The Sins file system?

How to Mod game files

from Sins Forums

In this thread I would like to put a call out to all successful modders to help me go through  the process of creating a new race in Sins. Now that I know how to create the models this is the only thing that's keeping me from creating my own mod. 

 

So, for anyone willing to help what I want to learn to do is create a total conversion mod. I think this thread would be a big help to a lot of potential modders since I haven't' seen any tutorials for this aspect of modding. 

 

Things that I can currently do:

-Modify entity files

-Create and edit mesh files

-Modify buff and ability files

 

Things that I can not currently do:

-Locate or edit race files

-create ability files

-edit and properly link buff and ability files so that they work in game (currently get minidump) 

-locate the files that create the ingame icon pictures, eg, "_icon". I can't find those anywhere :(.

 

Sorry if this isn't very clear. Anyone who would be willing to help with this would be greatly appreciated. 

modding
3,375 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

1. Do you know how to Convert .BIN to .TXT, or get harpo's  Reference Files or his GUI converter.

2. I highly recommend NotePad ++ to edit TXT files.

 

All starts with the player entity file... from there, everything evolve like a tree...

The player entity links to the ship entity which links to ability entity, which links to buff... ship entity links to .mesh too, which links to texture and hardpoint, and last a link to particle effect.

So, the best thing to start is read the player entity file and from there, follow the way to what you wish to change...

In fact, the main file is somehow the galaxydef file, somehow the root of the tree... but for little edit, you don't need start there... but if you wish add militia, planet, etc, that is the starting place.   Thoumsin

 

Anything that starts PlanetModule has to with the planet structures, Usually ships are referred by their roles, such as Frigate(Race)(ship type), planets are labelled Planet(planet type), all abilities also have a correspond buff.

The way I learned to mod was that I take one of the mods that do work, and compare the files to the base game files, you see what has been changed from the base and see the difference in the game, also, it also helps that there is a dev.exe, make use of it, it allows you basically to change a lot of the variables in the game to make sure everything works out.   ice27828

 

I would start with String\English.str and use Notpad++ find and replace function to replace...

TEC = TEC  PSI = Advent  PHASE = Vasari

You can also open multiple files at once and do the previous.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

Wow Fist, thanks a lot. That sounds really easy now :). Do you know how to increase mesh size? I have a model that always exports at radius 9 no matter how much I enlarge it in XSI and I can't figure it out. How do we make capital ship size ships? 

Siege of Centauri
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

Disregard. I see that the radius is directly the same as what we input when we create the polygon mesh. 

 

Tip for newbies like me:

 

The more subdivisions you add to the polygon mesh the better the resolution will be. 

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

-locate the files that create the ingame icon pictures, eg, "_icon". I can't find those anywhere
End of quote

The actual pictures are located in the texture folder. The "Unit_XXX" set of files have the textures for the Icons.

The files that refer to their location are the brush files in the "Window" folder

"ZombiesRus5" has made a good tutorial of how to go about it and can be found here;

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/381494 Gimp is used to do the textures but any similar program like Photoshop can be used

One thing to be aware of if you are modding Diplomacy is that Dip. has no "MainViewIcon" brush file. You will need to copy the 1 out of Entrenchment & add the entries for any new textures you make in the Unit_main texture file.