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Author Topic: Adding custom ships  (Read 229428 times)

Avan

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Re: Adding in custom ships
« Reply #75 on: May 08, 2011, 05:54:50 PM »

I think he just never changed the designation in that screen

mendonca

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Re: Adding in custom ships
« Reply #76 on: May 09, 2011, 12:31:45 AM »

I think that's a carrier :) But yeah, quite cool. Is it GSB Empire inspired?

I think it was more bagel-inspired, must have been close to lunch when I started to draw it ;)

And it was named by my Wife, she gave me 'a name for a spaceship' and it seemed to fit quite well!

I haven't played GSB much (if at all?) but it might be a sub-conscious thing ...

And yeah, it's kind of a carrier and a freighter, depending on which wing of the craft you are at. So I called it a freighter in the game as it's not a pure military creature.
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mendonca

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Re: Adding in custom ships
« Reply #77 on: May 09, 2011, 03:29:47 AM »

Just looking further through some of the existing ships and had a few questions:

1. The SUNDER ship has weapon locations:[] defined. It also however has position:[] defined for each weapon slot. The location refers to the actual position (as far as I can tell) so is there any use for the position? It doesn't seem to occur in many other ship definitions?

2. All the fighters tend to have HIDDEN weapon types. Is it a given that any weapon type designated as HIDDEN is actually a hardpoint? In fact, I'm at work at the minute but can't test it, but are hardpoints and turrets effectively the same (angle of effect defined by arc) but just there as a flag to find the correct graphic? (I have never played about with it beyond altering arcs for turrets - it's only just occured to me ...).

I am thinking I will change the front mounted ballistic hardpoints for my two frigates to be 'hidden' and draw some figurative ballistic thing pointing out the front of them both on the sprite.

3. Also final question, are the Bounds[] just a list of coordinates that trace the outline of the ship in question?

Currently I have been using an empty bounds[] array, and defining it with the collision radius. A lot easier, but overall not ideal for ships that aren't perfectly circular. I just need 10 hours sleep prior to trying to manually work out all the coordinates  ;)

Thanks for any answers, appreciate if I do get a response to this, but also appreciate if you have better things to be doing  ;)
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Ivaylo

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Re: Adding in custom ships
« Reply #78 on: May 09, 2011, 03:38:51 AM »

Better things to be doing? Like sleep? Nah, sleep is for the weak.


Now that I got the braggadocio out of the way I am gonna let Alex field this one ;D
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Avan

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Re: Adding in custom ships
« Reply #79 on: May 09, 2011, 06:49:01 AM »

Just looking further through some of the existing ships and had a few questions:

1. The SUNDER ship has weapon locations:[] defined. It also however has position:[] defined for each weapon slot. The location refers to the actual position (as far as I can tell) so is there any use for the position? It doesn't seem to occur in many other ship definitions?

2. All the fighters tend to have HIDDEN weapon types. Is it a given that any weapon type designated as HIDDEN is actually a hardpoint? In fact, I'm at work at the minute but can't test it, but are hardpoints and turrets effectively the same (angle of effect defined by arc) but just there as a flag to find the correct graphic? (I have never played about with it beyond altering arcs for turrets - it's only just occured to me ...).

I am thinking I will change the front mounted ballistic hardpoints for my two frigates to be 'hidden' and draw some figurative ballistic thing pointing out the front of them both on the sprite.

3. Also final question, are the Bounds[] just a list of coordinates that trace the outline of the ship in question?

Currently I have been using an empty bounds[] array, and defining it with the collision radius. A lot easier, but overall not ideal for ships that aren't perfectly circular. I just need 10 hours sleep prior to trying to manually work out all the coordinates  ;)

Thanks for any answers, appreciate if I do get a response to this, but also appreciate if you have better things to be doing  ;)
1) ok, I'm not totally sure about this one - Alex would have to answer that.
2) there is not real (non-graphical) difference (yet) between hardpoints and turrets that I know of to the player. I think it /may/ have some AI impact, but I'm not sure.
3) Yes; you can get away with a rought outline: ie, I don't include all the greebling, just the major points in its shape.

Alex

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Re: Adding in custom ships
« Reply #80 on: May 09, 2011, 07:15:48 AM »

1) Ignore this for now. Meant to use this to set where the slots to put weapons into would show up in the refit screen, but whether it's actually needed is up in the air. Probably not.

2) Hardpoint weapons turn slower (not that they need to turn much). Also planning to give them damage/range bonuses, but for now they're extremely similar to turrets with a 5 degree arc.

3) Yeah. A rough outline is best for performance, and it also looks just fine. Don't be afraid to just throw a straight line that goes inside the sprite by a few pixels. For example, the circular halves of the Octopus could each be easily defined by three lines, perhaps even two. Do try to avoid lines that go outside the sprite much though, it looks wrong when there a hit that looks like a miss.
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mendonca

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Re: Adding in custom ships
« Reply #81 on: May 09, 2011, 07:33:53 AM »

Thanks Chaps!  :)
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Avan

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Re: Adding in custom ships
« Reply #82 on: May 09, 2011, 10:41:55 PM »

been working on a new ship for another faction: I'm experimenting around with some alternate techniques... I haven't really gotten this ship where I want it yet though. I'll post it if it comes out well.

Avan

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Re: Adding in custom ships
« Reply #83 on: May 10, 2011, 09:32:42 AM »

Its not coming out how I intended yet.. but in other news, I think I figured out why my icons were not always showing: sometimes they were saved with an 8-bit depth as opposed to a 32-bit depth png, which the game apparently didn't like.

Avan

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Re: Adding in custom ships
« Reply #84 on: May 10, 2011, 10:30:24 PM »

After David's blog post today, I thought I might give a little insight into my ever-changing design process and give a peek into the design process of the Perentie:

(note that the last picture is newer than the previous pictures I have of the perentie: they are the ones marked as perentie_cr_orig.png

mecharm

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Re: Adding in custom ships
« Reply #85 on: May 11, 2011, 11:02:59 AM »

Gorgeous.
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Avan

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Re: Adding in custom ships
« Reply #86 on: May 11, 2011, 09:40:00 PM »

^^

--

Been working on some new designs, trying to do it David-style, so as to be able to try capturing the style, but with some more color than just grey and occasional bits for lighting and whatnot.
I think I may have picked something a bit too ambitious atm so I might scale it back to just a frigate or destroyer at first.

baxmau

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Re: Adding in custom ships
« Reply #87 on: May 15, 2011, 11:39:30 PM »

Hey everyone, great stuff in here :) I'm trying to add a custom ship, but keep hitting a crash snag. I decided to take a step back, and try it one step at a time. Here's what I do:

1) In the ship_data.csv file, I duplicated a ship definition. Just to be safe, I just changed the name, and the number. Game still ran after that.
2) Next, I duplicated one of the ship hull files, changed the ship ID and name. Then, in the csv file, changed my new ship to use the new ship ID.
3) Now, the game starts, loading bar appears, then snags at about 90% and becomes unresponsive and have to shut down.

It seems like I'm doing everything right, but I really am just winging it here :\
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mendonca

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Re: Adding in custom ships
« Reply #88 on: May 15, 2011, 11:54:23 PM »

Hi baxmau,

It may be that you have not created an icon graphic for your ship name (sounds similar to a problem I had).

Go in to graphics/ships/icons/. and make sure there is a file with icon_yourshipname.png located there.

Let me know if that fixes it?
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baxmau

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Re: Adding in custom ships
« Reply #89 on: May 16, 2011, 12:12:37 AM »

Thanks! That actually worked :)

Now, everything *seems* ok, until I try to add my ship to a mission. Now, it crashes after the loading bar finishes. It sure would be nice if the game was a little more verbose on error :)

EDIT: further inspection, its definitely crashing when changing this line in missiondefinition.java:

api.addToFleet(FleetSide.PLAYER, "venture_Balanced", FleetMemberType.SHIP, "ISS Black Star", true);

does the addToFleet call require that ship ID be a variant defined in variants folder? If so, that would explain my problem.. As far as ship bases (*.ship files) and ship variants, is there some process I'm missing here?

EDIT2: Ok, it does appear as though thats the case. I made a variant file, and while I haven't tested it fully, its at least not crashing on load!

Am I to understand that the ship hull files should be use as more of a "class" of ship, and any actual ship to be implemented should be in a "variant"?
« Last Edit: May 16, 2011, 12:24:49 AM by baxmau »
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