MOD: STA2 Upgrade Project 2014 - A stock A2 mod in FO

posted on January 27th, 2014, 5:19 pm

Glad to hear the nebula issue seems to have worked itself out, but I'll still go through everything again with each new update.

As to warp, yeah I dropped the warp value from 400 to 200 in the physics files as zipping across the entire map in about 5-10 seconds was a bit much. I went for a tiny bit of realism in that even warp does take a bit of time to get anywhere. I can look at upping the value a little bit though.

As to pathfinding, I do remember experimenting with some of the pathfinding and collision avoidance variables in the RTS_CFG, but I'm pretty sure I changed all that back to stock. I'll double check to be sure that something isn't throwing it off. I've also added the formation fix by TChapman500 and will set the AI to default formation move in the RTS-cfg for the next update. Try adding his formation fix to the mod and see if that might correct it?

As for adding new ships to single player missions you'll need to add the ship to the races tech tree file (I believe those are in the techtree folder and are separated by mission? I'm at work so can't recall exactly at the moment) and then you'll need to add the ship to each build list in the respective mission you want it to appear in. Those are in the AI/AIP folder. Don't forget to add it to the shipyard.

posted on January 28th, 2014, 4:13 am

Thanks for the advise. I hate to come to you again with yet another bug but I think this something I think you should look into. Whenever I decommission a ship or station I don't get all the resources back. In fact the only thing I get back is crew. I've decommission ships while staring at the dilithium counter and not gotten a single unit back. BTW have you tried my Star Wars Mod? If so what do you think?

posted on January 28th, 2014, 5:24 am

No problem. I need to know about any problems people find so keep them coming. I may not always be able to fix them, but others here are very helpful as well and generously lend their support. The decommision bug is a known FO aspect that was broken by accident. I believe it's fixed in the next version of FO. For now I don't think there is anything that can be done?

You can't save games except to hit cntl-S either. Those were mentioned when the original Classic Mod was being developed.

I actually tried your mod a couple times and liked how you've done it so far, but then I started using it to study how you did things when I contemplated doing a true FO mod. But that has been put on hold since I got my version of the Classic Mod stand alone. I do follow your posts though and hope to try more mods when I wrap up mine. I do thank you for all the time you've tried mine though and report your findings/problems etc.

posted on January 28th, 2014, 5:51 am

You can 'fix' ship decommission rates for the time being by using the Fleet Operations craft ODF commands, recycleXXX (see http://guide.fleetops.net/guide/modding ... eDilithium )

posted on January 28th, 2014, 10:14 am

Just a quick bug report, haven't played it all through but was looking at your new models and textures in the map editor. A lot of the new stations seem to have lighting issues (I think the emmissive is set to white in the material rather than black). Ship wise, the Sovereign is affected badly by this. The nacelles have the correct light settings, but the hull and saucer do not, and so it lights up really badly. I'll check some other models later and provide screenshots if required.

posted on January 28th, 2014, 3:42 pm

Thanks Dominus. I had never seen that before, but it'll be great to have a functional decommission system again.

@Squire James: I discovered the lighting issues as well when I started adding omni-directional lighting to each map and so Aad Moerman has given me permission to redo the phong lighting and color settings on the materials on all his ships/stations. There are some items where Aad lost the ms3d file or only has a non-hardpointed model and since I don't have the unlocked sod importer for ms3d and don't know how to hardpoint a model others have lent their assistance to redo those individual few and fix up the phong lighting/color settings/hardpoints for me.

There are a few models that are animated like construction ships that can't be edited in ms3d without messing up the animations so if someone would like to volunteer to redo the phong settings/material colors on a few things that would be most appreciated and credit given to you. I can provide the sods/textures if needed (and ms3d's if Aad sent them to me)

So with the above the next update will feature ships/stations that reflect light off their hulls from nebulas, moons, wormholes and pulse/torpedo fire. I've tried to make the weapon color as accurate as possible so a red torpedo reflects red light and so on. But thank you for the heads up.

posted on January 28th, 2014, 7:15 pm

If you require the ms3d importer, I can provide. I see no issue with it being used for these purposes. It's invaluable to me for the same. Tis a bummer about animated units however, as you lose the animations if imported in ms3d.

I hope I didn't come across as complaining. I wasn't sure if you were aware of the lighting issues (as you've said its not really apparent with stock a2 style lighting) hence the heads up.

posted on January 28th, 2014, 7:50 pm

Oh no, I didn't think you were complaining I just meant that I finally realized about the lighting recently as well. I always saw that something wasn't right about the light effects on the sovereign nacelles/struts, and other stuff for that matter, but never new how to fix it. I just really learned in depth about phong lighting a couple weeks ago which spurred me to ask Aad if I could redo all his works so that's what I've been doing the last few weeks. I've known a bit about alpha textures/lightmaps, but only learned how to do those in GIMP recently as well. Thankfully all of Aad's textures are done properly already.

Now I'm redoing all maps again and adjusting ambient/directional lighting to show off the effects. Most of the effects have always been there, but with stock map lighting set too bright, no one ever saw them. So no worries, keep letting me about any issues, suggestions or whatever.

posted on January 28th, 2014, 7:53 pm

Indeed, I commented this morning to my grandfather actually that it's odd that the Armada 2 version of the Storm3d Engine is capable of so much more (as Legacy shows actually) and it's all there, it's just under-utilised. It doesn't put any more strain on the engine because it's already calculating and displaying alpha maps and phong glows, they just aren't visible.

Weird design decision there. Also, half the original models were phong lit, half weren't. Some had light maps, most didn't. It's a total mess!

posted on January 28th, 2014, 8:04 pm

So true. though I'm testing on a map for 6 players to see how the performance goes and see if there will be any problems with many omni lights/directional lights and effects and ships/stations before I finalize every single map just to be sure.

posted on January 28th, 2014, 8:28 pm

Also, half the original models were phong lit, half weren't. Some had light maps, most didn't. It's a total mess!

The phong ones were probably recycled from A1, where they are quite visible on everything.

posted on January 28th, 2014, 8:44 pm

Thanks for trying my mod. I have it almost finished unfortunately I've run into a rather odd CTD so I can't make much more progress with it.

posted on January 28th, 2014, 9:40 pm

Also, half the original models were phong lit, half weren't. Some had light maps, most didn't. It's a total mess!

The phong ones were probably recycled from A1, where they are quite visible on everything.

That does seem to be the case. The whole thing is so patchwork though, makes you wonder how they got away with releasing it in such a state.

posted on January 28th, 2014, 11:07 pm

What files do I go to change the number and type of ships I get at the beginning of a mission? Is it the map file itself?

posted on January 29th, 2014, 3:03 am

Yes, you would have to add whatever ships you want to start with to the map in the editor and set them to your team. Then when you start the mission you should have access to them right then