Jefferies

Hi! Does anyone know if there is a way to adjust the ambient lighting level within the game? I know the different skyboxes produce different ambient light colouring, contrast and brightness. But where can one adjust the values for the different skyboxes? Is this done in the PipelineEffects folder? Also there appear to be multiple high intensity light sources on each map. Is there anyone way one can reduce the number of light sources and their intensity? If anyone can o

Hi I have been trying to convert an entity from a mod, advertised to work with entrenchment, from binary format to text. Unfortunately, the data converter, which usually works like a charm, crashes when ever I try to do this. my command line is as follows: convertdata_entrenchment entity test_bin.entity test_txt.entity txt The mod has definitly been reported to work. Also this problem occurs with every other file from the mod so I doubt the file is corrupt. I have also

I am acutally modding SoA2 for Diplomacy. Just wanted to add further authentic sound effects. But it seems I will only be able to replace standing ones.

It works with the old name. Didn't even need to replace a sound file as it is a sound from vanila the mod overrides it automatically. Its a shame though that it is so hard to add additional sounds.

P.S. the way I understand threshold and minAttenuationDist is that the former makes the effect play louder or quieter and the latter affects how far away you can hear it in game.

Myfist0 thank you for your quick reply! I played the sound effect using dev.exe and it played beautifully. As you suggested I tried different priority numbers all to no avail. 5 was the priority from the original effect. Could you explain a bit more about maxNumPlayingSimultaneousl? The way I understand it this is the max number of times the sound effect will be executed at the same time in game. Say if there were five ships with tractors beams they would all play, whereas the 6th shi

Hi everyone, I have been trying to add a new sound effect to an already existing mod. This is what I did: I converted the original audio file to 128kbs 44100hz Mono ogg vorbis. I named it "Effect_TractorBeam.ogg" and placed it in the "Sound" folder. I then opened "SoundEffects.sounddata" in the "Gameinfo" folder and added these lines to the top: effect name "Effect_TractorBeam" fileName "Effect_TractorBeam.ogg"<br

Does anyone know if the total slot count of the players fleet has an impact on the AI's decision to attack a system or not? I have noticed that when I have a high slot count present the AI attacks much more rarely, whereas when the slot count is low it attacks often.

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but is there a list with all the changes for the Diplomacy mod anywhere? I'm still playing the Entrenchment version and it would be nice to know what's new and different. Cheers

Thanks for responding! Shame this isn't directly possible but the alternatives you mention will be helpful to get around the issue.

I have only one fairly simple question. Is there a constraint that can limit the use of an ability to non combat only? That is I would like to restrict the use of a particular ability to times when the ship is not using weapons and is not taking any damage. If there is such a constraint it would be a great help if someone could show me the code for it. Many thanks! Jefferies

Thats the one! Thanks mate!

Hi, I have a short question about moddeling in 3dsmax. When one mirrors a part of an object this can cause the faces of polygons to become inverted and strangely missaligned. This causes weird wholes and shadows on the model's surface. 3dsmax has a function that repairs these errors. Does anyone now what it's called? I read about it on this very forum somewhere, but, for the life of me, I cannot remember the name. Cheers, Jefferies

Thanks grunt! That helps alot. With regard to the particle forge I have now gotten it to run sort of. I put the contents of the particle forge 3 folder from the tool package into the mod folder and now it is displaying effects in the viewport. However the effects look very chunky and rectangular very unlike their appereance in game. I also have another problem now. I have tried to change the sound effect of an existing ability and regardless of what I do I can't get the game to play i

Hi, I have two short questions: 1.Does anyone know if there is a contraint that prevents a ship use an ability while it is engaged in combat. That is I only want the ship to be able to use the ability while it is not fighting enemy units. I have checked the modding wiki and the post on contraints in this forum and they don't seem to feature this type of command. 2. How do I get the Particle Forge to show a preview of a particle in the Viewport window. My Viewport window is alw

Sounds great wouldn't mind seeing a screenshot of that baby :D. I made a nice Dominion War update for the Lakota Exclesior and the Constitution once for SFC. Shame its such a chore to port models from 3ds max for Sins. Your branch-off mod sounds intriguing as well. It's interesting that you want to reduce the hardpoints in the future. What was the original design idea to put in so many if I may ask?

I know adding arrays to the Excelsior is a new thing. I was making a modern refit of an older ship class. What I might try and do is have the older one with the old fashioned phasers and try to get that model replaced in game once you research the Excelsior upgrade if that is possible. Would be nice if upgraded vessels and maybe even weapons were reflected by visual changes. The whole issue about nerfing the Feds. I really don't mind modifying each single Fed ship. Something I will pr

I have done it! I have the Excelsior with 24th century phaser arrays and all hardpoints are firing correctly! I simply copied the orientations from the Ambassador class which most closely resembles what I did with the Excelsior! And hey presto the phasers are shooting away like a charm without colliding with the hull! Edit: The Phaser arrays on the nacell support beams seem to malfire alot sometimes shooting left and sometimes shooting right. Look at the orientations wh

Good to learn about the texture thing in max. Never thought it would be that easy. Although for fine tuning the hardpoints I actually use the game with the dev exe and see how weapons fire and then adjust the values in the mesh file. Which works rather nicely. With regard to the Excelsior I have actually updated the model to reflect 24th century weapons tech using arrays rather then the micro turrets. Although I might consider going back to them especially with your comment in mind! B

Cool, so are you one of the SoA2 modders? It's the very mod that got me into this game and I'm in awe of what has been accomplished with it. By the way the ship I'm currently working with is the Excelsior. I am refiting her to use 24th century style phasers rather then the 23rd century phasers, which SoA2 categorises as disrupters. My aim is to make theSoA2 closer to the visual style of DS9 and the TNG movies (something that will screw with game balance but I don't mind that). The way

I am indeed changing the position of the hardpoints infact I am using given models and completely changing their armament. So basically, I deleted the existing hardpoints and created new ones in different locations on the model. Because of this I can't use the orientation of the old hardpoints as they are not compatible with the new ones. Now the way I understand it the orientation system determines the arc of the horizontal plane (front, back, left, right) and if a hardpoint can fire

Hi and sorry for another noob question. Can anyone explain to me how the orienation of hardpoints in the .mesh text files work? I find it really confusing. I'm trying to place new hardpoints on a number of models but I can't get the orientations right and the weapons end up fiering all over the place. Thanks for any help and here is an example of what I mean taken from a .mesh file: Point DataString "Weapon-1"

[quote]The textures on the mesh have to be in dds. Check how the the textures are rendered or how they are hooked up to your material, perhaps you have hooked up the da - specular to your cl - diffuse. Also check that your alpha channel only has the areas where team colors are, lightened, the rest should be completely black.[/quote] You are spott on. This is exactly what I got confused. I understand the way the RGB channel textures work now. [quote]The texture files are within

Ok so I have started playing SOA and its been blowing me away. However, there are a few aspects I would like to modify to make them more resemble the shows and movies. Unfortunately, I'm not having much luck using textures. One problem I have is when I alter a ship's diffuse texture file that is in dds format, the whole texture turns blue in game. I have been using the Nvidia DXT plugin for Adobe Photoshop CS and it gives you many different options to save a file as a dds. So maybe th

Thanks for the quick response! Just tested it and it works like clockwork! However, I can see now why the SOA modding team decided to have fast cycling hardpoints. Its because the very limited hardcoded firing arcs become very obivous with normal speed phasers shooting right through their own hull.