Umm i want to create an ability that increases targets per weapon bank for the duration of the ability, i tried using researchFloatModifiers and failed miserably, can anyone tell me how can i include researchFloatModifiers in abilities ? it crashes as soon as i try to add them. 

Is it possible to make a home planet in GalaxyForge other than DesertHome and TerranHome? Will it work victory condition "HomeworldVictory"?

I made a new ability by copy-pasting an existing ability, making some changes, and adding a _2 to the end of the filename.entity. Added said new ability to a ship, updated the entity manifest to include my ability file, and started a new game, built the ship I gave the ability to.... but no ability was available for my ship. I'm confused! What did I miss? I can provide files for the asking. I've done this before and it's worked...

You assume correctly on both counts. filename_2.entity and updated the file count in the manifest file.

What I'm trying to do is build a cut-down, combat-oriented "starbase lite" for the TEC, much like there's an outpost and starbase for each faction in Armada 3. I took the stock ability and buff files that seem to pertain to deploying starbases, but also I couldn't see any references in them to actually build the TEC starbase in particular, in that it specifies the StarBaseTech.mesh file. But taking my renamed ability and adding it to the module construction cruiser doesn't do much of anything, so I'm confused as heck as to what I'm missing.

From what I can see:-

FrigateTechStarBaseConstructor.entity -> ability:0 "AbilityDeployStarBaseTech"

AbilityDeployStarBaseTech.entity -> starBaseType "StarBaseTech" -> StarBaseTech.entity

Both FrigateTechStarBaseConstructor.entity and AbilityDeployStarBaseTech.entity have a prerequisite on the same tech, so your copies may need to change to reflect any new research you've added for your "starbase lite". Eg imagine the player researching your new starbase tech, but not the old one. Your constructor could be unlocked but the ability could still be disabled if that depended on the old tech. IIRC you also have to add new research to the faction's PlayerTech*.entity too.

I'm guessing your copy of AbilityDeployStarBaseTech.entity is using something like ...

starBaseType "OutpostTech" -> OutpostTech.entity

...to build your outpost

I've heard other modders report something like this. I'm not sue if it is just possible to mod the game in such a way it creates this AI bug, or the AI is just programmed not to research forever, but the cause is not really well understood.

While i was changing some values on the star trek armada 3 mod i've encountered something weird. The AI stopped doing anything after building its first for free capital ship. Wondering why it would do that but nothing else i started to observe the AI via dev mode. Thats when i noticed that every few seconds the AI players get stripped of all resources. They all jump to 0 without anything getting built/researched like every 10 seconds. When i give the AI player 1.000.000 of every resource it starts to research and build but loses about 30.000 to 100.000 every few seconds until its at 0 at which point it stops working again.

Any ideas on whats going wrong here?

Can you tell me how to change the player type?

In case you didn't manage to change player type, do this:
1. Open your map with notepad;
2. Press Ctrl+H;
3. at "Find what" put "NPCOccupationVictory"
4. at "Replace with" put "Normal"
5. then press "Replace all";
6. save.

It is not possible via the build menus. You can have many more than nine but they would need to be created via abilities. 

it would be cool if we could have a button to say, swap pages in the build menu.
That way we could have more ships in the build menus.

But alas, that would probably take a lot of reworking the game.
Hopefully in Sins 2 this limitation will be removed.

I have 2 questions, and I’ve done a bit of troubleshooting on them and not made much progress.

Firstly, I’m trying to make a Scout frigate be able to have a bomber squadron. I’ve implemented everything so that it can build a squadron, but when the squadron spawns, it is consistently spawning off of the map. It’s listed as being present in the gravity well, but it is an unknown distance away and off the screen. However, once the scout goes into phase space and back, the bomber “undocks” from the frigate and all is well. I’ve tried changing it’s stat and frigate type to no avail, as well as trying different kinds of squadrons. Does anyone know how to fix the problem? I can post the statblock if you think it would be helpful, but it’s a pretty standard block.

Secondly, I was wondering how to add an ability to a trade ship. I know that they can have passive abilities because the Tech have one, but every time I try to add an ability it doesn’t even show up. For bug-testing purposes I have tried adding various abilities to a scout frigate, such as a modified missile swarm and scramble bombers (I eliminated the prereqs) and they work fine on the scout but don’t even appear on the abilities bar for the trade ship. Does anyone know why?

Thank you

Wow thanks for the answers! That makes sense, and I’ll dig deeper into passives. Thanks so much!