be ins

Oh noes! Petronius is doomed! Congrats on a successful import!

Success! Thanks to efforts by Code Herder, we now have the ability to add, delete, and move weapon systems on Sins models. Kin of the Stars has been updated, once again leading the way with a proof of concept for modifying Sins. Roil-class Destroyers now have a single primary forward weapon, and two rapid-fire point defense beam turrets. They are far more capable of fending off mine attacks, and can contribute meaningfully to the point defenses of a fleet. Naturally, Kin of