I was wondering if its possible in sins to have seperate shield sections for example: fore, aft, ect.?If not wether ships fly around while in combat really isnt going to make much difference anyway.

no, most of the game is hardcoded and that would require us to change that, but no one except stardock can do that. Also the UI is hardcoded so even if we could implement 4 different shield sections, the current UI wouldn't support it.

Shields are hardcoded. We are lucky to have that since most space RTS's like Homeworld, and HW2 dont even use shields. They had to be modded in. Multiple Shields arcs like in Starfleet command, and bridge commander are out of the question due to the hardcoded stop to fight mechanic. That IMO is the most annoying of the hardcoded problems next to the no useable cloak. I can see why movement was done this way, but for modding it doesnt help that it is hardcoded.

All i want is for the movement and cloaking opened up to modding (without breaking the game), and ill be a happy camper

Thanks for the advice.

I completed all of the steps in the readme file and my version is 1.05. I didn't duplicate the SoA2 folder and had done a clean re-install.

Basically what happens is that when I go into the game menu and select the SoA2 mod as active, the cpu thinks for a while and I cannot click anything on the menus while it's loading. Eventually (5+ min) the star trek music comes on, but the games stays frozen as described. I left it for 1+ hour, but it never progressed past the music.

Sins has worked perfectly without the mod, os I'm not sure if it would be a configuration issues.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Hey guys, just gotta say i LOVE your mod. It's the most enjoyable trek game I've played so far. I wish you good luck in completing the mod to your hopes. Keep up the great work, we're behind you all the way.

PS. Your mod made it into PC Gamer along with info about the new expansions lol.

For sins hanging up while the mod is loading i have no clue why it would do that. Other than system specs being too low which i am assuming is not the case here. Set vanilla sins details, extras, and bumps to all lowest settings for planets ships, and structures. On the effects setting uncheck EVERYTHING. Then retry loading the mod.

Im am going to ask again if you are absolutly sure you are running version 1.05 with no stray beta 1.09 files in the c:\documents and settings\"your user name"\application data\ironclad games\sins of a solar empire folder? For vista c:\users\"your user name"\application data\ironclad games\sins of a solar empire. This is why you must delete the Ironclad Games folder when doing a downgrade re-install of sins. The only thing i can suggest is to try this again. It is also possible that you have a corrupt download of the mod as well. Re-download it and try a new file.

I made the mod with models, and textures equal, or less poly counts, and texture resolutions than the vanilla sins models. So if your computer can run sins it "should" have no trouble running the mod. There is only one ship that has a higher than normal resolution. That one is the Galaxy class with a poly count of close to 7000 tri's. I didn't intend that many of them be built, because more than 3 lag my system. I still need to optimize that model some more. The rest of the ships are on par with the vanilla sins poly counts, and texture resolutions. I could have made, and used higher res stuff, but the lower resolution is by design so all can enjoy the mod instead of only a few computer elitist.

PC gamer huh, gotta check this out.

Stress, Dont worry about that, i'll fit them in where we need them, the wingged defender is a cruiser and i have a good idea where we could use it at. i'm ready to give you what i have so far, just need you around in MSN

Some balance issues I noticed, the klingon starting ship seem a we bit underpowered.

Not sure if its still relevant, but I remember there were some issues with finding a working cloak-like ability for the romulans & Klingons. While toying with the ability entity files I found a working semi-cloak by giving the PhaseOutHull ability to ships after having adapted it slightly.

The result is when you activate the ability on for example a Klingon Bird of Prey, the ship becomes unattackeable and cannot attack himself, but can still move around for the duration of the cloak. (unlike Phase cloak which cancels itself when you move a ship) The animation effect is that of a vague cloud surrounding the ship, which isn't half-bad.

The only downside is that the ship cannot attack until the cloak actually wears of.

Which is EXACTLY what Stress wants.  He doesn't want cloaked ships to be able to attack.

We still have no success with the cloak so any help will be appreciated. What i had i mind was something that made the ship completely invisible, but still be able to be detected jumping into the grav well. In other words you know they are there. You just arent sure what they are, or how many until they uncloak. Not sure if that is possible because of the icons in the UI, but the fact that you cant attack them and they cant attack you may be an alternative that is "good enough".

Show me what you have when you get the chance.

What i had i mind was something that made the ship completely invisible, but still be able to be detected jumping into the grav well. In other words you know they are there. You just arent sure what they are, or how many until they uncloak.

That would be best yes, although I don't think it is possible currently in Sins. Took me over 2 hours of wasted testing to try and get the Phase Cloak to work simply while ships move, to no avail, so I doubt anything as complex as what you want can be implemented unfortunately.

Anyway, here are the contents of the .entity files for a working abstract "cloak" (content between the *******). It works on both Frigates and Capital Ships (and buildings).

AbilityPhaseOutHull.entity

****************************

TXT
entityType "Ability"
buffInstantActionType "ApplyBuffToSelf"
instantActionTriggerType "AlwaysPerform"
buffType "BuffPhaseOutHull"
effectInfo
    effectAttachInfo
        attachType "Center"
    smallEffectName "CapitalAbility_PhaseOutHullActivate"
    largeEffectName "CapitalAbility_PhaseOutHullActivate"
    soundID "EFFECT_PHASEOUTHULL"
needsToFaceTarget FALSE
canCollideWithTarget TRUE
moveThruTarget FALSE
isUltimateAbility FALSE
maxNumLevels 1
levelSourceType "Intrinsic"
aiUseTime "OnlyInCombat"
aiUseTargetCondition "Any"
isAutoCastAvailable TRUE
isAutoCastOnByDefault FALSE
pickRandomPlanetToExploreForAutoCastTarget FALSE
ignoreNonCombatShipsForAutoCastTarget TRUE
onlyAutoCastWhenDamageTakenExceedsPerc 0.500000
isPassive FALSE
antiMatterCost
    Level:0 50.000000
    Level:1 0.000000
    Level:2 0.000000
cooldownTime
    Level:0 20.000000
    Level:1 0.000000
    Level:2 0.000000
researchPrerequisites
    NumResearchPrerequisites 0
nameStringID "IDS_ABILITY_PHASEOUTHULL_NAME"
descStringID "IDS_ABILITY_PHASEOUTHULL_DESCRIPTION"
hudIcon "HUDICON_ABILITY_PHASEOUTHULL"
smallHudIcon "HUDICON_ABILITY_PHASEOUTHULL"
infoCardIcon ""

*****************************

BuffPhaseOutHull.entity

*****************************

TXT
entityType "Buff"
onReapplyDuplicateType "ReplaceWithNewBuff"
buffExclusivityForAIType "ExclusiveForAllPlayers"
isInterruptable FALSE
isChannelling FALSE
numInstantActions 2
instantAction
    buffInstantActionType "PlayPersistantAttachedEffect"
    instantActionTriggerType "OnDelay"
    delayTime 0.000000
    effectInfo
        effectAttachInfo
            attachType "Center"
        smallEffectName "CapitalBuff_PhaseOutHull_Small"
        largeEffectName "CapitalBuff_PhaseOutHull"
        soundID ""
instantAction
    buffInstantActionType "DoInterruptUltimate"
    instantActionTriggerType "OnDelay"
    delayTime 0.000000
numPeriodicActions 0
numOverTimeActions 0
numEntityModifiers 0
numEntityBoolModifiers 2
entityBoolModifier "CannotBeDamaged"
entityBoolModifier "DisableWeapons"
numFinishConditions 1
finishCondition
    finishConditionType "TimeElapsed"
    time
        Level:0 20.000000
        Level:1 0.000000
        Level:2 0.000000

******************************

is there an enityBoolModifier that would disable shields as well when the cloak is enable? also the cloak should be able to take damage.

What I would do with the cloak is give legendary ships, structures, some normal ships, and especially planets 2 detection radii.  The outer radius would mean the cloaked ship is detected, but it wouldn't be attackable yet nor would it be identified.  Any unidentified but detected ship would have an icon where the ship was present.  The inner radius would mean the cloak is currently useless for the user.  The planet bonus would mean that you would at least always know if cloaked ships were present in a friendly grav well, meaning that players cannot bypass defensive fleets to hit in the back of their empire.  That would be very frustrating.  With planet and structure bonuses that would make the cloak especially good as a defensive measure.  A cloaked fleet arrives at a star you defend, so you can't detect and intercept it.  A cloaked fleet surrounds an otherwise defenseless planet, tricking an attacker into believing he gets an easy planet.  Also, I personally don't think Defiant-class ships should have cloaking devices.

That sounds wonderful, but also quite impossible to implement given all the hardcoded stuff in sins.

 

is there an enityBoolModifier that would disable shields as well when the cloak is enable? also the cloak should be able to take damage.

End of quote

 

So, if the ship remains attackable + looses its shields, what would be the point of the cloak then?

Probably for area of effect weapons. I agree a cloaked ship shouldnt be attackable, but it should take damage from area of effect weapons if the cloaked ship in the radious of the effect.

People easy on the suggestions. Stuff like this is hardcoded to hell and back. I am surprised he got what he did to work at all. It is not going to be a perfect solution, but this so far is the best i have seen.

There is one problem that I can see with his method and I had already attempted the same thing when Major Stress approached me with this issue.

The problem isnt in getting the "Phase Cloak" ability to do what you want when altered, the problem is...... that Major Stress wanted the ships to be completely visable when traveling at warp.  Both the "Warp Transperancy" and the "Phased Out" invisible effect work off of the same file located in the "/PipelineEffect folder", called GS_Ship & GS_ShipPhasedOut.  Therefore whatever effect that should be placed on cloaking ships, (other then the cloud particle effect) A.K.A. "invisibility" will also be applied on ships when traveling during warp.

It is possible that there is a work around for that as well, but it is one of the problems I ran into when attempting the same thing...

Good Luck,

Adm. Cobbs

Hm that doesnt sound like cloaking like it was in ST. The point of cloaking is that they are the supreme surprise attack. If you can see them jumping into a gravity well then they arent much of a surprise are they?

Yes but remember sometimes there is a gas or exhaust from the ship, partical neutrino's i think they where called, what Fed ships would pick up, sometimes for klingons they would pick up a subspace distortion but could not pinpoint its location. usually this indicated there was a cloak vessel in the area.

In case some have forgotten, A ships shields and weapon power is diverted to the cloaking device in order to power it, why i was asking if you can turn the shields off as well. This would allow ships to damage the hull directly on the ship, even giving the possiblity of damaging the cloak if its damagable.

But it sounds like this workaround, right now, will still allow enemy ships to spot your ships coming into the gravity well. And it also sounds like they will be able to follow them through the gravity well until the cloaked ship drops its cloak to jump to hyperspace/warp/phase. Am I right? It makes sense that other ships would be able to detect anomalies in the area, but not pinpoint the location. But being able to follow the cloaked ship and not attack it...I don't know about that.

you have a very valid point there

OK.

Everyone so far has made valid points, but you must understand this. Sins is very inflexible, and unforgiving when it comes to implementing a full blown cloak. A true "trek" style cloak is NOT going to happen. The features being requested are NOT going to happen.

This cloak so far seems to be the best solution anyone has been capable of coming up with. It is far from perfect, but seems a better solution than nothing at all. Respect should be given to the man for taking the time to do this. If anyone else thinks that they can do a better job please feel free to try. Until then i am going to implement this cloak.

I asked a while back. Would you rather have a "cosmetic cloak", or no cloak at all..

I am asking again. Which do you want? Bad cloak, or no cloak at all? Chose one.

Personally, And I am going to suggest this to EO, who I am working on the Stargate Invasion mod with, that no cloak be included. A bad cloak will just make people mad (as will no cloak), but it is much easier and better to say something like "All factions have created technology in all of their ships that have disabled enemy ship's cloaks." I'm sure you get the idea, something along those lines.

The issue is that cloaking is a part of established trek lore. Not having it is like the unforgivable sin. Having a bad cloak is just as unforgivable. So we are in a kind of "damned if you do, and damned if you dont. situation. We cant "write out' the cloak in trek. I personally would rather have no cloak, and explain it off as the ships dont fight cloaked anyway, but you can see how rabid some fans can get.

This cosmetic cloak seems better than no cloak at all. sure you can see when the enemy is comming and u will know who and what it is. but the basic no target, and no fire function is there.