General Pants

Join Date 08/2006

+19

ANNOUNCING: General Pants' New Jewels

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The best part of GalCiv is the ability to design your own ships. Here are 36 "new" jewels for your designing pleasure!

V1.1: implements dummy left constructor and trade modules, ala GC2:DL.
V1.2: corrects error whereby some of the logo jewels didn't work if you didn't have my logo mod, removes extraneous files from download.

INCLUDES:

- Three all-new "space safety" jewels: a universal docking port, a lifeboat, and a rescue ball (ala the red checkerboard thing on Russian submarines);

- Dummy version of colony, troop, constructor, trade, mining, and spore modules;

- the dummies of the deprecated right- and left versions of the constructor and trade modules;

- six new dummy colony modules in different colors;

- the seven jewels from Dread Lords that were replaced in Dark Avatar;

- two of my favorite jewels with the orange "flash" removed, so they can be used in cases where large orange patches might be inappropriate;

- two blank versions (lit and unlit) of each logo frame jewel (these are some of the coolest jewels, now you can use them sans logo);

- minor edits to the troop modules text;

- minor edits to two texture files used for GC2:DL jewels implemented in GC2:DA;

- also implements the two models from the example mod for Dread Lords.

NOTE:
Sorry, because of the way the game is programmed, I could not implement the different-colored colony modules in the game. If you like one of the colors better than the built-in color, you could swap the .png files, or you can just use a really tiny module, and cover it with a dummy.

!mil gracias a Kryo para approvarlo!

WWW Link to Mod

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General Pants

Join Date 08/2006

+19

I bump thee Sir Bumpsalot

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Does this work for both DA and DL? If it's for DA, does it work for version 1.6?

Oops, DA only. But stil, does it work for 1.6?

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I've been using all you mods for the last few days, and they are really useful... sorry for not stopping by to give you a congrats, and appreciation for the work you've done.

Hope to see more mods from you

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General Pants

Join Date 08/2006

+19

Oops, DA only. But stil, does it work for 1.6?

Yeah, sorry about that...

Yes, the mod works for 1.6. It was designed during beta testing for 1.6, actually!

I've been using all you mods for the last few days, and they are really useful... sorry for not stopping by to give you a congrats, and appreciation for the work you've done.

Thanks for the encouragement!

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General Pants

Join Date 08/2006

+19

NOTICE:

New version just posted to the library, awaiting approval. This version tweaks the lifeboat and docking ring textures. I'm not sure the changes are noticeable, but I think they look a little better. Anyway, the bump maps should make sense to the game now...

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General Pants

Join Date 08/2006

+19

For anyone who might be interested: I am working on a new jewel pack. If approved, this one will incorporate:

- the ground-forces units (APC, tank), allowing you to put a "staging area" on your landing ships;

- the core sections of the starbases (old and new);

- the mining base parts;

- some of the cargo ship hulls as jewels (they are great for this, oddly enough);

- some "odds and ends" from the original GC2 release, like the tutorial ship hull. Some of the hulls looked better at a different scale (e.g., the "frigate" makes a better fighter, IMHO), so I "recast" them;

- a color-series of R@ unit domes, so you can make Star Wars-style fighters;

- a series of colored habitat domes, so your colonists can stretch their legs on long trips.

I've been having trouble with these last two, but I am currently trying to get help... see this thread, and picture:

Most of the "odds and ends" jewels will have new, updated textures. Here's the old "shipyard" next to the redressed jewel (the one with orange lights):

This time around, jewels will be grouped by type in separate xml files, to make it easier for you to pick and choose which ones you want to keep.

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Cool, looking forward to another release

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Sweet

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Neilo

Join Date 04/2006

+128

Hi! Great work, looks cool.Quick question are they Metaverse friendly and do they require Kryo's hull mod?

Thanks....

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General Pants

Join Date 08/2006

+19

Quick question are they Metaverse friendly and do they require Kryo's hull mod?

And the quick answers: I don't know, and no.

I'm sorry, but I don't play on the metaverse. I would assume they would be ok, since they don't actually change anything about how the game is played, but I don't know how the system evaluates mods.

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I think they are not Metaverse safe. I know my Mods aren't, and they do the same - add jewelry.

In fact, the System seems not to be evaluatin nothing at all - You can't play Metaverse with the Mods folder enabled, even if the Mod folder is actually empty. (This is as for GC2+DA v1.5 - i did not tried again...)

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Neilo

Join Date 04/2006

+128

You can't play Metaverse with the Mods folder enabled, even if the Mod folder is actually empty.

Certainly, but i have added small mods before straight into the game files, not the mod folder, and by not being changes to the game XML's they were fine. I'm hoping this will be the same.

I'll give it a go and let you guys know what happens

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General Pants, is there any way to correct some default in game jewels (such as the terran pieces that aren't *quite* symmetrical when flipped in the opposite direction)?

Maybe it doesn't bother some people, but I am extremely OCD about my ship designs and even the slightest flaw causes me to scrap the entire thing.

Is there a possibility you could adress this in the future?

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General Pants

Join Date 08/2006

+19

I think they are not Metaverse safe. I know my Mods aren't, and they do the same - add jewelry.

Refar: are your mods available? I looooove jewelry!

General Pants, is there any way to correct some default in game jewels (such as the terran pieces that aren't *quite* symmetrical when flipped in the opposite direction)?[...] I am extremely OCD about my ship designs and even the slightest flaw causes me to scrap the entire thing.

They have meds for that now.

Seriously, I know what you mean... the danged big wing attaches off-center, so every design that uses it (for me, about 25% of them) is inherently assymetrical.

I assume they can be corrected, but it would require going into the x-file and actually changing the model. I personally can't do that... I am forced to rely on others to do that sort of thing. If someone could do that, it would be very very cool, though!

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General Pants,

I posted this to knkg on his Help with texturing for Hyperion model forum. In reference to our e-mail about designing gun batteries. Thought you would like to see it.

A new type of jewel not yet seen in the GalCiv Universe: A WW2 type Gun Battery

I have discussed this with General Pants and since you're good at this type of stuff I was wondering if you had any plans to design some sort of turret or turrets for GalCiv2. I think it would be cool to be able to put them on some sort of space gun ship. I thought that the smaller anti-aircraft turrets seen on WW2 battleships would be cool. I know there is a lot of talk about rotating parts but until that happens non-moveable turrets would still be neat.

(General Pants): The original Star Destroyer model used in Star Wars (IV) had the light AA turrets from the Bismark or Tirpitz, and they looked great. Pretty much all German turrets looked cool, actually. The Japanese had a really nice triple-Hotchkiss 25 mm AA mount that was very cool looking, and some of their dual 8 inch cruiser turrets were really nice. The standard US 40 mm Bofors quad mount is very aggressive-looking, and the 3-inch open turrets were also kind of cool. The British quad- and octuple 2-pounder (40mm) guns were kind of silly-looking, but they could be the basis of some cool turrets. http://www.navweaps.com is a good site for these and others, in case you should find someone who can do the models.

You might be able to use the current ground-forces units for GalCiv2, APC & tank, to create these turrets. The APC may just need a little taken off the bottom of them to make them look a little more proportional for ship use.

Thanks for your time.

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General Pants

Join Date 08/2006

+19

Slu,

Problem is, knkg is a little too busy to help with turrets. I'm not too worried... someone will do them eventually.

BTW: The ground-forces models will be implemented as ship jewels in my next jewel mod... including the ground turret. So you'll have at least one turret.

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GP

Sweet!

That will do for now. I'm sure it will look great.

Slu Foot

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They have meds for that now.

I'm probably on those.

I assume they can be corrected, but it would require going into the x-file and actually changing the model. I personally can't do that...

Kinda disappointing, but oh well. Keep up the good work!

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is there any way to correct some default in game jewels (such as the terran pieces that aren't *quite* symmetrical when flipped in the opposite direction)?

Is there a possibility you could adress this in the future?

I myself noticed the problem from time to time, but i do not really remember, on wich parts it occured and it would take ages, to go through all the styles and try every piece of jewelry... Knowing the right pieces, fixing it would be quite easy.

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General Pants

Join Date 08/2006

+19

Sounds like first we need a map, showing the pieces, and their names... for the DL jewels, that is easy, because most of them have thumbnails... the DA jewels are harder. Anyone have a lot of time on their hands?

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General Pants

Join Date 08/2006

+19

This just posted:

V1.1: implements dummy left constructor and trade modules, ala GC2:DL.
V1.2: corrects error whereby some of the logo jewels didn't work if you didn't have my logo mod, removes extraneous files from download.
V1.3: corrected bump maps for lifeboat and docking ring, all other textures for the latter.
V1.4: corrected same bumpmaps so they look somewhat more correct.

If you haven't noticed anything weird about the lifeboat and docking ring, you probably don't need to re-download. Sorry about the multiple updates...

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HA!!! i know the feeling.

i'd need to do this as well for a mod idea i want to get going. i have absolutely ZERO experience with 3D modeling and texturing, but i've got an exceptional amount of experience with digital photo manipulation (PhotoShop).

i've been kicking around the idea of developing a mod with alternate skins for various wire frames - not to replace the existing jewelry, but to add to it (i really like the new art motifs in DA, but i get frustrated sometimes because some of the new motifs have so few pieces, like the beautiful swirly pieces with purpleish windows that are mostly in the Torian but also Yor styles - i sit there thinking: "i want this shape, but with that look").

it seems like it'd be an easy enough thing to do a cut-and-paste job of creating new skins. okay, i don't know that for sure. having a catalogue of ship pieces with relevant info would be a huge help (especially, in my case, if it came with a table of relevant files - the X file and any texture files).

maybe i'll work on it later today. i was kind of getting tired of actually playing the game this weekend, and couldn't really get into a ship-designing mood (partly over my frustration at the limited number of jewels in that purpleish window style).

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General Pants

Join Date 08/2006

+19

Also, for anyone interested, I have a new jewel pack posted:

WWW Link to Mod

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