adding in extra ships to game

from Sins Forums

Now i apologise if this has been covered somewhere before i have been trawling for tutorials and such. Now im looking at as a start adding a new ship into the game along side all the exisiting ships as i see sins can handle up to 9 per page and theres a few open slots.

So i've started by downloaded the full race mod where it has the extra 3 races already made, so i thought nice and easy i'll just make a carbon copy of one of the ships already and just increase its hp. problem im having is i cant get it to show up in game.

Now what i've done so far, is to copy the race1scout and rename it race1test and all i've alteed in that is the stringname and added a new line in the english.str file saying its a test ship. i have increased the string count by +1 aswell so it knows to read it.

I've then go to the manifest.entity file and added  the line entityName "FrigateRace1test.entity" and increased the string count by +1 so it knows to read the extra line added.

I've then go to the playerRace1.entity file and under the frigate info section have added the line entityDefName "FrigateRace1test" and again has increased the count number from 6 to 7 so it knows theres an extra string to read.

 

Now i've looked over the tutorial from http://soase.weebly.com/index.html about editing/adding ships, which is great telling what alters what but im struggling trying to findout what else i needed to of done to ADD another ship into the game, As the other issuse i can see is how do i tell it to look at a certain picture for the HUD icons.

mainViewIcon "MAINVIEWICON_FRIGATE_RACE1SCOUT"
picture "PICTURE_FRIGATE_RACE1SCOUT"

these are the bits which determine picture but i cant see how from that line it knows which part of the texture its actally looking at to give it its picture if you understand that.

If anyone knows of a tutorial which says this is how you add a new ship into game complete with which files get altered and how you assign it a new picture then PLEASE can someone tell me :)  THanks

 

modding
4,699 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

Take this as a bump--I think the ships are limited by the hard code in the game--though the expansion will increase the number.  I may be wrong so wait for an expert response.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

Now i apologise if this has been covered somewhere before i have been trawling for tutorials and such. Now im looking at as a start adding a new ship into the game along side all the exisiting ships as i see sins can handle up to 9 per page and theres a few open slots.
End of quote

This is correct, up to nine can be added for each page.

So i've started by downloaded the full race mod where it has the extra 3 races already made, so i thought nice and easy i'll just make a carbon copy of one of the ships already and just increase its hp. problem im having is i cant get it to show up in game.
End of quote

The new ship doesn't show up? or the new races don't show up?

Now what i've done so far, is to copy the race1scout and rename it race1test and all i've alteed in that is the stringname and added a new line in the english.str file saying its a test ship. i have increased the string count by +1 aswell so it knows to read it.
End of quote

Sounds good.

I've then go to the manifest.entity file and added the line entityName "FrigateRace1test.entity" and increased the string count by +1 so it knows to read the extra line added.
End of quote

Sounds right for the entity.manifest.

I've then go to the playerRace1.entity file and under the frigate info section have added the line entityDefName "FrigateRace1test" and again has increased the count number from 6 to 7 so it knows theres an extra string to read.
End of quote

Sounds right for the Player entity.

As the other issuse i can see is how do i tell it to look at a certain picture for the HUD icons.

mainViewIcon "MAINVIEWICON_FRIGATE_RACE1SCOUT"
picture "PICTURE_FRIGATE_RACE1SCOUT"
End of quote

These map to entries in a .brush file.

Depending on if you are using the race mod or not the files are as follows. I added the copies of these files for the new race mod so you could modify them without affecting the main three races.

Race1_HUDIcon-Ship.brushes
Race1_Picture-Ship.brushes
Race1_MainViewIcon-Ship.brushes
Race1_InfoCardIcon-Ship.brushes

or... if you modify the just the base game files.

HUDIcon-Ship.brushes
Picture-Ship.brushes
MainViewIcon-Ship.brushes
InfoCardIcon-Ship.brushes

These then map to texture files such as

Races_Unit_Hud_CursorOver
Races_Unit_Hud_Disabled
Races_Unit_Hud_Normal
Races_Unit_Hud_Pressed
Races_Unit_Infocard
Races_Unit_Main
Races_Unit_Picture

or from the base game just remove the Races_.

 

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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

You sound really close so I'm not sure why your new ship with modified stats isn't showing in the game.

Also, you don't need the New Race Mod if you are only wanting to add new ships. The most you should need is a copy of the Reference files from the Weebly to use as the template. From there you should only have to modify say PlayerTech.entity to add your new Frigate and then add the new Frigate's entity to the entity.manifest and then work from there.

Your starter mod should be able to look something like this initially.

TestMod\

TestMod\GameInfo

TestMod\GameInfo\PlayerTech.entity

TestMod\GameInfo\FrigateTechScoutTest.entity

TestMod\String\English.str

TestMod\entity.manifest

After you get the initial mod working you should be able to add in brush files and texture changes for the new ship. You can either modify the games brush and texture files or create your own version for the new ship(s).

 

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

Success it loads, right so its got the light frigate icon, so how do i go about changing this without atltering the original. I've seen the brush and texture files you mentioned. i can see that the picture "PICTURE_FRIGATE_RACE1SCOUT" line references the file RACE1_picture-ship.brushes and this has the line fileName "Races_Unit_Picture" so i understand how i can make a new texture and have it referenced the one thing i havent got a clue on though is the pixelBox [ 1362 , 548 , 167 , 75 ] as this must so how make reference to the texture in terms of location of the icon, but how and what do these numbers mean? is it something like an x y z and a size ??  now i use photoshop, so how would i  find out these numbers to addinto the line to change the icon for my "new" ship? :) Cheers 

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

First 2 numbers are the X and y location on the texture sheet and the next 2 are the pixel size. If you plan on making a bunch of new icons and textures make a new .tga and reference the new brushes to the new sheet. If its just a couple they will fit on existing sheets.

Not sure about photoshop (F8 Info Window) but gimp is easy to see the X, Y location and box size.