SoaSE:R Modding Info Dump

[Lavo]

Wanted to stop by and wish the Thrawn's Revenge team luck on their newest project. And I figure what's a better way to do that than to give some info that might be of some use to you?

http://soase.x90x.net/ - This site here has a bunch of tutorials on various stuff, such as modelling and rigging for Sins.

http://code.google.com/p/soaseplugin/wiki/RebellionSyntax - This site here explains much of the various code files in detail, listing what modifiers go where and such, looking at these pages alongside some code works quite well.

http://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/407617 - A thread by modders, for modders. Has links to many resources, and is a place for modders to ask questions and get answers on various bugs they might not understand, and any other thing you can't solve with the pile of resources there.

http://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/406367 - This is a planets mod for Sins. It was made for the explicit purpose of reflecting the Star Wars universe, and it has done a fairly good job in that aspect. The mod is fairly extensive in what it does, which is why it's mod in it's own right, versus being exclusively integrated into other mods. Might be of use to you.

Another thing I'd suggest doing, perhaps not now but later on, is to split off your various races into stackable mini-mods. You see, with how Sins is done, you can have multiple mods activated at the same time. This allows for a lot of flexibility, particularly when it comes to races/factions, as one can construct them, but have them separate from the core of the mod, which means that if this race is not being used in a match by player X, he can choose not to load it which will thus decrease the mod's overall RAM usage.

In addition, one doesn't have to remove all of a faction's ships/modules/etc in order for this to be effective; one can easily leave 3+ ships in the core of the mod (it's entity, mesh, and texture files), so they can be used in militias for example, while splintering off the rest of the faction's assets. Of course, this means people will have to confirm which order they plan to stack their mods in/what races they will use before playing a game, but this isn't much of an issue, from my experience.

That being said, I have good deal of experience with modding both EaW and Sins, and I'd be happy to answer questions for you guys if you have any.

[Senza]

Hey Lavo, good to see you found your way here. I know I'm a newbie on the Sins forums, but I recognize someone who knows what they are talking about when I see them :p.

[Lavo]

I've been wondering if the Sins mod was going to come to fruition, I know it's been in the works for a little while now. Seeing as it is, I figured I should pop in and say hello.

[Senza]

Well alright, I'm sure your expertise will make the making of the mod easier, and I had no idea about that planet mod, that is awesome o.o

[Corey]

Hey Lavo, thanks for the links, though actually I've known about most of them for quite a while now. I may not be directly active in the Sins community yet, but we've been working on the Sins mod in varying capacities for quite some time now as you've said. I started looking up basic Sins modding information sometime last year, and we started working on it about 6 months ago, though most of the focus was still on ICW at that point.

As for the stacking thing, we're aware of that as well, however I'm not sure about the tradeoff you get for it when you're only dealing with 3 factions to begin with. We won't need any of the Sins vanilla assets, so that's all already out of the way, but as far as user friendliness I'd think there might be some problems with that kind of installation process. More often than not the player would have all 3 factions in, so I'd have to see how the added frustration of installation compares to the bonus from leaving a faction worth of assets entirely out, especially if we were to compile it more efficiently.

[Lavo]

Yeah, if you're sticking to three factions, then stacking the factions might not be of much use. I'd say, depending on a faction's amount of unique meshes, you can see savings of anywhere from 85 to 190 MB of RAM. I figured this might be of use if you end up including minor factions, such as the Hapans and the Duskhan League, which might not be included in the main setup outside of certain maps.

[fileosoft]

Having mod SOASE from before his initial release, i can say that you will not really saving RAM with stacking mod when it is criticaly needed...

A single mod allow to have some shared part who in turn allow to use less ram when needed ( let say 3 major race and 3 minor )... if you use stacked mod, each mod need to have everything included ( sound, mesh, texture, planet, music, GUI, ability, particule effect, etc ... ) who will allow them to be independent of each other...

A other thing is that stacking mod can be confusing for the end user ( player )... need to inform wich mod need to be activated and in wich order for a specific map... not really a big issue for single player but important for multiplayer ( online or lan ) where checksum need to be identical...

If the Corey's team give the same quality of work for these new SOASE mod that for Thrawn's revenge, main memory will be spared by optimised mesh, UV and texture map...

Memory and CPU will only become a issue on huge map with hundred of planets in late game, single player ( multiplayer/online is more fast and use smaller map )... In the past, the TSOP mod ( The SOASE Optimization Project ) have greatly improve the memory and cpu use of the game but most of these optimization was included in Rebellion by Stardock/Ironclad!!! And included in several other mods too...

Since the title of the topic is "modding info dump", a little info about mesh : the harcoded limit of mesh for SOASE is 800. A max of 800 mesh for everything ( ship, planet, particule effect, etc )... 

[Lavo]

A single mod allow to have some shared part who in turn allow to use less ram when needed ( let say 3 major race and 3 minor )... if you use stacked mod, each mod need to have everything included ( sound, mesh, texture, planet, music, GUI, ability, particule effect, etc ... ) who will allow them to be independent of each other...

With all due respect, your interpretation of stackable mods is incorrect; with stackable mods you do not include common assets (sound, planets, particles, etc) in various race folders as these are in the "core" folder of the mod. The main savings one gets are in the mesh/texture files of ships/structures/etc that only the race in question uses. For some mods, depending on the races left in/out, this can lead to memory savings anywhere from 103-890 MB, which are rather notable savings.

A other thing is that stacking mod can be confusing for the end user ( player )... need to inform wich mod need to be activated and in wich order for a specific map... not really a big issue for single player but important for multiplayer ( online or lan ) where checksum need to be identical...

Maps are a non-issue when militia forces are all included in the mod's main folder, as they should be. If a specific race is required for a map to run, it can be included in that race's folder; it will show up as long as that folder is loaded into memory. When it comes to multiplayer, there should be a default order for a given mod (i.e. all races activated, no addons), and any specifics to be decided amongst the players.

[fileosoft]

The main savings one gets are in the mesh/texture files of ships/structures/etc that only the race in question uses.

Ok, i understand the way you wish work with a main mod who have everything common in it and some add-on for minor races... but i think that it is not worthy the work and possible player problem in this case... most of the secondary races have similar model/textures that main races... by example, if you look at the Pentastar faction, almost everything ( if not everything ) will already be included in the main mod due to the Empire Remment main faction...

When it comes to multiplayer, there should be a default order for a given mod (i.e. all races activated, no addons), and any specifics to be decided amongst the players.

Personaly, it is not a problem for me... but it will be for some Joe user guy who is not very computer educated... the Joe will make some mistake, never read the "readme.txt" and complain that the mod is broken... best to apply the KISS system : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle

[Corey]

In general we're going with a bit more streamlining in Ascendancy than we did in EaW, partially for a smaller workload allowing us to focus more on polishing each ship we do have, and partially to take into account the game limitations and whatnot, as well as the end-user's installation experience as fileosoft mentioned. As a result, we're hoping that stacking mods won't be necessary to begin with; if we were directly porting everything from ICW into Ascendancy, we'd probably have to take some extra measures but I don't think that would make for good gameplay in Sins, where we're focusing on more involved mechanics and trying to make more unique factions as opposed to the more narrative style of Imperial Civil War, which was better suited to EaW.

We're really only working on the three core factions at the moment, but we do want to do more. If we do the Pentastar then as Fileosoft said, there really wouldn't be much to gain from making them stack, but if we do another group instead there may be something to be said for stacking, even if it's done in a sort of DLC style.