I'm assuming you won't see anything from the backside--just wanted to be sure it didn't glitch the graphics up or anything.

Does anyone have a method for making a frigate able to launch fighters with a research? Not spawn, but managed just like any other carrier. I tried giving a frigate a fighter squadron but with no command points, then giving it a passive that increased its squadrons by 1, but that didn't seem to work.

What's the difference between what you want to do and what a carrier is?

That first you research to unlock a ship, then further up the tree you unlock an upgrade that allows it to carry fighters. It is not able to carry fighters until after you research the tech.

Okie.  I have never considered before.  I like the concept. 

Maybe create a new class of fighters--even copies of your standard ones--that require research and have it equipped only with those?

Just a total guess. 

I'd be interested in that for my fighter-bomber mod.

Yeah that was my back up plan, as the ship in question already uses a custom fighter squadron that is just the same as the standard but with a different number of fighters. Its slightly illogical, as it makes it seem like you're researching to get access to the same fighters that the rest of your fleet is already using instead of an upgrade to the carrier ship like I envisioned, but its functionally the same thing..

The frigate has to have at least 1 command point to launch fighters (no decimal allowed like 0.5). However, you can give the frigate 1 command point and have the first level of the passive's BonusMaxSquads set to -1. Then you can have 1 or 2 levels of upgrades on the ability. You could use ResearchWithBase with the standard frigate access -> ability research. ResearchWithoutBase would work too if you used 2 or 3 levels on the frigate access research.

Wouldn't ResearchWithoutBase be better in this case as the first level of the ability, -1, has to be going on from the start?

Unrelated, but I'm assuming by the lack of replies, there's no way to disable Planet Bombing (for an individual ship) via ability. As such, I was wondering if it's possible to get a ship's planet bombing to level up via research.

ResearchWithBase and ResearchWithoutBase can both be used and have the ability activate from the start with the -1. ResearchWithoutBase would simply use the frigate access research subject as the base research and then the ability access as the level source improvement (Think Anti-matter recharger).

If he's cramped for research tree space then the ResearchWithoutBase can accomplish the same thing, but might not be as easily understood game wise.

Totally forgot about making the frigate access' tech the research that activates the ability, which is silly as I've done just that in the past, but yeah that would work well.

I'd love to get strikecraft to be able to bomb planets but after a gazillion minidumps I'm thinking this might not be possible?

Have you tried making an ability of sorts for strikecraft that causes planet damage? I imagine that might work.

Thanks, that worked out. No matter what its going to be a little bit confusing to the player, but I think this is the best solution.

One failed attempt.  that's what I am back to.  I was hoping to actually make them dedicated to bombing planets without an ability.

Does anyone know of a specific program that can convert ALO files into whatever type sins uses?

If you're wanting stuff from Empire at War most likely the Star Wars mods already have them, but 3D object converter.

Edit: Also is it just me or can trade ships not have active abilities?

3D Object Converter to convert to .3DS then use 3DS Max, or some other program, to convert to .obj. Then you have to rig up the model in Softimage|XSI.

Question, can someone explain how mod stacking works..? 

i.e. if I have a mod installed, like Distant Stars or Stars, how do I create a mod that stacks? If this is easily done, I'm thinking of making the textures I made into a mod that stacks with these mods..

When you're stacking mods, basically the game tries to read them all at the same time. If two or more mods have the same file in it, it will attempt to use the version of the file from the mod that is higher up the list. Thus when editting a bigger mod you just make a smaller mod with the additions that you then stack above it.

In the case of planets keep in mind pretty much every large mod has a GalaxyScenarioDef and entity.manifest file unique to itself, so if you wanted to add your mod to Stars you will want to edit the Stars' version of these files instead of the vanilla ones for your base, otherwise the Stars' features won't appear and you'll probably get a minidump. Likewise you would have to make a second version of your stackable mod with Distant Stars using a modified version of its GalaxyScenarioDef and entity.manifest.

I think I have a similar problem. The first ship looks perfectly fine in XSI, but in game a section of it gets distorted, like if the UV map got screwed up some how, but only for two identical islands. Any thoughts will be greatly appreciated.

A small Christmas free moment of about 15 or 20 minutes

All I can say is something was not quite right with your xsi scene (I have no clue what).

• I imported the *.obj into 3dcoat to check the model one more time then exported to *.lwo. For some reason I have issues hooking up the tangent to the second uv-map half the time with *.obj.
• I created the second uv-map with just a unique projection to avoid the middle seem issue (works 80%+ of the time for me).
• I recreated the normal map by only copying the red channel to alpha and leaving the blue as is from the filter (seems avoid some of the glitchy splotches on the uv-map).
• I exported your original mesh points into *.xsi and imported them back into my new scene.
• I converted your *.tga's to *.dds with AMD compressonator (I find it generates less artifacts). I always do tga's like you have but convert them to DDS during scene preperation.
• I finally exported the scene to *.xsi and converted to *.mesh for the image below.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5790092/Temp/agave_zombiesrus5.exp

Here's the mesh

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5790092/Temp/Agave.mesh

P.S. Nice model and texture

Merry Modding Christmas!

Zombie, just for taking the time to do all of that.

One thing I do notice now about my model is that only polygons that have distorted textures are the quads. I was under the impression Sins could use quads but is there something special you have to do compared to triangles?

Could you elaborate here? I was under the impression you should use the texture uvs as a base because the polygons are already detached for the most part. I don't really see the advantage of using a new projection if you are going to move them around anyways.

So Sins can handle the blue normal map generated by the nvidia plugin? Don't the Sins textures use a greyscale normal map?

I bet Sinperium is singing "All I want for Christmas is for someone to do my mod for me." this year. Yes you all should have that stuck in your heads now.

Have you self...a merry little Modmas.  It's that time of yeee-eear.

I have this issue with seeing the fancy stuff you guys are working on and being tempted to go there--but I must remain sane.

Right now (literally) I am grinding through updating the ones I have made to 1.34...stupid upgrades.

I don't need any one to make my mod for me...just the particles, abilities, buffs, meshes, models, entity files, manifests, textures and little stuff like that.  I can do all the rest.

Ooh!  But while people are here--model insertion and all isn't my area here in Sins but I have a model and I don't have a designated team color channel indicated for it.  So I get the dev warn about needing a pipeline and color channel.   Still works but how do I go about remedying that?

Make a new channel on your cl texture called Alpha. Black is no team color, white is only the team color, and the shades of grey merge the regular cl texture and the team color.

Also just curious, can anyone tell me what the advantage is of having a mod on Mod DB and what you must do to host it?