Need Help Editing Hardpoint Orientation with Notepad

Look at reply 5 in this thread: https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/363478

I can't remember the orientation of up and down though, and don't hold back on asking, you mostly get to know things in this game through trial and error, or the forums .

Mind if I ask what your planned changes are regarding?  I ask because most weapon points, especially in the stock ships and the larger team-oriented mods are set for a specific firing arc that also avoids shooting through the attacking ship.  In my experience changing orientation without also changing position can often be a bad idea.

I am indeed changing the position of the hardpoints infact I am using given models and completely changing their armament. So basically, I deleted the existing hardpoints and created new ones in different locations on the model. Because of this I can't use the orientation of the old hardpoints as they are not compatible with the new ones.

Now the way I understand it the orientation system determines the arc of the horizontal plane (front, back, left, right) and if a hardpoint can fire in the up or down hemisphere. Now I know the horizontal arc orientations (thanks to gruntmaster) but not up or down. Both these are denoted with 1s and 0s and minus symbols.

In addition, there seems to be other elements to orientation because in some of the stock files there are examples of crazy decimals instead of simple use of 1s and 0s. But I have no clue what they might mean.

Indeed.  You can orient a hardpoint to fire at any specific point within the global 720 degrees.  Up, down, right, left, angled in whatever direction you like.  The issue comes from the odd notion that the harcoded firing arcs cover around 120 degrees rather than the logical 90 degrees.  So, once you start messing around with the tilting of orientations you start getting weird angles.

I experimented with this in SoA2 in an attempt to get fed ship's phasers to not fire through the saucer section of each ship every once in a while.  Ultimately, I found out that the primary section of each arc worked wonderfully if rotated around and tilted up or down a bit, but the outer areas were angled in the opposite direction of what I wanted because they sweep past the normal +/- 45 degree cut-off.  The only solution to this is to make sure that the part of the model the hardpoint is located on actually protrudes away from the main hull of the ship.  This is the ONLY case in which you won't get weapons fire blasting through the ship's hull.

What I would really like is for the devs to address this issue in a patch (please).  I would absolutely love to have an adjustable-size weapon arc, but I'd settle for the angles being set to 45 degrees off center.  

I'm curious, though, if you're changing the position of the points you must be doing so in a modeling program like Max or XSI.  Admittedly, I haven't spent the time to figure out which values are assigned for specific angles for each axis of the orientation, so I've found that it's so much easier to make the adjustements in a modeling program rather than by hand in the txt files.  On the off chance that you aren't using a modeling program I'd be interested in knowing how you're getting the points to the desired location.

Cool, so are you one of the SoA2 modders? It's the very mod that got me into this game and I'm in awe of what has been accomplished with it. By the way the ship I'm currently working with is the Excelsior. I am refiting her to use 24th century style phasers rather then the 23rd century phasers, which SoA2 categorises as disrupters. My aim is to make theSoA2 closer to the visual style of DS9 and the TNG movies (something that will screw with game balance but I don't mind that).

The way I have been editing hardpoints is rather cumbersome. I use 3ds max 7 with a script posted on this board that lets you import binary .mesh files. There I can then see the hardpoints move them about add new ones ect. Unfortunately, though, I have not managed to export with the use of this script as I can't figure out how to apply textures properly. So I use the info I see in 3ds max and then go back to the text .mesh file and edit the hardpoints manually there. I have used this technique to edit the Intrepid and Akira. But those two were easier as I only removed hardpoints to reduce the extreme amount of weapon animations those models were using.

Now with the Excelisor I am indeed faced with the problem of phasers shooting through the hull and all that jazz. From what you say this problem seems rather complicated and requires difficult fine tuning of the orientations. What might help me if you could explain how the orientation matrix resembles different angels.

You don't need the textures, only the mesh file and then you can copy over the info of the points to the original mesh. In order to add some material so that it can convert the file use the material editor (top right) select the model and press on assign material (3rd button from the left). You will get an error message the first time you try to export. Close the script and open it again then reassign the material, then link the dummy points and then try to export the model again.

1)  Max has a very useful help feature that you can use.  For textures, though, simply hit "M", and drag one of the empty texture spheres onto the model itself.  Doing this requires that you add in the actual textures we use by name in the txt file once you've finished exporting.  Plus, you then have to attach all the hardpoints to the model, blah, blah, blah.  We can go over this process in much greater detail in IM or by some other private means if you like.  I have not yet gotten the Sins Tool v2 to export models correctly (textures never work in game).  Somewhere online is the first version, though, which works quite well.

2)  The excelsior hardpoints are set up in exactly the positions and orientations you need.  My suggestion is to simply adjust the Fed Long-Range frigate entity file.  Find the Intrepid or Akira Beam weapon entry in their entity file and copy/paste it into the Excelsior entity file in place of the plasma weapon entry.  Make sure you copy/paste the entry fully and without lopping off any letters or lines, otherwise it will create a minidump.

3)  I've been rather busy working on the Borg/Dominion modeling and textures lately, so I haven't had a chance to actually play the game.  With that said, I'd bet the game identifying those weapons as disruptors is a simple text error.  I'd suggest you use the bug-reporting site so the appropriate people can fix it. 

4)  As I said in my last post, I don't have a complete understanding of the orientation matrix.  I'm more of a spacial/3d person, so I prefer to work with the orientations in Max.  Sorry I can't help with this particular problem.

Good to learn about the texture thing in max. Never thought it would be that easy. Although for fine tuning the hardpoints I actually use the game with the dev exe and see how weapons fire and then adjust the values in the mesh file. Which works rather nicely.

With regard to the Excelsior I have actually updated the model to reflect 24th century weapons tech using arrays rather then the micro turrets. Although I might consider going back to them especially with your comment in mind! But the process is teaching me valuable knowledge about the game so its not as if I'm waisting time . However before I give up I certainly want to give it a bit more of a try. If you could share some more of your knowledge on orientations and how they reflect angels I would be very greatful! We could do that with PMs but a open disscussion about this might benefit others as well.

With regard to the disrupter thing. Tech tech tree lumps the 23rd century TMP era phasers which SoA2 uses for the excelsior together with the pulse phaser from the defiant. And in the description text it refers to them generally as disruptors. Another minor bug I noticed is with the texture of the Intrepid class its deflector has these orange rays radiating from its centre. These should be light blue and back lit as it was on the show. I have repaired it with photoshop. If you guys like I can send you the updated texture. The third thing, which is more a matter of taste then a bug is the issue with how rapid and extremely numerous the phaser discharges are on the SoA2 Fed ships. I have toned this down quite a bit on some of the ships and eventually hope doing it on all of them. I find the result is much more in tune with the visuals of the show. I mean its not as if I feel I have anything big to contribute with this but its something I noticed and felt needed adjustment.

I have done it! I have the Excelsior with 24th century phaser arrays and all hardpoints are firing correctly! I simply copied the orientations from the Ambassador class which most closely resembles what I did with the Excelsior! And hey presto the phasers are shooting away like a charm without colliding with the hull!

Edit: The Phaser arrays on the nacell support beams seem to malfire alot sometimes shooting left and sometimes shooting right. Look at the orientations which I copied from the Ambassador they don't correspond to the standard left right settings at all.

Standard right:

        Orientation
             [ 0.000000 0.000000 1.000000 ]
             [ 0.000000 1.000000 0.000000 ]
             [ -1.000000 0.000000 0.000000 ]

Ambassador right nacell phaser:

        Orientation

             [ 0.000000 0.000000 1.000000 ]
             [ 0.342020 -0.939693 -0.000000 ]
             [ 0.939693 0.342020 -0.000000 ]

What does the minus stand for?

First, congratulations on your breakthrough!  The little victories over hardcoding and contorted processes are usually worth the time you spend banging your head against the desk. 

As I was saying about ship earlier, though, the original hard points of the Excelsior do match the canon DS9 phaser emitters (which also match the exact arrangement of phaser hardpoints on the Ambassador Saucer).  As far as hardpoints are concerned, there's simply no difference between the different types of phasers.  Or disuptors, torpedoes, or any other kind of weapon, for that matter.  Maybe you knew that and I just misread, in which case, please forgive me.  Keep in mind also that the Excelsior was never equipped with phaser arrays like a Galaxy or Akira.  It has emitters/banks that simply replaced the burst turrets (much less expensive and less labor-intensive refit process).  This also means there's not really a need to adjust the texture or mesh itself.  Regardless, your version of the Excelsior should still have 3 points on top of the saucer and 3 on bottom, each at 12:00, 9:00, and 3:00.  Ultimately, though, if adding actual arrays into the texture is what you want, go for it.

Final note on the Excelsior: the only phaser emitters you should have are the 6 on the saucer.  Any other hardpoints that carried over from the Ambassador are throwing off balance (each extra hardpoint draws from the total damage value inputted for that weapon direction in the entity file).

In regards to adjusting the discharge rate of phasers on fed ships, by changing those values you have effectively changed the actually DPS of ships.  Basically, you've nerfed the entire Federation fleet.  The weapon section of the entity file has a number of inter-related lines that all affect the damage value those ships can put out per second.  Change one and you have to adjust another to make up the difference.  

Personally, I'm of the opinion that just because we only ever see ships firing from one point at a time on the show doesn't mean that's how it would be in real life.  If you've got the weapons, use 'em.  This is put into excellent effect in Star Trek Nemesis, and just goes to show that a bigger visual effects budget can lend itself to more realistic space battles.  On the other hand, there are several ships that I know for certain fire WAY too many weapons at once.  I think the best way for you to achieve the result you have in mind is to reduce the number of weapon hardpoints (keep in mind this will increase the damage from each hardpoint). 

The Intrepid is a known issue, but please realise that many of the models being used at the moment were not created specifically for SoA2.  Eventually, they will all be custom.  Plus, we're 10-15 years into the future of Voyager.  Who's to say the Intrepid's deflector hasn't seen an upgrade or two?

In regards to the (-) in the matrices, the only thing I can assume is that it reverses the direction.  That's just a guess, though.  Why not open up a mesh file, then open that model in Max, click "Affect Pivot Only" under the Hierarchy tab and compare the arrows you see to the matrix?

I know adding arrays to the Excelsior is a new thing. I was making a modern refit of an older ship class. What I might try and do is have the older one with the old fashioned phasers and try to get that model replaced in game once you research the Excelsior upgrade if that is possible. Would be nice if upgraded vessels and maybe even weapons were reflected by visual changes.

The whole issue about nerfing the Feds. I really don't mind modifying each single Fed ship. Something I will probably do anyway. That is no criticism of your terrific work. It's just I like Star Trek ships to look and behave in a certain way. Its merely a matter of taste and preference.

Regarding Nemesis, I'm a big fan of the battle in that movie. However, the rapid pulse like phaser spread was fired off to try and locate Shinzon's ship which had an impenetrable cloak. After that the phasers still fired very fast but rarely more than one beam per arc at a time. And several beams from the same array are even less common if I remember. Phasers mostly fire in succession. Its the way its always been since TNG. Yes, the rapid pulse spread in Nemesis had several beams from the same array simultaneously but that was not to do damage but to locate a ship. I think that and the fairly rare other examples of multiple beams per array firing is not enough to say that that is what is normal or sensible. The reason why phasers can't all fire at the same time might have to do with energy allocation or something like that. I'm sure one of the tech manuals has something on this.

No problem.  I was merely pointing out that it is possible.  Good luck finding a way to reach your vision!  I've got a branch-off of the mod (that will eventually be an entirely different beast) in the works that leans more toward what you're wanting, but I haven't had much time to work on it due to this one still being a wip.  My plan is that each ship will have fewer hardpoints on the saucer, though. 

Oh, I also have a post-nemesis version of the Excelsior, complete with structural updates, phaser arrays, and modern armored hull.  I've been a bit over-assertive with my "helpful" critique, so I just wanted you to know I'm on the same page as you. 

Sounds great wouldn't mind seeing a screenshot of that baby . I made a nice Dominion War update for the Lakota Exclesior and the Constitution once for SFC. Shame its such a chore to port models from 3ds max for Sins.

Your branch-off mod sounds intriguing as well. It's interesting that you want to reduce the hardpoints in the future. What was the original design idea to put in so many if I may ask?

Not sure what the original intent was with the hard points.  I haven't been involved since the beginning, but I do know the hardpoints have been through a few re-incarnations.  In fact, I removed a number of hardpoints from all the fed capital ships and the Intrepid/Akira in the current version of the mod, though I kept a large number to remain true to what I was given.  There are still too many, as you mentioned earlier, but you should have seen what the Intrepid was doing before I made some adjustements.  It was literally like a flying cannon of doom.  No joke.