Be nice--let them sell Rebellion first...or provide me with one-million dollars and I'll give you access to my Alan Parsons Project mod which has the Sins III models in it.

Basically what you're asking is, "Should Stardock ever trust us players enough to ever again let us beta test again?".

So you expect the Devs to explain all of their file syntax to you, steal all of what you think are your ideas, and now let you use their new models before the game is released. All the while saying the whole thing would suck if it wasn't for modding. Well you're consistent Semaz, I'll give you that.

Well given that the work that was done for modelling the Titans, new capitals and corvettes, along with the new graphic features like shadowing and linear texturing. The meshes are very likely incompatible with the previous Sins Trinity. Also I have to agree with the previous comments, it's not right to take coding and texture from a test version of a game to be used elsewhere.

Well it takes assets from a product they're trying to sell, and gives it away for free to products that have already been sold. This takes potential money from them. It's not rocket science.

Instead of modding stuff into the earlier version, why don't you mod original stuff into the newer version (Rebellion)

You get the benefit of the new graphics, compatiability with the latest version of SOASE, and much more interest in your mod. Star/Clad get the benefit of more mods providing more interest in the game.

Taking stuff from the latest version and modding it into earlier versions, OR copying the design and modding it into earler versions is an asshole thing to do to a company that has been very supportive to the mod community in comparison to many other companies that prevent modding, or simply don't support it.

In addition, it's about as unimaginatave as can be to take assets from something you didn't make and mod them into something else. Stretch your capabilities and make something new, which is the true enjoyment and appeal of modding.

I think it's an issue concerning the "I hate Steam" and the "Rebellion isn't what I expected" crowd taking the Rebellion assets and aggressively and spitefully spamming them out into heavily promoted mods while at the same time criticizing the heck out of everything in Rebellion while it's under development.

I can see their point of view. There are only a few  reasons to want to mod Rebellion right now:

• I can't stand the wait and want a peek now.
• I want to port assets over to my mod so I can use the interest in Rebellion to draw people to my own work.
• I can't or won't buy Rebellion but I want as much stuff from it as I can get so I can play with it anyway.
• I think I can do better and want their stuff to do it with.

If you notice, none of these things bring anything to Stardock-Ironclad...it's mostly at their expense wth little coming back their way.

I'm slowly working on a little mod of my own right now and some of the stuff in the Rebellion beta would fit right in.  I wouldn't consider using it right now.  It would just be tacky and selfish.

Well, I know that my mod could benefit from a lot of playtesting time that utilizes rebellion features but doesn't necessarily need a finalized version...for example, simply having the "corvette" object class would be immensely useful right now for testing certain abilities...

I can wait, no problem...but if I had the entity files I might as well use them...

Textures are a little different though...

So how do you feel when you are making a mod and another modder sees your files, takes them and releases his own mod ahead of yours--promoting his mod with your features?  "You didn't lose any money".

By this logic, I can just blatantly rip anything I want out of anyone's mod and be fine.

I think the key word here is "promoting"...let's be honest, if we had the entity files you know many of us would be toying around with them...but that's a far cry from "releasing" actual mods in a dedicated thread under some mod title you made up...

I can understand a desire to port over certain gameplay elements to test them, try out things, and just see how new abilities, corvettes, titans, etc actually work...this however is much different from textures and meshes, which you truly are just taking...

It's a fine line but I do think there is a difference...logical or not, I do think that what one does with such assets is relevant...promoting a diplomacy mod that uses the Titan meshes/textures is just complete bogus...mimicking a corvette ability in a diplomacy mod just so you can playtest some stuff should not be frowned upon unless you go put the mod up publicly and show boat it....

I think over time they may not have so much an issue with it and I think a lot of their answer is in the context of, "It's pre-release.".

A year from now it may not be much of an issue.  Especially if Sins Trinity and all is no longer offered for sale.

What are your people's problems with mods?  Guys were modding the original Sins when it was in beta...since when did modding a game that was in a beta stage become an unforgiveable sin? Wtf?