Actually as long as you set the abilities and player entities up right you can have one ship deploy different types.

Our Empire Faction in 7DS can deploy either a Logistics and Support Starbase (Imperial Outpost) or the super weapon starbase. Both are built by the Imperial Modular Task Force Cruiser =D

You need to have both starbase entities mentioned in the player.entity, and you need seperate abilities that reference one starbase each which in turn need to link back to the right ability.

Any one got any ideas on how to make a passive ability for a starbase that drains resources/credits from the party that built it? The idea is to make building too many of these starbases cripple your economy if it cant sustain them.

:EDIT: Never mind, I've worked it out myself! Finally lol....

I'll share what I learned with everyone in case someone needs it in future.

First some background; since I'm intending on using the starbase system for Capital Ships in Sins of the Sirius Sector I needed a way to make them have an effect on the economy. Starbases cant use supply so I decided having them drain credits and/or resources would be sufficient. That way if someone builds more than they can sustain, their economy crashes and they go into debt.

Here's how I figured it out: A passive ability with this in the buff:

overTimeAction
    buffOverTimeActionType "EarnCredits"
    earnRate
        Level:0 -??.000000
        Level:1 0.000000
        Level:2 0.000000
        Level:3 0.000000

you put the desired cost where the ?? is, the negative sign makes it drain credits instead of earning, and the beauty of it is that you can have varying levels, so I can give my Battleships an efficiency upgrade that will reduce their upkeep! =D

there is also "EarnResources" wich gives metal and crystal at an equal rate. It's good but I'd prefer to set metal and crystal seperate... anyways, I'm probably going to just go with credits for the moment as a general 'upkeep' cost.

Wow.

Admittedly I am overwhelmed even after spending hours combing through the various tutorials, how to's, modding for idiots thread etc.

I'm just trying to learn the very basics of how to do even the simplest of things in SoaSE: Rebellion.

I'll let you know how far I've come at least (probably not very far, lol)

1) I've been able to open all the reference files that I downloaded and I understand that these files contain all the specific abilities/buffs for the things I'm looking for.

2) I've found a few abilities/buffs that I'm interested in modifying but I'm not sure how they even apply themselves in the game.

3) I found BuffPhaseOutHull, AbilityHyperspaceDisruption and PlanetModule_PhaseOrbitalJumpBlocker. I understand that PhaseOrbitalJumpBlocker is the Vasari version but since each JumpBlocker/PhaseInhibitor uses the same ability, I think I'm in good shape

4) I'll worry about actually installing/testing the small changes/mod I've created once I understand more about how to actually produce results, ha!

So basically I'm looking at modifying the phase inhibitors effects on the ships that are within their radius. Some general things I'm looking at doing.

1) Playing with the radius of the phase inhibitors effects

2) Changing the tactical slots taken up by phase inhibitors

3) Changing the severity of the inhibitors effects

4) Changing the amount of tactical slots planets have by default

5) Disabling Superweapons

6) Changing the tiers/upgrades for Fleet Supply - (I find that early game its not enough and late game its so much that it makes my friends computers lag an incredible amount)

Anyway, I was hoping to open a dialog with some folks - mostly just for them to point me in the right direction as far as where to find the information I'm looking for. I'm really impressed with the community in general through the countless threads I've read. My hat is off to the absolute giants of community contributors adding various help threads and putting obviously countless hours into tools etc for everyone to you. As Neil deGrasse Tyson would say, I can only accomplish what I have by standing on the shoulders of giants.... or something like that.

In any case, let me see if I can phrase my questions correctly to get some answers.

1) Can someone explain to me the relationship between an actual object/planet/ship/building in the game and how they relate to their abilities and buffs? Lets use my phase inhibitor example. My understanding is that the phase inhibitor entity (PlanetModule_PhaseOrbitalJumpBlocker) uses various abilities like (AbilityHyperspaceDisruption and AbilityBiDirectionalJamming). Then the entity AbilityHyperspaceDistruption uses these buff entities to actually apply the effects in game (buffInstantActionType which "applyBufftoSelf") which triggers bufftype "BuffHyperspaceDisruptionSpawner"

Phew that was a lot - is that all correct? So in essence, BuffHyperspaceDisruptionSpawner is where the actual effects can be modified correct? 

2) Now assuming I'm on the right track here as far as modifying what I originally outlined, what are all these things in the Spawner? Specifically:

• actionIntervalTime which has 4 levels but only level 1 has a value of 2.4 the rest are 0. 
• targetFilter - I assume this is what it CAN effect since I see that ownership "Enemy" is set and it doesn't affect your own ships
• I see there are 5 objects, listed in numObjects - its interesting to me that I dont see Cruisers listed anywhere, and Corvette's are listed on their own. Are Cruisers considered Frigates in this instance?
• I see something called constraints with numConstraints and constraint "CanBeJumpBlocked" - can someone explain the intricacies of these I didn't see these explained anywhere nor do they appear to be entity types in GameInfo folder like the others that can be modified.
• range - is this the range of the inhibitor that I see in game? I didn't see a range for the entity of the planetmodule so... help?
• maxTargetCount - all the levels are set to -1 which I can only assume there is no target limit. Correct? 
• stackinglimit - I assume if this has a value of 1 that it cannot be stacked but if I changed it to 2, I could put two phase inhibitors and the the effects of the buff could stack? That would be appealing if so

3) A more general question perhaps is if there is an explanation anywhere of these types of things that can be found in entity's whether they be abilities or buffs or otherwise?

4) For the actual entity of the JumpBlocker:

• It has 2 abilities, if I wanted to add a 3rd ability would I just add it to ability:2 or is more involved in added abilities to entities than just that? Does the ability entity itself need to be modified in order to be used by a phase inhibitor? Lets say for example (and purely just for example) I wanted to add the ability of phase tunneling/phase gates? How would I go about that? Maybe you can think of a better example to explain.
• planetUpgradeSlotCount 2.000000 - As I mentioned I would like to decrease the amount of tactical slots these use, or possibly just upgrade the amount of tactical slots on each planet. Firstly, do these numbers like 2.000000 always need to have 6 decimal places? Can I put a number in there like .5 instead of a whole number? 
• angularSpeed - what in the heck is this? I'm just more curious than anything. Would changing this actually make the object in the game move?
• formationRank 3 - what does this mean simply?
• baseBuildTime 150 - is this measured in seconds?

Phew... okay that is pretty intense. Again, thank you all for the community you've put together here. Any help would be appreciated - it seems to me that a lot of my questions could be answered if I could find a good explanation for what a lot of these things do in the entities... I did find https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/306405 but it wasn't particularly helpful.

Thanks!

Keller

Already back with another question - this one is in regards to the Tech Loyalist Shriken (Corvette)

I traced the Ability down to the Buff and finally found what I believe to be the buff that is affecting the results I want to change. I have a few questions about stacking and just what the numbers mean really.

Basically, in BuffDisruptEnginesTarget:

stackingLimit 4 - what does this mean? Is this 4 stacks of BuffDisruptEnginesTarget from ANY source? Meaning, one corvette could shoot a ship 4 times and it would stack 4 times? Or does that mean 4 stacks from individual ships meaning 4 corvettes shooting one target?

Heres some more....

entityModifier
buffEntityModifierType "LinearMaxSpeed"
value
Level:0 -0.250000
Level:1 -0.250000
Level:2 -0.250000
Level:3 -0.250000
entityModifier
buffEntityModifierType "LinearThrust"
value
Level:0 -0.250000
Level:1 -0.250000
Level:2 -0.250000
Level:3 -0.250000

These levels, what do the values represent? I asked this in my last post but I was curious how to know whats what, in case it changes between entity types or something. Is this a percentage in this case? How do the levels affect things here? If level 0 is -.25 then level 1 is -.35 and level 2 is -.5, how does this affect things? If the value is absolute, whats a typical "LinearMaxSpeed" for say a Battleship type Capital Ship (Like the Kol or something?)

Also, I assume time elapsed is how long the effect of the buff is? In this case 45? 

Most importantly, the AbilityDisruptEngines calls buffType BuffDisruptEnginesSelf. BuffDisruptEnginesSelf appears to be some type of passive ability. However, it calls buffType BuffDisruptEnginesTarget, which is what I was referencing above. How does all this stuff work together? 

As far as I can tell, Self is triggered passively and has a small chance to apply Target regardless. Target is only triggered via an in game ability that you must use. Is that all correct? 

Man I am sorry.... this is so complicated

Whether it can come from individual ships or not would depend on allowFirstSpawnerToStack being true or false.

It's a percentage and it's not.  25% would be 25%, -25% is not.  -100% gets you half of what you started, etc.

Thanks for the reply.

So if allowFirstSpawnerToStack is true, then individual ships can stack it up to 4 times? If it is false, ANY ship hitting it could only stack 4 times total?

If you see the above response, its listed as

level0: -0.250000

level1: -0.250000

level2: -0.250000

level3: -.0.250000

So do these numbers correlate to just a flat .25 reduction across the board? Whats the significance of the levels? Or is it a percentage?

Do the levels correspond to the stacks at all?

I think the equation goes like this for negatives.

modifier percent is negative

s = starting value
n = new value 

n * (-(-modifier) + n = s

example: decrease weapon cooldown of 14 by -25% is n * (-(-25%) + n = 14 or n = 14/1.25 or n = 11.2

modifier percent is positive

s = starting value
n = new value 

s * (modifier) + s = n

example: increase weapon cooldown of 11.2 by 25% is 11.2 * 25% + 11.2 = n or n = 14

the level entries are just a standard in abilities/buffs as capital abilities are able to upgrade 4 times and some abilities level up via research.

So level0: is a level 1 ability and so on.
With abilities like the corvettes one, it doesn't change level so the numbers either stay the same or sometimes say 0 for higher levels

the stacking limit means the buff can be applied a max of 4 times on one target. so you can get a cumulative effect. I'm not sure on the rules or equation of percentage stacking in this case however... though I'm pretty sure 4x 0.25 reduction will NOT equal 100% reduction... Sins math is a little counter-intuitive.

After some experiences and tests regarding attack types, I've found that that the following attack types won't result in fighters auto-attacking other fighters and bombers, regardless of the actual damage modifiers in Gameplay.constants: TITAN, ANTIMEDIUM, ANTIHEAVY, ANTIVERYHEAVY, COMPOSITE, CAPITALSHIP, CORVETTE. Or in other words, only ANTIVERYLIGHT and ANTILIGHT will allow fighters to properly function as interceptors and dogfighters. This constraint does not apply to frigates with the AntiFighter frigateRoleType however.

I know for the unit "picture" there is the unit_picture.dds.   And I have found the files Unit_HUD_Normal/Pressed/Disabled etc....  What is the manifest for these smaller hud icons?  Also, must we change the background color ourselves and is there any easy way to manipulate it?  

Textures don't have a manifest, but they must be referenced in a .brushes files in the Window folder.

Don't know what you mean by background, but any decent image editor can be used to edit texture files, whether they are in .tga or .dds format. Photoshop and Gimp are popular, and I personally use Paint.net for HUD work.

Any idea how to make a faction start with the Galaxy Travel / Inter-Star phase drive already researched? I found the entity file for the technology "RESEARCHSUBJECT_ARTIFACT_GALAXYTRAVEL" but it doesn't look like that is the place I need to be.

You need to add that artifact to the Map or galaxy scenario def as a starting planet item for each faction.

Theres no good way to do it through the technology itself as opposed to the artifact?

also which artifact would it be? Jump Drive Relic?

No, The way I described is the only way you can seed a faction with a research bool modifier.

I can't recall if the RESEARCHSUBJECT_ARTIFACT_GALAXYTRAVEL has a GSD entry or not. Scan the file for the artifact entries and check and see. If there isn't one you'll need to add that as a possible planet item type (and increase the count of said types). Then you can setup all the factions to have it with the normal start setting just like a frigate factory and constructor are added.

I'm pretty sure all the artifacts are in the Galaxy Forge now.

As ZombieRus said, adding the artifact to that faction's starting template would be the easiest way to do it. Would be a pretty neat game mechanic if you don't mind the potential lore inconsistency, though you could just change the text of the artifact.

Im not too worried about Sins plot cannon tbh. I have just always hated the restrictions on phase jumping in the game. Im making a mod where all planets and all stars are connected via phase lanes to all other's in the entire map and there is no difference in phase jump speed between planets in different solar systems vs planets in the same solar systems.

It just never made sense in my mind, if you have warp 9 capabilities, why go crawling along inside a solar system at warp 2 and make your commute 10x as long, especially when trying to rush reinforcements to a beseiged planet. Also I hate the phase lane system in general, it kindof eliminates the fully 3 dimensionality of deep space by forcing you to jump to different planets to reach a final destination, no thanks, ill just set my navigation computer to jump directly to it and now with this mod im making it will all be a reality!

Noticed something interesting today. On Unfair difficulty (at least), the AI has it's cap for trainable capital ship crews increased. I noticed this as by default SoGE has no trainable capitals, but the AI was still somehow purchasing capital ship levels.

So I've been poking around looking for explanations on the Music.sounddata file- that is, Im looking to see if anyone has figured out how to interpret the Action Level/range and emotion level/range.  I cant seem to find a concise explanation, and would really appreciate if someone could point me in the right direction

Thanks

No one knows for sure, my best guess is that action level is probably the amount of combat on screen and emotion level is probably if you're winning or losing. Really all you can do is fiddle with the numbers until the music seems to be somewhat fitting.

Damn, I was hoping someone had come up with some sort of guide for that.  Thanks anyway.

there is a spot in the DEV that will show the current levels, and no I will not find it for you.

So I'm trying to make a passive ability for capital ships that spawns a frigate once the capital ship is destroyed. Tried two methods, one with an ability+buff, and one with just an ability. Not sure why this isn't working and crashing the game; any insight is appreciated. Ability+Buff vers Ability only

Maybe you should try the conditional the Eradica uses to spawn it right before the capitalship dies?

Technically the problem is that the FrigateSpawn method needs to have a ship to act as the spawn reference. Having it trigger when the ship dies means that when the "CreateFrigate" instant action is called, it doesn't have this spawn ship reference and probably throws a null error in the code.

My first solution would be the simplest as it wouldn't require any extra buffs, but you could just have the frigate spawn at the planet or any other entity besides the dying capitalship as well.

I know where it is.  Sound>Music haha.  not hard to find, harder to understand what works when