Fractal Softworks Forum

Starsector => Mods => Modding => Topic started by: Avan on May 05, 2011, 01:54:07 PM

Title: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 05, 2011, 01:54:07 PM
Ok, I decided I had to try... ;D

I made a cute little fighter (22x23px) and am trying to figure out the coordinate system and what the bounds do in the .ship file.
I'm not really pro at pixel art, I've been doing 3D stuff, so if I ever do release it, it probably will be some time before I do... X3
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Alex on May 05, 2011, 02:07:46 PM
Tip: if you don't specify bounds (or specify empty bounds, I forget which), the game will use a circular collision area based on the collisionRadius.

As to the coordinate system, I forget exactly what it is :) It's x,y w/ the ship facing to the right (i.e. towards 0 degrees). The origin might be at the middle of the sprite, or at the rotation center of the ship.


As you might have guessed, there is a ship editor (which is the reason I don't have to remember this anymore). It's not quite ready for prime time, but at some point we'll polish it up and release it.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 05, 2011, 02:11:39 PM
Ok, thanks! I'll mess around with it and see if I can get it in-game.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 05, 2011, 02:24:15 PM
Hmm, I am getting 'array out of bounds' errors when it tries to load shiphulls.cvs
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Apokus on May 05, 2011, 02:27:39 PM
How did you edit the csv file? OpenOffice or Excel?
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 05, 2011, 02:30:41 PM
Open Office
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Apokus on May 05, 2011, 02:32:42 PM
Good.. i hope you have a backup then ;) If not let me know, i have a lot of backups by now :D
I had the same problem with all the csv files... upload them to google documents, edit them there, download them as csv and put them into your folder.. thats the only way i got them work :/
It seems like Excel and OpenOffice has some markers there the game dont like :/
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 05, 2011, 02:36:01 PM
ah ok, thanks! ;D
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Apokus on May 05, 2011, 02:38:48 PM
If it works for you too, youre welcome ;)
I was going to smash things around here last night while having the same problem until i remember that there was a comment in some sample file about the google document online :D
After testing it this way it works for me :)
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 05, 2011, 02:42:48 PM
How do you download them as csv? I only have the option to do 'PDF, Open Office, Skip, MS Office'
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Apokus on May 05, 2011, 02:52:15 PM
You dont have this option?
http://imageshack.us/f/848/saveas.jpg/
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 05, 2011, 02:55:23 PM
Oh ok thanks  ;D
I usually don't use google docs
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Apokus on May 05, 2011, 03:01:48 PM
Same here ;)
Btw.. this would be a good question to alex.. is there a way we can tell the game to get the online saved file? ;)
So... its a bit inefficient to edit them online, save them on the pc, put it in the right folder, edit it again online and so on.. would be easier to edit the file online as long as we have to work on it :)
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 05, 2011, 03:16:28 PM
Ok, I managed to get it working. Now to actually put the ships in a mission and test them out.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 05, 2011, 03:27:24 PM
Yay, everything is working except for the tactical icon
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Alex on May 05, 2011, 03:41:18 PM
Yay, everything is working except for the tactical icon

That goes under graphics/ships/icons and *must* be named icon_<hull id>.png.


Btw.. this would be a good question to alex.. is there a way we can tell the game to get the online saved file? ;)
So... its a bit inefficient to edit them online, save them on the pc, put it in the right folder, edit it again online and so on.. would be easier to edit the file online as long as we have to work on it :)

That's how I've been doing it, though I admit I'll just use a text editor on a local copy when I need to test a quick change.

Instead of fetching it from online, I think it'll be easier to make it play nice w/ an OpenOffice saved copy - I'll add that to the list.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 05, 2011, 03:49:38 PM
Just doublechecked, and its in there with the right name. Are there any requirements as to the filetype? (is, specific setting or something?)
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Alex on May 05, 2011, 03:59:27 PM
Well, it has to be a png - need the transparency. But I don't think a jpg would break it, just look funny.

Edit: you don't have the whole wing in the icon, do you? It actually builds that wing icon dynamically from the single fighter icon. Not that that would make it crash - again, just look funny...
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 05, 2011, 04:22:27 PM
nope, just a single ship image in the png
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Alex on May 05, 2011, 04:34:12 PM
Does the hull id have spaces in it? Just checked - those need to be replaced with underscores in the icon name.

If this isn't the problem, what actually happens when you run it? Crash, default icon shows up, something else?
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 05, 2011, 04:37:11 PM
The icon simply doesn't appear; I'm given a blank space where it should be. I can still left click and interact with it.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Alex on May 05, 2011, 04:41:01 PM
How odd! I'd try copying one of the existing icons with the new name to see if it shows up. Might be a problem with the png itself. It seems like it actually does load it, otherwise... actually, otherwise it would just hang on the loading screen :) And that's not exactly good. Could also check the logs for confirmation that the icon was loaded (search for the filename).
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 05, 2011, 06:25:20 PM
Yep, just checked; it does in fact load it, but it does not display it. What is even odder, is that I just made a second ship... and it likes the icon for that ship (Saved the icons with the same program, same settings)
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 05, 2011, 07:17:58 PM
Decided I might as well show off the couple ships I made so far for a faction idea I'm cooking up X3 as well as the bug I'm getting with the icon - It's a far cry from david's ships, but hey, these are my first pixel-art ships (as in, not sprites rendered from 3D models, which is how I make my ships for Transcendence)

(yes, the neutrino has a dark border... going to lighten that up a bit later.)

EDIT - Also I'm going to move the engine effects down a bit on the Positron, as they are too high, and the glare washes out the ship.

Here you can see the neutrino is missing its icon, while the positron has its icon:
(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/nutrinomissingicon.png)

some screens showcasing the ships:
(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/positronandneutrinobattle.png)
(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/positronandneutrino.png)

Both have 360 shielding, though the neutrino has paper-thin armor: if its shield goes down, its toast. The Positron is significantly tougher, and can deal out more damage, but a wing costs more fleet points than any other wing (10), making them more expensive than the equivalent firepower in terms of PD frigates (and are only just as fast, to boot), but come with the benefit of being able to be repaired at a carrier, and have a bit better of a turning rate than the average frigate, and double as Transcendence-esq gunships (they can deal a good number of frigates, and even the lighter end of the destroyer spectrum).
Neutrinos come in wings of 3, at 3 fleet points a wing, and Positrons come in wings of 2 at 10 fleet points a wing.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Apokus on May 05, 2011, 07:28:23 PM
 :o Amazing
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 05, 2011, 07:31:35 PM
 ;D Thanks!

Got a new picture with the Positron's adjusted engines:
(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/positronandneutrinofixedengines.png)
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Alex on May 05, 2011, 07:39:07 PM
Wow! Very nice.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 05, 2011, 07:45:38 PM
^^ Thanks!


I don't plan on releasing them until there is a simpler way of adding custom ships into the game, because of the fact that the end-user is going to have to change the .csv files to add them in.

I plan on having a wing of bombers, and then making some frigates this weekend.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Alex on May 05, 2011, 07:48:25 PM
Yeah, good call - the game is not quite ready for sharing this kind of content. But if this isn't incentive for me to work on that I don't know what is ;)
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Apokus on May 05, 2011, 07:52:27 PM
^^ Thanks!


I don't plan on releasing them until there is a simpler way of adding custom ships into the game, because of the fact that the end-user is going to have to change the .csv files to add them in.

I plan on having a wing of bombers, and then making some frigates this weekend.

Well, did you change the old Weapons and Ships or did you insert new Weapons and Ships to the csv file for your custom ships?

Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 05, 2011, 07:58:10 PM
I inserted new entries.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Apokus on May 05, 2011, 08:00:48 PM
So it wouldnt be that much work for a user to test your ships i guess :)
All he needs would be the "Data" folder... overwrite the old, keep the old files while he can test the new ones *hmm*
(Works as long as he has no other mod installed :D)
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 05, 2011, 08:04:34 PM
Yeah, but it would thus be mutually incompatible with any other ship modifications (and weapon modifications once I add some of those too down the line - specifically a couple of medium & heavy weapons) :(
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Apokus on May 05, 2011, 08:10:35 PM
Well.. for a moment i thought about a little prog (or Startmenusetting from Starfarer? :D) that could change the Data folder to activate a single modification while renaming data to "data xyz" and renaming the "data mod" to the current data folder mh..
That way you could change the folders without big trouble mhmm... (Its the easiest way i guess to change the whole data folder.. you cant play the old missions with the new ships anyway without modding the missionfiles.. ^^)
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: SeaBee on May 05, 2011, 09:05:57 PM
I love this. Didn't expect the first announced custom ships to be so good. Great work!
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 05, 2011, 09:24:18 PM
Thanks ;D Considering I have some background in top-down ship design (http://forums.devdb.org/index.php?topic=11.0), that helps quite a bit, even though I've never done pixel art till now, and if I'm going to do something, I should at least do it as right as I can...
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: SeaBee on May 05, 2011, 10:05:07 PM
Thanks ;D Considering I have some background in top-down ship design (http://forums.devdb.org/index.php?topic=11.0), that helps quite a bit, even though I've never done pixel art till now, and if I'm going to do something, I should at least do it as right as I can...
You have incredible talent. If you aren't rich, something is wrong with the world.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 05, 2011, 10:41:33 PM
lol, thanks :D

(on the subject of being "rich" from artistic abilities, this summer I may actually be putting them to use for profit -- maybe I can afford a new computer X3 -- [is a student studying comp-sci])

Anyways, I hope to get at least pictures of the neutrino up with the fixed edges (ie, not as dark)
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: David on May 06, 2011, 12:11:33 AM
Quote
"rich" from artistic abilities

I don't know whether to laugh, cry or drink.  :-\

ps. The ships look good Avan! Heck, if we get this level of modding in just a week, things are going to be insane(ly cool) down the line.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Ivaylo on May 06, 2011, 03:58:51 AM
How about all three? :D
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 06, 2011, 07:53:34 AM
Lol thanks david X3

Ok, cleaned up the borders a bit on the neutrino (made them less dark). Still not totally satisfied with it, but I'll give it some more work later.

(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/neutrinocleanedborders.png)
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: SeaBee on May 06, 2011, 08:44:28 AM
Sexy.

Quote
"rich" from artistic abilities

I don't know whether to laugh, cry or drink.  :-\

Laugh at the world's barbarism, cry that the world is obsessed over the dumbest of things, drink because theres so little we can do to right this injustice.

Take this game. It's going to be so incredible when it's finished, but it probably will never be as successful as a random, mediocre "mainstream" game as far as revenue goes. Which means the guys that poured so much energy and care into it won't get the reward I think they deserve.

Though I'd rather enjoy seeing it become something of a Minecraft in sales.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 06, 2011, 11:41:26 AM
The frigate is coming along really nicely. ;D
I actually had to lower the amount of detail as I found that it was getting too cluttered for its small frame; that level of detail would be best left for larger destroyers/smaller cruisers and above. I just have two hard points left to add, and then I need to get it in-game. Given the faction's dark color scheme, I'm worried that stock weapons might stick out too much >.> - though its easily remedied given I can simply give them weapons of their own.

Because of the time to get it in-game, I will probably just put up a picture of the sprite in the meantime.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 06, 2011, 12:09:29 PM
Here is the Proton frigate hull:

(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/proton_ff.png) [Note that I have not yet centered the ship or cropped off the extra blank regions of the image yet]

The only bits of it I frankened were the slots & the 'wing' hardpoints, taken from the Onslaught. The wing hardpoints are actually just modified versions of some 'decorative' stubs on the Onslaught XD
The rest of the ship's hull is completely original.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 06, 2011, 01:35:50 PM
Took a while to get all the weapons and such placed nicely on their points, and am still currently playing around with various configurations. I'll post some in-game screens once I feel more-or-less finished. I'm just using stock weapons for now.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 06, 2011, 02:02:23 PM
And here is the end result!

(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/protonandneutrino.png)
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Blips on May 06, 2011, 02:11:12 PM
Awesome. I'm tempted to make a custom capital ship, but it looks like it would be quite time consuming to do: having to cross reference all the weapon types and slot sizes etc.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Alex on May 06, 2011, 02:39:11 PM
Whoa, that's one heavily armed frigate! Very nice, and I really like how these are shaping up into their own faction with a distinct feel.

Awesome. I'm tempted to make a custom capital ship, but it looks like it would be quite time consuming to do: having to cross reference all the weapon types and slot sizes etc.

Yeah, I don't even want to think about how much work that was for a frigate :) Well, it'll get a lot easier when we release some tools.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 06, 2011, 02:57:37 PM
^^ hehe - this ship did take quite some time to make

Gameplay wise, the Proton frigate is something like a slightly more versatile Hyperion strike frigate, in that it still has passable offensive capabilities even after its main armament has been exhausted. It does not pack as massive a punch as the hyperion does though (only a single pulse laser vs. 2 Antimatter blasters), nor does it have as high of an acceleration and speed.

This frigate took a lot longer than it should have though, because I ended up over-detailing it early on in the design process, and had already compressed my layers, meaning I had to go back and manually remove a lot of the detailing.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 06, 2011, 04:51:13 PM
Ok, going to start on a destroyer or second frigate after I eat dinner: probably wont finish it till tomorrow though, given I have other things I also have to do then >.<.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: calmforce on May 06, 2011, 10:56:39 PM
Avan, this is beautiful work!

I have been sitting in the shower, dreaming about all the modding possibilities of this game. It´s grand to have so many options.

Anyway, back to histology for me :-)
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 06, 2011, 11:05:52 PM
 :D thanks ^^

Sometime I'd like to put up a more-or-less step-by-step thing on how I have been making ships (which at the moment would have to be updated with the frequency I change my tactics & approach)

I also just noticed that I have two types of small slots as opposed to 2 smalls and 1 medium total (I'm using one style of small as the medium in there >.>)

Oh well... a bit late to change that. I'm doing it correctly on this next ship which is either going to be a large destroyer or small cruiser. Given the size of this ship, I am nolonger placing down pixels with my mouse, but have resorted to using my tablet to lay down the base color, using my mouse for fine work
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Blips on May 06, 2011, 11:21:06 PM
Avan, how does the coord system work for weapon placement and angles. Also, 0,0 doesn't seem to be the center specified in the ship file.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 06, 2011, 11:31:47 PM
as Alex explained it to me, all coordinates are based off of the center coordinates. Its X,Y coords when the ship is facing the right of the screen (0 degrees), but for symmetrical ships, you can simply use the inverse, and go with Y,X coordinates without having any perceptible difference. So if the center coords are set to 50,50, then you have coords of something else listed at X,Y in the file, the actual coordinates on the bitmap are 50+X,50+Y

Center coords are taken from the bottom left of the sprite's image file
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Blips on May 06, 2011, 11:36:33 PM
as Alex explained it to me, all coordinates are based off of the center coordinates. Its X,Y coords when the ship is facing the right of the screen (0 degrees), but for symmetrical ships, you can simply use the inverse, and go with Y,X coordinates without having any perceptible difference. So if the center coords are set to 50,50, then you have coords of something else listed at X,Y in the file, the actual coordinates on the bitmap are 50+X,50+Y

Center coords are taken from the bottom left of the sprite's image file

Thanks for clearing that up. I had a feeling that the ship was being rotated but had no idea that the center coords were offsets rather than an absolute position.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: mendonca on May 07, 2011, 06:43:05 AM
Avan, they are really cool.

And thanks to your pioneering work, I can introduce to you:

THE SICKLE

(http://www.zen102301.zen.co.uk/images/sickle.png)

(I'm no David Baumgart, but it looks okay in the game!)

Standard loadout is a couple of PD lasers, front mounting Vulcan, and a broadside antimatter cannon for strafing runs past bigger ships and opportunistic shots on smaller ones. Handles like a dog, but should be fast enough.

And in the game!

(http://www.zen102301.zen.co.uk/images/sickle_1.jpg)

(http://www.zen102301.zen.co.uk/images/sickle_2.jpg)

Thanks for all this Alex, this is really cool and a lot of fun to play with!
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 07, 2011, 07:22:42 AM
 :D
That looks great in-game! Keep up the good work, its great to see I'm not the only one adding ships now!  ;D

In other news, I hope to get my current ship finished today. This one's pretty big, in the cruiser range, wider than an apogee and just as long, about, though it has a pronged design, so its overall about the same size, maybe a bit bigger.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: mendonca on May 07, 2011, 07:31:34 AM
Thanks! It doesn't look too bad really, does it!  ;D

Good luck with your ship, sounds like hard work, but I am very excited to see it!
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 07, 2011, 07:48:37 AM
I think they increase in difficulty (amount of work you have to put in) at (n^n) as area increases quadratically (n^2). XD
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Alex on May 07, 2011, 08:43:52 AM
Holy crap, great work! I love it - it does look very nice in-game.

I was certain that nobody would be willing to wade through the ... odd ... coordinate system etc to do this, but you've proved me so, so very wrong.


Well, now I'll just have to set up some nice way to bundle ships and missions together, so you guys can easily share your creations :)
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 07, 2011, 09:37:19 AM
 :D After Naev and Transcendence, another coordinate system is a piece of cake. (Naev uses a 3 axis system to give vertical displacement, simulating height, and Transcendence has two different coordinate systems, one Polar and one Cartesian.)
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Blips on May 07, 2011, 10:30:10 AM
Inroducing the new (and improved?) ISS Joyless, Falcon-C-class Attack Cruiser.

(http://i51.tinypic.com/2h4dfn7.png)

(http://i55.tinypic.com/2r5viph.png)

In the above images you can see the new modified cruiser (left) engaging his predecessor.

I didn't make a brand new ship, but I did tweak the original Falcon graphics to give the new model a smoother, more durable appearance.

Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: mendonca on May 07, 2011, 10:44:58 AM
(http://www.zen102301.zen.co.uk/images/octopus.png)

The octopus carrier, wip  :)

I've not got round to defining and getting in the game yet
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 07, 2011, 11:17:44 AM
And boom! I'm done with the sprite! :3 That took FOREVER >.< (like... 10 hours?)

(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/perentie_cr.png)
This cruiser is a beast (and is named after a large monitor lizard for a reason - the naming scheme shift is present at about the destroyer region)... Again, this ship focuses on survivability (except through superior flux venting abilities, (those holes aren't just decorative you know!) vs. running away abilities, letting it keep its shields up vs. having to run off and drop them while the ship vents flux, like all the others I have made for this faction so far, as running away isn't really possible with a ship this size). This also results in a fairly steep price tag, combined with the large number of slots:
8x Small Turret [Energy]
4x Medium Turret [Energy]
1x Large Turret [Energy]
1x Large Hardpoint [Energy]
2x Large Hardpoint [Missile]
Given the ship already has a large amount of internal space dedicated to flux venting abilities, you won't get that many armament points: if you decide to further increase the ship's ability to vent flux, you will have to give up use of some of your weapons.

I hope to get it in-game later today!
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Ivaylo on May 07, 2011, 11:23:40 AM
I see you've discovered the Joy of the Hephaestae. My favorite gun in the game btw..... nice work.

Inroducing the new (and improved?) ISS Joyless, Falcon-C-class Attack Cruiser.

(http://i51.tinypic.com/2h4dfn7.png)

(http://i55.tinypic.com/2r5viph.png)

In the above images you can see the new modified cruiser (left) engaging his predecessor.

I didn't make a brand new ship, but I did tweak the original Falcon graphics to give the new model a smoother, more durable appearance.


Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 07, 2011, 01:50:06 PM
Here's an ingame shot of the perentie.

(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/perentieandfighters.png)

I threw on the plasma cannon since I wanted to see what it was like in operation. X3
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: mendonca on May 07, 2011, 04:05:10 PM
Beautiful work Avan! looks like a nasty ship.

My carrier now is in the game, sprite still needs a bit of work though. Phew. These co-ords are bending my brain.

(http://www.zen102301.zen.co.uk/images/screenshot009.jpg)

Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Ivaylo on May 08, 2011, 11:10:55 AM
That actually looks really awesome :)
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: mendonca on May 08, 2011, 12:52:37 PM
Thanks Ivaylo  :D

It's just too much fun designing ships and then watching them whizz about shooting stuff!

The Sickle now has a sibling - the (drumroll) Hammer!

(http://www.zen102301.zen.co.uk/images/hammer.png)

The sprites a bit too clean so I will go in and tweak it about for a bit of interest, but my flux is in serious need of venting on the art department - so that will have to wait.

It's basically supposed to be a platform for delivering a heavy payload of missiles. Not very good at anything else. I have it currently in the game as a lightweight, relatively slow but agile thing. It can take down a carrier but it gets slaughtered by fighters. Not sure if that is good or not, I suspect if this design wasn't going to be immediately consigned to the scrap-heap it would be able to at least dodge and run away from fighters. Perhaps they would have given it a better shield.

Anyway - behold - all three of them at deployment!

(http://www.zen102301.zen.co.uk/images/threesup.jpg)
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Ivaylo on May 08, 2011, 12:55:09 PM
Hammer and Sickle eh?
...
...
...
<salute>
???? ????????? ????????? ?????????
???????? ?????? ??????? ???? !
?? ??????????? ????????? ????? ???????
???????, ??????? ????????? ????!
</salute>

Btw I am not Russian. :D :D :D  ;D
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 08, 2011, 12:56:48 PM
lol

I just see a whole lot of sad faces Ivaylo.

---

Maybe you can have the sickles cover for the hammers? they seem to be carrying nothing but point defenses.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Ivaylo on May 08, 2011, 01:25:11 PM
I hereby am creating an open ticket to Support for UTF-8 support on the forums!
<create><create><create><create>
<send>
<wait>
<seethe>
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: mendonca on May 08, 2011, 01:43:13 PM
Now I'm really confused ...   :D

The sickle went back to the shipyard and they decided to get rid of the quirky & fun, but ultimately useless antimatter blaster pointing to the side. She is now packing a medium energy turret, on which she most often likes to wear a pulse laser. She looks after her best friend, Hammer, pretty well, and she has a GSOH.

(http://www.zen102301.zen.co.uk/drawing/sickle.png)
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Ivaylo on May 08, 2011, 03:06:59 PM
Yeah sorry, programmer humor is... odd.

Edit: I just noticed your ship is an Octopus-Class freighter. That is really cool.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Alex on May 08, 2011, 03:58:17 PM
I think that's a carrier :) But yeah, quite cool. Is it GSB Empire inspired?
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 08, 2011, 05:54:50 PM
I think he just never changed the designation in that screen
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: mendonca 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.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: mendonca 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  ;)
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Ivaylo 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
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan 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.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Alex 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.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: mendonca on May 09, 2011, 07:33:53 AM
Thanks Chaps!  :)
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan 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.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan 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.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan 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:

(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/perentiedesignprocess.png) (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
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: mecharm on May 11, 2011, 11:02:59 AM
Gorgeous.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan 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.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: baxmau 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 :\
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: mendonca 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?
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: baxmau 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"?
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: mendonca on May 16, 2011, 12:23:03 AM
Cool.

There *is* a log file in the main Starfarer directory (I think it's called starfarer.log)

Whilst not perfect, if you identify the point in that log file where it displays the error, it can make it a lot easier to find. At least down to the file which is giving the error.

If you find this and it's not immediately obvious what you are dealing with, post here and I can try and help? (emphasis on try ...)
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: baxmau on May 16, 2011, 12:25:38 AM
Thanks a lot! I edited my post a bit. I thought I'd be a little more vocal when trying to solve these issues, in case anyone else has these problems in the future :)
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: mendonca on May 16, 2011, 12:33:18 AM
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"?

Yeah, this is in line with my understanding.

The SHIP is the 'hull'. The physical lump of metal, with the fixed and rotating weapon fixing points. Engine and base shields etc. are defined by .csv file (i.e. Hammerhead). I think this kind of data is seperated in to the .csv file for ease of access for balancing the game, primarily.

The VARIANT is what you do with that hull, i.e. weapon loadout etc. (i.e. Balanced Hammerhead as existing, or you might make one called Elite Hammerhead [perhaps called hammerhead_Elite.variant], and give it some fancy lasers and extra flux capacitors etc.).

The VARIANT is the one that you call in to the game, on the current mission definition process.

EDIT: Forgot to say, let us know how you get on and feel free to post screenshots  :)
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: baxmau on May 16, 2011, 12:47:00 AM
Ok, the weapon mount points are all wacky still, and the loadout is quick copy-paste but i just *had* to show you guys :)

(http://i.imgur.com/eSvAK.jpg)
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Ivaylo on May 16, 2011, 02:07:35 AM
Oh my god.


That is so awesome man!
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 16, 2011, 07:27:56 AM
Did you do the graphics yourself?
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: baxmau on May 16, 2011, 10:01:36 AM
Thanks! :) I know its terribly off-canon to have a bunch of guns on Serenity, but hey.. I'm holding out for the trading aspect of the game :)

Avan: I found an image on google and modified it a bit to closer fit the art style. I plan on making one from scratch. I actually just preordered Starfarer last night. After playing a couple missions, the first thing I did was dig into the directories to see if I could make my own ships and missions. After hitting a snag, I came here. I'm super pleased with how easy it is to mod the game. I can't wait for the next build :)
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 18, 2011, 10:47:00 PM
I've been planning out and working on various weapons and jumping around from various ships designs to other ship designs

I hope to at least get some weapons done tomorrow (probably in my afternoon)
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Sinned on May 19, 2011, 03:34:57 PM
Impressive peeps, the content you added/created looks great.

Wish I had more time to play around with this stuff :) Buy my newborn is keeping me busy pretty much. Keep it up though, hope we can enjoy more of your handiwork!
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: mendonca on May 22, 2011, 03:01:02 AM
The Hammer is now a little bit less clean cut, her machine guns are now located below her hull (hidden mounts) and she is kitted out with three packs of annihilators.

(http://www.zen102301.zen.co.uk/images/hammers.png)

She has heavymg x2 on the front, these are actually more effective than the annihilators in the field. It's very difficult to hit with the annihilators, even though they spread quite wide in the 5-shot salvo (or fifteen in the hammers case). And then, when they do hit, they don't actually seem to do much damage. My thought is to bump the damage up ever so slightly, and also bump the speed / acceleration.

It just feels less like an Apache satisfactorily unloading its hydras and more like someone scattering some sausages, or something.

I'll test it and report back my feelings.

EDIT:

The annihilators at 300 damage, 400 max speed and 150 starting speed feel a bit more like I think they should, and they can relatively easily disable a frigate (if they can get through the shields). It helps as well if the three packs are on 'alternating'. having three linked annihilators, whilst bags of fun, does not make for good warfare control.

Oh by the way (because I know you are interested) ... two sickles and two hammers can easily mop up on 'Turning the tables' with no help, tactics or whatever. Strikes me that the pulse laser on the sickle is making it 'overpowered'. Might need to think about how I balance that so I can fit this in with the general concept for the ship suite I am bodging together. The general thought has always been some kind of cyber-gypsies, stealing high-tech from wherever and whacking together a space-ship from whatever bits of metal they can get (I know this is a bit outside the Starfarer lore, but that's the beauty of modding, eh?  :)). So they shouldn't be quite so tough as the sickle is. Perhaps she needs less energy flux reserves to draw on.

EDIT:

The sickle variant still had 10 flux capacitors and vents (as a holdover from copying the hyperion). If she loses them she more quickly becomes an overloaded sitting duck, which is nice, and maybe she feels alright now. We'll see when she is in her own mission though, I guess.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Alex on May 22, 2011, 07:56:01 AM
Lookin' good.

About the Annihilators - yeah, they could use some tweaking. Part of it is the AI isn't particularly effective with them - they can already do a lot of damage when fired at a larger ship in an up-close salvo, but they're hard to use.


Some thoughts about balancing ships (since you seem to be thinking about that) - keep in mind that if you put a medium energy slot on, that means it could be fitted with any medium or small energy weapon. You can't force it to have a pulse laser for example - the player could fit it with say a graviton beam (for a long range support role) or with a PD laser (underutilizing the slot, but saving ordnance points (OPs) for a mod like "heavy armor").

Likewise for small missile slots, you're looking at a potential single torpedo/srms/mrms/etc - missile slots are easily the most versatile in the game. So the Hammer could be fitted with three dual-racked Atropos-class torpedoes, making it a very potent strike craft. ("Strike" is the role designation for ships that are fitted to take on ships larger than themselves).

Oh, and the pulse laser is indeed very strong, to fill its intended role as a close assault weapon. In theory that's balanced by its lower range and high flux requirements - if that turns out not to be enough, its OP cost could go up as well.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: mendonca on May 22, 2011, 09:29:04 AM
Thanks Alex,

Yeah I accept part of the battle in all this will be getting the 'Ordnance Points' and 'Fleet Points' right to make fun, balanced fleets. I don't suppose we're subjected to all that at the minute, as theres no check on whether ships are overloaded or really the concept in my mind of what an 'Ordnance Point' is.

Will be fun to find out though, as things develop!

And my two communist buddies have some more little friends to play with:

(http://www.zen102301.zen.co.uk/images/spikeandcleat.png)

The spike (a heavily armored fighter, maybe looks a bit too much like the big ship from blasteroids to be a coincidence). Takes Talons to the cleaners. Comes in wings of two.

And the cleat (a lightly armored, fast bomber). Surprisingly sturdy, mainly due to the shield which is obviously being quite effective as they have low armor and hitpoints.

Nothing new, but as I have said before, it's too much fun watching your own ships whizz about!
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: mecharm on May 23, 2011, 04:27:22 AM
Looking awesome guys! Keep up the good work, it's appreciated!
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Magicked on May 23, 2011, 01:30:47 PM
Wow, I'm out of touch for a couple weeks (vacation and whatnot) and come back to all these new custom ships!  Really impressive!
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 24, 2011, 02:30:19 PM
I'm working on a older-tech style 'torpedo boat' sort of ship, with a single heavy missile hardpoint and a small ballistic turret (for some kind of light defense system) - might add a small missile slot as well.
I have the basic template done, but I still need to smooth out the colors, and then pixelize it. (Trying david's way)
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Alex on May 24, 2011, 05:04:05 PM
I'm working on a older-tech style 'torpedo boat' sort of ship, with a single heavy missile hardpoint and a small ballistic turret (for some kind of light defense system) - might add a small missile slot as well.
I have the basic template done, but I still need to smooth out the colors, and then pixelize it. (Trying david's way)

Aw, I was hoping for more ships when I clicked on this :) Looking forward to seeing it!

Another note on balance (which you're of course no obligated to follow, and isn't quite applicable anyway). Large slots generally mean increased range - so small, fast ships with large weapon slots can mean lots of kiting. This is probably least true for missiles as they tend to be more specialized, but say a frigate with a HIL would be a destroyer's worst nightmare. It would have to be rare/expensive/etc not to become too dominant.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 24, 2011, 05:41:12 PM
I have a rough version in-game, but the graphic is still not polished up yet.

I stuck a cyclone on it and kept the heavy mg from the hound which I copied its variant file from (probably going to size it down to a smaller gun later).
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 24, 2011, 08:05:20 PM
Here is the current version: I'm likely to continue refining it down the line:

(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/pikeandpositrons.png)

This is the pike-class strike frigate... and it is a ... very interesting little ship.

It has a half-coverage frontal shield (which overloads VERY quickly), a rear facing ballistic turret slot with 330 degrees over coverage (here mounting a heavy mg), and a frontal missile hardpoint (here with a cyclone, which is the weapon it was designed for: on the hull-version of the sprite (no weapons) the hardpoint even happens to be shaped rather conveniently for a cyclone... that was actually just a coincidence O_o).

Because its a frigate, and is relatively fast compared to its targets, or even its own main weapons, which causes some interesting problems with firing. You can't simply strafe along and shoot. The Reaper torpedoes are so slow that this tactic will cause you to miss an Onslaught by a mile ( no really, I think in-game it does in fact come out to about a mile on average, at least with the AI shooting). You essentially have to run right up to it, fire, and then back away as quickly as possible (the two torpedoes you just fired WILL kill you if you are too close to your target: first will overload you if you have shields, and the other will fry you.) in order to guarantee a hit (and you only have 10 volleys, so you have to make them count). You're in luck if there are a lot of enemy ships around, in which case you could probably get away with blindly firing into them... given this is likely a large fleet battle.

The rear facing turret is a blessing and a curse. It wont be a terribly big help shooting projectiles coming in from alternating front sides, but it can shoot down trailing missiles quite effectively (which is nice given the utter lack of shield coverage to the back of the ship.

Piloted in skillful hands, this ship can put serious dents in larger ships (and can take out an onslaught on its own): piloted in inept hands however, it is about the most ineffective ship in existance.

Which is to say: the AI tends NOT to fare very well at all in piloting this ship.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Alex on May 24, 2011, 08:19:51 PM
Very cool! I like it, some nice trade-offs and ship-specific tactics going on here.

About the AI - yeah, it's not good at firing torpedoes from faster-moving ships, to put it mildly. It's on the todo list, hopefully won't be that hard of a fix. The AI already has the concept of not firing some weapons if the relative lateral movement is too fast, but the way it's tuned isn't good enough for torpedoes. Will have to adjust it to take the approach/separation speed into account - that's the part that's screwing it up with faster-moving ships.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 24, 2011, 08:35:59 PM
Yeah, I enjoy doing these small light ships because you can give them highly dedicated roles and they will have their place, while the largest capships tend to be harder to make as extremely dedicated, while yet effective & useful.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 24, 2011, 09:15:05 PM
Inspired by the conversions of the Tarsus & Buffalo freighters into combat ships, I decided to do one of the Atlas into a capship-class carrier: its going to be a far cry from an Astral, but it will have lots of light slots, more armor, even worse speed (because it trades the massive amount of cargo it was carrying for deckspace & armor), can service at least as many wings as the Astral, and will have a bit better flux stats.

I think I might also make another variant designed specifically for ranged support like the converted buffalo.

OC, they would not be as survivable as a military grade ship, but hey, they are better than nothing!

I'm making these for some missions I'd like to do in .34a :D
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: mendonca on May 24, 2011, 10:48:12 PM
Lovely stuff Avan, looks great and sounds completely bonkers.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 24, 2011, 11:13:18 PM
lol thanks X3

The refitted atlas carrier: (entirely frankened: mostly from the buffalo II) (sorry for butchering your ships david  ;) - lol)

(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/atlas_cv.png)

It can take 4 wings, and is adorned with small slots mean specifically for pretty much light machine guns and a few PD lasers (given the ordinance point restrictions of this ship: it is afterall still a converted civilian ship and isn't going to be able to handle a ton of say, LR PD lasers.

It has 4 small missile hardpoints to the rear, meant for swarmers (or perhaps some atropos torp racks for defense against pesky larger ships that get too close), a small missile hardpoint to the left and a medium missile hardpoint to the right

Lastly, there are a pair of large turret mounts on the sides, though normally you won't be able to have large turrets there (plus this ship has a very low tolerance for things that output a lot of flux) due to OP restrictions, so normally there will be some medium turrets (likely flak or dual flak)

Tomorrow I'll get it in-game & operational as well.


-----------------

Also, here is the current base sprite for the pike frigate:

(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/pike_ff.png)
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 25, 2011, 10:17:05 AM
I managed to have an AI controlled Atlas 2 blow itself up with its own atropos launchers during my last testing run. >.<

The sad thing was that the enemy was far out of range anyways, and so they never would have hit.


The Atlas 2 overloads very easily, has terrible shield coverage, and so pretty much has to rely entirely on its PD to keep it safe from torps and missiles, and it has to simply hide out of the action area, because it has essentially no ability to defend against direct fire weapons (Hull armor is still very thin, a bit thicker than before, but not very). It can take out one or two heavy ships that strays too close with the atropos launchers, but other than that it has to stay entirely out of the way.

I must say though that it flies gracefully like an eagle... piloting a blimp.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Alex on May 25, 2011, 11:10:01 AM
*thumbs up*

Looks like an interesting ship. Very heavily armed, especially for a civilian ship converted into a carrier, but probably makes up for that by non-existent maneuverability and thin armor. I can see outfitting this thing with a bunch of railguns to make it a credible mid-range threat and a royal pain to get close to - assuming the OP limitations can be overcome with the right skills.


I managed to have an AI controlled Atlas 2 blow itself up with its own atropos launchers during my last testing run. >.<

The sad thing was that the enemy was far out of range anyways, and so they never would have hit.

Did it hit an asteroid? If so, known issue :)  It really shouldn't launch if the target is out of range, though - those things have an effective range of over 1500, which is actually pretty far...
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 25, 2011, 11:38:40 AM
You could probably go with all mining lasers or no small energy turrets, and have all the ballistic ones with railguns.

Without all the small slots for point defenses, it would be ripped to shreds by bombers, missiles, and torpedoes in seconds: they are in fact there because it flies like a brick, with paper for armor. :D (This is in contrast to the Condor (also a combat-capable civilian ship modification to a light carrier), which flies decently, has shields that do more than protect you from stray wrecks and asteroids, and can run away, but doesn't have a huge amount of point defenses as it doesn't really need them.)
And the Atropos racks essentially are a 'spare life' for you, in that they give you a chance to survive say, a venture bearing down on your position. Of course, they are a single-use gambit, and once they are gone... Well, just hope you have some bombers handy.


As to the AI ship, it fired them behind it, and then turned around and accelerated, causing the torpedoes to fizzle out just as they passed over the bow.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 25, 2011, 10:45:41 PM
Decided to do a quick alteration of the hammerhead... but I'm running into errors with the game not liking my CSV file. Attempting to debug this issue...
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 26, 2011, 06:53:21 AM
Ok, I guess googledocs just messed up something somewhere. I went back and revereted it, than changed it, and now it seems to work.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: mendonca on May 26, 2011, 07:22:07 AM
Just as a point of curiosity, I have been using Notepad++ for editing CSV files (as well as the java, json, ship, variant files etc.)

Not especially readable, but avoids any potential formatting muddling or whatever is going on.

Also: I see your new posts and keep expecting to see your new ships in action, before ultimately being disappointed  :)
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 26, 2011, 07:56:44 AM
Had to get them working first before I can get screens, no?

Anyways, here are pictures!

Here is the anvil gunship: (the one I was working on and then had the csv issues)
(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/anvil_gs.png)

Here are screens of the last two ships in-game
(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/anvilscreen.png)
(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/anvilcondorattck.png)
(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/atlasIIatropos.png)
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Alex on May 26, 2011, 08:08:24 AM
Looks awfully similar to the brawler (http://www.fractalsoftworks.com/public/brawler_vigilance.jpg), too :)

Oh, I see what you did - cut the head off the hammerhead. I was wondering why that looked *so* familiar, heheh.

Nice to see the Atlas Mk.2 in action, I like it! That stream of incoming Atropos torps looks like it's going to ruin someone's day.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 26, 2011, 08:35:59 AM
>:3 I found this giant torpedo graphic in the missiles folder, and am currently making a launcher for it.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Alex on May 26, 2011, 08:37:26 AM
<makes mental note to clean up the graphics folder>  ;D
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Ivaylo on May 26, 2011, 10:25:43 AM
LOL. I love the ";D" smiley.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 26, 2011, 10:28:19 AM
Wheee!  :D It works - and quite beautifully too!

I was decelerating right into the explosion on this one, because I was going so fast...
(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/doomedusall.png)

I gave the full screenshot here, as anything less wouldn't have done the explosion justice.
(big picture, so I ;linked it instead)
[edit - turns out it got auto resized, so here is the picture anyways]
(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/ragnaroktorpexplosion.png)
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 26, 2011, 09:33:30 PM
... and I decided to make another ship out of david's sprites (I'm leaving for home during the weekend, and plan on migrating my mods over to the new format for .34a, so I'm trying to get as many ships done now as possible)
And its another flat & fat ship! (mostly because they feel under-appreciated, and I felt I needed to make a nod to a rather infamously bad ms-paint spaceship someone made for transcendence, even if only the shape is /vaguely/ remiscent of it)

Phoenix-class monitor(?)
(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/phoenix_mn.png)

From the huge number of hardpoints this ship has facing the front (they will have a little bit more swivel allowing them to all fire more or less to the front)... it is clear how this ship intends to be used.

Basically, all the firepower of a conquest (From which it was derived) all set to fire in a single direction.
This ship also has a gargantual engine array, and is capable of surprising top speeds, acceleration, and turn rate (which is useful given what a huge target the ship is as well).

With 5 heavy ballistic & 6 medium ballistic hardpoints all directed to the front, you don't want to be on the business end of this ship. It also sports 2 heavy missile hardpoints at the "wing"-tips, along with 4 light energy and 2 large energy turrets. Rounding it off are a set of 4 ballistic turrets in the back, two of which have the ability to shoot to the front as well, which make great places for dual flak turrets.

This ship employs a large frontal shield that... covers only the front. But then again, you probably don't need any more coverage than that anyways. Given the weapon configuration, and position of the shield, you need to be very careful about overloading the ship... its still only about as heavily armored as a conquest (a little bit more, but not all that much)
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 26, 2011, 11:40:22 PM
And here is an in-game screenshot:
(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/phoenix.png)
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: frostphoenyx on May 27, 2011, 12:51:08 AM
Woah ! This last ship is awesome Avan ! Great job !
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 27, 2011, 06:39:22 AM
glad you like it!
I probably won't get around to making any more ships for this weekend while I port everything over & am traveling about.

Can't wait for the .34a modder's preview release.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 27, 2011, 11:22:07 AM
I ended up adding a whole bunch of variants (~20 in all) to existing ships & some of my ships this morning... I might stick some of them into my missions this weekend.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: mendonca on May 30, 2011, 12:43:40 PM
(http://www.zen102301.zen.co.uk/images/trilobite.png) (http://www.zen102301.zen.co.uk/images/trilobite_screen.png)

The trilobite ... (and also showing it in the game ... Alex's engine making dodgy ship-art look great since 2011 ...)

This has room for a lot of flux, but doesn't have a shield. Instead it's all protected by heavy armour, but it uses that spare energy for a large engine and a large front facing energy mount, normally mounting a HIL. Thinking the balance would be to give it enough OPs to mount an HIL and some flux capacitors, or possibly go for one of the other better energy guns, at reduced flux capacity.

Only having the one gun and no shield is a severe limitation, but the fact that it's a chunky gun should make it useful as part of a team.

E: Ship graphic tweaked

Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: calmforce on May 31, 2011, 07:56:44 AM
Guys, I admire your work!  :)
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 31, 2011, 09:06:54 PM
I made a couple high performance high OP missile launchers at large & small sizes: the pilum LRM heavy launcher (which is a seriously beefed up standard pilum launcher: launches 5 at a time, up to 100, but that kind of ammo storage & loading comes at a cost; exact same philosophy behind the sabot SRM repeater, a light sabot missile system that can fire 2 missiles/second for a total of 24 missiles, and again it takes a large number of OP, comparatively speaking.

I stuck the repeater on a Sunder variant, and the heavy pilum on the perentie and the phoenix support variant

Edit - created a repeater version of the swarmer (specifically meant to be a viable version of it for capships, again more expensive than the version used on fighter wings) - currently only on a new variant of the atlas 2
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on June 01, 2011, 11:00:01 AM
I decided to start on a relatively simple ship to try another stab at doing david-like pixel art.

As such, I decided to introduce an even older tech style, with the idea behind it that the weapons and ships could be easily assembled in primitive manual factories (high output and low infrastructure cost, at the cost of max tech), without having to have a fancy manual factory (tech limited only by what you can develop, but at cost of very low output and high infrastructure cost*) or an autofactory (high output, but at the cost of a high infrastructure cost, and tech is limited by blueprints available)

This would give me even more options when it comes to rogue-faction owned ships (Because these ships are dirt cheap by comparison)

the "Ancient" style ships are so old, many of them outright lack shielding capabilities, with the ones that do having very tiny shields, and often are restricted to smaller slot sizes (though can tend towards having many smaller slots vs. fewer larger ones), and nearly exclusively use ballistic weapons, with some missile slots, and rarely an energy slot. They also tend to have underwhelming armor & hull HP, but make up for this in extremely low cost (both production & fleet points) and actually pretty good maneuverability.

the "Ancient" style weapons include basic ballistic weapons, primitive dumbfire missiles, though variants will also mount some more modern (But often still old and cheap) tracking ones, and a couple very crude directed energy weapons with ranges so short they could be classed as melee weapons (range ~200) (they are highly effective in their specific role: ie, one is a charged particle beam which does fragmentation damage, but imparts a huge amount of flux to the target).


*I only plan on a single faction with this capability so far - it will not be common /at all/.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Dark.Revenant on June 01, 2011, 02:27:28 PM
At least give them a ridiculously powerful, expensive, and slow mass driver weapon.  Then they can be a special threat to your fleet if you happen to catch a ship with such a weapon.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on June 01, 2011, 03:29:54 PM
I'll be sure to give them enough offensive capabilities to make up for their lack in the shielding and armor department.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Flare on June 01, 2011, 07:08:40 PM
the "Ancient" style ships are so old, many of them outright lack shielding capabilities, with the ones that do having very tiny shields, and often are restricted to smaller slot sizes (though can tend towards having many smaller slots vs. fewer larger ones), and nearly exclusively use ballistic weapons, with some missile slots, and rarely an energy slot. They also tend to have underwhelming armor & hull HP, but make up for this in extremely low cost (both production & fleet points) and actually pretty good maneuverability.

Maybe instead of giving all ships of antiquity low armor, make it so that the majority of the ships have low armor, and give the top of the line ancient battleships a ridiculous amount of armor (at the cost of speed of course, though I could imagine them putting equally ridiculously huge engines in as well). Perhaps the really really old era did have the manufacturing and manpower to do this, their tech may not have been much to consider, but i would think they would have still known a thing or two about overwhelming force and concentrating your best stuff on your best ships. I guess the majority of the ancient ships would be quite fragile and undergunned as they were, but the ones that are top of the line are ships that (in my imagination) outgun and out armor modern ships with low tech and low armor equipment.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on June 01, 2011, 07:34:38 PM
I didn't want to infringe on the onslaught's area ;)

I think that I might just go with giving them thin armor, but large amounts of hull HP as the size increases, given the bulk of the larger ships.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: mendonca on June 02, 2011, 07:23:47 AM
All sounds very interesting, Avan.

Looking forward to seeing them come to fruition.

Just for fun, a drawing of a destroyer concept to go with the Hammer et. al:

(http://www.zen102301.zen.co.uk/images/boxer_destroyer.PNG)
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: mecharm on June 03, 2011, 03:37:40 AM
This is so awesome!

I love concept art! <3
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Alex on June 03, 2011, 07:51:58 AM
Looks very nice! Incidentally, has just the right amount of armaments for a military-grade destroyer :)
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on June 03, 2011, 10:53:51 AM
I've added in a bunch of weapons, including a high-yield EMP torpedo (very high flux, though for a torpedo it does rather sub-stellar raw damage), 2 pulse beam PD weapons (though they are not the PULSE weapon type), a close-quarters anti-capship pulse beam (again, not a PULSE weapon type), and have a few more missiles and a lot more projectile weapons planned out. Many of them don't have their own sprites yet though and are just using placeholders.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Alex on June 03, 2011, 10:59:09 AM
including a high-yield EMP torpedo

Heheh, did you use the other-colored Atropos-like graphic for it? That would be amusing because that's exactly what it's slated for :)
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on June 03, 2011, 11:19:46 AM
including a high-yield EMP torpedo

Heheh, did you use the other-colored Atropos-like graphic for it? That would be amusing because that's exactly what it's slated for :)
:D I was guessing as much  ;D
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on June 03, 2011, 01:34:01 PM
Also added in a reloading-launcher (with some clearly frankened sprites X3) for the two small tracking torpedos - this gives me quite a bit more loadout optioning: they cost high ordinance points though for small missile slots, given the necessity of the loading & ammo storage systems, so its not something a frigate is probably going to want (unless it actually has the OP to spare) - but its a great way for a destroyer or cruiser to spend some extra OP on a small missile slot.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on June 04, 2011, 11:14:03 AM
Wow, that sure took forever, but I finally managed to churn out a ship that didn;t stick out as sorely as the pike did among david's ships X3 (which I really want to get around to redoing sometime next week)

And a fighter too, as a bonus.

Currently getting them in-game, so it will be a while before I have pics.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on June 04, 2011, 01:20:55 PM
Here is the javelin class frigate in a semi-PD configuration with modern weapons (I have not made the really old tech weapons yet): (http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/javelin.png)

Here is the gnat class interceptor with a venture outfitted with reloading atropos & EMP torp launchers: (http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/gnatsandventure.png)

Currently the javelin is a fairly versatile hull sporting 4 ballistic turrets and a pair of missile hardpoints, all small size. It has nice speed and hull HP, but low armor and no shields. I might decide to have the 'very old' ships have decent armor as well, but still lack shields - differentiating them from the higher tech low tech ships which at least have shields, and remove some of the extra hull HP, since right now its not uncommon to have charred looking javelins flying about with almost perfectly intact hulls because the paper-thin armor got fried off by some interceptors.

The gnat comes in packs of 6, costs a single fleet point, and repairs very quickly. It also a whopping armor rating of 5 and 50 hull hitpoints. So a single flak shot should be more than enough to take them out. Their very low survivability is offset by having a tiny size and a miniscule hitbox, not to mention incredibly high speed and a pair of light machine guns. They fail abysmally when used without a carrier for support, but given their superb running away skills, can be a severe pain for ships lacking beam or flak point defenses, as they can escape and come back at full strength.

The venture in the second picture has some underwhelming guns, to offset the high OP cost of the torpedo tubes.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on June 04, 2011, 05:02:43 PM
(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/javelinwithN33s.png)

A javelin with 3 N33 artil guns. (The name is a very vague reference to a weapon in Transcendence with similar looking projectiles.)
The N33 generates so much flux that you have to vent every time you fire all of them X3 - however, it is a superb weapon, but one of the more expensive ones to manufacture, given it is on the upper end of the manually made 'ancient' designs (non-autofactory). It has incredible range and velocity, letting you pin targets from a good distance away: its NOT a melee weapon though,  given it has the slowest reload of any ballistic weapon (though it has nothing on some missiles)
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on June 04, 2011, 08:06:14 PM
(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/martenandjavelin.png)

New ship: Marten-class Pocket Carrier
It has a good number of turret slots, but its got less OP than the Javelin: it does however have a greater flux capacity and more hull HP

I felt the Javelin was good enough that I could franken it, so I did X3

Anyways, I was rushing it out for the sake of a new mission I'm planning - it required a carrier because of the use of gnats, which... are pretty poor without a carrier X3
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on June 05, 2011, 11:29:00 AM
(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/venturewithdualartil.png)

Added a medium sized dual artil cannon, basically the exact same as the original, but with ammo and firerate (and thus flux production) doubled.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Trylobot on June 05, 2011, 11:38:46 AM
That dual cannon is a really sexy turret. The Space Pirates would like to do business with you, haha  :D
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on June 05, 2011, 04:49:08 PM
 :D Thanks!

I have 3 more weapons in the works, along with a destroyer, a cruiser, and a battleship
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on June 05, 2011, 09:14:29 PM
(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/mace.png)

Mace class destroyer

So what I have ended up doing is essentially making a library of ship parts which I then franken together, and then do some touch up work afterwords, sometimes with a complete surface rework (in which case I cut those up and make even more parts!)

What I am doing with this visual style is this having two distinct sub-lines of ships: one that is less heavily armored (but still have the highest hull HP and a fairly good armor amount) but faster, like all those seen here, and one with an insane amount of armor & hull HP, but much slower (these are the capships), and they are also visibly encased by armor.

For the most part, the smaller ships are in the former category, and the larger ships will all be in the latter category, though I do plan for a heavily armored destroyer, and maybe a light cruiser. The heavily armored ships also tend towards a more streamlined design, given their construction, vs. the more 'haphazard' look of the lighter ships, which don't need to be thoroughly encased in armor.

None of them will have shields - as such, the larger ships will have large quantities of slots meant ideally for PD: neglecting PD will mean that if your opponents have torpedoes, you will be dead.

---

Anyways, as to the mace - class destroyer, the current loadout has a bunch of placeholders. I also found the current configuration is actually pretty terrible vs. anything with homing torpedoes. Which I just happened to have in the mission I stuck it in :P
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Trylobot on June 05, 2011, 10:04:09 PM
I've been favoring a heavy-armor, no-shield build as well, but have also restricted myself to ballistic weapons. I find that the most effective PD for me is light machine guns, but it takes at least two of them concentrating their fire to take out one of the red torpedoes.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Alex on June 06, 2011, 11:32:57 AM
Looking good, I'm loving all the screenshots.

The homing torpedoes won't be quite as inexorable in the next build, btw :)
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on June 06, 2011, 01:43:05 PM
(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/lionandescorts.png)

Lion class battleship (in this screenshot I blatantly threw stuff on there with no regard for OP limit or slot size... which is why for example the dual flak cannons look like they were just jammed on the front corners of the ship)

anyways, its got more small turret slots than you can shake a stick at, 4 large turrets, 1 large missile hardpoint (for a missile I have yet to make), and 6 medium turrets. It has 6 small missile turret slots as well: convenient for ... yet another missile I have yet to make.

Its got movement just marginally better than an onslaught, if only because its got a higher thrust/mass ratio (Which I base by the linear amount of engines & their exhaust size vs. the area of the ship), despite its heavier armor. Its perfect torpedo bait, so long as you can distract those PD will something long enough for the torpedo to get through (or use two torpedoes). Its RL battleship-inspired layout gives it fairly good coverage all-around, though it is definitely weaker to the back.

(In my play tests, I once was saved by those annoying (they slaughter my atlas 2's and cause frigates to spin out) hypervelocity asteroids I had been meaning to take out of my test mission, when some torpedoes heading dead-center for me were about to hit, I got slammed on the broadside by 4 hypervelocity asteroids, moving me just far enough out of the way to not get hit by the two torpedoes (Which would have been significantly more dangerous).
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on June 06, 2011, 03:30:29 PM
(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/lionmorebalanced.png)

Here is a less insane loadout, though its actually still above the OP level, though slot sizes & types are observed.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Flare on June 06, 2011, 05:16:51 PM
I'm loving these new designs much more than your previous darker (cliched?) iterations. I think you've developed greatly compared to when you were tinkering in the beginning an amazing feel for how 2d starships pan out all in all.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Trylobot on June 06, 2011, 09:55:42 PM
The Mace design was asymmetrical and I liked it a lot; the Lion has the same colors but doesn't seem to fit with the Mace, given its flawless lines. My two cents would be, make the Lion radically asymmetrical too.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on June 06, 2011, 10:19:22 PM
The mace is of the less heavily armored design sub-set, which are the asymetrical, less smooth ones. The graphical difference is intended, though not really easily shown at the moment, given there is only one ship of this other subset so far (there will be several more, though I probably may not get to them until next week, as I'm going to be busy all this week)
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: mendonca on June 07, 2011, 12:08:05 AM
(http://www.zen102301.zen.co.uk/images/junk_pirate_carrier_bk2.png)(http://www.zen102301.zen.co.uk/images/junk_pirate_carrier_bk3.png)

It's still heavily work in progress, but it's heading where I want it.

It's a kind of command / capital ship, or the best that can be managed with no design, a lot of welding, somebody elses engines and some sheet metal. It may still get a flight deck bolted on to the top of the large 'flux cylinder'. But I haven't got round to drawing it yet. Also colours seemed to have got a bit weird when I flattened the image, so I'll have to have a look at that.

The intention is to deck out the right hand side with missiles (probably 3 med and 1 large, slated for a hurricane). This delivers a guided payload from range. Also room for a small one pointing generally forward (swarmer)

The left hand side is the 'shield'. Ballistic pd and turrets pulverise anything that approaches from the wrong side.

Possibly a large energy point at the front for an HIL.

I could call it a Hoplite, if you were willing to accept that a 'shield and spear' metaphor was valid ...

Back right weakness would likely be countered slightly by an Omni shield, 120 degrees or so, with handsome flux reserves.

e: Tweaked graphic introduced for comparison
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Erebos on June 07, 2011, 01:19:18 AM
It's... gruesome.

I like it.

Coincidentally, I was just working on a concept for a Hoplite-themed craft, albeit not on such a grand scale....
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: mendonca on June 07, 2011, 01:53:15 AM
 :) Thanks !

I probably won't call it a Hoplite, as the name doesn't really fit in with the rest of its friends anyway. The 'Ancient Greek' slant also suggests elegance to me, and it ain't really that elegant ...
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Trylobot on June 07, 2011, 06:17:21 AM
Mendonca, you may want to change the color of the cylindrical bit in the middle from pink to something else.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: mendonca on June 07, 2011, 06:56:24 AM
 :D

Yes, good spot .... might be a good idea ...

Although the Phallus-class destroyer has a certain ring to it?
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Ivaylo on June 07, 2011, 08:43:39 AM
Your Phallus-class destroyer has a ring in it?? Did that hurt?
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on June 07, 2011, 08:49:43 AM
I'd probably make the flux cylinder grey, and give it some visible  plating to break up its smooth surface.

Would be quite fun to see this guy in combat.


Also, I /might/ have one of the heavily armored types out today (a destroyer)
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: mendonca on June 07, 2011, 11:33:19 AM
I couldn't resist, pink tube or not, I have done most of the work to get him in to the game so I tested him out.

(http://www.zen102301.zen.co.uk/images/dugong2.png)

(http://www.zen102301.zen.co.uk/images/dugong.png)

He's quite a lot of fun to drive, had some success with standing still and pointing the armed side against the onrushing enemy. I haven't used the laser, really.

The 6 light machine guns mop up most of the missiles as well. Get caught out though, and you can take a bit of a pummeling.

Next step - remove artistic Freudian slip (thanks Avan, I will take up your advice as well with colouring / extra detail).
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Trylobot on June 07, 2011, 11:34:04 AM
I notice that you refer to the ship as "He"





 :D
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on June 07, 2011, 11:46:50 AM
Is it just me, or do the battle damage effects work superbly with this ship?
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: mendonca on June 07, 2011, 01:18:32 PM
It's not just you, Avan. I think it's great.

Ship is now 'Safe for work' and non-gender-specific!
(http://www.zen102301.zen.co.uk/images/dugong3.jpg)
training the guns on some little pesky ships ...

(http://www.zen102301.zen.co.uk/images/dugong4.png)
... Notice which way my guns are pointing ... and which the direction the torpedoes have come from ... look how smug they are as they tootle off!! Tossers!

Sorry Ivaylo, was going to add a large ring to the front of the cylinder thing. Maybe I will before I publish it. You know, some sort of pipework arrangement, all very technical and not suggestive of anything else at all.  ;D
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Ivaylo on June 07, 2011, 01:30:52 PM
Thanks for not doing that ;D
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Flare on June 07, 2011, 05:03:50 PM
I liked it when it was pink :-[.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on June 07, 2011, 05:36:24 PM
I like the grey better with the cyan plating. Plus its consistent with the other ships color scheme he made.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Trylobot on June 07, 2011, 06:26:55 PM
I can't un-see what I have seen. Plus, it's named the Dudong.
Sorry  ::)
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on June 08, 2011, 08:52:23 AM
(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/ocelot.png)

Ocelot-class heavy destroyer
Its the heavily armored destroyer; 8 small ballistic, 2 small missile, 1 large ballistic, 1 large missile; again, it centers around the tradoffs of the large vs. small slots in terms of ordinance points.

I actually got it made yesterday.. and then forgot to upload it.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: theShadow on June 08, 2011, 09:39:02 AM
At first glance, the dudong looks like an awesome candidate for a carrier, if you replace the pink cylinder with a landing strip.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: mendonca on June 09, 2011, 10:40:04 AM
The boxer.

This one set out similar load-out to a balanced hammerhead, but slower and more armor.

(http://www.zen102301.zen.co.uk/boxer.png)
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Trylobot on June 09, 2011, 11:14:57 AM
It's got a Nitro tank! Sweeeet.

Wait.. idea...... *goes off to suggestions sub-forum*
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on June 09, 2011, 01:11:04 PM
It looks very smooth/polished; I think it needs a pixelation pass & detailing.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Erebos on June 10, 2011, 04:20:28 AM
The devil is in the details. I can put together a sprite, and implement it in the game without difficulty (thanks to those who have already done so), but breaking up the flat areas and gradients with exquisite detail, or pixel-wankery as David modestly calls it, is something I find quite tricky. At least the damage effects look good.

My efforts so far are below, in case anyone's interested. The sprite for the big one is unfinished, and illustrates my point. The small one is the Hoplite I mentioned earlier. I'm considering making it a fighter instead of a frigate so they can be used en masse and in close formation, but I'm not sure whether the fighter AI will use it defensively as intended at this stage – or indeed, whether it would be appropriate to stick a hypervelocity driver on a fighter....

(http://i1083.photobucket.com/albums/j392/cumberdale/screenshot006.jpg)
(http://i1083.photobucket.com/albums/j392/cumberdale/screenshot007.jpg)
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: mendonca on June 10, 2011, 06:38:32 AM
Love the concept of both ships.

And I know what you mean about the pixel wankery. I have come to the conclusion that there is no substitute but hard work to achieve anything like that provided by Herr Baumgart (which seems a shame).

Avoiding hard work though, I have generally been trying things like working quickly and roughly on a seperate 'details' layer over the top of the main sprite and turning the opacity of that layer down.

If you do a few layers at 30% opacity or something, and then mix up some white and black squiggles and nonsense, it can start to look semi-respectable (still only really semi-respectable, I haven't really nailed any of my sprites yet, I don't think, although some aspects work better than others).

I normally also work with a 'working' sprite being a couple of times bigger (at least) as the actual sprite. That way you can throw some lines in without precision, and then the reduction in fidelity when it shrinks hides some of the roughness. You also get anti-aliased fine details without having to specify pixel by pixel values.

Ultimately though, I still think the pixel by pixel detail is the stuff that turns it from being 'passable' to being 'good'. I haven't really invested enough time at this level myself.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on June 10, 2011, 09:45:36 AM
I run everything through 20+ filter passes, and that's /after/ I get the details on there. Also, my stylistic design is still very different than david's is. :P

I get lazy to the point I save done 'components' of my spirtes (because I do every single little thing in like, 5 layers each), and simply cheat by frankening them together to make new parts and then franken those to make entire ships, only making actually new parts as new designs absolutly require
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: David on June 10, 2011, 01:04:30 PM
Hey, feel quite free to take crops from bits of my ship art and adjust the color and shading to make basic texturing for your ships. Some of the larger ships have some big areas to pull from, if you're so inclined.

Heck, I might just throw together some generic ship pieces - been meaning to write a tutorial/style guide for making ships, but I've been crunching on my other game ...
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Trylobot on June 10, 2011, 01:09:03 PM
Heck, I might just throw together some generic ship pieces - been meaning to write a tutorial/style guide for making ships, but I've been crunching on my other game ...

Yes, please!
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Erebos on June 10, 2011, 04:21:04 PM
I'd appreciate it greatly if you did.

And thanks for the advice, everyone. I think I'll try assimilating bits and pieces from other peoples' ships, and see how well I can hide it.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on June 11, 2011, 05:33:52 PM
Made another missile & launcher set - tzar heavy mrm - for specifically the phoenix, and edited some of the phoenix load-outs (Support is railguns, gauss & heavy pilum launchers; Assault is hephaestus, chainguns & hurricanes; Strike is hellbores, autocannons & tzars -- all other weaponry is the same (PD lasers, dual flak & HILs))
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Trylobot on June 12, 2011, 03:43:10 AM
Dude

Avan



When are you going to let us download your ships and play with them already

Get on the ball man


That is all
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on June 12, 2011, 06:27:35 AM
 :P
When I'm done with the current set & their missions. They don't even have all their weapons yet.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: DarkStar076 on June 13, 2011, 02:42:02 AM
My first attempt at adding a custom ship took me around 4 hours from start to playable. (Much was learned in that time) In this session I only used stock weapons for now but maybe when i have finished all my other projects i can dive head first into modding Starfarer :D
(http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/ad3883205b83ee9fde6c0c1ba7151b205384483da7dfa7161b8beab18995c82c6g.jpg)
Hopefully in future versions of Starfarer I can add a chargeup effect to the axial mount beam weapon ;)
I would also have to make the Wave Motion Cannon turret look like the bow of the ship so it blends in. . .


Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on June 13, 2011, 07:05:53 AM
Added a minigun weapon: it shreds frigates and fighters, and I disabled the PD function on it because the AI failed to handle it very well due to the chargeup time (it charges (barrel spin-up), then has continuous rapid fire)

Added a modified 'tinkered' autopulse cannon (chainpulse): unlike the normal autocannon, it doesn't stop firing and has an 'infinite' (23 hour, 20 minute) long interruptable burst (sorta like the minigun), and it turns a tad faster given the cropped barrel, but because of the modifications, it loses a good amount of range and accuracy, and it failed to be a very effective weapon against fighters and frigates, and is not very good even vs. destroyers at its max range, but if you can get enough on the same ship all firing at a cruiser or large capship, they are quite good, especially since the enemy ship is unlikely to escape out of range (not easily anyways, unless its an Apogee, may a Conquest, or a Phoenix). They will also build up your flux quite quickly, so their firing mode is not actually infinite (only a Conquest or a Phoenix can fire a single cannon indefinitely with shields down. None can do so with two, and only the Phoenix can do one indefinitely with shields up)
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Letsparty on June 13, 2011, 10:41:33 AM
Added a minigun weapon: it shreds frigates and fighters, and I disabled the PD function on it because the AI failed to handle it very well due to the chargeup time (it charges (barrel spin-up), then has continuous rapid fire)

hmmm
if i understand you correctly this was because the AI did not take into account the charge up time before fireing
a modification to the AI to take into account charge time might not be bad
convert charge time into travel dist for missiles and tell AI to commence fire at normal + travel dist for such weapon  :) 
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: tinsoldier on June 13, 2011, 11:32:03 AM
My first attempt at adding a custom ship took me around 4 hours from start to playable. (Much was learned in that time) In this session I only used stock weapons for now but maybe when i have finished all my other projects i can dive head first into modding Starfarer :D

Can you get a pic of it damaged a bit?  I <3 dmg pics.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on June 13, 2011, 01:03:03 PM
Added a minigun weapon: it shreds frigates and fighters, and I disabled the PD function on it because the AI failed to handle it very well due to the chargeup time (it charges (barrel spin-up), then has continuous rapid fire)

hmmm
if i understand you correctly this was because the AI did not take into account the charge up time before fireing
a modification to the AI to take into account charge time might not be bad
convert charge time into travel dist for missiles and tell AI to commence fire at normal + travel dist for such weapon  :) 
Yeah, its also not very good at detecting when it should continue firing in order to avoid the chargeup
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Letsparty on June 13, 2011, 01:10:48 PM
Added a minigun weapon: it shreds frigates and fighters, and I disabled the PD function on it because the AI failed to handle it very well due to the chargeup time (it charges (barrel spin-up), then has continuous rapid fire)

hmmm
if i understand you correctly this was because the AI did not take into account the charge up time before fireing
a modification to the AI to take into account charge time might not be bad
convert charge time into travel dist for missiles and tell AI to commence fire at normal + travel dist for such weapon  :) 
Yeah, its also not very good at detecting when it should continue firing in order to avoid the chargeup

hmmmm

when target destroyed
   check next target closer then (range+charge range)
        if turn turret to enemy time = less then 3/4 charge up time then
            continue to fire while turning turret
 ;)
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on June 16, 2011, 10:10:26 AM
So I've been busy the last few days, but this computer (the one I mess around with starfarer on) had wifi issues, so I wasn't able to put anything up

I made a bunch of new weapons & ships, but I don't have screens of all the weapons yet, so here are the ships instead:

(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/newshipsstarfarer.png)

Yes, those fighters have HILs, though they can't fire them for long without maxing out their flux.
The Fang-class heavy fighter is very adept at causing pain to slower frigates (Because they themselves are not the fastest of fighters) and destroyers, but are extremely vulnerable to being overloaded when firing, and don't fare well vs. interceptors. Though larger ships lacking missiles tend to be incapable of doing much harm to them (except the Onslaught Elite with its hypervelocity drivers that easily overload them), they are nothing more than nuisances, because of their inability to shoot at a single area and that they can't sustain their fire either.

The Valkyrie II armed transport is a slightly newer version of the Valkyrie often used for transporting valuable goods and VIPs around, as its fast, well defended, and decently armored. Its capacity is lower than commercial freighters and even its predecessor by a large margin, to accommodate the expanded weapon systems, but short of expending much more valuable military ships on transport duty, its fills its niche very well. Its shield is smaller than the standard Valk, but it is omnidirectional, giving it improved effective coverage area.
While it is a fairly abysmal direct-fire combat ship, its can be very useful as a makeshift support or PD 'destroyer', depending on its configuration, though a dedicated ship would do much better.
In the hands of a skilled pilot though, it can take out even the david hasselnought in its stock configuration (though this takes a VERY long time, as you basically are chisseling away with your ir pulse lasers at the Onslaught's rear end.

The War Hammer-class Missile Barge is a slow, frigate-sized ship. It lacks speed and size, but it has a respectable amount of HP, and it can deliver a huge amount of firepower to the battlefield (as can be seen in the screenshot... it will hurt [those missile launchers carry 8 homing torpedoes each, aside from the typhoon, so 16 emp & 16 atropos & 10 typhoons in the standard variant alone].) Its shielding can be best described as 'downright pathetic' given it will overload very quickly and has low efficiency, and the 120 degree coverage doesnt even completely cover the front of the ship, though it can be a life-saver against LRMs or enemy homing torpedoes, given it is an omni shield. Any small craft tends to be very effective at combating it, with the possible exception of bombers, given that the War Hammer can still out-maneuver them, though it has trouble doing so. Alone, it is still not terribly effective vs. large ships by itself, as a supporting ship, given it is a missile ship, it can be devastating to Capital ships with another ship capable of raising the flux of the enemy ship significantly.
The PD variant of the War Hammer outfitted with shard & swarmer missiles are essentially just the reverse; they will maul smaller ships at range, but can barely scratch the paint on an Onslaught (unless the armor is already gone, at which point the fragmentation damage they deal can be quite deadly.)
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Trylobot on June 16, 2011, 10:25:49 AM
Looking good! Can't wait to tear stuff up
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: mendonca on June 16, 2011, 02:53:04 PM
So apparently modding an onslaught to have the speed and manouvreability of a mid-range frigate isn't quite as fun as it sounds.

Who would have thought it.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Trylobot on June 16, 2011, 02:55:41 PM
I should make a ship whose sole purpose it is to ram other ships, and die. I'd give it a high mass, low hull strength, very high speed, low cost. My only problem would be that I couldn't encourage the AI to scuttle as a tactic.

OR CAN I

ALEX

...



Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on June 16, 2011, 03:24:57 PM
or maybe a ship that has high mass, high speed, high armor, but no armament (and little maneuverability) - so the basic idea is to essentially act as a giant battering ram.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Trylobot on June 16, 2011, 03:29:39 PM
If it was also volumetrically large, it could even act as a physical shield for other ships, assuming the right shape. It could make escape missions a breeze.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on June 16, 2011, 08:18:23 PM
you'd probably want a dedicated design... I don't think a shield ship would make a terribly good ram, as you'd have to have a huge distance to get it up to speed or a buttload of thrusters to the back like the Phoenix has in order to get up to speed (the Phoenix-class monitor, not the HSS Phoenix)

In other news, I have another new ship in the works! I already have the graphics done and laid out, but its a high-tech style ship, and is thus not only asymetrical, but annoyingly curvy, so making the .ship hull file is going to take quite some time, especially with a total of 23 slots: 5 large energy turrets, 3 large missile turrets, 4 small missile turrets, 11 small energy turrets. It has... armor that leaves something to be desired, but its better than the Astral, but it makes up for that with a great shield and HUGE flux reserves, with a very respectable rate of flux dispersion. Maneuverability is lower than what the Astral gets, but not by too much. It manages to cost more fleet points than even the phoenix, but its not called a dreadnought for nothing! ;)

This ship's blueprint is actually 'featured' in another mission, and the mission I want this ship for is going to tie directly into that mission.

Will post screens once I have it in-game
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on June 16, 2011, 10:15:07 PM
Almost there... ended up boosting 3 of the small energy turrets to medium.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Trylobot on June 16, 2011, 10:33:21 PM
Here's my process for defining the polygon lately:

In Paint.NET, make a copy of the ship graphic. Rotate it CW 90 deg. Create a new layer. Place colorful dots where the vertices need to be, keeping in mind that the upper-left corner of the pixel is the actual coordinate being referred to. Open a spreadsheet with Calc or Excel, put it beside the paint window. With focus on the spreadsheet, hover over each of the vertices in turn, recording their raw values as reported by paint; these will be relative to the top left corner of the image in the current orientation. When all points are recorded, find the center point of the image. Create new columns next to the existing ones, subtracting the center point values from the recorded values, and inverting (multiply by -1) the Y-coordinate values. If the ship is symmetrical, copy and re-sort the values for the second half, and invert again the Y column, assuming a center position defined that is the actual center of the ship. Paste into notepad++, replacing \t with ", " and \r\n with ",\r\n". In this way I can have the bounds done, even for a very large ship, done accurately in a matter of a few minutes.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on June 17, 2011, 01:23:52 PM
My problem is I just have a short attention span :P (I would get distracted every 5 or so points)


Images of the Panther Dreadnought (note that the designation is actually in reference to its firepower & slot utilization vs. its size [roughly same size as an Atlas II]; it has an unprecedented 8 heavy turrets (only the phoenix has more heavy slots (9), and only 2 are turrets), more OP than the phoenix, and the largest flux capacitors of any ship currently in so far. Its armor is mediocre, but it has an omni-360 shield to compensate for that)
full-size ingame view (zoom 0), blowing up a wing of fighters
(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/pantherfull.png)
zoomed out (zoom -2), attacking a lasher. Also note the custom configured Astral & Venture.
(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/pantherzoomedout.png)

Now for some more custom configurations of stock ships (for the first mission featuring the Panther)
(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/eagleandsunderpdvariants.png)

The Eagle makes a pretty good PD platform, though it does manage to have a bit of trouble fighting anything bigger than a frigate that isnt a freighter.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Flare on June 18, 2011, 12:37:31 AM
So purty :D.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Krelian on June 18, 2011, 04:15:20 AM
some of the ships made here are SO AWESOME that makes me want to cry out of pure bliss

great work folks !



As you might have guessed, there is a ship editor (which is the reason I don't have to remember this anymore). It's not quite ready for prime time, but at some point we'll polish it up and release it.


was that editor released already?

Im burning inside to make some ships, but setting the ship boundaries by hand sounds like a pain in the ... specially on very irregular ships >_<
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on June 18, 2011, 09:11:28 AM
its not yet released. not till .35a
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Alex on June 18, 2011, 09:08:24 PM
Im burning inside to make some ships, but setting the ship boundaries by hand sounds like a pain in the ... specially on very irregular ships >_<

I can attest to that, having put together some ships by hand before the editor existed. Some of the fine folks in this thread have a high pain tolerance :)

The hardest part (imo) is actually drawing the sprites, though. So if you're of a mind to get started on some ships, I would say go for it, and you'll just have the sprites ready by the time the editor is out.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Kotatsu on June 19, 2011, 08:51:33 PM
I am sort of wondering how you guys drew ships with just pixels.
Wouldn't that take a hell of a long time?
 
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Dibuk on June 20, 2011, 07:18:03 AM
Tree ship types I've made fo far! (Got this game yesterday) They all have atleast one new weapon, have some four new I think.

(http://i56.tinypic.com/eamgww.jpg)

Scroll that ------> way to see the smaller ships.
(http://i55.tinypic.com/2d77uia.jpg)

(http://i52.tinypic.com/34tbgk0.jpg)

Hardest part is to take good screenshots...

Woops those are kinda big... Sorry ^^
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on June 25, 2011, 07:49:23 PM
Here is the titan (exact role-name to be determined at a later date)

its got a slimmer profile than the onslaught, better armor density (if only by a bit) (and even though its hull is still smaller overall), and more gun coverage - including a rear-mounted heavy turret (only 2 light and 1 heavy missile however - all hardpoints, vs. the 4 medium missile turrets of the Onslaught.) - it has equal speed, and inferior maneuverability (Onslaught's engine array gives much better torque, though the ship is heavier)

a modern titan making good use of its rear gun (and of course the onslaught is going to decide to launch a volley of torpedoes right now, killing both ships)
(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/titanandonslaught.png)
a modern (hasslenought) version of the titan, and a modified titan for a planned mission [note the industrial cutter lasers: they look like large mining lasers]
(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/titanmodandciv.png)
and in comparison with the panther
(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/titansandpanther.png)

I have several balanced versions of the titan, though no pics of them uploaded.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: theShadow on July 08, 2011, 08:41:39 PM
they look like christmas trees :p

Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Flare on July 09, 2011, 02:03:20 AM
I guess someone's final Christmas has come early.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Cvan on July 09, 2011, 06:31:19 AM
they look like christmas trees :p
And thats how you turn badass ship into something silly and funny.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on July 09, 2011, 10:39:17 AM
Wanna see a real chrismas tree ship?

http://xelerus.de/index.php?s=mod&id=615  :D
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: kais58 on August 22, 2011, 03:30:37 PM
It's obviously no where near done but well, I'll let the image speak for itself.

(https://sucs.org/~kais58/screenshot002.jpg)
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Flare on August 22, 2011, 05:16:45 PM
You have no idea how happy that has made me.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Psiyon on September 13, 2011, 05:27:06 PM
Serious ship is serious.

(http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/273/screenshot014hc.jpg)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YKCMa23hZY


Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Flare on September 13, 2011, 06:48:41 PM
DAT BEAST
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Alex on September 14, 2011, 08:43:08 AM
Nice, I like it!

Also, 80000 hull? My god man :)
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Flare on September 14, 2011, 01:57:21 PM
Yeah, the structure at a glimpse doesn't seem to be that hardy against damage.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Psiyon on September 14, 2011, 02:41:28 PM
Also, 80000 hull? My god man :)
It's called a Supreme Deity for a reason. :P
Oh, wait. It appears to be called a Supreme 'Diety'. Yay, typo.

Also, the ship doesn't have shields, so the absurdly high hull is appropriate (With respect to the fact that this ship is meant to murder everything, of course).

Yeah, the structure at a glimpse doesn't seem to be that hardy against damage.
Gods do not fabricate their vessels from the same materials as those of mere mortals. How dare you scoff the might of the machine lords.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Wyvern on October 01, 2011, 10:29:34 PM
Very much a work in progress, but I was just having too much fun with this not to share.
(http://www.silverinsanity.com/~wyvern/dragonship.jpg)

Still trying to work out the right armament.  May end up dropping the small energy turrets.  Had meant to use a beam weapon for the main gun... but the plasma cannon is just so shiny!  Even if it is a bit strong for something this size & speed...
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Thana on October 01, 2011, 10:56:53 PM
Wanna see a real chrismas tree ship?

http://xelerus.de/index.php?s=mod&id=615  :D

I was expecting the link to be picture of the First One vessel in Babylon 5 that fans dubbed "the Christmas tree monster".
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Alex on October 02, 2011, 09:26:51 AM
Aw, you've got to do a custom weapon for the head that shoots a laser beam from its eyes! ... you can even make the head swivel, then.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Wyvern on October 02, 2011, 11:08:58 AM
Ooh, good call.  I hadn't thought of that.

I had actually thought of giving it little point-defense eye lasers that tracked independently like chameleon eyes.  But I hadn't thought about making the whole head swivel.  I'll have to see how that looks.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Zarcon on October 13, 2011, 11:52:07 AM
After checking out all these cool mods that people have been making, I decided to give them a shot recently, but found I couldn't get any of them working or even showing up in the mod list in the game launcher, is that user error on my part, or are the mods not yet 0.35a compatible? 

No problem if they just are not working with the current release, but if it is a problem on my end, it would be good to know so that I can give it another shot because they looked pretty cool.  :)


Thanks
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Alex on October 13, 2011, 12:52:14 PM
Ahh, good call - most of these haven't been updated. Changed the mod list sticky to mention this.

The Star Control (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=171.0) mod, however, has been updated, and I highly recommend checking it out :)
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Zarcon on October 13, 2011, 01:34:48 PM
Very cool, that was one I didn't try earlier, I'll give it a shot for sure.  :)   Thanks for the heads up, heh heh.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on December 23, 2011, 07:26:08 PM
So I'm working on some new ships and weapons once again, but I'm currently going fairly slowly at the moment because I'm using a laggy laptop that doesn't want to work with my tablet without lagging like crazy, so I'm doing them with a mouse, currently the outlines, pixel by pixel.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: mendonca on December 24, 2011, 02:44:11 AM
So I'm working on some new ships and weapons once again, but I'm currently going fairly slowly at the moment because I'm using a laggy laptop that doesn't want to work with my tablet without lagging like crazy, so I'm doing them with a mouse, currently the outlines, pixel by pixel.
Sounds 'therapeutic'!

I can't decide whether I'm more looking forward for the next release for getting to play with a rudimentary campaign, or some of your ships ;)
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: mendonca on January 05, 2012, 04:42:09 AM
(http://crotchetyoldfan.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/1959-sfstories_5902.jpg)

I'll just leave this here ...  for inspiration ... :D
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: DSMK2 on January 10, 2012, 10:17:30 PM
My thoughts last week: "Oh hey this game looks fun, let's make a ship!"
And so I did.

(http://filesmelt.com/dl/screenshot0012.png)
(http://filesmelt.com/dl/screenshot003.png)
(http://filesmelt.com/dl/screenshot007.png)
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: DarkMecha on January 14, 2012, 01:28:40 PM
Question to you guys doing ship mods and / or the devs - do you start off at like a larger image size than the final ship size then downsize it in the end, or do you just work 1:1 ratio right from the start? I'm thinking about making some ships, and I'm curious as to other people's process, having never done sprite work before.

Thanks!
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: mendonca on January 14, 2012, 01:56:36 PM
Question to you guys doing ship mods and / or the devs - do you start off at like a larger image size than the final ship size then downsize it in the end, or do you just work 1:1 ratio right from the start? I'm thinking about making some ships, and I'm curious as to other people's process, having never done sprite work before.

Thanks!

Speaking for me, here's a typical process:

CONCEPT
(http://www.zen102301.zen.co.uk/images/boxer_destroyer.PNG)

DRAW
(http://www.zen102301.zen.co.uk/images/boxer_full_size.png)

SCALE DOWN, PROTOTYPE IN GAME
(http://www.zen102301.zen.co.uk/boxer.png)

DRAW OVER / PIXEL WORK TO TRY AND IMPROVE
(http://www.zen102301.zen.co.uk/starfarer/junkpirates/junk_pirates_boxer.png)
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: DarkMecha on January 14, 2012, 08:09:52 PM
Thanks Mendonca, that's a pretty awesome reply! Basically the process I had envisioned so it's cool to see that it works out. I'll hopefully get some time to make some ships soon and post'em on the forums.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Jeffk38uk on January 15, 2012, 07:03:12 AM
Huh, it never occurred to me that you could just draw and shade the designs first, and then pixel over it. That's some solid advice there.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Kilvanya on January 19, 2012, 03:19:37 PM
okay, so i need to add the ship to the csv file as well.
However when I do that it instantly decides it's missing and
gives me a Fatal: Fatal: ship_data.csv is missing ships

EVERY SINGLE TIME NEW SHIP OR NOT!


Thank you for your time  >:(
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Alex on January 19, 2012, 03:35:29 PM
Sounds like you possibly didn't set the hull's id in the .ship file to the same value you're using in the csv. The game parses the csv file, tries to find a ship with that id, can't, and then exits.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Kilvanya on January 19, 2012, 03:56:27 PM
Name: Apollo
hullid: apollo

Name: Apogee
hullid: apogee

this format right?

or the number at the end of the csv file?
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: mendonca on January 19, 2012, 10:41:04 PM
Yeah, that's right.

The number in the CSV is a reference, presumably used by the code, and should be unique.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Kilvanya on January 20, 2012, 09:45:28 AM
then why it hate me  :'(
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on January 23, 2012, 09:37:19 PM
Its case sensitive. I got pwned a lot by that today since I haven't implemented any ships in code in quite some time.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anyways, hugenormous .5a slot-balanced (balanced is sort of a strange term to use for a ridiculously powerful ship) ship today: The Wyvera class Dreadnought (screenshot shows the stupidly OP mission-specific elite-variant I was testing out. Hence all the high-end weaponry a normal variant wouldn't be able to cram on at once. Especially the 9x atropos/bolas[Flux Torp I made] launchers, carrying 8x torps each, as well as the six HILs)
(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3061400/wyvera%20and%20panther.png)

Its basically designed to replace the Panther in the uses I had for it in the missions, as the Panther is being downgraded due to the slot changes in .5a (5 (or maybe all 8) of the 8 heavy slots will become medium slots).

As to how it plays:
Flys like a brick (both STL, and FTL, as FTL speed is apparently tied to STL in .5a)
Costs a whopping 30+ FP to deploy
Nigh indestructible (though you'd expect that from something of this size)
The shield on this thing has a very high upkeep (it more than halves your flux dissipation rate, unlike just about every other shield), but is very efficient, and is an omni-360.
Venting flux takes a long time, due to large flux reserve size.
Even if your armor has been compromised, the hull of the ship is massive enough that you can still take a full hasslenought torp volley to the face and survive (barely).

As to how to fight it:
Bring lots and lots of gauss cannons (railguns are good choices too for smaller ships/slots): though they aren't very good against the armor, of which the ship has a decent amount given its sheer size, but they will threaten to overload the shields (Gauss cannons are still gauss cannons, and do a lot of kinetic damage), and /will/ chew through the armor given time: once the armor is gone, you then have the hull to contend with, but the gauss cannons should make short work of it simply due to sheer damage. They also have superb range, allowing you to pepper away at it from beyond the effective range of most of the weapons it can mount. Don't worry about missing shots; this thing makes the rear end of an onslaught look like a small target by comparison.
Onslaught w/ all gauss/hypervelocity/railgun loadout works wonders here - just make sure it doesn't get behind you. Because with the sheer firepower it will deliver at close range (esp. true for variants not relying on long-range beam weapons); esp. if it still has a bunch of missiles in its forward small missile hardpoints, all that armor might as well be made of paper.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on January 24, 2012, 04:57:20 PM
And so here is the slot-nerfed panther:
(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3061400/nerfed%20panther.png)
The green old-HIL weapons on it are Autoblasters; basically the properly manufactured version of the chainpulse (the latter being nothing more than a cheaply modified autopulse cannon)

And here is me with a not-yet slot-nerfed Titan taking out a wyvera.
(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3061400/wyvera%20pirate%20attack.png)
Here, the trick is to stay out of range of the autoblasters. (And not get mauled on your way across the battlefield by its escorts which have AM blasters)

Arguably, the Titan would likely fare even better after the slot nerf due to flux reasons; currently it can only get a volley off before its flux levels max out.

Also, note the rockets the Titan is firing; thats another of the 3 weapons I added in today. ...And I still have 1 weapon I haven't shown today; it might make it into a later screenshot.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on January 25, 2012, 10:59:56 PM
New weapon and ship today (weapon is on the onslaught, ship is to the right)

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3061400/Onslaught%20and%20hammer.png)

For those who saw the filename and noticed I already have a ship named the warhammer (This one is just hammer, to compliment the anvil), I noticed that too, but didn't care enough to change it :D

SO ANYWAYS

the new weapon is the boltcaster, which is the long-range kinetic compliment to the gauss cannon; where the gauss cannon is designed to take on large ships, the boltcaster is built to snipe small ones. It has a very fast mount, the fastest ballistic projectiles, has an ample supply of ammunition, and fires in bursts. The Gauss cannon surpasses it in damage however, and is vastly more effective against armor (even though both are still kinetic weapons, the boltcaster will do lousy damage against a well armored hull, but is sufficient to break through the armor of a frigate). This gives large older-style ships (like the onslaught) the ability to effectively fight back against pests such as the tempest. However... its a large slot. So you have to be willing to sacrifice a large turret slot for one of these guns (a hardpoint sort of negates the whole function of the weapon), as well as the raw hitting power that just about every other large ballistic weapon provides. Good choice if you know you are going to be accosted by lots of small pesky ships (enough that you can't compensate for with small fast ships of your own - or perhaps you don't have access to small fast (enough) ships that can counter, say, tempests)... not so good if you are going to have to engage in capship-capship combat. This is definitely a niche weapon, and generally not something that will be used day-to-day.

the new ship is the hammer (as previously mentioned), and is a small destroyer, packing a medium energy turret (with a forward arc), a medium missile hardpoint, 4 small (2 ea. energy, missile) hardpoints, and 2 small ballistic turrets (with side arcs). Every weapon can fire dead ahead. Only the 2 small turrets can sort-of fire behind it (And are meant to be used by point defense). It is decent in most of its stats, though has great maneuverability (to compensate for its lack of weapons and shield coverage in the rear). Because a significant amount of its load-out's power comes from use of missiles, its best suited to short engagements, but it has the ability to keep on fighting long after its missiles are gone (I killed the hasselnought in one of these without using any missiles. It just takes a long time.)
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Ivaylo on January 26, 2012, 01:23:18 AM
I killed the hasselnought ...


NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!



;D
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: megal00t on January 26, 2012, 01:39:50 AM
i'm still wondering how you make these sprites man :/ do you like change parts on ships that already exist? i'm very intreged.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on January 26, 2012, 07:55:24 AM
Yes, currently I have not made any fresh ones I've been satisfied with, so all you get to see are the franken-ships (ones made out of the sprites of others) ;)

And yes, I have also been using unreleased ships in some of them (ie, the Paragon's large slot was used a few times in the Wyvera)

I also need to go back and tweak a few of the old custom ones to pixel-art-ify them.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on January 26, 2012, 08:22:49 AM
Went back and rebalanced the slots on the capships and a few others:

Ocelot retains its single large turret, loses its large missile hardpoint (Downgraded to medium)

Atlas II retains its single large missile slot, no changes
Atlas III gains a large turret, as well as a bunch of other stuff [making this ship today; its currently specific to the later GSP missions following the Green Sun's upgrades, though the GSP or other affiliated pirates may also convert a few other Atlas IIs to it later]
Lion retains its four large ballistic turrets, simply because it looked weird otherwise. I'm just going to re balance it to be in a similar league as the Paragon.
Panther loses five of its large turrets, only 3 remain. It never had any large missiles
Phoenix retains all its large slots except the two large missile ones, since they were redundant with the large energy turrets.
Titan loses five of its six large turrets, only the front remains. All of the medium slots were downsized to small. It retains both large hardpoints.
Wyvera was already set for .5a's balance.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: megal00t on January 26, 2012, 09:03:44 AM
i've made 2 ships from scratch. well actually 1 ship and 1 fighter wing. all pixel art :/

(http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/4852/screenshot009pi.png) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/94/screenshot009pi.png/)

(http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/7143/screenshot008r.png) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/689/screenshot008r.png/)

 ;D
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on January 26, 2012, 11:39:14 AM
RE: my previously post
Actually some parts of the frankensprites are new/made specifically for the ship, but they tend to be very small segments, often made to join other sprites together or make a weapon mount point or something.

Anyways, atlas 3 (just remember to grab some screens)

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3061400/atlas3.png)

Green Sun took their flag ship, gutted the big central flightdeck, and replaced it with an advanced reactor and power distribution system, as well as made some upgrades to the engines, in the events following Long Shot. As a result, shield coverage has increased by ~60% (but is still small at ~70 degrees coverage), maximum speed got a slight boost, armor is marginally better but still in the 'paper-thin' category, 2 new medium mounts (ballistic and energy) are available, in addition to a new large energy mount, deceleration is vastly improved (before stopping was pretty much impossible. Now you can do it before you hit the other end of the map), turn acceleration is improved by a whole 100% (but still sucks, because its a turn accel of 2...). It still flies like a brick, but much less so than before.

The reason I made a lot of these modifications was because I found in Crown Jewel that the atlas II has such awful maneuverability and deceleration that there was no way to prevent it from sailing right across the map into the enemy fleet when the whole intent of the carrier was to sit around in back. It didn't so much matter in Long Shot because of the very long map and the fact that you would quickly advance down the map to the enemy fleet anyways.

Mounted in the heavy turret is the heavy blaster, a large energy weapon designed specifically for capship-capship combat, though it can do a number on a destroyer or frigate that strays too close. It fires relatively slowly, but is much more front-loaded (single projectile, heavy damage, low ROF) than most of the other large energy weapons, and has decent range too, better than a number of other weapons in its tier (though it sacrifices a bit of DPS for the slight range advantage)
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Zarcon on January 26, 2012, 11:51:10 AM
Mounted in the heavy turret is the heavy blaster, a large energy weapon designed specifically for capship-capship combat, though it can do a number on a destroyer or frigate that strays too close. It fires relatively slowly, but is much more front-loaded (single projectile, heavy damage, low ROF) than most of the other large energy weapons, and has decent range too, better than a number of other weapons in its tier (though it sacrifices a bit of DPS for the slight range advantage)

Nice, I like the basic concept of this type of weapon.  Kinda like an energy version of the Gauss Cannon with slightly shorter range eh?
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on January 26, 2012, 12:15:21 PM
Yeah, its meant to sort of a cross between the hellbore and the gauss cannon (except for energy) [Gauss actually comes off with equivalent DPS despite its significant range advantage, but the heavy blaster gets the flux boost, which I felt acted as a counterbalance to the gauss cannon's range]
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: moffrevenge on January 27, 2012, 07:59:54 AM
Hi, some of my ships under construction and one of my turret(the scale is not correct) :

(http://s4.noelshack.com/uploads/images/13028519937708_vaisseaulourd.png) (http://s4.noelshack.com/upload/13028519937708_vaisseaulourd.png)      (http://s4.noelshack.com/uploads/images/18589380436044_croiseur.png) (http://s4.noelshack.com/upload/18589380436044_croiseur.png)      (http://s4.noelshack.com/uploads/images/17831002521420_aa.png) (http://s4.noelshack.com/upload/17831002521420_aa.png)
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: megal00t on January 27, 2012, 08:06:18 AM
hrrm is there a way to edit the projectiles a weapon fires. and where it's located in a file? can't seem to find it. the same with the sound file.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: moffrevenge on January 27, 2012, 08:13:03 AM
The graphics are there : Fractal Softworks\Starfarer\starfarer-core\graphics\missiles
and the data are there : Fractal Softworks\Starfarer\starfarer-core\data\weapons\proj
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: megal00t on January 27, 2012, 10:46:15 AM
ahh i finished my bombers. but there's a slight problem... ahem:
does someone have the time to edit my CSV file so they fire in 2,4 round bursts, and explain me what i did wrong?
http://www.mediafire.com/?e2l76s2725eux84 (CSV file)
(http://img535.imageshack.us/img535/2120/screenshot001fu.png) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/535/screenshot001fu.png/)
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on January 27, 2012, 10:56:53 AM
can you copy+paste the lines of text? (you can open it with a text editor, its just a comma sepparated values file)
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: megal00t on January 27, 2012, 11:08:15 AM
i open it with excel :/ ill try with notepad
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: megal00t on January 27, 2012, 11:10:43 AM
yea... even when i change the ammo to 2 and the damage to something like 25 it still instantly pops an enforcer...

ed1: i think i have one of the values wrong but i don't know which one  :'(
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on January 27, 2012, 11:21:58 AM
yeah, you are using the wrong values.

Here, just paste the lines of code and I'll fix them for you.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: megal00t on January 27, 2012, 11:27:04 AM
Plasma Bomb Launcher,plasmabomb,1,500,,50,,300,10,28,,ENERGY,5,10,0,0,,,,,,,,300,,,500,,23

yea its pretty hard to know wich comma has what value. i get them mixed up pretty quickly. is there a way to get it more organized? i think i just need to learn what fields require what value eh?
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: megal00t on January 27, 2012, 02:11:23 PM
Plasma Bomb Launcher,plasmabomb,1,2000,,300,,50,0,3,4,HIGH_EXPLOSIVE,0,,0,5,2,1,0,0,0,0,,900,,,,STRIKE,3.5

even with these settings they fire all 4 shells on both sides. is this a bug or something?
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on January 27, 2012, 02:15:06 PM
The second one looks like it should be ok, with a cooldown time of 5 and a burst size of 2 with a delay of 1.

Are you using the built-in plasma projectile class? I think that it may be one of the unresolved issues with it that is bugging up your weapon.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: megal00t on January 27, 2012, 02:27:58 PM
yes i'm using the built in projectile... i think the weapon still thinks its a plasma chargeup type weapon.
maybe another projectile?
{
   "id":"plasma_shot_2",
   "specClass":"projectile",
   "spawnType":"PLASMA",
   "collisionClass":"PROJECTILE_FF",
   "collisionClassByFighter":"PROJECTILE_FIGHTER",
   "width":10.0,
   "fadeTime":3,
   "fringeColor":[0,0,255,255],
   "coreColor":[255,100,100,255],
   #"fringeColor":[255,0,0,255],
   #"coreColor":[255,100,255,255],   
}
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on January 27, 2012, 03:08:03 PM
yeah, i'd just try another
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: megal00t on January 28, 2012, 07:18:52 AM
finally finished it  ;D i think it was the weapon itself so i used another and it worked fine!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6l3HG6rBL0w&feature=youtu.be
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: moffrevenge on February 01, 2012, 03:32:12 AM
Hi, someone can explain me the difference between hardpoint slot and turret slot?
Thanx
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: InfinitySquared on February 01, 2012, 04:27:15 AM
(http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll90/CaptJacobKeyes_UNSC/screenshot001.png)
So, I made a ship. Woefully underarmed, but the weapons are still placeholders. Also, Battleships Forever.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: mendonca on February 01, 2012, 05:36:32 AM
Hi, someone can explain me the difference between hardpoint slot and turret slot?
Thanx
A hardpoint picks the 'hardpoint' graphic, and turns a lot slower than a turret (which picks the turret graphic).

In the future hardpoints may get range benefits on turrets.

Also all hardpoints in vanilla have only got a 5 degree arc, turrets obviously a lot more flexible.

e: infinity², that looks awesome.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: InfinitySquared on February 01, 2012, 05:53:03 AM
(http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll90/CaptJacobKeyes_UNSC/screenshot005.png)
Also, another one.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Ivaylo on February 01, 2012, 06:36:35 AM
Very impressive!
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: megal00t on February 01, 2012, 08:17:38 AM
is it able to take sprites from battleships forever, edit them in photoshop and then add them to the game? :/ was just wondering..
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on February 01, 2012, 08:21:39 AM
yeah - its pretty easy. probably would want to give credit to the sprite pack makers though.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: megal00t on February 01, 2012, 09:13:08 AM
yea would be smart xD
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on February 17, 2012, 03:41:07 PM
Ok, a couple new ships before I leave today and can't make any more for the weekend (conveniently anyways; all my computer where I shall be will have smaller, single monitors >.<)

Manta - Designed to be the converse of the Odyssey, while also a relatively fast exploration vehicle with a flight deck, it focuses primarily on defense with armor rivaling that of the Paragon and good shields [By concentrating the shield bubble just over the 'head' of the ship, they can be raised much faster than if they tried to encompass the whole ship, however, they are not as efficient as the Odysseys, due to having only 2/3rds the size of a max flux pool; then again, given its armament is meant to be primarily PD, that gives the shield a bit of breathing room], a large number of small energy turrets, 6 medium energy turrets, 4 small missile hardpoints (rear-facing, meant to take out small ships which think they can attack your unshielded engines like they can an onslaught), and 2 medium universal turrets, and an OP cap similar to the Odyssey's. While, yes, theoretically you could toss on 8 heavy blasters [a medium slot weapon], but a single volley will eat up a large portion of your flux reserves, forcing you to vent, which will take some time; the ship deals much better with point defense systems installed, though it can handle a pair of heavy blasters decently.
(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/mantaonslaught.png)

Rhino - The origin of this ship is something of an enigma, theorized to have been an early prototype blueprint created shortly before the collapse of the gate network; while the gadgetry employed in this ship is technologically astounding, putting it up with the likes of the Hyperion - hence the theorized date of design, the Rhino exhibits few of the contemporary design philosophies. From aesthetics to tactics, the rhino sticks out among its contemporaries like a sore thumb. While it has impressive flux reserves and efficient shields providing decent omni coverage and can support a good number of high-power weapons, its also abnormally heavily armored, and is one of the slowest destroyer class ships known, almost landing in the domain of cruisers were it not for its lower slot count and smaller profile. The speed issue seems to be a result of the combination of heavy armor and the designer using the widely available engine design from the standard Buffalo freighters, likely to save on time so they could test other components of the ship, or perhaps to save a little extra power so it could support more powerful weapons. Currently, the only known copy of the blueprints is held by the Green Sun pirates, though a number of trickled out to other users primarily through the rare sale or gift to allied pirate clans, or the occasional captured ship by mercenaries or military forces.
(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/rhinomedusa.png)
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: ClosetGoth on February 17, 2012, 04:26:22 PM
BEAUTIFUL! I love the new ships! And, now I see what you meant when you asked if you could prevent a ship from getting the omni-shields hullmod. Actually, that helped me get a better picture of what the shields were to look like!

I love how the missile launchers make the Rhino stick our even more! They almost look like flagella...
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Kilvanya on February 17, 2012, 07:05:03 PM
add a triple line of HeavyAcs and that thing will dish out a pounding
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Flare on February 17, 2012, 08:58:04 PM
Those ships are like works of art.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on February 18, 2012, 10:05:04 PM
 ;D Thanks

So right now I am working on a HUGE list of rebalancing things to do; I did almost all the weapon rebalancing, and fixing most of the ship OPs, but I have some weapons to make (filling niches, fixing some graphics), and a large list of ship rebalances to do.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: MShadowy on February 19, 2012, 01:55:29 PM
Well... I guess this is how do, eh?  Greetings, I am a wandering loser artsy type who somewhat enjoys modding.

I was initially just planning on adding captain portraits to the game after 0.5 released but as I played the campaign this slowly changed and... ah hell, just look.

(http://i.imgur.com/TwNJm.png)

Just the basic silhouette (at roughly 2x the final size) with a few marks giving a vague idea idea of the hulls geography I'm afraid; this vessel would be the Charybdis class "Battle" Carrier.  Cruiser sized, designed sometime before the Astral class supercarrier.  Still somewhat infamous despite the collapse for the massive boondoggle/corruption scandal surrounding it's design -- namely that somewhat early in the design process the class was effectively hijacked by the brass, who wanted a carrier with "punch".  And speed.  And enough flight decks to repair and rearm it strike craft quickly.  And...

The end result of this interference was a design cycle three times as long and several times more expensive as anticipated for a craft that excelled as a harasser and deep strike vessel but did not operate terribly well in the standard order of battle.  Only rarely shows up in Tri-Tachyon fleets, and not at all in the Hegemonies Order of Battle; mostly a ship favored by well to do Mercenaries or especially successful pirates.  Has earned a bit of a reputation as that 'lone wolf carrier.'  It can cause some hurt, but it's also especially fragile, even for a new design, and its Flux Capacity is comparatively meager.

It took me about a week to come up with this, largely because I kept trying to figure out how to visually show that this design suffered from a  number of odd compromises and half measures; about the only particular remaining that I initially intended was the heavily exposed flight deck.

Stat Block (Provisional):
Fleet Points: 16-18      Ordnance Points: 110

Hull integrity: 4000-5000      Shield Type: FRONT/OMNI (Undecided)
Armor Rating: ~500      Shield Arc: 360/270 (Undecided)
Flux Capacity: 10000   Shield Upkeep: 470
Flux Dissipation: 800   Flux Damage: 0.6

Hangar Space: 25-30
Top Speed: 50-60
Turn Rate: 30
Maneuverability: Medium

1 Large Energy Hardpoint
2 Medium Energy Mounts
3-5 Small Energy Mounts
2 Small Missile Mounts
Flight Decks 1-2

Er... yeah, probably a bit early to consider the stats.  Maybe I kinda overthink things...

Well, that's all I guess.  Farewell!

-EmEss
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on February 19, 2012, 04:20:27 PM
Bluh, not much time, since I'm about to head out for a while, but I somehow ended up making two more ships, both midline tech; I'll try to get them operational later tonight, but atm I have only the graphics for each. One is a light, speedy, cruiser, the other is an explorer capship.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Ehtremaerd on February 19, 2012, 07:07:15 PM
First of all I love your art Avan, truly inspiring work.

So I decided to post my question here rather than make a whole new topic considering I don't use any forums too often.

I've spent the last 9 hours trying to figure out how to get my custom made ship(s) into Starfarer. I've kept running into this guy and I've done everything I can think of to get past it.

12188 [Thread-6] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.O0OO  - java.lang.RuntimeException: Error loading [ShadowWar/graphics/ships/BloodShardFighter] resource, not found in [D:\Program Files\Fractal Softworks\Starfarer\starfarer-core\..\mods\ShadowWar,../starfarer.res/res,CLASSPATH]
java.lang.RuntimeException: Error loading [ShadowWar/graphics/ships/BloodShardFighter] resource, not found in [D:\Program Files\Fractal Softworks\Starfarer\starfarer-core\..\mods\ShadowWar,../starfarer.res/res,CLASSPATH]

I can't seem to find /starfarer.res/res,classpath

If that's even something I can find. It's probably something wrong with my PC because no one else has seemed to have this problem on the forums or google for that matter.
I'd love any help your all willing to throw at me.

Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on February 19, 2012, 07:11:35 PM
You can ignore the starfarer.res thing; that's only useful for creating variants in devmode. (for reference, they are saved under fractal softworks/starfarer.res/res/data/variants)

As to your specific issue, the game is unable to find the image file; it looks like you specified an improper path; the path specified in the .ship file should look something like "graphics/ships/shipimagename.png", where shipimagename.png is the name of the png.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Ehtremaerd on February 19, 2012, 07:17:01 PM
Still getting the same issue it looks like. I changed it to "ShadowWar/graphics/ships/BloodShardFighter.PNG"

Because originally I did not have .PNG there. Still not working it seems both as .PNG and .png.

Trying to think of what I'm doing wrong. As I freshly installed starfarer halfway through the day while attempting to figure this out.

The .png file is BloodShardFighter

Edit: I think I got it, just getting a different error now. Haha shouldn't have put ShadowWar up there it would seem. Hopefully I can figure this one out on my own. Thanks for the help!
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on February 19, 2012, 07:41:32 PM
np!  ;D

Now I'm off to get my own two latest ships in-game and working.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on February 19, 2012, 11:21:49 PM
And here they are!

Smaller one (Cruiser) is the Hyena-class Light Cruiser, larger one (Capship) is the Kepler-class Explorer

(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/hyenaandkepler.png)

Whereas the Rhino was a destroyer that had a number of cruiser attributes, the Hyena is a cruiser that has a number of destroyer attributes. In fact, one of its potential roles could be considered closer to that of early naval destroyers: the pursuit and destruction of smaller craft in the role of an escort for a larger, slower cruiser or capship. The Hyena however is too large, and has too powerful of a reactor to be classed with the rest of the destroyers, requiring a larger crew, carrying more cargo and fuel, and such. It relies almost entirely on speed to survive; its got decent shields, but it has the worst armor of all the cruisers, falling more in line with the destroyers in that regard. Although it can take longer to accelerate than most destroyers or frigates, the hyena can top a number of the slower small ships, and with some EMP weapons, can take on the faster ones too, cutting out their engines before moving in for the kill. In fact, its speed was seen to be important enough to the ship's survival in the design process that the flanges shielding the engines were added specifically to help cut down on the angles which an EMP weapon could be fired at the engines. Also, while venting flux (which takes a long time, due to its large flux reservoirs compared to its flux dissipation rate), it is extremely vulnerable to enemy fire due to its thin armor, and thus again relies on its un-boosted speed to move to a safe range.
While it would seem to be a ship designed for killing smaller craft exclusively, like the faster destroyers, as well as frigates, their speed allows them to easily kite a larger capship, and working in groups, optimally with each ship dedicated to a particular function, they can take it down with relative ease. Their individually limited firepower however makes them less than optimal capship killers by themselves; not very many weapons could be added to the design without drawing power away from the engines, hence the relatively low slot count, similar to the Falcon from which the hyena was derived.
The hyena finds itself a favorite of mercenaries due to its survivability and capacity to hunt down nimble pirate frigates and the like, though difficult to obtain simply out of rarity of blueprints. The Green Sun pirates have also been known to field these ships in their operations against the tri-tachyon corporation (which they frequently do, as they are tech pirates, more interested in technology than generic goods, though they do launch raids against large convoys on occasion, they generally don't bother with independent traders who simply don't have anything of sufficient interest to them; supplies and the like are traded with other pirate clans in exchange for fancy weapons, ships, and other such trinkets which Green Sun monopolizes)

The Kepler-class Explorer could be considered the spiritual predecessor to the Odyssey and the Manta: an exploratory capital ship capable of traveling a long distance on relatively little resources, with ample cargo space, able to hold its own against pirates and whatever else may be lurking in the unknown, but without carrying an absurdly expensive price-tag (though the Manta does edge towards a higher price). The three ships however had entirely independent designs.
The Kepler sports the usual relatively high speed, falling squarely between the slightly slower Odyssey and the slightly faster Manta. It has significantly lower support abilities due to a lack of flight decks as well as offensive abilities due to its limited number of slots in comparison to the later Odyssey and Manta, making up for these shortcomings in its versatility, sporting a pair of universal large turrets, and a pair of universal medium hardpoints. Its armor is nothing to write home about, but its certainly passable, but is still outclassed by the Manta, and only matching the Odyssey. The shield emitter is of the same lineage as the one used on the conquest, providing omni coverage, but only over 90 degrees, though its a slightly cheaper model, translating to lowered efficiency. It has impressive flux reserves, rivaling the Odyssey and leaving the Manta in the dust in this regard, giving it an extra edge in defense. Venting is slow however, and thus if those flux reserves are going to be put to use for flux-heavy weapons, they should preferably be long-ranged ones.
It earned a bit of a reputation for its relatively minimal fuel consumption, allowing it to out-range just about any other contemporary capital ship. Even now, the Odyssey and Manta are hard pressed to keep up, as they went the direction of providing more weapons and carrier support capabilities, sacrificing a bit of range and efficiency in doing so. This ship has become popular among well-to-do tech prospectors as a result and has also been adopted by some mercenaries, though they generally prefer the Odyssey for its additional large turret and carrier bay, without sacrificing any armor. Because of its lesser direct combat capabilities, few military and pirate fleets in the sector employ the ship.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: MShadowy on February 22, 2012, 01:07:58 PM
Well, I worked a bit more on that ship... and ended up changing most everything about it except the flight deck.

It's probably a wee bit too green now.

(http://i.imgur.com/TQVez.png)

However, it is much more distinctly mine;  I found that was the biggest problem with the idea I had -- essentially it was trying to take too much from the existing designs.  The hull right now is entirely too busy, but I kind of like it's crazy wing shape.

Well, that's all.

-Em Ess

Edit:  Design reasonably finalized.  Now to properly sprite-ify it.  Not sure about the color either.

Maybe red and white'd look good?

(http://i.imgur.com/xxWEz.png)
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: washout on February 23, 2012, 12:50:31 AM
Anyone know which torpedoes are hidden on fighters? I don't want to put single torps on my xwings and bwings, the answer might just be none, or go create custom proton torps noob.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Spartan114 on February 23, 2012, 01:01:00 AM
Ok, the weapon mount points are all wacky still, and the loadout is quick copy-paste but i just *had* to show you guys :)

(http://i.imgur.com/eSvAK.jpg)


I was looking through this thread.. and... and... DO WANT. Like actually, I have my Jayne Hat here and waiting.

Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: medikohl on February 23, 2012, 01:45:43 PM
Ok, the weapon mount points are all wacky still, and the loadout is quick copy-paste but i just *had* to show you guys :)

(http://i.imgur.com/eSvAK.jpg)


I was looking through this thread.. and... and... DO WANT. Like actually, I have my Jayne Hat here and waiting.


but the firefly has no weapons!
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Shield on February 24, 2012, 04:21:20 AM
Ok, a couple new ships before I leave today and can't make any more for the weekend (conveniently anyways; all my computer where I shall be will have smaller, single monitors >.<)

Manta - Designed to be the converse of the Odyssey, while also a relatively fast exploration vehicle with a flight deck, it focuses primarily on defense with armor rivaling that of the Paragon and good shields [By concentrating the shield bubble just over the 'head' of the ship, they can be raised much faster than if they tried to encompass the whole ship, however, they are not as efficient as the Odysseys, due to having only 2/3rds the size of a max flux pool; then again, given its armament is meant to be primarily PD, that gives the shield a bit of breathing room], a large number of small energy turrets, 6 medium energy turrets, 4 small missile hardpoints (rear-facing, meant to take out small ships which think they can attack your unshielded engines like they can an onslaught), and 2 medium universal turrets, and an OP cap similar to the Odyssey's. While, yes, theoretically you could toss on 8 heavy blasters [a medium slot weapon], but a single volley will eat up a large portion of your flux reserves, forcing you to vent, which will take some time; the ship deals much better with point defense systems installed, though it can handle a pair of heavy blasters decently.
(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/mantaonslaught.png)

Rhino - The origin of this ship is something of an enigma, theorized to have been an early prototype blueprint created shortly before the collapse of the gate network; while the gadgetry employed in this ship is technologically astounding, putting it up with the likes of the Hyperion - hence the theorized date of design, the Rhino exhibits few of the contemporary design philosophies. From aesthetics to tactics, the rhino sticks out among its contemporaries like a sore thumb. While it has impressive flux reserves and efficient shields providing decent omni coverage and can support a good number of high-power weapons, its also abnormally heavily armored, and is one of the slowest destroyer class ships known, almost landing in the domain of cruisers were it not for its lower slot count and smaller profile. The speed issue seems to be a result of the combination of heavy armor and the designer using the widely available engine design from the standard Buffalo freighters, likely to save on time so they could test other components of the ship, or perhaps to save a little extra power so it could support more powerful weapons. Currently, the only known copy of the blueprints is held by the Green Sun pirates, though a number of trickled out to other users primarily through the rare sale or gift to allied pirate clans, or the occasional captured ship by mercenaries or military forces.
(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/rhinomedusa.png)

I want these ships...




NAO!!!!
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: MShadowy on February 24, 2012, 06:41:35 AM
Well, basically finished this last night.  Not so sure about the hangar area, and the coloring isn't quite smooth enough to be as perfect as everything else (edit: by which I mean the official ships), but if I kept picking at it I'd probably ruin it.

Need to get some screenshots and write up a mission or two (not necessarily in that order) and it'll be ready to go.

(http://i.imgur.com/il61F.png)

Have a good day all.

Oh, and almost forgot -- I'm perfectly fine with others using or modifying this work.  Do with it as you will.

Just remember to mention me if you do.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Darloth on February 25, 2012, 08:30:31 AM
Not so sure about the hangar area

I hope you don't take this as overly critical, and indeed it's a lovely ship in general, but I preferred the hanger area in your previous drawings of it. I think the raised + colourful tail in this latest version stands out a bit too much, and I liked the way the diagonal struts and launch-ramp-maybe? part drew the eye downwards, giving it a sense of speed.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: MShadowy on February 25, 2012, 10:25:50 AM
Hmmm... well, I can definitely see what you're saying.  Maybe if I swap the bottom hangars... ahhh, what the hell.  This made me want to fiddle with this some more anyway.  Thanks for the critique.

I'll test your suggestions out alongside the escort ship I was planning.

Thanks.

-EmEss
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on February 25, 2012, 10:27:21 AM
That came out very nicely - might want to soften the edges though  ;)
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: StickyNavels on February 26, 2012, 02:02:59 AM
I'm working on adding a more-or-less independent Miner faction. I think I've settled on a style (robotic/industrial) but I can't figure out a good color scheme.
Right now I'm trying to decide between these two:
(http://i.imgur.com/6N1Ge.png)
Any thoughts? (That's a frigate, btw, at 250% size. Background fluff: moves small metal-rich asteroids around with its magnetized head. It's fast, not very maneuverable, packs more mass than most common frigates).

Some great-looking ships in this thread! It's pretty strange seeing so many mods for a game in its alpha state.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Sordid on February 26, 2012, 02:13:29 AM
Nice ship, though I don't like either of those color schemes. If you want to go for an industrial look, why not add a bunch of black and yellow safety stripes?
Oh and also, colored mounting points? Just no.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: medikohl on February 26, 2012, 02:22:45 AM
seed of an idea.
(http://i465.photobucket.com/albums/rr20/medikohl/starfarer/miner2.png)
(http://i465.photobucket.com/albums/rr20/medikohl/starfarer/asteroid4.png)(http://i465.photobucket.com/albums/rr20/medikohl/starfarer/asteroid3.png)(http://i465.photobucket.com/albums/rr20/medikohl/starfarer/asteroid2.png)(http://i465.photobucket.com/albums/rr20/medikohl/starfarer/asteroid1.png)
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: ClosetGoth on February 26, 2012, 11:09:48 AM
@StickyNavels: I think that the brown one gives a nice contrast to space, but a worse contrast to weapons. Blue does the opposite. Is there a reason for those colors? I would suggest actually making it mostly red with some brown. Like, the mostly blue one, except with red instead of blue.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: StickyNavels on February 26, 2012, 12:03:18 PM
@Sordid & catattack:

Thanks for the c.c.! No, there's no particular reason for those colors - I like them but I'm not very attached. :)

Good call on ensuring a defined contrast against space. I'll keep that in mind when trying out new colors.
I'm using the warning stripes on some of the bigger ships - I opted out for this frigate since I felt the design became a bit too cluttered.

@medikoh: I really like that concept! I was playing around with something similar for my miner ships, but the designs became repetitive (seeing a bunch of cloned asteroids on the battlefield looked a bit strange): maybe there's a way to randomize the ships a bit (picking the asteroid "base" from a large archive?) with some coding-magic?
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: MechaLenin on February 26, 2012, 12:11:18 PM
Ok, I've been trying to add my horribly drawn test ship to the game, but got following error: JSONObject "id" not found

It's obviously something trivial, can anyone help me on that?

I'm pretty sure problem is in csv file, although It's just copy/paste from another mod for testing purposes.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Uomoz on February 26, 2012, 12:50:03 PM
Ok, I've been trying to add my horribly drawn test ship to the game, but got following error: JSONObject "id" not found

It's obviously something trivial, can anyone help me on that?

I'm pretty sure problem is in csv file, although It's just copy/paste from another mod for testing purposes.

I had this problem, then I stopped using Openoffice to edit those files xD. I currently use Notepad.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: MechaLenin on February 26, 2012, 12:54:07 PM
It worked, thx:)
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: MShadowy on February 26, 2012, 01:06:15 PM
After fighting off the urge to be redundant it's time to show of some progressy type stuff.

First off, a bit of editing to the Charybdis, following Darloth's critique.  It's something of a compromise between the the two concepts; I think it actually works better than either, though maybe that's just me.  I keep forgetting to work on the aliasing around the edges though.  Doh!

(http://i.imgur.com/PvR7J.png)

Next up, the first draft of the promised escort; the Morningstar-class frigate.  Another fast moving glass cannon like it's bigger sister, the Morningstar's distinct profile informed it's name.  It's highly distinctive sensor packages are sometimes used by reckless young captains to 'mace' vulnerable enemy ships.

(http://i.imgur.com/XKs15.png)

It usually does not end well.

Now that I have an idea of what I'm going for, this came together much more easily than the Charybdis did.

-Em Ess
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: megal00t on February 26, 2012, 02:23:15 PM
i really want to see more of these. sprites made from scratch and still look and feel absolutely awsome.
i wish i could do these things :/
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: MShadowy on February 26, 2012, 03:18:36 PM
Well, not intending on stopping here.  I'd like to make a good number of ships in this style, and of course there are other skilled sprite artists as well.

Should be fun seeing what everyone comes up with.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: medikohl on February 26, 2012, 07:27:24 PM
the sad bit to all this is I'm already plotting on how to cut it up for kitbashing. lol
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Uomoz on February 27, 2012, 02:02:35 AM
the sad bit to all this is I'm already plotting on how to cut it up for kitbashing. lol

Your role in this galaxy is to put us all together.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: icepick37 on February 27, 2012, 09:16:59 AM
i really want to see more of these. sprites made from scratch and still look and feel absolutely awsome.
i wish i could do these things :/
Seconded, haha. I am determined to keep trying until I can master this though.  :D
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: MechaLenin on February 27, 2012, 09:44:23 AM
Here's my first ship I've been working on past few days. My photoshop skill is ~0, so dont be too harsh :).

 It's supposed to be battleship version of Odyssey, although I'll probably give it firepower of paragon and speed of Aurora and solo whole fleets ;D.

(http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/6647/ulysses.th.png) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/190/ulysses.png/)
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Kete on February 27, 2012, 11:46:22 AM
Hi all

I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon and show off something I've been fiddling with. The idea is that it's a converted civilian pleasurecraft, used in more peaceful times to poot about showing the wonders of the universe to space tourists.

Hopefully, once a slightly more user-friendly ship editor comes along I will get this in game, and perhaps I'll even get to port over my GSB fleet http://dsfrench.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d37jdox

Feedback appreciated

[attachment deleted by admin]
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Sordid on February 27, 2012, 04:11:47 PM
Gah, saturation!
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Kete on February 28, 2012, 08:12:03 AM
I might be wrong but I'm assuming you're talking about my ship? I guess you're not a fan of the colour blue? Anyway, did some more work on it, and started on a new one, I've added 2 imgs of that as I dont think it's immediately obvious where the engines are

[attachment deleted by admin]
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: MShadowy on March 01, 2012, 01:55:39 PM
Well, I'm back.  I put the Morningstar through a rather minor redesign.  She's a bit long for a frigate but otherwise looking good.

She's not quite done yet.  The contrast is a little too shallow on the hull and too pronounced on the engine... pylon thing.  And said pylon thing is a little plain still.

But she's close.

(http://i.imgur.com/GX43a.png)

-Em Ess
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: icepick37 on March 01, 2012, 02:02:08 PM
Lookin mighty fine.  :)
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: ClosetGoth on March 04, 2012, 09:38:37 AM
I just made my first ship! I call it the Lancer. It is a long-range support fighter, built around a Tachyon Lance. Obviously, its main weapon is the Tachyon Lance, and it has a single light machine gun and inefficient shields to defend itself. It comes in wings of two, at a base cost of 20 grand and 12 OP's.

[attachment deleted by admin]
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Sweetraveparty on March 04, 2012, 08:11:30 PM
Hello all, I've been looking through these amazing ships and I was wondering... how do you make new ships? I'm okay at graphic art and I really want to do this my self. Would anyone mind telling me how to step-by-step?
Peace, ;)

-Rave
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Tarran on March 04, 2012, 11:55:06 PM
Do you want to make the ship-ship, or just the sprites?
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: maj.loser on March 05, 2012, 06:36:49 AM
So after some faffing about I managed to add a ship, with some minor niggles of course, but the main thing bugging me at the moment is that after adding a 360 turret while playing the game I cannot set the turrent weapon to autofire. What controls whether a weapon can be set to autofire? I have it defined as LINKED, arc 360 angle 0 and it's a taclaser so I think it should work (I checked the wolf's ship data file and didn't see anything specific...).
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: megal00t on March 05, 2012, 07:16:30 AM
hmm it should work... i always set my angle to 360. its exactly the same maybe try that?
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Sweetraveparty on March 05, 2012, 08:21:24 AM
Do you want to make the ship-ship, or just the sprites?

I would like to make both, but the sprites first. How big (pixels x pixels) should a sprite be? And also what format should the image be saved as?
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Tarran on March 05, 2012, 09:20:30 AM
I don't think there is a limit on how large or small the sprites should be. I'd suggest making them at least large enough to hold a weapon slot (see stock images, rip off of them) unless they're bombers or fighters.

I think everyone saves them as PNG.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Sweetraveparty on March 05, 2012, 09:59:51 AM
Alright, thanks. I have an idea for the ship and I'll get to doing that when I get back home (iphone ftw!). Now how do make the ship-ship? Does it involve image mapping or something?
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: megal00t on March 05, 2012, 11:39:03 AM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ell_jGMfns
part 1 of a 2 parter... too bad its for 0.35a but most things will still work
edit: all of it except some stats in the ships_data.CSV but that will be converted to standard values.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Tarran on March 05, 2012, 01:56:54 PM
Last night, I also wrote a short step-by-step guide before I decided to ask whether you wanted help on sprites or adding the ship. I'll post it here just in case you prefer text. And so I don't cry on wasted time.

((I wish this forum had spoilers, it would be easier for me to avoid cluttering up the thread))

First, I'd suggest making a mod directory with all the necessary folders. Including the Data/Hull, data/variants, and graphics/ships directories. I will be doing this step-by-step guide as if making a new mod since that's MUCH cleaner compared to just adding onto the core game.

After that:
Create the sprite;
Use a ship editor, like this (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=435.0) one to get the rough idea of the ship and create a hull, if needed create a Variant;
Put the hull in the Data/hull directory, and the variant in the data/variants directory;
Manually edit the hull file with a text editor to point to the sprite, manually edit the variant to put weapons in slots since the editor I linked to doesn't seem to work with assigning weapons;
Copy a ship_data.csv from either the core game files or another mod and fill out the ship's stats, id, name... Fill in everything (except "8/6/5/4%", that's unused);
Put the ship_data file with the hull.
Now, you have a choice. The ship will work now, but it's not actually being used by the game. You have the choice of making an entirely new faction or just editing the ship to an existing one. If you chose the former, follow ALL the instructions on this (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=1282.0) and add your ships on step 1. If you chose the latter, copy the file mentioned in step 1 from the core game files and put it in a similar folder in your mod from where you find it. Then edit your ships into it. Note that any other mods that modify the faction will conflict if you just modify an existing faction.
Next, grab a "mod_info.json" from a mod and put it in the top directory of your mod. Edit it with a text editor to your liking.
Finally, you can start up the starfarer launcher, and select your mods. Select yours, then launch the game.

If you have devmode on, you can then edit your variants to see how off everything is with your ship right on the start screen and see if you messed up. Otherwise, you'll have to go fighting with or against your ship to see any mistakes. If you find any, I suggest messing around with steps 2 and 4 until your ship looks fine.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Sweetraveparty on March 05, 2012, 03:30:37 PM
I learned something new today... I am a terrible pixel artist!  :P Probably more inexperienced then anything but still... it's kinda depressing. Thanks for telling me exactly how do everything, it's much appreciated :D
Peace,

-Rave
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Tarran on March 05, 2012, 06:19:36 PM
Don't worry, you'll get better.

You should try smaller things not related to this game's ships. Try square or other things with 45 or 90 degree angles, or things that are simpler. At first, try not to make smooth color transitions, but do try at least some amount of color transitions.

You'll eventually learn what looks wrong and what looks right.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: icepick37 on March 05, 2012, 07:07:11 PM
Don't worry, you'll get better.
I too am trying my hand at pixel-arting, haha. I'm terrible, but getting better. Patience and persistence. :p
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on March 12, 2012, 10:56:26 PM
Ok, finally got around to adding another ship (and I still need to update and then publish my mod... >.< but anyways...)

(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/crocodile_elitevar.png)(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/crocodile-fireeverything.png)
Crocodile class battleship
Like the onslaught, the majority of the firepower is facing the front, and interestingly, the firepower to the sides is a good deal lower than on the onslaught, all the way down to outright nothing but four small energy PD to the stern. However, it has a fairly wide omni shield (150 degrees), though its not the most efficient one, good flux reserves, and the PD coverage options are a bit better and less wasteful than on the onslaught. Though you can only mount four large weapons (the front-only firing arc on the front large turrets making them somewhat equatable to the two hardpoints the onslaught has), the front-facing large & medium turrets in the center (in this picture, a dual flak and a pair of plasma cannons) are universal slots. The massive bank of missiles allows for both effective use in a fire support role (Pilums + tachyon lances) or in a close support or assault role (using things like torps or harpoons in the missile slots). This ship generally relies on damage-dealing weapons in the medium and large front-facing slots, and lighter, cheaper weapons and PD in all the other slots. Flux-heavy loadouts/weapon groups should be used with care, and are best when left under manual control; even though you have large flux reserves, venting still takes a good deal of time, and will leave you vulnerable (given how many weapons are at the perimeter of the ship, they can easily be taken out by enemy fire). Best used to take out shields, and then let the missiles do the rest of the work.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on March 13, 2012, 12:07:26 PM
And another ship!


Lance-class Missile Ship

(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/lance_deploying.png)(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/lance_pilums.png)(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/lance_thankyouandhaveaniceday.png)

The Lance is basically the ultimate missile platform. Supporting up to 6 heavy missile hardpoints (plus a universal heavy hardpoint in the center), and 10 medium missile hardpoints (in addition to a pair of small missile hardpoings, 8 small energy turrets, and 2 medium energy turrets), the lance can lob obscene quantities of ordinance at its target (and from two directions, hence the broadside-esq configuration), allowing it to essentially overwhelm any point defenses it comes up against through the sheer quantity of missiles it can launch. Despite the impressive firepower it packs on paper (7 large slots, and 350 OP to spend - that's as much as a paragon, and more large slots to boot), its actual combat profile is pretty much limited entirely to a support role (either close or fire support, fire-support is quite a bit safer for it). Missiles make for a poor assault weapon, and in general, the lance needs other ships to take out the shields on its targets (unless some missile space is used for sabots), though having things like the needler or gauss cannon in the large universal hardpoint can certainly help, especially in allowing a bit more control in when the enemy will be forced to lower their shields or overload. The lance has abysmal flux storage for a capship (on par with the manta, which makes up for this handicap with a high flux vent rate), and rather anemic flux venting (and its gets even lower once the shields go up - its so low in fact, that the only capships with lower flux vent rates are... the atlas I and atlas II, a civilian superfreighter and a jury-rigged carrier of the former respectively); afterall, its small compliment of non-missile weaponry was intended to be taken up entirely by PD and support weapons. Trying to stick a plasma cannon in the large slot is just asking for trouble. And don't even think about using heavy blasters in the medium slots. The hull and armor is about on par with the odyssey. Which is to say that they are fairly mediocre. It'll stand up to hvel rounds, needlers, flak cannons, and maybe some gauss shots, but don't expect it to protect you against a bomber run or any of the assault guns. That's what the rest of your fleet is for (and your shields. Which unlike just about every other ship, aren't really being taxed by weapon systems, despite the lacking flux stats). On the plus side, its cheap for a capship - both to purchase and to deploy. Don't expect to use it as a standard capship though. In a sense, its a capital-ship sized buffalo II - a great support ship in a fleet, but an abysmal fighter on its own.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Upgradecap on March 13, 2012, 12:39:16 PM
And another ship!


Lance-class Missile Ship

(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/lance_deploying.png)(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/lance_pilums.png)(http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/C_Lupus/lance_thankyouandhaveaniceday.png)

The Lance is basically the ultimate missile platform. Supporting up to 6 heavy missile hardpoints (plus a universal heavy hardpoint in the center), and 10 medium missile hardpoints (in addition to a pair of small missile hardpoings, 8 small energy turrets, and 2 medium energy turrets), the lance can lob obscene quantities of ordinance at its target (and from two directions, hence the broadside-esq configuration), allowing it to essentially overwhelm any point defenses it comes up against through the sheer quantity of missiles it can launch. Despite the impressive firepower it packs on paper (7 large slots, and 350 OP to spend - that's as much as a paragon, and more large slots to boot), its actual combat profile is pretty much limited entirely to a support role (either close or fire support, fire-support is quite a bit safer for it). Missiles make for a poor assault weapon, and in general, the lance needs other ships to take out the shields on its targets (unless some missile space is used for sabots), though having things like the needler or gauss cannon in the large universal hardpoint can certainly help, especially in allowing a bit more control in when the enemy will be forced to lower their shields or overload. The lance has abysmal flux storage for a capship (on par with the manta, which makes up for this handicap with a high flux vent rate), and rather anemic flux venting (and its gets even lower once the shields go up - its so low in fact, that the only capships with lower flux vent rates are... the atlas I and atlas II, a civilian superfreighter and a jury-rigged carrier of the former respectively); afterall, its small compliment of non-missile weaponry was intended to be taken up entirely by PD and support weapons. Trying to stick a plasma cannon in the large slot is just asking for trouble. And don't even think about using heavy blasters in the medium slots. The hull and armor is about on par with the odyssey. Which is to say that they are fairly mediocre. It'll stand up to hvel rounds, needlers, flak cannons, and maybe some gauss shots, but don't expect it to protect you against a bomber run or any of the assault guns. That's what the rest of your fleet is for (and your shields. Which unlike just about every other ship, aren't really being taxed by weapon systems, despite the lacking flux stats). On the plus side, its cheap for a capship - both to purchase and to deploy. Don't expect to use it as a standard capship though. In a sense, its a capital-ship sized buffalo II - a great support ship in a fleet, but an abysmal fighter on its own.
May one ask how you went and did these ships? Did you just frankensprite them or? And have tou ever used the battleships forever ship creator? If so, how does one recolor them?
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Tarran on March 13, 2012, 12:48:13 PM
Pretty sure it's frankensprite considering the style of the ships.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on March 13, 2012, 01:21:12 PM
Frankensprited in paint.net (most of my franken ships are ~95% david-originated rasters, 5% original (mostly in closing seams nicely)). I wouldn't use the BSF ship creator since 1) it involves too much work generating the pieces, 2) can't edit them on the fly, 3) can't do nice clean eraser merges in the ship creator. 4) I can't create original components to merge them together either on the fly

I am also someone who doesn't like hue-shifting, except for in very tiny quantities, such as to match up one low-tech part with another, with some original part & eraser-aided blending.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Sweetraveparty on March 28, 2012, 07:41:04 PM
YAY! I just finished making a sprite for a ship I'm going to call the Longsword Attack Cruiser. Turned out a little fatter then I wanted, but oh well  ;D
Oh and Avan where can I get your mod O3O
Here it is!

EDIT: I did frankensprite most of it, except for the seams between the pieces. Turned out quite well, I might add  ;D


[attachment deleted by admin]
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Tarran on March 28, 2012, 08:23:20 PM
Oh and Avan where can I get your mod O3O
I'm pretty sure this is the mod with all his ships. (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=977.0) Also, it's on the first page. Just saying.

Anyway, not bad. The only thing that's weird is the two missile slots from the Medusa sprite. If you put a weapon there, it would look like the ship would shoot itself if it fired those weapons.

Anyway, I have my own few frankenships. Haven't tested them yet, but I will... eventually.

The Supereagle:
(http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/3584/supereagle.png)
Similar to the Vulture from the Demolisher mod, but with no missiles slots, and four hardpoint slots. A full assortment of weapons is as follows: 2 medium and 2 small ballistic slots, 1 large, 6 medium and 4 small energy slots. The ballistics are the front most four slots. The medium ballistics are hardpoints and the small ones are turrets with a small arc if I recall correctly. The four turret medium slots are all energy, as are all the remaining small slots. On the sides, are two hardpoint energy slots. The center slot is a large energy slot. If I did the ship correctly, this ship should be used as a capital ship killer or a long range harasser because of it's large energy slot (Tachyon or Plasma, ho!) and highly resistant (but only 120 degree) shield. The ship is also faster than the Eagle. The ship should struggle against smaller ships due to the smaller shield and reduced maneuverability.

It was made from a Falcon base.

The Maul:
(http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/8853/maulgo.png)
A massively buffed Hammerhead. It has two medium Ballistic and Missile slots in front, two Omni small slots in the center front, and to the sides of those are two small energy slots. In the center back, a medium turret Ballistic slot, and two small energy slots in the back. The Maul is slightly more sluggish than a Hammerhead in every respect, and only has a 180 degree shield, even if it is very resistant, so if everything goes well, the Maul should be a good Cruiser killer, but bad at anything involving taking on lighter ships if it takes on more than one.

The Mace:
(http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/4115/macei.png)
A Sunder base, merged with a Hammerhead. I haven't actually made the ship file yet, so I'm not actually set in stone as for what I want to do with it. But it should be fairly similar to what I'm about to say it has: Two small missile slots in the front, two medium ballistics in the front, one large ballistics in the front (big gun ahoy), and six PD small slots of some sort. Oh, and it should have a hanger around that of a Falcon or Eagle (look at the rear of the ship, same thing in the back that looks like a hanger). Maybe. As for what it's used for, I'll likely make it like the Maul, but even more sluggish.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: medikohl on March 28, 2012, 11:46:24 PM
YAY! I just finished making a sprite for a ship I'm going to call the Longsword Attack Cruiser. Turned out a little fatter then I wanted, but oh well  ;D
Oh and Avan where can I get your mod O3O
Here it is!

EDIT: I did frankensprite most of it, except for the seams between the pieces. Turned out quite well, I might add  ;D

took a look at yours. came up with a couple.

[attachment deleted by admin]
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: medikohl on March 28, 2012, 11:55:22 PM
I do believe this one looks more solid though.

[attachment deleted by admin]
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: MrDavidoff on March 29, 2012, 12:04:34 AM
Pretty sure it's frankensprite considering the style of the ships.


frankensprite means putting stuff from vanilla sprites over-to each other, right ?

how do we call frankensprite mixed with my own contribution ?  :D
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Tarran on March 29, 2012, 01:54:45 AM
Frankensprite I assume. As I assume Frakensprite means putting any kind of sprites over another.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Sweetraveparty on March 29, 2012, 07:15:17 AM
All these ships are so cool! *nerdgasm* Im gonna make another one soon. Its gonna be modeled after the "Silvana" from the show Last Exile. Or something else.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: DarkMajor21 on May 22, 2012, 04:41:00 PM
Ugh how do you even edit the ship data with Open office I tried and its so confusing.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: FlashFrozen on May 22, 2012, 05:25:25 PM
edit a ship as in the stats? or the ship as in what weapons it can carry, it's shield and etc?

with open office your only supposed to use it for ship_data.csv

when it opens, it'll give you some options before you click ok, make sure you set the seperator options to only accept commas

for making ships details and others, I highly, Highly recommend trylobot's ship editor  Here - http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=375.0 (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=375.0)

Don't be afraid to ask for help :)
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: DarkMajor21 on May 23, 2012, 01:25:24 PM
edit a ship as in the stats? or the ship as in what weapons it can carry, it's shield and etc?

with open office your only supposed to use it for ship_data.csv

when it opens, it'll give you some options before you click ok, make sure you set the seperator options to only accept commas

for making ships details and others, I highly, Highly recommend trylobot's ship editor  Here - http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=375.0 (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=375.0)

Don't be afraid to ask for help :)

Thank you very much!
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: Sproginator on May 23, 2012, 04:18:12 PM
Tip: if you don't specify bounds (or specify empty bounds, I forget which), the game will use a circular collision area based on the collisionRadius.

As to the coordinate system, I forget exactly what it is :) It's x,y w/ the ship facing to the right (i.e. towards 0 degrees). The origin might be at the middle of the sprite, or at the rotation center of the ship.


As you might have guessed, there is a ship editor (which is the reason I don't have to remember this anymore). It's not quite ready for prime time, but at some point we'll polish it up and release it.

*** YEH SPOILERS :D
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: 2_Wycked on May 23, 2012, 04:39:01 PM
I could be wrong, but aren't there already several ship editors? Or are you talking more of a all-in-one modding tool?

Either one would be nice.
Title: Re: Adding in custom ships
Post by: CrashToDesktop on May 23, 2012, 05:14:25 PM
It was very interesting to see the development of the Junk Pirates, and then some ships I've never seen before.  Ah, I enjoyed those old days where there weren't any modding programs and where every new ship counted a lot in our hearts.  My personal favorite was the "atlas v2," I'd like to see tha sucker in my own game. ;D
<makes mental note to clean up the graphics folder>  ;D
Psst....you still haven't done this Alex!
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: billi999 on May 24, 2012, 04:48:40 AM
I made a thread about getting custom ships to be added to the existing supply convoys, and I'm not sure whether it worked or not but I never had a chance to figure out - my save files for testing wouldn't load because my script file was causing errors with a tritach supply convoy even though the script modified the Hegemony supply convoy. I can't not load the save until after some arbitrary point in time or event in a save, then the error starts to occur. Thus I can't test for if it's working at all because by the time a hegemony supply convoy arrives I can't load my save again. Here is my HegemonyConvoySpawnPoint code:

Code
package data.scripts.world.corvus;

import java.util.List;

import com.fs.starfarer.api.Global;
import com.fs.starfarer.api.Script;
import com.fs.starfarer.api.campaign.CampaignFleetAPI;
import com.fs.starfarer.api.campaign.CargoAPI;
import com.fs.starfarer.api.campaign.FleetAssignment;
import com.fs.starfarer.api.campaign.LocationAPI;
import com.fs.starfarer.api.campaign.SectorAPI;
import com.fs.starfarer.api.campaign.SectorEntityToken;
import com.fs.starfarer.api.fleet.FleetMemberType;

import data.scripts.world.BaseSpawnPoint;
import data.scripts.world.HegemonyConvoySpawnPoint;

@SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
//public class HegemonyConvoySpawnPoint extends BaseSpawnPoint
public class HegemonyConvoySpawnPointShipPack extends HegemonyConvoySpawnPoint
{

private static String [] ships =
{
"sentinel_Hull",
"buffalob_Hull",
"manta_Hull",
"crow_Hull",
"cobra_Hull",
"lance_Hull",
};
}

And yes, I did call one of my ships lance...it was before I knew about the other ship by the same name.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: icepick37 on May 24, 2012, 09:20:26 AM
I could be wrong, but aren't there already several ship editors? Or are you talking more of a all-in-one modding tool?

Either one would be nice.

I think it would be an actual in-game editor. All official and everything.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Vandala on May 24, 2012, 09:25:54 AM
I think it would be an actual in-game editor. All official and everything.
Oh man, that would be pretty cool.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Upgradecap on May 24, 2012, 10:56:54 AM
I think it would be an actual in-game editor. All official and everything.
Oh man, that would be pretty cool.

I agree!  Though it'd be better to release the modding tool after 1.00 :)
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on May 25, 2012, 12:00:28 AM
Why is that? Well, beyond feelings of perfectionism.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: RutilantSky on May 25, 2012, 12:59:39 PM
Hello all would like to share my first attempts at "frankenspriting"...

Refitted valkyrie, named the 'panther'
3 medium sized ballistic slots,
8 small sized ballistic slots
2 small sized missile slots
(http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/7456/pantherk.png)

And I'm very proud on my latest, did take a couple of evenings to get it done like this...

Another member of the space-faring war birds, named the 'hawk'
4 medium sized ballistic slots
1 medium sized missile slot
3 small sized energy slots
(http://img846.imageshack.us/img846/483/hawkvu.png)
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: DarkMajor21 on May 26, 2012, 11:30:58 AM
I am currently working on a fighter wing, but I realized that I have no idea how to get weapons on them because fighters can't be refitted and other fighters come with weapons on them so how can I add weapons to my fighters?
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: CrashToDesktop on May 26, 2012, 11:38:24 AM
I am currently working on a fighter wing, but I realized that I have no idea how to get weapons on them because fighters can't be refitted and other fighters come with weapons on them so how can I add weapons to my fighters?
Have you tried using Trylobot's Editor?  If you have, it's the same process with fighters as any other ship, just that you skip out on the .cvs editing (I find it easier to do that y hand, without the editor for fighters).
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: DarkMajor21 on May 26, 2012, 11:41:45 AM
I am currently working on a fighter wing, but I realized that I have no idea how to get weapons on them because fighters can't be refitted and other fighters come with weapons on them so how can I add weapons to my fighters?
Have you tried using Trylobot's Editor?  If you have, it's the same process with fighters as any other ship, just that you skip out on the .cvs editing (I find it easier to do that y hand, without the editor for fighters).

I use rebull and Trylobots editor because I like things on both of them, and I don't use his .cvs I like to do it on excel or open office I find it much easier. But with any other ship I can just add them to the game and give them weapons in game I can not do that with fighters due to the face that they can not be refitted.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: CrashToDesktop on May 26, 2012, 11:44:14 AM
But with any other ship I can just add them to the game and give them weapons in game I can not do that with fighters due to the face that they can not be refitted.
Well...what do you want to do? change the existing weapons on a stock fighter?
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: DarkMajor21 on May 26, 2012, 12:19:17 PM
No make a completely new fighter from scratch.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: CrashToDesktop on May 26, 2012, 01:39:11 PM
No make a completely new fighter from scratch.
Well, do the same thing with any other ship, press 2 to add weapons in Trylobot's editor.  Edit the ship_data.cvs and the wing_data.cvs. Easy as that....I don't understand what's so hard.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: DarkMajor21 on May 26, 2012, 02:04:21 PM
Wow I feel really stupid I never even bothered with the variant mode thing. Thanks for the help man.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: DarkMajor21 on May 26, 2012, 03:29:20 PM
Well now I can't figure out how to add it to the game.  :(
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: CrashToDesktop on May 26, 2012, 03:33:49 PM
Well now I can't figure out how to add it to the game.  :(
Which part?  The wing_data part or the ship_data part?  If you're having trouble, just PM me or take a look at the stock .cvs to see what needs to be done.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on June 02, 2012, 12:32:39 AM
I'm messing around with a new style of making ships (non-kitbashed); its much faster than my old method, makes for not-greyscale ships XP, and I think it gives a relatively visually consistent look.

A couple examples: [Note, these aren't for re-use in other people's mods unless I explicitly give permission, edited, whole, or otherwise. Just saying this since the last time I posted whole sprites, someone kitbashed some of them really poorly without approval]

Here, I was doing some preliminary experimentation. I hadn't really figured out how I was doing this. Went back and touched it up after I made the frigate. Still needs some work I feel, might just redo it later.
(https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3061400/starfarer/Asp_Interceptor.png)

Here, I had a better idea of the methodology I wanted to use, and manged to make a much clearer image, which I hope feels visually consistent (which is partly why I kitbashed so much)
(https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3061400/starfarer/Amanita_Strike_Frigate.png)

The background of this faction is one I planned out ages ago. These are bleeding edge ships; all prototypes developed just prior to and following the collapse of the gate network by a secret Dominion R&D installation in the sector; specifically, they were tasked with designing heavily automated and fully autonomous ships. The installation was a fully self-contained habitat vessel landed in the arctic region of a terraformed but lightly inhabited agricultural world, which had a rather conspicuous autofactory in orbit, which tended to "go offline" much to the population's displeasure due to "unspecified technical difficulties". Despite this, the world would become very attractive later on due to having an autofactory (Despite its reputation), and an agricultural base. The research installation maintained their secrecy even once the gate stopped functioning; it wasn't until factions started forming, and multiple invasion fleets were sent their way that they revealed their presence... and the fleet of drone ships they had constructed. While nominally they were under the control of the Domian's military, it was the scientists who took charge of the operation, as they were the ones with the command codes (and backdoor over-rides...). When it became clear that the gates were probably not going to be coming back on line anytime soon, they organized into more of a coherent body of governance (in this case a meritocracy focused on intellect). They became the Directorate. They focused first on defense, second on maintaining their knowledge base, and third on acquiring as many blank blueprint roms as possible; while they had a large number on hand, the roms would not last forever, especially since it often took quite a few flawed prototypes before a production-grade design was produced. This stash ran out less 50 years in, and the creation of new ships and weapons has ground to a near-halt, with only a few roms trickling in over the years. On the other hand, there were other practical limits as to how quickly the Directorate could expand its fleet and territory; the autofactory required raw materials, and infernium was always hard to come by. A number of blueprints have trickled out of their hands over the years, all of which were incomplete or nearly-complete versions of less-critical weapons and ships. The rate at which the Green Sun pirates manage to accumulate them suggests that there are some pretty heavy dealings between them, likely in exchange for hunting for new roms and raiding hegemony supply convoys, however nothing truly conclusive has come up yet.

As to the stats of these ships, they are generally built with defense in mind; a lot of the initial designs were re-worked early on to be more defensible, since every ship lost meant that more raw materials would need to be maintained, and in the case of non-drone ships, that their already tiny population base would be further reduced. Superb shields, decent armor, but anemic slot counts and/or slot-size are all common attributes of Directorate ships. Many of them also incorporate defensive systems (well, for the next update anyways ;P) such as systems to foil missiles or targeting.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Archduke Astro on June 02, 2012, 10:50:58 AM
Lovely little sprites you've shown us, Avan! Those are really sweet.  :)

I'm messing around with a new style of making ships (non-kitbashed); its much faster than my old method, makes for not-greyscale ships XP, and I think it gives a relatively visually consistent look.

Emphasis mine. This is of considerable interest to me (and I'm sure, to others as well)! Perhaps you'd care to describe your techniques & workflow for the forum? I like the visual appeal of your results, and if there's an alternate method to arrive at a quality product while also avoiding the mechanical tedium and general visual predictability of kitbashing, I would enjoy hearing how to do it. Thanks.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on June 02, 2012, 12:17:09 PM
Sure, I actually saved my file in a manner that would allow me to step-by-step show progress, and explain what I was doing in each layer.

Its very layer intensive, but I made that frigate in about half an hour. I'm using paint.net, which is free, and I actually don't recall using any of my plugins (well, none that were vital, you could still use the stock versions of them.) so that simplifies things.

I am using a tablet for this however; it /vastly/ simplifies the artistic process I find.

First I make a basic outline using a low-alpha pencil tool:
(https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3061400/starfarer/Tutorial/Amanita_Turorial_Step1.png)

Next I use a 50% tolerance 'wand selection', and select the regions that are 'not part of the ship'. I copy this blank area. I then take a solid 'base color' I want to use for the ship, and then create a layer under my line-art and use the paint bucket to dump it all in. I then paste the 'not part of the ship' area I copied onto this layer, and then hit delete on that selected region, which leaves only the region under the ship colored:
(https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3061400/starfarer/Tutorial/Amanita_Turorial_Step2.png)

Next, I then take a low-alpha pencil tool again and begin painting on the top layer by layer: (each layer is a different color) - Note that I put all the drawn color layers /on top/ of the line art; this allows me to 'soften' it as I go, removing the hard black lines that I initially had.
(https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3061400/starfarer/Tutorial/Amanita_Turorial_Step3.png)
(https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3061400/starfarer/Tutorial/Amanita_Turorial_Step4.png)
(https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3061400/starfarer/Tutorial/Amanita_Turorial_Step5.png)
(https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3061400/starfarer/Tutorial/Amanita_Turorial_Step6.png)
(https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3061400/starfarer/Tutorial/Amanita_Turorial_Step7.png)
(https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3061400/starfarer/Tutorial/Amanita_Turorial_Step8.png)

I then collapse and mirror these layers to then cover the whole ship.
(https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3061400/starfarer/Tutorial/Amanita_Turorial_Step9.png)

However, I felt that the lines were still to harsh, so I then duplicated my still transparent color layer to get this:
(https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3061400/starfarer/Tutorial/Amanita_Turorial_Step10.png)

Now, I take that upper layer, and mess around with that layer's alpha, its saturation and its lightness (and maybe even hue if you wanted to. This may have... hideous results though, but minor changes in the slider can often produce nice effects) until I achieve an effect that I like:
(https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3061400/starfarer/Tutorial/Amanita_Turorial_Step11.png)

The final step is to add on all the hardpoint and turret slots (the only kitbashing required), like this:
(https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3061400/starfarer/Tutorial/Amanita_Turorial_Step12.png)
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Trylobot on June 04, 2012, 09:12:22 AM
Wonderfully excellent tutorial - I will have to try this Avan
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Wyvern on June 04, 2012, 09:36:44 AM
Very nice ship design, albeit a bit monochromatic; a touch of some color other than teal & grey weapon slots might improve it.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Avan on June 04, 2012, 04:48:29 PM
The larger designs will likely have some more exposed greebling sort of stuff, couldn't really find any place to put it on the small design without it feeling a bit too messy.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: MShadowy on July 16, 2012, 08:03:30 AM
Well, yeah.  I kinda am an easily distracted jerk, so... I was on the verge of publishing the Morningstar ff as it was, when I suddenly found other shiny distractions which diverted my attention away from Starfarer (sacrilege I know).  Like I said, easily distracted jerk.  Intending, several times, to pick the game back up, it's taken me until now to do so, and in turn until now to resume the modding work.

First up, finishing the Morningstar class frigate.  As you may recall, it was about completed, looking like this:

(http://i.imgur.com/GX43a.png)

And at the time I was like, "yeah, that looks okay."  And it does, I suppose.  But after finishing futzing around with the raws and getting it in game, I found it was, just perhaps, a little too compressed.  As in, looks ridiculous with the guns practically on top of each other.

So, once again, I went back over it, keeping the same vague idea in mind and...

(http://i.imgur.com/wmUvZ.png)

It's way too big to be a frigate.  Doh!

But I'm too happy with how it looks now to redo it, so I guess I'll just have swallow my pride and relabel it a destroyer.  Though it'd probably be under armed for one with it's current configuration; I'll have to add a couple hardpoints I guess.

Also, bonusy thing, the 4x sized original:

Spoiler
(http://i.imgur.com/DcGPD.png)
Yeah, originally it had those four radiator... spine... things.  But they looked flarging ridiculous so I nixed 'em.
[close]

Edit:

Well, not that anyone seems interested, but have a quick look at a rather messy concept piece for a couple fighters (and a missile) that I've started working on:

Spoiler
(http://i.imgur.com/T1r50.png)
[close]

I'll probably release these (and the Morningstar) in a pack once I've finished them all up.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: mendonca on July 19, 2012, 03:19:18 AM
Hey! I was just wondering the other day where you had got to  :)

Your ships are really beautiful, keep it up!
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Sproginator on July 19, 2012, 03:23:25 AM
Hey! I was just wondering the other day where you had got to  :)

Your ships are really beautiful, keep it up!
I concour! Amazing ships there my friend!
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: MShadowy on July 19, 2012, 07:35:58 AM
Aheh.  Sorry bout leaving you wondering at me, mendonca.  Glad you and sprog are happy with the work so far.

(http://i.imgur.com/JnsKE.png)

(http://i.imgur.com/nUSeQ.png)

I had the day off yesterday, so I managed to rush (perhaps unwisely) through getting the Skinwalker and Neriad finished up.  There are a few more things I need to do before releasing the package though.  Obviously there needs to be some balance testing done for the three ships, but...

Firstly, I want to get them (and the Charybdis, as well) campaign integrated, which is something I haven't really done before.  I don't expect it should be too hard.

Secondly...

(http://i.imgur.com/p6SPU.png)

I added two missile systems for the fighters - the Shrike class anti-ship missile on the left, and the Blackcap Space-to-Space missile predictably on the right.  I need to add graphics for the launcher systems though; I threw together some quick ones last night but they look terrible.

Finally, have a lil' preview thing for another ship, the Enlil class frigate:

Spoiler
(http://i.imgur.com/AvNw8.png)

... which I have no idea what purpose it should be for.  Don't want to add just another generic attack frigate.
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Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: Wyvern on July 19, 2012, 09:13:04 AM
... which I have no idea what purpose it should be for.  Don't want to add just another generic attack frigate.

Make it a multi-role frigate - make it on the large end of frigate sizes, and give it a single medium universal slot (hardpoint or narrow-arc forward turret), along with a few small slots - I'd suggest two universal slots (also hardpoint or narrow-arc forward turret) and two energy turrets covering its back.  Give it a decent sized fixed-forward shield, enough ordnance points to make that an omni shield without crippling its weapon loadout, and what you've got is a second-best-at-everything frigate.
Need ballistic combat support?  Well, it can't quite match the Brawler for forward firepower, but it should be a bit more survivable.
Need long range missile support?  Well, it can match the Vigilance's LRM launcher, and its secondary armament is probably more useful... but it (should) cost a few more fleet points to field, and it's not like the extra guns do much good if it's sitting back away from the fight.
Need a point-defense escort?  Flak cannon, needlers, the hull mod to make those needlers also point-defense, and maybe some LRPD for the rear turrets.
Etc.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: MShadowy on July 19, 2012, 04:39:38 PM
A Jack-of-All-Trades, eh?  Heh, I think I like that idea, and I'm going to go with it; certainly it's a lot better than the lack of ideas I was having before.

Thanks for the help, Wyvern.

Also, I've gotten the Morningstar (and variant) in game now.  One step closer to next release.

(http://i.imgur.com/kNdV9.png)
Standard variant in the simulator.

(http://i.imgur.com/Lk6O5.png)
An earlier version of the standard type, with burst pd emitters.

Other variants are Point Defence/CWS, Close Support, and Strike.  Not much left now - finishing the custom weapons up properly and adding a station for the ships in campaign.
Title: Re: Adding custom ships
Post by: CrashToDesktop on July 20, 2012, 11:10:13 AM
Did someone say jack-of-all-trades?  That's me. ;D  Anyways, I can help with weapons.

And MShadowy, nice-looking ships there.  Looks like a true attack frigate. ;)