Small Mod, advice.

from Sins Forums
Hello.

Im new to modding sins and i just need to know some pieces of info.

i just want to mod the speed to the cannon shots for the cannon weapons for all the races.

as far as acceleration, is this per second or what? for example,the TEC tech cannon shot

TXT
entityType "CannonShell"
acceleration 16668.0
startingSpeed 500.000000
maxSpeed 500000.000000
buffToApplyOnImpact "BuffCannonShellTech"
planetImpactEffectName "Ability_OrbitalCannonTechSurfaceImpact"
planetImpactSounds
    soundCount 1
    sound "EXPLOSION_CANNONSHELLTECH"
planetImpactCameraShakeMaxSize 980000.000000
planetImpactCameraShakeStrength 1.500000
planetImpactCameraShakeDuration 0.000000
meshName "CannonShellTech"
mainViewIcon "MainViewIconCannonShellTech"
picture "PictureCannonShellTech"
nameStringID "IDS_CANNONSHELLTECH_NAME"
descStringID "IDS_CANNONSHELLTECH_DESC"
renderMesh FALSE
minZoomDistanceMult 4.500000
hudIcon "HUDIconCannonShellTech"
smallHudIcon "HUDIconSmallCannonShellTech"
infoCardIcon "HUDIconSmallCannonShellTech"
minShadow 0.000000
maxShadow 0.500000



I have set the acceleration to 16668, does this mean its 16668 units of speed per second?

what im trying to do, start at the default speed, accelerate slowly up to a very high speed so that when the shot is flying a short distance the animation isnt screwed up like going from planet to planet. but when it goes from star to star, it will accelerate up to a high enough speed so it will travel to another star in a reasonable amount of time.


my next question is, do i have to start a new game for the changed values to take effect, or build a new cannon. i have an save that was made before the modification, so i wouldnt have to build up a whole empire to test the new value.

so do i have to start a new game or just build a new cannon, or do the values take effect when i load the mod?

any help that can be provided will be great

-AgentExeider
Æ
modding
5,802 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
I have set the acceleration to 16668, does this mean its 16668 units of speed per second?
End of quote


I'm not really sure what exactly it measures in, but I imagine it is per second as everything else in the game is on the per-second basis. So you have your starting speed, then acceleration per second (the amount added to the speed each second) up to the max speed. The distance between stars is huge - try firing the default Novalith or any other superweapon across stars, it can take up to 10 minutes to fly. Ships, when phasing between stars, get a 24x speed multiplier which is why they make it so fast.

my next question is, do i have to start a new game for the changed values to take effect, or build a new cannon. i have an save that was made before the modification, so i wouldnt have to build up a whole empire to test the new value.

so do i have to start a new game or just build a new cannon, or do the values take effect when i load the mod?
End of quote


It should be okay to load your game, as long as you don't modify anything major and just change the shell values.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
When im modding and looking to work on "end game" things as you are i will often allow it to be built for free at the start of the game so i can boot up - test - tweak - test as often as i need to.

just a thought :)

-Sin
Siege of Centauri
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
Actually I forgot to mention that if you use the developer .exe (or toggle an option in user.setting, if it's still there - not sure if it was removed with the release of the developer exe or not), the game can pick up changes to files on the fly so you don't have to restart.

It's great for tweaking stats and other numerical values, but it can cause issues if you're doing more in-depth changes (don't try ability scripting on the fly :P).
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
Or changing the meshes...
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
Dev exe... Had some fun with that today lol.

That is the route you want to go as you can basically spawn anything you want, where you need it to be then open the file you wish to edit and go to town. every time you save the text file the game will refresh the data and you will see the changes. i used this for modding the user interface which was very helpful.

when you make a mistake the game will likely crash so dont go too crazy until you have a feel for what ure modding :P

One thing to note, i modded the cursor and it did not change until the game was reloaded. it is possible that the mod was not correctly loaded or something stupid like that but until i try again im saying that some UI elements may require restart to take effect. Just a FYI.

-SiN