S T K

Join Date 02/2007

Re-worked race design in TA?

Ever asked yourself what those S2_Tiny-Small_01... files in the Twilight/GFX/Models directory are for? I did, cause I hav never seen those textures ingame. So I copied them to Dark Avatar, and did other strange things I can't remember now, and here are the results:

Those Textures and the models (I recognised some of them are really Yor models) looked like Yor for me, thats why I made them in Yor colors.
But why are those models in the TA Beta? Yor are not included, and you can't build those ships ingame (at least I think so).
Does this mean there will be new Yor Hulls in TA, or that the design of all races will be re-worked, just like in DA?
I hope someone knows the answer. And if the one who made those textures and models reads this: They look awesome!

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But why are those models in the TA Beta? Yor are not included, and you can't build those ships ingame (at least I think so).
Does this mean there will be new Yor Hulls in TA, or that the design of all races will be overworked, just like in DA?
I hope someone knows the answer.

The Yor aren't in yet because their tech tree isn’t in yet, and for testing focus reasons, not necessarily because no work has been done on any art assets.

Also, do you mean re-worked instead over "overworked"? Re-worked implies a makeover, and has a generally positive connotation...something to look forward to. Overworked implies a negative implication, and a design criticism. I'm not sure how to take your post.

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I mean re-work, sorry, I come from Austria, so English is not my mother-tongue.

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I mean re-work, sorry, I come from Austria, so English is not my mother-tongue.

No problem at all...your english is excellent, aside from that point which needed clarifying.

I'm not aware of any posted intentions to do major overhauls on the ship graphics...most of the graphic work Ive seen mentioned has been directed at the interface and planetary improvements/textures. Doesn't mean it isn't happening though...I'm not aware of a lot of things...

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ScottTykoski

Join Date 03/2001

+132

Yes, Graphical Enhancements will be across the board...hopefully all ship styles will get tweaked, though it may be more realistic to just expect the really ugly ones to be fixed

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Yes, Graphical Enhancements will be across the board...hopefully all ship styles will get tweaked, though it may be more realistic to just expect the really ugly ones to be fixed

Will the really ugly ones remain as extra ship styles?

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though it may be more realistic to just expect the really ugly ones to be fixed

I thought so, cause all those ships I managed to get into DA had an older and much uglier counterpart (this means uglier textures and/or less detailed models).

But I still have one question: Why are those files in the Beta? They don't make any sense there, cause you can't built them (unless you do what I did

). Maybe someone forgot them

?

And if you really manage to re-work all ship styles: The Thalan would look great with biological ships, especially now, cause their planetary improvements look quite biological.

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Spare ship styles would be a nice thing to have for custom races...

Also, I've always noticed that there is a "create custom ship style" button in DL/DA, but that button is always grayed out for me. Is this a feature that hasn't been fully added yet, or is there something I need to do to make it work?

Is it something that will be among the editors in TA?

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The "create custom ship style" option is only for the AI opponents. This means if you edit your opponents, through this option you can edit their ship style.
For Instance: You want the Yor (or the Snathi or whatever) to have cube ships. You have to design those cube ships in the shipyard, save them and then edit the Yor (in the "choose opponents" window there is an edit button next to the enable/disable button). And now the button will no longer be grayed out, and you can now tell them to use the CargoCube (or however you named them) as a Colony ship, or the tinyCube as a scout ship.

This button is grayed out for you own race, cause you can make you own ship style ingame, so there is no need for it

.

Something Codecritter wrote about it:

Creating New Ship Styles
There is a button marked "Custom" which opens the Custom Ship Style screen. This screen allows you to choose which ship template designs you want the AI to use for its designs. The AI will use the designs you choose here and then add parts to them, like weapons, engines, etc. The list on the left is the list of ships that the AI will use, while the list on the right is a list of available templates. The template list shows all avaliable templates including ones you create yourself.

If you want the AI to use the design "Sky Fox" for its attacker ships, you would select "Attacker ship 1" from the list on the left, and then "Sky Fox" from the list on the right. Click the "Change" button and the AI will now use the "Sky Fox" design instead of the default "Attacker Template 1" design. There is a "Reset All" and "Default" button to return the designs to their default states.

There is also a button to save the style so you can use it in another game. If you don't save it, it will only be good for your current game.

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S T K: It does make a sense to have not yet used resources there. It is much more efficient to leave all resources (like pictures, sounds etc.) in the build. As a developer you should concentrate on the work. Optimization comes at the end of the project. If you let resources there, you may experiment with them anytime you need. And for public betas you only lock problematic features.

If you have to think about "this picture is not yet needed", you will forget something important later and you will have to add those things again. It would simply slow down your work.

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You're right. Actually I'm happy about it, cause if those files weren't in the Beta, I wouldn't know that they will re-work some of the ship styles.
But only they know if they really wanted to leave those files in the Beta or if they just forgot them.

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But only they know if they really wanted to leave those files in the Beta or if they just forgot them.

For art files, I'd rather get those up on the server as we get them, because that leaves less chance that they'll be overlooked later, and since they require data to actually get in the game, it doesn't really matter that they're there.

I did, however, leave out data files for things that are not enabled yet.

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Like the CVS folder in /GFX/Race ?

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S T K: Ah, I see, that makes sense.

Still, since ship style DOES make a difference (what hulls you get, and what parts are in the "your style" tab, plus I always try to build my ships fitting the style I've chosen), it would be nice to have some extra styles.

And perhaps even the ability to add new player-usable styles if someone wants to take the time to make new hull models, or a unique list of "style parts".

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