[NOTICE] We can now add new ship images for class variants

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Igard
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[NOTICE] We can now add new ship images for class variants

Post by Igard »

I've just added a new shipset to my customization folder without assigning it a race, so it's basically an 'other' shipset.

What this means is, we can now create an entire set of ship images for the purpose of creating new variants of a class.

This is great for those of us who like to build light cruisers as well as heavy cruisers, torpedo frigates etc. or we can now build a carrier class and use a carrier image from the combo box when designing a new ship.

EDIT: Upon further testing, I've found a drawback to this. You must have all images for the shipset, the game can't load escort.png if you there is none for family20 in the vanilla directory, so you must have 25 ship images present in your extra shipset folder.
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Shark7
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RE: [NOTICE] We can now add new ship images for class variants

Post by Shark7 »

ORIGINAL: Igard

I've just added a new shipset to my customization folder without assigning it a race, so it's basically an 'other' shipset.

What this means is, we can now create an entire set of ship images for the purpose of creating new variants of a class.

This is great for those of us who like to build light cruisers as well as heavy cruisers, torpedo frigates etc. or we can now build a carrier class and use a carrier image from the combo box when designing a new ship.

Oh yeah! This will be fun.
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Igard
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RE: [NOTICE] We can now add new ship images for class variants

Post by Igard »

From my perspective, it means I can start adding lots of various Starfleet ships, so if I want, I can build a Nova class frigate or an Akira class or even an Intrepid Class (voyager).

I'll probably do a whole shipset for the Federation ships and another one for the rest of the races. It might mean 2 less unique race shipsets, but that's still 18 shipsets. Pretty good really.
feygan
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RE: [NOTICE] We can now add new ship images for class variants

Post by feygan »

Nice find but how exactly does this work? Do I make a new family folder in the ship image dir, or do I just dump all the .png inot the ship image folder themselves?

Also when you say you have to have all the images, do you mean I need to have one of each of the vanilla one (escort/destroyer/cruiser etc etc) and then just add in more and more of whatever name I want them to be?
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Igard
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RE: [NOTICE] We can now add new ship images for class variants

Post by Igard »

ORIGINAL: feygan

Nice find but how exactly does this work? Do I make a new family folder in the ship image dir, or do I just dump all the .png inot the ship image folder themselves?

I'm still testing out the best way to go about this. I'm creating a family20 (I can't remember if it goes up to 21?) folder in my customized theme. So it's Customization/'theme name'/shipImages/family20.

That way it will always be the bottom shipset in the design screen. That should just make them easier to find.

Also when you say you have to have all the images, do you mean I need to have one of each of the vanilla one (escort/destroyer/cruiser etc etc) and then just add in more and more of whatever name I want them to be?


Yes, the best way is to simply copy an entire shipset and start replacing them. Until you have a full ship set, you'll find the other images getting in the way. If you want to arrange them in the correct order so they're not all mixed together, I have a list of the ship image order in the design screen.

I'm still working on it, but I believe this should work pretty well.
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Shark7
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RE: [NOTICE] We can now add new ship images for class variants

Post by Shark7 »

Let's make sure I get this:

1. Do a family20 or 21 that would be just like a normal shipset.
2. Don't assign it to a race.
3. Put the ships I want in it.

Now the question, do I just get 1 escort, or do I get escort 2, 3 etc?

If I'm thinking right, the above won't work, but if I rename my second cruiser choise to say...genericbase, it shows up in game still available for use, even though its a ship, not a base.
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Igard
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RE: [NOTICE] We can now add new ship images for class variants

Post by Igard »

Pardon me, I've had a few whiskeys, but I'll try.

You can put whatever ship images you like in the folder but there must be 25 images in the folder. You can make them all escorts if you wanted to, but they must be named like every other shipset. So you can have as many of a ship class as you want, but remember there are only 23 images that get used. I'm not sure about fighter and bomber png's so I've just placed the vanilla ones in my folder to avoid any errors. If you leave out an image, you'll get an error. Name the ships like any other shipset, only obviously you'll be naming ships as 'smallspaceport', 'gasminingstation' etc..

If I'm thinking right, the above won't work, but if I rename my second cruiser choise to say...genericbase, it shows up in game still available for use, even though its a ship, not a base.

Yip, that's the right. It should work just like any other ship image even though it's a base. [;)]
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ehsumrell1
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RE: [NOTICE] We can now add new ship images for class variants

Post by ehsumrell1 »

I've found also Igard that pirates will also use the additional shipset(s)
also. What a surprise when I had to fight them!
Shields are useless in "The Briar Patch"...
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Igard
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RE: [NOTICE] We can now add new ship images for class variants

Post by Igard »

Ok, scrap what I said about using family 20, I remember now Elliot or someone saying the game would ignore the shipset if there are no shipsets in sequence.

You must use family11 as the shipset if you have not already created extra families. I'll do a guide when I understand completely what to do.

In the mean-time here's a sample of my new 'extra' shipset for TRSE mod.



Image
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shipfamily.jpg
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Igard
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RE: [NOTICE] We can now add new ship images for class variants

Post by Igard »

ORIGINAL: ehsumrell1

I've found also Igard that pirates will also use the additional shipset(s)
also. What a surprise when I had to fight them!

No! Well it doesn't really make a difference, because they're going to be used anyway by the player and for other empires, they won't notice that the pirates have some nice shiny new ships that even their own government's never seen before! [:D]
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Igard
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RE: [NOTICE] We can now add new ship images for class variants

Post by Igard »

I can confirm that you do need the fighter and bomber png's in the shipset folder or else the game won't start. These could be anything really as it's only really, I've used the images for the generic shipset in TRSE mod. If the pirates use these fighters also, then it shouldn't look too bad.

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ehsumrell1
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RE: [NOTICE] We can now add new ship images for class variants

Post by ehsumrell1 »

Segwaying a bit Igard, just wanted you to know that you're gonna just love
the biases.txt file. Remember how you told me to set up the races in ST?
[Bajorans hate Cardassians, Klingons hate Romulans, etc,] It's SO EASY now
using the biases.txt file. Combine this with the way you can set starting
governments and tech focuses.....Oh boy! I've been testing with it the last
few hours and it works fantastic. It will be even better when you have the
time to set it all up to get the true "Star Trek" balance. It will be great
also for the different factions in the other mods as well (B-5, Star Wars).
Shields are useless in "The Briar Patch"...
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Igard
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RE: [NOTICE] We can now add new ship images for class variants

Post by Igard »

Sounds good. [8D]

I haven't got round to installing the beta patch yet as I'm still trying to finish an epic game I've got going. Looking forward to it.
feygan
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RE: [NOTICE] We can now add new ship images for class variants

Post by feygan »

Just had a look at that as I didnt even know it was there, and have to say it will open up alot of modding extras now. Very nice new addition.[8D]
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