New to Modding

You know there is a Sins battlestar galactica (Fall of Kobol) mod already right? 

Yep but I don't think ZombieRus5 has updated it to 1.82 though thats not that big of an issue.

How can you say that without having experience with it? I have experience and I would recommend any new modder to go to another game entirely. Sins has literally nothing attractive about it in terms of modding, something you will discover if you actually get balls-deep into it. Actually, I would recommend to steer clear of modding in general, and pick up the UDK. You will accomplish far more and there will be little that isn't possible for you to do. That is if, of course, you actually have the drive to learn and spend time on something. Most people don't. That's something you should figure out before wasting your time on any mod or larger project. If you're busy, chances are it won't work out. Don't start a project hoping to rely on someone else. That is guaranteed to fail immediately.

Your best bet is to aggressively search with the forum's super effective and reliable search function.

That describes, like, every RTS ever made. The "roles" in sins don't actually mean anything, either, except in regards to internal AI calculations. They're just text. An effective role is what you make it.

Besides, there's already a decent BSG mod that would take an inexperienced modder maybe a day to update if he searches around.

I know there's a decent BSG mod, but the game Battlestar Galactica Online, has their own ships that we'd like to make a mod from, look, I'm not asking anything remarkable, I'm just wondering if anyone would like to help me out or something. And we want it on Sins because that's the game we both have and want this mod on. 

Well, you could start from where the differences are and work from there. What's different about the Online game? Is it possible to make those changes in sins? Those are the questions you should figure out before committing. It's very likely the reason things work in Zombie's mod the way they do is because of the game's limitations.

Even so, a simple project like retooling an existing mod is a deceptively large amount of work, and you'll be hard pressed to find anyone willing to devote time to another person's project. Something from scratch is going to be a multi-year investment start to finish.

Just wondering what it would be like, thank you for the answer. 

Well, "what it would be like" is a loaded question. What is it like to mod? Honestly? It's 99% boring. It's great to see your work in motion but reaching that point is an immense amount of work even if you're experienced. That's generally regardless of game.

"What it would be like" in regards to a specific mod is hard to say. I personally haven't had any real interest in actually playing sins... and most of the projects I have seen are not fundamentally different than the game normally is. Altered stats, appearances, and researches, sure. But it's hard to get beyond that in this very limited engine. It's not like brood war and UMS maps. The computer AI, for example, is totally hardcoded, as is things like arcs, turrets, etc. I found dealing with the game extremely frustrating, and I'm accustomed to very limited games.

What the shit are you doing here then? I wanted to talk to people who do have an interest and maybe help with modding. 

Ignore IskatuMesk for now. He has a lot of experience with modding so he has a wealth of information but can sometimes be a bit........rude. I apologize for the issue.

Best bet is (if you plan on keeping it personal) to pick up ZombieRus5's mod and place the models in that mod. There are a few tutorials for placing models into this game in the mod section. Hopefully others who are more helpful will help with any issues you may have.

He needs zombie's permission first though.

What Istaku is getting at is that we get a lot of people here with ideas for mods, but very few that actually take the time to learn the skills so they can make the mod of their dreams. Unless you can show people something that shows people you're serious and have skills that can help with the job, you're chances of finding someone won't be very high.

Also I'm betting most people have never played this Battlestar game so you'd need to explain what was so great about this game that its worth making a mod based on it, and what the differences would be with zombie's mod.

Well I am definitely up for learning, well it has like millions of registered players, the full reason we want to make a mod out of it is because the ships in the game and they don't have fancy gun effects or missile effects so it wouldn't be hard for me to model that, we just really want to see the ships we love in the game put into Sins. We think it'd look epic on a massive scale like this.  

Unwillingness to jump on "omg my new idea is so great" bandwagon = rude? Okay. You can construe it that way. Be fucked if I try to give someone an alternate viewpoint or some information to work with instead of just backpatting.

Good luck, TheWarchief14, your attitude aside. Whether or not you care about if I play or not, I recommend looking into the particle effects/sounds I released in various threads once you get your feet wet. They would fit BSG rather well, I'd think.

And I'm out.

IskatuMesk might seem a bit abrupt, but the point he is making is that you can't expect people to just jump out and help.

Modding IS a lot of work and 99% of it can be very tedious and boring. I love modding, but damn it is hard to motivate yourself to even just converting models in XSI with making hardpoints, hooking up textures (of which you have to make 3 version of) then making some decent tangents and so on. It is very time consuming and there are always other things fighting for your attention.

Most of the people with the various modding skills are already working on their own mods or collaborations with other modders.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to discourage you, but the modding forums of the entire internet are full of bright eyed people with no experience declaring their bold intentions for a mod that ends in nothing due to underestimating the work involved.

Like Goafan said, if you have some skills you can display (be it modelling, particle fx etc) then you have a better chance of getting help. Also if you have questions about specific things you can usually find someone to help.

For example, if you were able to make the models you need, there are several people who could explain how to import them into sins (and there are also a couple of good tutorials)

I guess it was the way it came across to me. Sorry for sounding like an a$$hole.

My attitude aside? Well, what ever, oh no I am absolutely not wanting people to just jump on my idea and run with me, I was merely just wondering what I was going to have in store for myself if I wanted to do this, I reread what I posted, and it absolutely sounded like I wanted to, I dunno, recruit anybody. I just wanted to know if it could be done, if I even wanted to do it, I just thought it'd be a tad bit easier since the gun and missile effects in that game aren't all shiny or spectacular, and the sounds are the same way, we just like that game and the server we are on, not many people are playing and we love Sins so we'd just enjoy seeing the ships from that game into Sins. 

There are some tutorials around the forums that should be able to help you importing models (assuming you have some to import)

Other than that there is the fall of kobol with you could look at for some ideas. 

One place to browse through just to see the sort of issues an detail that can come up is here: https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/407617/.  It also has a list of links in the header (and some in the body) that will help you find topics otherwise difficult to zero in on as a novice.

Here is some VERY basic starting info--if you are genuinely starting from scratch: https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/419658/

The difficulty in modding is buggy programs used in conversion, differences in OS and machines in how they run them, errors in existing game files, undocumented differences between game versions and the ease of making errors in creating your own game files (this!).

Hope this helps, best of luck.