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61

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (Released) Patch Notes

« on: July 28, 2022, 07:53:56 PM »

Yeah. Even all variables being positive; i.e. having the phase fleet skill, using APC and speed hullmods, using speedy officers and reducing the DP of phase ships in your fleet to maximize the use of the fleet skill, that still makes phase ships destroyer size and up "usable" at best and "bricks" at worst.

Ironically, phase frigates who were always the worst offenders in that they were basically untouchable and uncatchable, are hurt by the nerf the least. They lose their speed much slower during phase, they are already very fast & they can vent quickly too.

It's not that hard to tweak the phase cloak script to use a hull-size-specific speed malus; seems to me that making larger ships suffer less would be an elegant way to handle that.

There's lots of things to try without making phase ships a total bummer to play.

Yep! I might even take a crack at it myself later, just to see if it works as well as I think it does in practice.

62

General Discussion / Re: MesoTroniK Donation Drive

« on: July 28, 2022, 07:49:01 PM »

Just going to note here that Meso is and always has been a stand-up guy who helps other modders out tirelessly in his free time. I wouldn't have made it nearly as far with any of my nonsense if he hadn't stepped in and shared code and design advice with me early on; it really can't be said often enough or loudly enough how much of our whole big, vibrant mod ecosystem is built on the volunteer labor of guys like Meso who don't just make great stuff themselves, but try to give something back to the rest of us.

And little bits of cash here and there really do add up; five or ten bucks from a hundred people is a substantial chunk of change. Every little bit helps.

63

Suggestions / Re: Megastructures.

« on: July 28, 2022, 07:43:54 PM »

dyson sphere gang

There's already about halfway to enough in the game to make that work; I modded one in as an experiment, and it wouldn't take much elbow grease to turn it into properly modular code.

64

Blog Posts / Re: The Pilgrim's Path

« on: July 23, 2022, 01:14:03 PM »

Please treat other forum members with respect. This is completely uncalled for.

Noted. I found the posts aggravating, but I should have left that out, yes.

Being respectful to others is a rule for everyone, no matter what others are posting, but modder privilege I guess.

I got my warning, just like anyone else would, and I took my lumps. I don't see any special privileges being applied here.

65

Blog Posts / Re: The Pilgrim's Path

« on: July 23, 2022, 12:51:57 PM »

I'm calling it now, we could ban this kid today and nothing of value will be lost. I give him six months tops, but we could start a pool.

I'm looking forward to putting a Luddic shrine on the tour, if that's something we can do (without too much blood and screaming as rules.csv bites into our tender modder flesh).

66

Modding / Re: Custom place to distribute mods

« on: July 11, 2022, 02:41:04 PM »

on top of that, you'd be exposing yourself legally, because now the person in question could now claim quantifiable monetary damages that your infringement caused.

That doesn't follow. If I were to sell your mod how can I claim monetary losses when your license doesn't permit me to do so.

That isn’t what you said; you said that you would consider a mod free game to rip assets from if the modder were contravening Starsector’s license by charging money for the mod:

As to what would happen if a modder did start charging. I'm not a lawyer and while I doubt Alex would lawyer up (most likely a generic forum ban), I personally would consider their mod free-game to shamelessly rip assets from.

And I’m telling you that this would open you up to a suit for lost income in small claims court. Copyright isn’t a ‘you did something bad so you lose your rights’ system; that person would still have rights to the work they were charging for, and they’d have a case that your infringements on those rights cost them a definite amount of money.

It would be extremely stupid to charge for a mod, and even dumber to go to small claims court over one… but people are very stupid sometimes, you never know who is willing to spend ridiculous money to screw someone else over, and the law is still very much not adapted to digital sharing by default. That’s why something like a CC or GPL license is a good thing; it matches the sharing environment better than traditional, default copyright protections.

67

Modding / Re: Custom place to distribute mods

« on: July 11, 2022, 01:32:57 PM »

Another little note is modders cannot charge for access to their mods. So, using Harmful Mechanic as an example (because you're here) he's allowed to ask for donations "for beer and other stuff" but if he were to charge for access to the mod including such examples as gatekeeping "early builds" behind a patreon subscription he would be in violation of his license agreement with Fractal Softworks and no longer be authorized to to create and distribute Mods.

Just a note here that the idea of charging for a mod is repugnant to me and I definitely wouldn't want that, even if it were something I could do under the license terms Alex has set out. I'm doing this for free so I can do it for fun and not have to worry about whether making worse work would bring in more money.

As to what would happen if a modder did start charging. I'm not a lawyer and while I doubt Alex would lawyer up (most likely a generic forum ban), I personally would consider their mod free-game to shamelessly rip assets from.

It actually wouldn't be - you can't violate someone's copyright just because they're jerks - and on top of that, you'd be exposing yourself legally, because the person in question could now claim quantifiable monetary damages that your infringement caused. Besides, you wouldn't have to 'punish' a modder like this; Alex could C&D the mod, even if it were posted elsewhere (not really worth his time, but he'd have a legal basis to do so).

Lawyers still cost money, so it's unlikely anybody who cared about the tiny trickle of change that charging for a mod might bring in would sue you over it - but they'd have a legal basis for that if they wanted to. Never bet against some fraction of IP licenseholders being awful copyright trolls, no matter how small-change the stakes are. Look at the way Brad Wardell of Stardock tried to go after the Toys For Bob guys to bully them into handing over rights he hadn't bought to parts of the Star Control games - straightforwardly betting his pockets were deeper and he could mount a baseless suit longer than they could pay lawyers to assert their rights.

One of the reasons to be very leery of working on mods using preexisting intellectual property is that C&Ds are often sent out on a rolling basis determined by what in-house projects a license-holder has in the works - so your Star Trek mod might be ignored for years, even decades, and then someone at Paramount decides, 'let's make a 2D mobile Star Trek game, send out the due diligence team to make sure there's no infringing content out there that might be in competition with our game proposal' - and oops, modders making 2D Star Trek ship sprites all get hit with C&D notices.

The proposed game may never actually see the light of day, either. This is often done at the same stage of production where a project gets cancelled six months in and archived; it's something that gets handed off to recent grads at a big IP law firm.

(if this sounds messed up, it is. This is one of the reasons I have CC licenses in my mod folders; to spell out exactly what rights I'm relinquishing so you're always free and clear for the authorized use. Traditional understanding of copyright would make even distributing free mods a potential copyright violation, albeit not one with much grounds for action; a CC license is more generous in the right places, and lets you C&D someone redistributing mods with malware, for example.)

68

Suggestions / Re: My Impressions, things I would change etc.

« on: July 11, 2022, 01:10:13 PM »

3. I find the text in game hard to read. I don't mean that I can't make out letters, but that I find it really hard to focus on the text. It got better as I kept playing, but at the beginning I had to retake many lines because I forgot what I just read. I'm not sure why that is, it might have to do with the writing style but I don't want to say it should be changed since you can feel the passion in the writing. I think it has to do with the way the text looks but I'm not sure how to fix this and again it might be just a me problem.

It's not just you; Insignia, the typeface Starsector uses for body copy, isn't the world's most readable choice as-implemented. It's not terrible, but there's definitely room to make improvements.

Alex, if you'd like any help with type issues, you have my email.

69

Modding / Re: Custom place to distribute mods

« on: July 11, 2022, 01:00:35 PM »

Copyright is almost universally granted automatically. The DMCA means that this basically applies anywhere online. Just because something is posted on the internet for free does not mean it can be redistributed for free, even if you yourself do so for free.

Mirroring is a common practice whereby digital media is distributed by multiple individuals. Mirroring is still subject to copyright laws, and requires the permission of the copyright owner.

That's one of the reasons I use a CC license (and one of the reasons they exist), because it handles this to some extent; nobody can get in trouble for sharing the unmodified files, but they can still be held liable if they insert malware. It's very important to me that people who download my work get the best experience of it I can deliver.

For an example of mod redistribution done right, you can check out Fossic, which hosts many translated works. Translations are considered derivative works, and so the original copyright still applies (aka: it's not covered by fair use). You will find many instances where Fossic users politely ask in this forum to translate and distribute the resulting translations. They almost always are allowed to do so, sometimes with the requirement of attribution.

I love being asked for permission to do a translation, and I've always said yes; I've been externalizing strings in my dev versions specifically to make translation easier. I also like answering translation questions, although I haven't been asked very many of those.

(Anybody who wants to know more about how translation and localization work should talk to SpaceDrake sometime - he's got interesting stories.)

70

Modding / Re: Custom place to distribute mods

« on: July 11, 2022, 11:32:02 AM »

are they copyrighted even if posted here on the forum?

Yes - copyright is automatic on creation. I actually deal with this stuff at work (I work for a printing company, and I'm in charge of the prepress team), and you'd be amazed who just tries to produce obvious bootlegs of copyrighted material they don't have the rights to out in the open. Happens all the time, and I'm usually the one who catches it - which is part of my job, since the press can be held liable if we print this stuff. So that's where I'm coming from.

I use a CC-Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivatives license for my mods, which means it’s legal to redistribute the unmodified files as long as I’m credited, it’s not done for commercial purposes, and no derivative work is made from them. My free resources are CC-Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike, which means they’re free to distribute as long as they remain credited to me and changes are noted, are used only for noncommercial purposes, and any derivative work made from them is likewise free to be modified.

I choose these license terms to maximize 1) my ability to ensure the best possible experience of what I make, 2) to ensure that my work remains free to download, and 3) to give away what I do give away under terms that are actually more generous than even the internet-culture wrongheaded definitions of 'fair use' that have no legal basis.

If, hypothetically, your purpose were to create a site just to distribute mods that violate my and others' license terms (by using my artwork without attribution, for commercial purposes, or to make derivative work the license prohibits… I wouldn’t be okay with that, and I don’t think the rest of the modding community would be either.

If you're really attached to a mod that's been taken down for violating license terms, feel free to PM me about removing the infringing material so it's no longer a problem - whether it's mine, or someone else's. I'm happy to help out with that, as long as it doesn't suck up too much of my modding time.

71

Modding / Re: Stargate Unknown Galaxies a Starsector Mod

« on: July 10, 2022, 05:06:11 PM »

Glad you found the free resources useful! This looks like it's at very early stages still, but I hope you keep hacking at it. It could be really fun to implement progression mechanics for salvaging found alien tech, or expand on the way Domain Gates work.

And because I am compelled by my hopeless nerd brain:

[close]

72

Modding / Re: AI upscaled ships, for whoever wants

« on: July 09, 2022, 03:18:31 PM »

These look a lot better than I'm used to from upsizes. Upscaling algorithms have become a little scary.

I tried this out a few years ago (since I'm doing a lot with vector art and resizing is just a matter of picking an export setting) and the consensus at the time was that you can probably get away with this for vanilla and maybe a couple of mods, but it will eat your VRAM like no tomorrow with enough mods enabled.

Still I think it's a much cooler use of that VRAM than making a capital ship so big it crashes the game, though.

73

Mods / Re: [0.95.1a] Superweapons Arsenal v2.5b Storms are coming!

« on: July 08, 2022, 02:39:12 PM »

Not only are they obvious derivatives, but you're openly lying about it. That contradicts the 'attribution' portion of the license as well; not only are you not allowed to make derivative works, you're required to attribute my work to me. That would be true even in your bizarro-world interpretation of the license.

So respectful.

I think at this point the only thing to be done is a line-item demonstration of where Mira is taking art from. Then moderation can decide - since Mira thinks she's above listening to polite requests or playing nice with the rest of the forum.

I don't have a ton of time to do that right now, but I can start us off with a list of the artwork I can definitely tell is bashed from my sprites:

"sw_annihilator_hardpoint" and "sw_annihilator_turret"
"sw_fusion_beam_hardpoint"  and "sw_fusion_beam_turret"
"sw_gauss_hturret" and "sw_gauss_turret"
"sw_hyperpulse_hardpoint" and "sw_hyperpulse_turret"
"sw_lightning_storm_hardpoint" and "sw_lightning_storm_turret"
"sw_lightspear_hardpoint" and "sw_lightspear_turret"
"sw_phalanx"
"sw_plasmastorm"
"sw_tesla_coil_hardpoint" and "sw_tesla_coil_turret"

The textures "annihilator_core" and "ring_trail" use the ring texture from "magellan_projectile_contrail_ring" without permission - anyone can draw 'a ring', but matching the exact dimensions of mine is a tell.

"doublehelix_trail" is actually a texture (SRD_helix_beam) I gave Nia for the Sylphon mod; up to Nia if that's a problem, but it's used there and in the (very ugly) "devastator_beamcore" texture. UPDATE: not an issue as Nia's fine with it.

I have additional suspicions about:
"gaussrail_slug"
"sw_devastator_hardpoint" and "sw_devastator_turret"
"sw_novax_hardpoint" and "sw_novax_turret"
but would appreciate a little help IDing the precise origins of some parts.

Other modders, please feel free to chime in about your own artwork.

What's really funny to me is that my art isn't a great fit for Starsector; it's as much an idle exercise in making vector artwork do stupid tricks as anything else. There's so much more fitting stuff out there to steal from, if you're gonna.

74

Mods / Re: [0.95.1a] Superweapons Arsenal v2.5 A Storm is coming!

« on: July 07, 2022, 10:32:21 PM »

-My weapons are based on the skeletal design of 5-7 other weapons mixed and then fully re-colored to make a new original design, this process is done to every other weapon in this mod as i make sure to make each one look unique.

-While it's true i did take a look at your weapons when i made the Hyperlance i only used the "tail part" for it's design and forgot change it somehow, the rest of the weapon has nothing to do with any of your creations, give me an hour and i will remove it.

Please remove everything you took without permission - my trail textures (ring and helix), the parts used in other weapons like the Lightning Storm or Lightspear; that means everything. If there needs to be another message because you only removed the one thing I mentioned, I will simply list everything I can find, with visual examples of where it was ripped out of my mods.

You've bashed some of your weapon sprites from mine without permission

Only the Weapon you referred to is based-off of a collection of weapons including 1 belonging to you and while one would argue that it looks vastly different to it's base materials i would still respect your request and change it until your work is out of the picture... literally.

Good. Please remove all of it, completely - not just the one weapon in the one image I posted. I'm being as clear as possible so there's no confusion.

-Thank you for showing me that you put the feelings of whoever messaged you trying to start something here over the benefit of this community, while i feel comfortable refusing your request and asking a modderator to decide the outcome due the sheer difference in both weapons, i am not going to do that as

I have no idea if it was an attempt to 'start something' - someone asked me if I did those sprites, I said no, they mentioned you were using my art, that's it. I made a polite forum post asking you to knock it off.

i respect you as a fellow modder.

No, you don't - you just thought you could take whatever you wanted, and now you're angry you got found out. That's a lot of things, but it's not respect.

~That being said, the next time you got a complain don't bring it directly to me, go to the moderators instead, i will settle with what they say.

Oh, I'll let them know.

75

Mods / Re: [0.95.1a] Superweapons Arsenal v2.5 A Storm is coming!

« on: July 07, 2022, 09:11:30 PM »

Hi Mira,

I haven't been paying close attention to this mod, because it's frankly not my thing, but it's been brought to my attention that you've bashed some of your weapon sprites from mine without permission. I'd like you to remove and/or rework the offending sprites, please. We can make a list if you want, but I'm pretty sure you knew what you were doing when you did it. It's pretty blatant, too:



That's not the only one, but it's one of the more obvious ones. I'm happy to find an interim solution (because replacing art is time-consuming, and there's no reason your users should have to lose the mod entirely because of this), but I'd like my artwork removed.