Ability/Mesh question

Help!!!

from Sins Forums

I have been working on my own version of a Star Trek mod for Entrenchment (based on the SoA Mod...yes i "borrowed" much of it).  One thing that I always thought would be cool is, when the Borg assimilate a ship, I would like that ship to change appearance permanently.  Essentially when the "assimilation" ability is used on a ship, the target ship changes mesh to a version that has a skin with Borg-looking structures on it.  I'm sure someone here can help me, i just can't figure it out...Thanks for the help!!

modding
2,142 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

I don't think its possible to directly change the mesh of a ship with an ability. Only research can do that. However, many modders have been able to use particle effects that look like a ship component (like the turrets on the Kol battleship) to get around this limitation, though you'll need to talk to someone with more experience in this particular area.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

Best to ask the SoA Mod team for permission to mod their mod.  Not sure what you want to do is possible or if you'd be able to sufficiently incorporate the illusion self ability into the assimilation beam.  7DS has a module that captures enemy ships, which will change the team color, if it is enabled, so best play the Borg as green color or you'll have -for one, strange colored borg and any captured ship sharing that same color.  No, you can't use our ability, we're still in Beta.

Siege of Centauri
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

This mod is only for me and the group of friends i play with...not planning on publishing this publicly (my friends want me too though).  If I ever do decide to, i WILL submit it to the SoA team to ask for permission.  That said, I still think it could be possible.  in every .entity file governing every ship, under Mesh info, it says "criteriatype"...are "none", "research", and "StarBaseUpgradeLevel" the only entries that can be placed there?

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

well...  if you have a tier 0 research item called, "Assimilation" for example that really does nothing but unlock an upgrade mesh in the ship entity file, then you're good.

Practice on 1 capitalship, copy the mesh, give it a Borgified texture, rename it with _Borg just before .mesh, then in the entity file give it the _Borg.mesh name and the "Assimilation" research item as a prerequisite.  Capture ship and see if the mesh changes to the "upgraded" Borg one.  Maybe you can come up with some easy Borg overlays, then apply the overlay to the dds texture in photoshop and save it.

 

Good luck, keep us posted.

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting SemazRalan, reply 4
well...  if you have a tier 0 research item called, "Assimilation" for example that really does nothing but unlock an upgrade mesh in the ship entity file, then you're good.

Practice on 1 capitalship, copy the mesh, give it a Borgified texture, rename it with _Borg just before .mesh, then in the entity file give it the _Borg.mesh name and the "Assimilation" research item as a prerequisite.  Capture ship and see if the mesh changes to the "upgraded" Borg one.  Maybe you can come up with some easy Borg overlays, then apply the overlay to the dds texture in photoshop and save it.

 

Good luck, keep us posted.
End of SemazRalan's quote
This totally worked!!  thx guys!