Mod Request to Darth Kryo (someone please forward)

[W.i.n.t.e.r]

Hello everyone,

Since I don't seem to be able to register at galcivII's homepage (I never seem to get my activation email ) I'm hereby making a request to be forwarded to Darth Kryo to develop his excellent mod insofar as to add the max frame coordinate size cap for ingame unit display, for each particular hull size accordingly. This way, all units built with the Hull System Mod will automaticaly recieve the correct sizes I would do it myself, but it all seems like chinese backwards to me at this point
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The only upsetting thing with this one is that while I used the cool Hull System Mod by Kryo, this very mod also shrinks this larger unit on the actual game map.

The maximal frame size isn't observed in that mod and all newly made ships will (!) be maxed out at about Cargo Ship size. This means that ship units meant to be smaller than that are going to be too large, while ship types meant to be larger will be shrunk to fit the smaller frame, by default.

Shrinking those oversized ones manualy in their respective text files ain't a problem, but up-sizing the "large" and "huge" type hulls-to-be is yet impossible with this mod. All blank files are the same maximum frame size (and I have no idea where one can change that).

Could a kind soul with membership at Galciv2.com Forums please forward this to him? Pretty please with icing and cream on top???

 

[BSmith1068]

Done. I created a new post in the Mods section of the Forum.... (wasn't sure how to send a PM directly to Darth Kryo)

 

[W.i.n.t.e.r]

Bless you BSmith !!!

 

[W.i.n.t.e.r]

I just realized Kyro's mod even has its own thread over here

 

[BSmith1068]

Yeah... I noticed that right after I created a new post... oh well, this way your question will get a little bit more attention instead of being #51 in a long post.

 

[W.i.n.t.e.r]

LoL- thanks again- lots see if someone spots it

 

[kryo]

Good to hear you liked my little mod

As to the problem, I personally hadn't noticed it before. Upon investigation though it does seem that when you fleet ships together they all appear the same size (and smaller than the huge hulls at that). They do appear to look correctly scaled in the battle viewer though, as far as I can tell, or at least the scaling settings you apply to the hull pieces in the ship designer are properly respected (this is not so when you look at a fleet on the map--the same hull scaled up will be made the same size as if it were scaled all the way down).

Unfortunately I wouldn't have a clue how to go about fixing this issue, if it is at all possible. Bear in mind the mod is vastly simpler than it appears to be--as I made it before any information at all was released about adding new models to the game, the blank hull models are simply the 'light' hull jewelry, manually edited in notepad to remove the texture and place the vertices so close together as to make it invisible; I then copy and pasted the needed lines to add a hardpoint from an existing hull. I really have no clue about what values to change in the model that could fix this (there are no other such values anywhere else), and I don't have the appropriate modelling software or expertise to create a new "blank" model without this problem.

 

[W.i.n.t.e.r]

Hey, you really answered- thank you Kyro, and welcome to Civfanatics

It seems that while in the ship designer and battle view ships are properly depicted, when it comes to the map, the game engine attributes the scale according to a set maximum value.

After some research (and after losing some hair over it too) I came to the conclusion that the size is actualy set somewhere in the mesh data in the file the ship gets the info from: i.e. S0_Large. When one replaces the Mesh data (only "Mesh") in the S0_Blank file with that of the S0_Large2 one (Human Large) all Blank units in-game will look like the original Hulls that came with the game and adopt their intended sizes (i.e. the Large will look like the large, Medium like Medium, etc).

When one uses the S0_Blank's original Mesh the sizes and looks are back to depict the custom ship designs.

I also replaced the Mesh Normals, Mesh Material list and Mesh texture Coordinates - but with no real change in the game.

Wouldn't it be possible to take the mesh file data of the S0_Large and seek both highest and lowest values and set up a transparent mesh, single hardpoint in its centre? Basicaly we's obtain a box in which centre a custom ship could be built, or so I think it'd be (?)

 

[kryo]

If that's the case, I imagine one could do it pretty easily with access to the proper tools. It could be as simple as just plopping down an appropriately sized primitive in 3dsm, setting it to a totally transparent material, adding a properly oriented dummy, and exporting it.

Unfortunately I don't have a modeller that can export properly to .x that I'm aware, so it would have to fall on someone else's shoulders. But if someone could do that and supply me the proper models I'd happily replace my super-crude hacked-up ones with them and give credit in the mod readme

 

[W.i.n.t.e.r]

Hm, the programs that were indicated at the GalcivII forums I don't have (or know how to use... yet) Perhaps this would be a nice thing to ask the Galciv team for, i.e. for the 1.2 patch (after all 1.1 is taking up most of their time right now).

But yes, for someone with the knowledge and right tools this should be something taking up for a mere 15 minutes to create- after all it'd be a few transparent placeholders, I'd say.

 

[W.i.n.t.e.r]

but another thing, Kryo: I suppose you will be updating you mod for v.1.1 ? Would it be possible to add a new hull in the XML, one to go between the Medium and Large one?

The Medium Hull reads something like "perfect for Frigates" while the large ones seem to suit the role of Cruisers best. So I thought that a Destroyer is still missing; slower than a Frigate but better armed, yet not as mighty as a Star Cruiser. The values ans hull size should be somewhere between those to- is that doable?

 

[Supreme Shogun]

Hi. Sorry for piping in. Looks like you'll get your wish, 1.1 is about to be finalized soon and 1.2 will include modding stuff (just browsed galciv2.com before here ).

 

[W.i.n.t.e.r]

Hi. Sorry for piping in. Looks like you'll get your wish, 1.1 is about to be finalized soon and 1.2 will include modding stuff (just browsed galciv2.com before here ).

Why be sorry, when you are the bearer of good news? Lets see what 1.1 brings along

 

[kryo]

but another thing, Kryo: I suppose you will be updating you mod for v.1.1 ? Would it be possible to add a new hull in the XML, one to go between the Medium and Large one?

Doable, yes, but I probably won't. Partially because even though it isn't officially supported, it works as-is on metaverse games (though I will not endorse or recommend attempting that). Adding actual new content, even if balanced, would make that impossible or at least far more difficult to justify.

I will be making an update once the mods folder functionality is working (don't know if that will be in 1.1 or 1.2, I've been to busy to look at the beta patches), after which point no further updates should be needed unless we can get new blank models to fix the issue you initiall posted about.

 

[kryo]

Update: with some information that found its way into the official modding guide (not yet released, I'm currently going it over for Cari), I've figured out the oroginal scaling issue that prompted this thread. The fix appears to be backwards-compatible, so it will be included in the 1.2 version (which should be final, unless they rebalance the ship values again).

 

[W.i.n.t.e.r]

COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL that sounds awesome !!!