[MOD] StelliFer Laboratories

A place to discuss mods in development and concepts for new mods.
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alterecco
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SiaFu wrote: In the meantime, find your favorite weapon and feel free to comment on it or any other aspect of the currently downloadable alpha of StelliFer.
Are you saying these are already in your mod? Cool... (sorry, have not tried it yet). Way to go :)
SiaFu wrote:Anyways... Seems overlays for ItemPicker icons are not possible. So Shields are delayed indefinitely and Jotun might be out.
If i understand correctly what you are trying to achieve is different icons for items depending on some state? Is that correct?

-

Regarding station spawning... i spent some time yesterday brainstorming some generic system... after reading your post over a couple of time I realized that you have a rather complex spawn in mind. If you need any help to incorporate it into vanilla I would be glad to write some custom script to enable it. Start a new thread or continue here with more details on it, or catch me on IRC.
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SiaFu
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alterecco wrote: Are you saying these are already in your mod? Cool... (sorry, have not tried it yet). Way to go :)
These and a lot more. This is just the weapons roadmap. There are also launchers+ordnance, devices, ore, misc/useables and new weapon sounds.

I've just uploaded version 00.6, now with a mechanic for converting vanilla items into quest items, until the actual quests are implemented.

There's also a seriously overpowered munchkin ship variant - SFs31 Indigo D - set up for a quick jump to later systems, if you just want to see the eye-candy.

And it works great with the BattleZone, but for now I'd urge people to try it in vanilla 1.03 as there's quite a lot of overrides.
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SiaFu
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Aand... now it's 00.6a
Somehow half of the main XML got transformed into Chinese unicode characters yesterday, so apologies for the 6 downloads of the defunct 00.6 mod.

It is now corrected and I've added the RK15 turret (and Ares Lightnings and the Nandao were already in yesterday).

I've also noticed the SFs30 is glass-fragile in the BattleZone (a borer can one-shot you if your shields are down), but that is rightly so as it's very powerful once you get better equipment and replace the nerfed polymesh.
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Star Weaver
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Heh, I think I was one of those six downloads but didn't get around to updating the installed version until ... right now? :)

I haven't checked ingame yet, but the current version seems to be missing the regular particle weapon (col 1, row 4) -- it's there in the mask, but not the colormap.

Having fun with this mod though. Mostly just using the graphics, the ship's nice but I'm not really a corvette person :). Only thing I'm not sure I like is that turbolaser sound O_o.
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SiaFu
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The particle bitmask is a relic from a previous version. The actual icon is now rotated 180° and between the dual particle and shuriken (check the roadmap a few posts up).

As for the turbolaser, its sound is in sounds\SFTlaser.wav, and you can replace it with any mono/stereo 16bit sample of around .2-.5 sec you like. Just check that the sound levels are similar (not too loud).

A nice free sound editor is: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
Just be sure to use the Export as WAV option and cut the silence at the end using selection by "zero crossings" and some fade-in/fade-out in the remaining waveform to prevent clicks.

In other news...
I've remixed new sounds for the Tritium (MG50+SciFi loader), Morningstar(shotgun+reload) and the Cnidocyst (50'sSciFi alien sound+launch). When I get more models/icons done I'll reupload.
I'm tweaking the Smartcannon as I've just remembered the tinker recipe and my initial design was quite different (similar to a WH40K bolter).
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quils3
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since the prblem arose (the parsing of the folder) why dont you just reload it
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SiaFu
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Re: the current problem with 006a, thanks for the warning.
After that corruption issue I've had to reconstruct the final XML from several versions so it seems I've missed closing a comment line in the rush:

Line 2116 should be:

Code: Select all

<!-- Maybe I overdid the alliterations... a bit -->

(it's missing the final "-->")

I need to clean up the next update and then I'll repost.
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SiaFu
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Reuploaded with new sounds and the Cnidocyst cannon icon. Weapon roadmap now looks like this:
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A few notes:
Corvette cargo overhaul upgrade mechanic is a kludge so don't try getting more than one at the same time. You'd still get only one but pay multiple times.
At the end of SFItemGraphics there is a commented-out experimental override for the Longzhu sphere which enables device repair and (hopefully) repairing the Archcannon if it's fully charged - as I've shot down quite a few Dragons in the Battlezone but have yet to get an intact Quianlong.

Not much has changed with the fix so no new bugs this time ;-). Next update in a few weeks or so - hopefully I'll get some actual gameplay feedback in the meantime.
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alterecco
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I was just admiring your graphics again and wishing that they were part of vanilla when a thought popped into my mind. Would you possibly be interested in doing a graphic item for the G.O.D? It is currently being rewritten intensively and will appear as a usable item. I would love for it to look different, but have absolutely no skill rendering anything. Throwing this out there just in case :D
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SiaFu
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alterecco, check your inbox.

As for other news, I've been taking it easy and geting the feel of various weapons in the BattleZone and the campaign so progress is slow.
I'm also reorganizing the XML for easier updating once 1.04 hits as it was originally by type and not by source XML.

I've been messing with sounds and have found the open projects for Privateer and Ur-Quan Masters to be a fount of nice sound samples, and I think it's OK to use them in my SFX remixes as long as I credit the source.
How would you feel about original SC2 weapon sounds in the mod? I think the Mycon Plasmoid would be an even better choice for the cnidocyst cannon, and the Ur-Quan Dreadnought's fusion cannon for plasma guns .
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SiaFu
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alterecco, seems I can't send PMs: emailer.php error again. So below is another take on the GalOmniDev.
this is greatly simplified due to the fact that just one array of 5-sided devices brought my laptop to its knees. This is just a dodecahedral config made of toruses. I'm working on the buckyball (pentas+hexes) next, and will probably switch to some texture/bump combos like I did for the shields to lower the poly count as the devices end up just a few pixels wide.
Or would a simple black buckyball be sufficient?

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In other news, StelliFer's SFItemGraphics component is moving on.
As I'm now in Ares territory I've had inspiration for some mid to end-game shields (available with the next update):
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Legend: See 1st page in this thread

Not wanting to mess with arrays it was just some textures and different bump maps for the emitter cylinders.

P.S. The Yoroi was interesting since they're +Bushido, but described as made by Kabuto Defense Corp. So I figured the daughter company would use the same color scheme and added a small samurai helmet logo. Solon blocks lasers (ie light) so it's black. Nephren is some Pharaoh in Lovecraftian tales with a snake symbol - so venom green like ares positron shots which the BX is good against etc, etc...
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digdug
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Solon blocks lasers (ie light) so it's black.
It looks really neat, but maybe you want to try to use Heliotrope texture ?

In any case, I really love all of them ! :D
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SiaFu
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digdug wrote:maybe you want to try to use Heliotrope texture
Well spotted as they're standard on destroyers. Their texture is gray though, and would blend with the itempicker background. That's why I've added a tinge to the Heliotrope-exclusive Blinder cannon. I was careful to keep the blue for standard commonwealth weapons, and changed textures for special/faction/notforsale ones.

I did take a more colorful route with shields, but Solon doesn't have the +Heliotrope or +NotForSale attribute and since I doubt Solon Industries is a Heliotrope venture I could just leave it black.

Anyway, I'm noting this for a possible revision, so we'll see what's the popular vote.
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SiaFu
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In light of new resource override possibilities that await us in 1.04, I think I'm almost done with the next graphical update as I'll have to structure the XML all over again and not just update the overrides.

Progress on weapons can be seen here:
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Legend on the first page of this thread.
The ghost image placeholders with the StelliFer asterisk will be used so I can test how (and if) the whole mega-override works and leave me time to replace them with new icons as I create them. (They won't be whitened or contain asterisks in-game).

Fusionfire got its separate icon and I saw that I'd missed the Gaian demolition cannon, which now fills the previously empty spot next to Dvalin's Ion9. Urak weapons still need some texture tweaking (it's too light) as the model for the mass driver was cut out from the sentinel SCN, retextured and I've added some muzzle detail.

To Do: Quickly sort out the weapon part of the XML, fill in the remaining Shield icons, tweak Ordnance icons (disposable, Ares, mine and MAG launcher) and guided missiles.

After this update I'll concentrate on the StelliFer Laboratory and the new ship/auton models so I can start testing the quests and finally get this out of Alpha.

Expect the actual update this week. In the meantime, leave comments or PM me about any issues in the current release or the graphics.

EDIT (2010/12/23):
Version 00.7 for 1.03 updated today with lots of new content at 573 downloads (black shield icon is now for the Invincible). Don't expect a new update soon as the newly released version 1.04 changes quite a lot.
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