Hacking the Kol Battleship

Go into the code and replace one of the weapons with missiles.  It currently has lasers, autocannons, and beams.  I would recommend taking out the lasers.  Just copy the code from the missiles from somewhere else.  Then just adjust the weapon damage and/or cooldown.

As far as making the Halxyon bigger...  There may be some size multiplier somewhere.  Otherwise, you would have to go into the mesh with some multiplier program (which you could make with just the most basic knowledge of VB).  Aside from those, I don't know...

to make the Halcyon bigger, get harpo's or the Dehkranic GUI. Then get the mesh resize tool.

1. convert the Halcyon mesh from BINARY to TEXT

2. open the resize tool. Add the TEXT version of the Halcyon mesh as the source file

3. choose the resize factor. There's a window on the left, so you'll be able to figure it out.

4. hit 'RESIZE'. Presto! bigger Halcyon.

I know this works, as I made the Skirantra mesh 40% the size of the original, as it will be the new Skirantra Transporter Battle Carrier.

what resize tool?

Whiskey144, please could you post a link to this resize tool

dsjack try this thread https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/326876.

teal had post this link in another thread

harpo

Volt, I believe it was JasonFJ, or someone on the Star Wars Requiem mod team that created a mesh resizing tool.

thnx harpo   much obliged

Cool stuff. Is it possible to add a fourth weapon type to the Kol?

Heh, suppose I should have asked this before too. Where would I find the file for the Kol? is it an entity or mesh file?

the Kol's data file is a .entity. That's what specifies all weapons/damage/hull/shield/armor stats info. As for a 4th weapon, unfortunately each ship can only have a max of three weapon types.

However, it's likely that you could create a copy of the mesh, rename it something like 'CapitalShip_TechBattleship2', and use that to have a 2nd Kol class, with different weapons. To be able to use it in the game, once you've built the entity file for it, add it to the capital ship factory build list.

Cursed Forums Go Boom pages! I hate it when the site double-posts my replies.

What's the entity file called? I'll go looking for it. I'm thinking I'll want to make it bigger too, like the Halcyon carrier... on that note, what's the Halcyon's data file called?

the Kol is 'CAPITALSHIP_TECHBATTLESHIP.entity', while the Halcyon is 'CAPITALSHIP_PSICARRIER.entity'.

The little code the devs used for the races is as follows- Tech/TECH- kinda obvious, it's TEC; Phase/PHASE- Vasari, Psi/PSI- Advent

Heh yeah, meant to edit my last post as I found it soon after.

Well, doubled said battleship in size, overwrote the original file and tried it in game and the ship's still the same size. Am I missing anything?

If it matters (but i don't think it does or should) I'm running the Distant Stars mod for Entrenchment 1.3...

did you overwrite the Distant Stars version of the Kol, if it's present in that mod's folders? and did you 1st convert the mesh from BINARY (BIN) to TEXT (TXT), using the Dehkranic GUI or Harpo's txt binner?

Oh, heh, nope.

On that note though, went and found it in the Distant Stars mod, did what I wanted and when I went to run SINS, it crashed on loading. Something about requesting something to terminate in an unusual way...

what I suggest is that, if you haven't already, download the 1.17/1.03 builds of the Sins Developer executables. You'll need WinRAR or 7Zip to unpack the archives.

Once you've done that, and placed the executables into the Sins directory, which is on Vista C:\Program Files\Stardock Games\Sins of Solar Empire.

Now, run the developer version of Entrenchment/Sins, try to load the mod. It will tell you if there is a problem. It's a good idea to have the mod folder you want to load open in Windows Explorer in the background.

Incidentally, this is why I found out a little test mod of mine wasn't working. As it happened, I had improperly edited the bool modifiers count line in a buff, so it crashed. Went into file, fixed line to correct, count, mod loaded perfectly.

Also, if you're adding a new entity file, you'll need to create or update the 'entity.manifest' file. You can open it in Notepad/Wordpad, so that makes things easier. To do so, simply add in the new entity file (complete file name/ending), and update the number.

If your also adding additional strings, you'll need to edit them into the strings file (openable in Wordpad).

What I suggest is that you create a new ship, update the PlayerTech.entity file, so you can build it in the game, and use a different name for your new meshes. It's fun to have giant ships, but you should always make sure that the giant ships have different mesh file names, and also different entity file names.

You'll also likely want to resize the shieldmeshes to the proportionate size of the new models.

Whoa! Looks like I've got my work cut out for me. I'll let you know how it goes....

important!

you will also need to use GIMP to resize the textures, otherwise it'll give you an error.

Actually, to credit the proper author, the resize tool was originally made by Newbeorg, it is on a website on the net, and listed in the Sins forums of course. I did see the entry that JasonF put up, but i believe he was using the copy from Newbeorg.

-Teal