I think I'm the strategy guide currently...

I guess I could write something up, but work is yucky!

Indeed.  Your research modifiers are all percent changes regarding regeneration rates, so don't set them to zero, just something slower.  You'll definitely want to nuke them with how slow you've got the game moving.

Constructors don't jump.  Currently, all shipyards upgrade to do this already.  If you modify their repair ability to suit your tastes, and give it to the constructors instead, you'd have a very simple fix.  If you want to add another function entirely, you'll just need to remember to update your manifest list, and duplicate an existing repair function.  The current research for the task is still a good thing to research lock it to though.  Adding research in as well will be more work, you need to get the table location and tier right to be placed in an empty spot, and add it into the player files as well.

This is dangerous territory.  The AI wont be able to handle no antimatter regen.  You can do it, I'd love something complicated like that myself, but you wont be learnin the AI his shit.  It's easy enough really, nuke shield regen to zero, or close to it, and give someone an ability that makes everyone burn antimatter to restore their shields.  It's not going to be a pretty picture regarding your opponent though.

I have a noob question here, I think I already have it figured out, but wanted to know if it was a bug, or supposed to be that way.

The Borg cutting beam, is it supposed to be able to assimilate capital ships?  I had a Queens Diamond guarding an asteroid choke point while taking over another planet with my other ships.  After wards, I zoom in to the asteroid, and see that my QD had assimilated the enemies capital ship.  I'm not complaining actually, it was cool that I could use it to colonize worlds with and use the QD for other things too.

Just curious really.

Yes, it is.

Only the capital ships assimilate with it, the frigate version does not.  It's also conditional, not an always works deal.  The effect is triggered after having the beam running for eight seconds following shield failure.

Nah your more like the Great Sage on the mountaintop or Oracle if you prefer. 

 

Yeah slow really slow muhaaaaa.

Well that was just kind of an idea, but really I might improve shields for everyone a little since whatever gets through well its gonna take weeks to fix in the repair yard, unless of course Scotty is there he is a miracle worker.

And psychoak thanks again I try to do my best reading the forums and just opening and looking through the files to learn what to do, but like playing sometimes I learn stuff and then a few days go by before I can truly try to implement them and hell half the time I forget what I read 's nice to be able to bounce stuff off someone already in the know.

PS Do they got any mod editor tools that will read the files after edit and put out results of any errors found and where. I just spent the past two days trying to figure out why I was mini dumping and all it turned out to be was that players 2 got deleted from the end of the map file jeez modding in a semi moving at 65 mph down the highway causes bad keystrokes a lot some kind of tool that could read the files and find those missing " and stuff would be a godsend.  

I really hope that is a joke and you are not really driving down the road in a semi at 65 mph and trying to mod at the same time cause that would be bad, really really really bad.

Nah my wife drives too so I am in back in the sleeper pounding away on the keyboard suffice to say its not the most creative, nor conductive place to do modding of any kind. Hell even gaming can be problematic as I said bad keystrokes or mouse clicks are just par for the course. 

You need to be using the developer executables in the main program directory.  There's one for each version of sins.

Oh Yes your d'man.

Damn psychoak, in just one post you fix countless hours of stuggles. Do you remember how I couldn't get the templates working in the Galaxy File but could in the GameScenarioDef File tried it again using the dev.exe and all it was is that in the GameScenarioDef you use the line planetItemsTemplate and in the Galaxy File that just needed to be change to Templates. I had never figured that out but know the templates work great from the Galaxy File Thanks a bunch Karma given, given

I have a Sins Editor Eclipse Plugin but have not thought to include galaxy files as I'm not a map maker. I'll take a look at those files and see if I can add the definitions to support validating galaxy files that may have been edited by hand.

Looks great does it handle Entrenchment 1.51 alright any issues? All download it and check it out sounds like something I could find most useful. thanks

In the Fed capital ship description (hud) class is repeated twice.

Galaxy Class Class etc...

That is an issue with the game, and can't be fixed by modders.  Sins automatically adds "Class" after the first word in a capital ship's name.

Couple Questions on the developers tools for Entrenchment. First I get a few errors but they seem more to do with the Engine than the mod itself correct me if I am wrong. Second After running the developers exe my players name disappeared and now when I start the game I cannot change the players name its as if the button on the hud has a broken link or something. Does this have something to do with the line SetActivePlayerIndex:-1?

Here is the results of my current dump file.

D3D9 - ChangeDevice...
  DeviceType.......... HAL
  AdapterOrdinal.......0
  AdapterFormat....... X8R8G8B8
  BehaviorFlags....... HARDWARE_VERTEXPROCESSING
  BackBufferSize.....  1024 x 768
  BackBufferFormat.... A8R8G8B8
  DepthStencilFormat.. D24X8 (Enabled)
  MultiSampleType..... 2 Samples (Quality=0)
  IsWindowed.......... 1
D3D9 - IsWindowActive : (1)
D3D9 - ChangeDevice...
  DeviceType.......... HAL
  AdapterOrdinal.......0
  AdapterFormat....... X8R8G8B8
  BehaviorFlags....... HARDWARE_VERTEXPROCESSING
  BackBufferSize.....  1024 x 753
  BackBufferFormat.... A8R8G8B8
  DepthStencilFormat.. D24X8 (Enabled)
  MultiSampleType..... 2 Samples (Quality=0)
  IsWindowed.......... 1
Setup:DataFileSystem
Added 2 Fixed Data File paths
> .\Entrenchment
> .
Found 4 Available Mods in C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\Mods-Entrenchment v1.051
> PipelineEffect
> SOA2 0.4.5E
> SOA2 0.4.5E patch
> Soa2 Fleet Mod
Found 4 Enabled Mods in C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\Mods-Entrenchment v1.051\EnabledMods.txt
> SOA2 0.4.5E
> SOA2 0.4.5E patch
> Soa2 Fleet Mod
> PipelineEffect
c:\gs\entrenchment\CodeSource\Engine\String\StringLibrary.h(83): assert! [result == 1]
c:\gs\entrenchment\CodeSource\Engine\Archive\TextFileArchive.cpp(136): assert! [false]
*** TextureSystem could not find file () within TextureSystem's working directory (Textures).
Creating player mappings ... (rand seed:1706025055)
Window(quitButton) Button Press from CURSOR_BUTTON_0.
D3D9 - IsWindowActive : (0)
SetActivePlayerIndex:-1

The blue text is the lines I am curious about the most

The third one, I have no idea, it's always there.  The fourth is just standard.

The first two are apparently non-problematic bugs we can't seem to track down.

Your glitch with changing names is probably a fubar patch job.  The .4.5E patch, which should fix this, is a direct overwrite to the main directory.  If that doesn't fix it, there's something undoing the fix, either in Soa2 Fleet Mod, or PipelineEffect.

Thanks Psychoak the odd thing is before I ran the Dev.exe everything was fine. Are you saying I ought to unzip those files again and overwrite what I have, and if I do that won't the dev.exe just corrupt it again?

Also is my order of the mods correct?

You need to keep the Fleet Mod updated with the entity manifest version from the latest patches, it could end up calling bad references from changed files.  I've not used the pipeline effect mod, so no clue there.

If .4.5E patch is your changes, then it should be good, if it's the actual .4.5E patch, that's supposed to be an overwrite, not another mod, this might be the problem.

The dev exe isn't corrupting anything, you either missed, or overwrote the file pertaining to the glitch, it was fixed in .4.5E.  I have my test install of the actual downloaded files, verified to be working.

Well I downloaded and installed a few weeks ago all at once and I don't think there have been any changes since then. Pipeline is just a modified version of the pipeline file with the fix to lighten up the ships it in the read me of SOA2

10-4 I'll drag these folders over there appropriate folders in SOA2 and overwrite any files encountered

Ok I'll work on it, Question on the mods themselves about load order. Is it correct that the first mod load first then the second then third ect. And that if a file like fed:scout is different in the third it will be used instead of the one from the first. I ask because i Don't want to mess with any SOA2 original files but I thought if I made a folder called The Federation and copied those files I wanted to edit there and then loaded this ne mod last it would solve the problem.

Directory Structure from http://soase.weebly.com/modding.html

Found 4 Enabled Mods in C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\Mods-Entrenchment v1.051\EnabledMods.txt
> SOA2 0.4.5E
> SOA2 0.4.5E patch
> Soa2 Fleet Mod
> PipelineEffect

So then my load order is backwards then right.  Since if I understood you correctly My Pipeline change and even the patch are being load after the main SOA2 mod thus undoing there changes is this correct.

if the files needed ARE NOT in the top mod, THEN entrenchment & diplomacy WILL look in the other mods going down the list until it finds the file, then IF NOT found will then look in the expansion's program files folder, THEN IF NOT FOUND then in the lower expansion, THEN IF NOT FOUND then is the sins folder , and IF NOT FOUND ERROR's reporting could not find file, and the patch SHOULD be overwriting the sao2 0.45e NOT stacked with it, and the soa2 fleet mod should be ABOVE the soa2 0.45e, AND IF there are NO pipelineeffect folders in the mod's ABOVE the ppelineeffect mod then it is fine in whichever position in the stack, BUT the MOD with the most changes to the manifests NEEDS to be the TOP mod.

harpo

Ok So if I understand correctly its the first come first serve not as I thought where a second copy of say GalaxyScenariodef file will be read and used and the first discarded. See my Oblivion Game mod stacking was  that way that is why I thought it was similar Thus I though I could just make a copy of the SOA2 mod and rename it then edit just the files I needed and then load my version last thus overwriting/ignoring  the Original SOA2 mods files that I had changed in my mod. Am I making sense?  Ha Ha.

if the file is in the top mod IT WILL BE USED,

if it is NOT in the top mod, THEN the enabled mod stack is searched from the SECOND mod and on down UNTIL IT FINDS THE FILE,

if it does not find the file in the enabled mods,

THEN and ONLY then does it search the game folders till it finds the file,

with the LAST place looked being the vanilla sins game folders, and IF NOT FOUND you WILL GET AN ERROR and probable crash to desktop.

can you understand this staetment of observations of how the mod stacking works?

harpo

Yeah I get how the search is done I guess what I keep questioning and what hasn't been made apparent is what happens when the search encounters another file by the same name in the stack as its going down does it ignore this second copy of the file or does this file now take precident over the first (That is the way it was in Oblivion) From what I am understanding is the engine will ignore this second copy and use the first.

Thanks guys I know I was a little dense on this one, but hey it won't be my last I am sure.  Hardy Har Har

could you not see the bolded AND underlined sections in caps in the quote???

harpo

Yeah I got it but when your modding its always best to be sure saves lots of time.