MOD SUPPORT- Ship Sets and Race Images

[lordxorn]

Hey fellow modders,

I am in a frenzy to get my Star Wars mod up to Shakturi standards. However, I am getting some errors when I select the Rebellion, I get this error "Index was outside the bounds of the array".. I have a sneaking suspision that it has something to do with the races.txt

ANother odd occurence is, I went ahead and played one of the default races and edited some of the Rebellion ships in.
A funny thing happened when I went to launch what I thought would be some xwing and ywing fighters and bombers, was that the default race fighters and bombers launched. Which makes sense because the that is what was assigned to the default race I was playing.

So anyways here is how I have my mod setup so far,

Rebellion
shipImages named to family12
raceImages named race_22.png, race_22a.png
and troopImages Troop_22.png

I have attached my races.txt

So if any of you other beta testers who delve more into this aspect can help me pinpoint where I am going wrong, I can get my Star Wars Mod ROTS version up. [:)]

[Shark7]

Same problem. AS of right now, it seems the game will not support more than 22 race image families, so you are limited to the ones that already exist.

[lordxorn]

I was hoping I was doing something wrong, but I am thinking you are right. Although I am sure Elliot said it was ok?

Ok I replaced two of the default races with my mod and renamed the corresponding folders and files to match, and the errors went away.

Hopefully Elliot can clear this all up before he goes on xmas vacation. [:)]

[Shark7]

OK to add more than 22 races, but apparantly there is no support for the race images. I've put a post about this in the modder's wishlist as a priority.

[tjhkkr]

Ah... Okay, I understand now.

[Haree78]

Please confirm my bug report:
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2654140

[tjhkkr]

I think that has got it.

[ehsumrell1]

ORIGINAL: lordxorn

Hey fellow modders,

I am in a frenzy to get my Star Wars mod up to Shakturi standards. However, I am getting some errors when I select the Rebellion, I get this error "Index was outside the bounds of the array".. I have a sneaking suspision that it has something to do with the races.txt

ANother odd occurence is, I went ahead and played one of the default races and edited some of the Rebellion ships in.
A funny thing happened when I went to launch what I thought would be some xwing and ywing fighters and bombers, was that the default race fighters and bombers launched. Which makes sense because the that is what was assigned to the default race I was playing.

So anyways here is how I have my mod setup so far,

Rebellion
shipImages named to family12
raceImages named race_22.png, race_22a.png
and troopImages Troop_22.png

I have attached my races.txt

So if any of you other beta testers who delve more into this aspect can help me pinpoint where I am going wrong, I can get my Star Wars Mod ROTS version up. [:)]

The only thing I see in your races file is to change your two added races' reproduction
rate to a decimal format (1 to 1.00).
This "might" cause an out of range, not sure, but if the code is looking for a
decimal format for that particular data, who knows? Just a thought. I always just
copy and paste an entire line of one of the original races then tweak each data
area to my liking.

[tjhkkr]

Hey gang, did the issue with the designs.txt file get resolved?
In the prior game, if you added or changed the file, the game freaked out?

[Igard]

ORIGINAL: tjhkkr

Hey gang, did the issue with the designs.txt file get resolved?
In the prior game, if you added or changed the file, the game freaked out?

Haven't tested it yet, tj. In fact I think I've lost the file of Star Trek ship names I had for it. [:(]

[Tampa_Gamer]

On a related question re: shipsets, one point of confusion I have:

It appears that the game modifies the size of the original image based on the in-game size of the ship/base. Has anyone worked out the ratio of pixels to in-game size? That would be very helpful in trying to properly proportion our own shipsets (e.g. escort vs. capital ship). Many of the shipsets available for download appears to swing widely between 200-300 and even 500 pixels, but not necessarily corresponding to in game size (e.g. I have seen some shipsets with 500 pixel fighters). Perhaps it does not matter?

[Igard]

The game scales ships by calculating the number of opaque pixels. The more opaque pixels there are, the smaller the ship will appear. I haven't figured it out completely but it seems to me to be a ratio of transparent to opaque pixels. For example if I use a ship image that's 500x500 with alot of transparent pixels, it still looks the same size as the same ship of 200x200 pixels with the same ratio of transparent to opaque.

Here's a thread where it's discussed with Elliot: tm.asp?m=2513492&mpage

[lordxorn]

To help clarify things further, the pixel size of a ship ie 200x200 vs 500x500px only adds to a more detailed image in game and thus taking for memory. Thus it only makes sense for say a Cruiser and Capital class ship to have a base picture at 500 pixel size. All the other class can be rendered at 250px to help keep things running smoothly.

The game also has problems rendering long pencil shaped ships (ie Nebulon Frigate)and large square ships (ie Borg Cube). The former can be fixed, however the latter in my opinion can only be fixed by Elliot and the way the game calculates the ratio that Igard mentioned, opaque vs transparent.

[tjhkkr]

I usually convert all to 200 x 200, and all fighters to 100 x 100. That is simply to give all the memory and space that I can to the computer to play the game.
There have been a few images I have never converted because they are so cool, but I do so for the sake of the memory issues.

[Igard]

I'm totally guilty of making esorts and frigates 500x500. I just can't bear to scale them down and lose all that lovely texture. I've not noticed any performance issues with my 4GB setup, but I should really consider making a low res alternative version for lower end machines.

[Tampa_Gamer]

Thanks for the links/tips everyone, will be tinkering tonight with this.

[lordxorn]

ORIGINAL: Igard

I'm totally guilty of making esorts and frigates 500x500. I just can't bear to scale them down and lose all that lovely texture. I've not noticed any performance issues with my 4GB setup, but I should really consider making a low res alternative version for lower end machines.

Yeah plus at the size I design them at I don't really notice the drop in detail.

[Igard]

ORIGINAL: lordxorn

ORIGINAL: Igard

I'm totally guilty of making esorts and frigates 500x500. I just can't bear to scale them down and lose all that lovely texture. I've not noticed any performance issues with my 4GB setup, but I should really consider making a low res alternative version for lower end machines.

Yeah plus at the size I design them at I don't really notice the drop in detail.

That's true, I find that your ship images, lordxorn are usually taken from a nice image source, or perhaps you touch them up a bit yourself to make them look sharp.

My method on the other hand uses sometimes 10 year old 3D models viewed with a basic model viewer and then copied and slapped into GIMP. So I need all the quality I can get! [;)]