Modders I need your input

Woohoo!

Ok, I had little problem with my mod, as most of my files are 'added' not altered. But there would be 2 things I think we'd all like.
1. A list of all the files that have been altered for 1.04, so we don't have to arrange by modified, and then check if anything has changed in it (I noticed some files in 1.03 were modified, but had no changes whatsoever (a texture file, and a few .entity files)).
2. This probably will go against certain 'regulations' and I'll most likely be shot down quickly on this one, but would it be possible to get the reference data files for 1.04 *breathes in deeply* before its release? Or failing that proposal, with the release of 1.04, so we can get cracking straight away?

I have to say, I'm honoured that you've asked us directly yourself. Most devs would throw out a sticky and let it get to 500 pages before even reading and responding. This game is definitely well supported, despite what many of the 'haters' says, keep up the outstanding work, as I'm sure you will

I completly agreed with Uzii.

I'll agree with Uzii also.

A list of non-obvious changed files (meaning, if the patch notes say some ship was changed, obviously the entity file is), and the reference data right along (or closely following) the patch release would be great.

As a slight aside not directly related to converting - but the ability to make comments in the files that the game would skip over when loading/reading the file would be all kinds of awesome. Right now any typo or blank space causes pretty spectacular crashes.

It doesn't have to be anything major, just having it skip lines prefaced with // or blank lines would work great. That way we could prettify the files a bit (especially the string file) so that it's a lot easier for us to work with.

It would actually help speed up conversion/updating since we could comment such nifty things as how many additional strings/counts were added so we wouldn't need to re-count everything, etc.

Thanks!

So my problem is that I edit files and I am going to be changing some of the meshes and making super caps if the textures will play nice. My main problem is that I have to go threw and rewrite all the stuff I did change already, wich is not that big of a deal becasue its something that can not be avoided. When going from 1.02 to 1.03 I was not able to just transfer the changed files over, which is understandable considering the amount of changes. So for my end I am just going to have to rewrite everything wich is fine because it will give me practice.

I would also like to see the reference files early, or at least released at the same time as the patch.

The most time consuming part is using a merge program (like tortoisemerge) and merging all the changed files line by line. It would be great if in the reference data folder there was a new folder of 'changed files' to make the merge process easier.

@ Overthrow
Use 'Compare It!'. A free program that can compare and merge files very easily. I strongly recommend it.

Thank you very much Uzii, you have been a great help to most of the people on here and I think you should get an award   I will check the program out when I get home.

Just doing my Duty

Annatar has been my 'Guardian Angel of Modding' on here, so half of that thanks he deserves

It would be nice to get the Sins Symbol Files so we can debug directly what is erroring...as is you have to do a ton of Trial and Error rather than going directly after the problem....

Yeah, well, you know what?



So there

OH YEAH, please find some way to get us access to the AI, that would be very helpful as when you make a lot of changes you need to change the AI with it so it interacts properly with what you have changed(does that make sense)

not expected it in the next release but changing it so that only files that have been altered need to be added to the mods folder (same as the texture files).

Maybe having seperate race/unit/warfare/empire-research sub folders in which most of the files to do with that unit/etc are placed (would be great for adding new units [or even a new race] and finding exactly what file you need). the note feature mentioned above would also be a great addition.

and yes Uzii i completely agree, the support for this game is exceptional! not sure about you but ive never played any game where the devs are in such frequent contact with the community (and actually seem to listen). great job guys

I think everything so far has been great, the support from the devs and the community is overwhelming and just cannot be beat. With that out of the way I'm jumping on the 'Agree with Uzii' bandwagon because he said everything that I thought of first. Having access to the 1.04 files either before hand or at the time of release would drasticly improve the conversion of any current mods, as well as getting a list of modified files (I say all of them just to be safe :))

I can also agree with having some sort of tool that would let us read the dump files when the game crashes so we don't always scratch our heads or have to back track through 10 different files to find a single space out of line or whatever.

I was slightly suprised to find that there wasn't any sort of supported commenting system available to the files, or maybe there is one and we just haven't discovered yet what is is. Either way having the ability to comment lines out, or even add notes to files would help out tons.

You mean you dont change one small thing at a time then test it....... wuss lol just kidding, I actauly have not had that much of a prob with dumps, when I do change something I go right in and test it. I do agree with having a dump file that tells us where we screwed up.

Well, I'm going to agree with Uzii too.. oh wait...

I do think though that what has been said about commenting out lines would be a very nice addition, although not imperative. The ability to read those Dump files is however, and would save all of us many hours, possibly days, searching for a typo. The Logs that can be enabled are, well, to say the least, basic, and only seem to highlight non-fatal errors. I have been through a couple and now don't get any, even when it dumps.

I also agree with the point Leon brought up about removing the need to have all the files in a folder. Won't make much of a difference to most things, although cleaner, but the Meshes folder, even mostly in Binary, is approaching 70Mb alone for me, and with a total unpacked size of nearly 370Mb, its something I could do without. Soon I won't be able to upload to Rapidshare in one sitting (split zip file), and I am beginning to feel limited to what I can do, as the size of my mod is ballooning rapidly.

A slight addendum to Uzii's post a bit farther up: my text editor of choice is Notepad++ which also has a handy plugin that lets you compare files side by side, with highlighted lines where something has changed. I was causing the game to crash with an edited CapitalShip_PSIBattleship.entity file, and I had no idea why. I compared my version to the original and had to change things back line-by-line, which did suck but without the compare feature it would have taken much longer Anyways, just a suggestion.

Are there any non-used sounds, meshes or texures? Would be great to have some more stuff to work with. When i savage from other games i always have to ask for permission. Mostly they don't care or are glad to help out, but some deveopers don't answer or are not reachable.

This is a bit of a tangent - but it needs to be addressed and I can't find a more suitable place to do it. As of now, I really think the capital ship/ability/etc problems with the UI are more of a concern to the future of modding than minor conversion difficulties. It's a silly artificial limit that seems odd when so many other files are so customizable...

The ideal would be that any empty UI slots can be used (as they can be on the specific ship pages) and ship types are not tied to factories (so that a modder can introduce new factories). However, even if a page or two could be added to the existing factories..that would help.

Also agreeing with the commenting suggestion. Simple //s would suffice. I haven't tried it yet, so it might already been in there, but /n for a newline would also help the wrapping.

commenting !!!

diff logs of file changes/ delete / adds

some rudimentary folder heirachy (maybe just abilities/buffs/research subjects)

guidelines on how exactly the file parser reads files (how does it handle white space, blank lines etc)

make a userstrings.str that overrides/appends to the english.str on load

I would like to ask that ConvertData.exe be given more error checking and throw better error messages. With 1.03, it just seemed to hang or crash when fed bad data.

Cheers,
Silvermane

About ConvertData.exe I really want somekind of multiple file converting. Convert every single file by hand input is really hard work.

EDIT - Please release official 3dmax plugin or script   

Blair,
This is awesome that you wan to hear from us.

I agree with Uzii and finding those dumps so we can see exactly what cuased the error. A changed log from you guys would be great, as well as having stuff up front before or when the update comes out.

Also, as you and I have spoken, getting the original XSI files would be great, then we wouldn't have to convert the MESH folders in a $3500 3DMAX program in order to make variations of the original ships, which is what a lot of people want.

If you guys could finish the mod tools, forges, etc. That would help us all out, big time. I am eagerly awaiting the ability to edit particles easily.

One more thing, if there was a way to unlock more ships, rather being set with in game number now. (cap ships especially).

Thank you for listening to us!

DANMAN

While a magician should never reveal his tricks, here's one anyway:

FOR /R .\ %G IN (*.entity) DO C:\SolarMod\ConvertData\convertdata.exe entity %~nG%~xG ..\..\HeavyNova\GameInfo\%~nG%~xG

i know some of the "modelers" could use some advice on converting, (getting ships "in game") and from what formats/programs sins works well with (and what programs/formats to avoid, that wont work with sins). A Tutorial would be appreciated for thoses, (I think Stress Puppy wanted to know about that, and i think he is out for a bit) i am not a modder or a modeler just passing on the request...

A couple of glitches I ran into in 1.03--

1) The planet type for research seems to be bugged--the game seems to only allow one new type to be defined correctly. Add more and and all planets can be colonized with the first tech added, but the name will be wrong.

2) The player entity files indicate that extra tech blocks or fields can be added but it does not work in game. Bugged or not meant to be expanded? I'd like to add whole new research fields or at least add blocks onto the existing fields, but it doesn't look possible right now.