[mod] [Stellaris] EoS - Without Apparel Patch

[Nessa]

I would like to personally drop a 30 ton weight on top of whatever idiot came up with DDS.   Or... at least the photoshop plugin for it. It is the -bane- of my ship making existence!

Truthfully though, I've never had so much trouble with DDS except with Stellaris. It could be the stupid way they screw up their normals. Glow maps exist for a reason people! We shouldn't shove them into the blue channel of the normal. And why the hell do you duplicate the red channel and stuff it in the...... 

 

OK OK, enough ranting. PIC.

 

 

 

 

Getting better. Still some minor stuff but I think I've tamed the normal so we're not getting crap artifacts on the shiny parts.

[Railgunner2160]

Looking good from my point of view! Like the glowy vines and what-not!!

[Princessity]

Oh my gosh I love the look of it! You were totally, right, textures make all the difference! I don't think it reminds me of anything anymore, it's just pretty and amazing on its own XD

[Nessa]

Turns out.... I can get away without using DDS at all for the normals! I'm going to just do that as the DDS thing just keeps getting worse.. and worse...    I guess it's because it's extra shiny. You see every stupid thing wrong.

 

Anyway, I'm going to start uploading the -last- version of this without new ships. (I'm about done with the second corvette now.) I'll leave this next version up for download here in case anybody ever wants access to the original retextured ship set. We're going to be custom ships from here on!

[Nessa]

UPDATE!!!

 

Only real change is for traits. They are back to being selectable again. The new traits are back and rebalanced a bit. (Unless I missed one, been busy with stations and ships lately!) The event now takes anybody in the galaxy with elven traits and replaces them with vanilla traits instead. If they aren't elven that is.

 

[Nessa]

So... when making ships for Stellaris, you can specify a TGA file instead of a DDS directly in the GFX file! (Otherwise you get a stupid error even if I point to a TGA in the MESH FILE.) Also, the idea that a TGA normal 1/4 the size of a DDS normal looks better... is not only true, it looks FREAKINGLY AWESOME better. Now I have glow without any artifacts at all. MUCH improved.

 

 

 

 

OK, I'll wrap up Corvette2 now.

[Nessa]

Quicker than I expected! This one is quite a bit curvier with some Drow/Romulan influence.

 

 

 

 

And finally we have Elfy corvettes.   On to destroyers next! (After a brief station interlude. )

[Nessa]

Some compatibility news!  Turns out I was right about ship entities. I can make the ship sets compatible with whatever mod by adding the appropriate entries in the assets files.

 

And if all of what I just said sounded like Greek : it means I can make Elves/Drow/Asari ships compatible with mods that add additional ships/sections very easily.

 

To that end, for the next version I'm including compatibility for....

 

• Crystallis Ship Parts -The advanced science vessel. I'll have it retextured to be quicksilver/black for elves and Drow... possibly Asari also!
• AlphaMod - Technically already compatible, but when you build a surveillance station no model is present. I can fix that!

Those are the only two I use at present that play with ships in any way. Has anybody else used other mods? If so, what are they? (Links would be appreciated.)

[Princessity]

Some compatibility news!  Turns out I was right about ship entities. I can make the ship sets compatible with whatever mod by adding the appropriate entries in the assets files.

 

And if all of what I just said sounded like Greek : it means I can make Elves/Drow/Asari ships compatible with mods that add additional ships/sections very easily.

 

To that end, for the next version I'm including compatibility for....

 

• Crystallis Ship Parts -The advanced science vessel. I'll have it retextured to be quicksilver/black for elves and Drow... possibly Asari also!
• AlphaMod - Technically already compatible, but when you build a surveillance station no model is present. I can fix that!

Those are the only two I use at present that play with ships in any way. Has anybody else used other mods? If so, what are they? (Links would be appreciated.)

 

Do you think it would work for More Ship Classes and Realistic Ships? Users have been asking me for compatibility with that foreeeeeeever.

[Nessa]

These two?

 

• Realistic Ships
• New Ship Classes

Yes, I think so. All it entails is finding out what extra entities they use, then I add Elf/Drow/Asari versions of them in the entities file. Pretty much cut and paste really. The only thing I can think of is adjusting ship scales. Otherwise, compatibility should be pretty quick.

[Princessity]

These two?

 

• Realistic Ships
• New Ship Classes

Yes, I think so. All it entails is finding out what extra entities they use, then I add Elf/Drow/Asari versions of them in the entities file. Pretty much cut and paste really. The only thing I can think of is adjusting ship scales. Otherwise, compatibility should be pretty quick.

Oh! That's good news! <3 I haven't tried them myself so I don't know exactly what they add.

 

Oh by the by are those stations close to done? I'm just about done working on a new update and I was hoping I could bundle them in ^^

[Nessa]

Ooops. Right stations. Yes, they are. Though I haven't gotten around to doing any more spaceport modules yet.

 

Erm... well kinda. Now that I'm thinking about it, I wanted to make up another variant for wormhole stations as well.

 

I'll do up an Advanced Science Ship texture for the Asari also. Might as well get compatibility with that also.

[Princessity]

Ooops. Right stations. Yes, they are. Though I haven't gotten around to doing any more spaceport modules yet.

 

Erm... well kinda. Now that I'm thinking about it, I wanted to make up another variant for wormhole stations as well.

 

I'll do up an Advanced Science Ship texture for the Asari also. Might as well get compatibility with that also.

 

Oooh, actually if you could make Mass Relay-shaped wormhole stations that would be just perfect! <3

 

And oh don't worry! I still need to do some testing so no real rush ^^ If you can finish it this week it would be amazing, but I can still wait if not. Take as much time as you need to make the modules look pretty and better than Paradox XD

[Nessa]

What in the world is that thing!?

 

Well that beats my idea, so I'll make one of those instead. Plus: more glowy stuff!!

 

If I'm not done towards the middle of the week, you could just release perhaps the mining/science/military stations. Erm... as soon as I actually test the mining/science anyway. The military stuff is totally done though.

You know, I wonder if there's some emitter that exists that could work for the glowy part? Any interesting ships/stations with crazy glowing orbs that anybody knows of?

[Princessity]

What in the world is that thing!?

 

Well that beats my idea, so I'll make one of those instead. Plus: more glowy stuff!!

 

If I'm not done towards the middle of the week, you could just release perhaps the mining/science/military stations. Erm... as soon as I actually test the mining/science anyway. The military stuff is totally done though.

 

XD Those... things are the Mass Effect equivalent of wormhole stations... ish. It's complicated XD

 

Honestly I kinda forgot wormhole stations existed until you reminded me just now, I recently started using Warp Drives and the freedom to explore with 3 separate scouts in the early game feels so nice. With wormholes they all had to wait in queue and took foreeeeeever to explore! Plus, they can now transition to jump drives as well so that's nice.

 

Oh, right, completely derailing your topic, I'm sorry XD

[Nessa]

Hah, I derail my own topics constantly. It's fun!

 

Speaking of wormholes, I don't know if they gimped something or what, but it takes a whole month to get a fleet through a worm hole now. I may transition away from them for that reason alone. Oh, and I'm -absolutely- toning down the Drow fallen. My last relatively short game (with the wormhole issue) had the Drow wake up. It took oh... 20 years. For them to totally conquer the entire galaxy. Might be just a -tad- overpowered.   For the next version I'll reduce them to the same level as vanilla fallens.

 

About the Advanced Science Ship for Asari, I don't know what I was thinking! We can't have some stupid ship without a hole in it! I'll just point to a slightly larger version of the existing Asari Science ship!

[Princessity]

Oh yah I ran into the draw fallen recently, thinking they would be as pushovery as the regular xenophobes... I umm... well, sometimes there's no shame in reverting to a previous save!

[Nessa]

If you throw in Crysallis + TFW ship parts... they're IMPOSSIBLE. I had thought I'd had an extreme amount of luck because the dimensional weirdos appeared right in the middle of Drow space.

 

There were dead and banished in about 2 months.

 

When they finally got to me, I was thinking I'd at least give them a good fight. I was the strongest nation in the area with a lovely fleet clocking in at about 140k.

 

...

 

They landed on top of me with 6... SIX!!!!! 200k fleets... ALL AT FREAKING ONCE. My very powerful fleet that could take out all nearby normal nation probably almost at once... lasted about 2 seconds.

[Princessity]

Okay I guess do need a bit of toning down XD There's probably a good reason Paradox didn't give Fallens so much stuff from the start on top of all the things they get when they awaken.

[Nessa]

I'm all for hard, but if the Drow fallens wake up, kiss it goodbye. Time for a new game.

 

I didn't mess much with the Elf fallens at least. They get the usual stuff vanilla gets, just with custom named planets, systems, and of course Avari worlds.

Um....

 

Just ran into wormholes while looking to update the Asari stations. Think I should try for say... white (elves), red (Drow), purple (Asari/Eilistraee) wormholes?

[Princessity]

I'm all for hard, but if the Drow fallens wake up, kiss it goodbye. Time for a new game.

 

I didn't mess much with the Elf fallens at least. They get the usual stuff vanilla gets, just with custom named planets, systems, and of course Avari worlds.

Um....

 

Just ran into wormholes while looking to update the Asari stations. Think I should try for say... white (elves), red (Drow), purple (Asari/Eilistraee) wormholes?

 

Oh? Do you mean the swirly VFX wormholes generate? Are those tied to graphical cultures?

[Nessa]

It seems they are. They've got entries here in the asset files. That should mean I can point to something else or, more useful in our case, point to different textures.

[Princessity]

Oh that's nice! I thought it was one of the universal VFX. Actually, that just got me thinking... is it possible to create new Hyperdrive/Warp/Jump effects the same way? Without affecting vanilla ships?

[Nessa]

It might be possible if they are setup as emitters just like the survey cone things.

 

I followed the link in the asset tile and it sent me to a "blue_white_star" texture file. I could try and point to a different texture that was purple and just see what happens. Red wormholes would be interesting for the Drow also.

[Nessa]

Oh well... it's the brief flash that shows up before the wormhole opens. Drats, I was looking forward to red wormholes now.

 

May still be possible via effects however. I'll have to look into it from that angle.