Asteroid habitat |
I'm thinking about adding a special "planet" type. But I'm not sure how the game draws the graphics for asteroids. How does that work?
What I'm trying to do is make a graphic that looks like the current asteroid model, but has filaments connecting the asteroids, as well as buildings on the asteroids. These would be colored according to the atmospere type.
Re: Asteroid habitat
Look for the Asteroid entries in the XFileClasses_Stellar.txt file. Each asteroid field is a collection object, containing a bunch of Asteroid 1a type objects that are the actual rock models.
Re: Asteroid habitat
not sure if it's what you're suggesting, but maybe have all asteroids as "domed" colonies, but because of the size of them the dome is actually completely encasing the asteroid as a sphere, so then they'd always be the correct atmosphere, not sure how you'd implement that though
Re: Asteroid habitat
Yes, asteroid collections are quite random. What you could do is make new models, though, and not use the collection.
Re: Asteroid habitat
Design the model to look like a bunch of rocks connected by thin sticks? You might do it by just making a model of two big rocks connected, then keep the collection nature so each belt is still randomized; plop down a couple of them and use some extra random rocks.
Re: Asteroid habitat
Sounds interesting. Looking forward to seeing your progress.
Re: Asteroid habitat
This asteroid colonization would be good to have in the base game.
Help! I have been assimilated
Re: Asteroid habitat
bummer this had promise...
Re: Asteroid habitat
Yay! Asteroids rock!
Chants..."Rock! Rock! Rock!"
Re: Asteroid habitat
Arrgh! Fileplanet? Takes 90 minutes to get a 50k file from there. Sheesh. Ah well. Why not put the files on here?
You have reached an imaginary number. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and try again.
Re: Asteroid habitat
You can tweak the random size and proportionate numbers of each asteroid type via StellarObjectType.txt, if I recall correctly. I'd personally suggest you made them all the 'tiny' size, with a few smalls here and there for extra kicks - it's not like you really need them to be any bigger anyway, given the number of asteroids in the universe... I mean, whoa. An asteroid feild would be an /insane/ number, and you could have a colony ship with precisely 1 ion engine to go belt-hopping. 
The atmospheric effect looks cool, too.
Re: Asteroid habitat
Mmm...asteroid colonies...
I like!
"Only by being constantly at war with evil in all things, including yourself, can you truely know peace."
Download my mod here: GidMod
or there:
Re: Asteroid habitat
I'm going to check this out...like the idea.
Re: Asteroid habitat
Hmm. The initial release, as-is, is quite heavily bugged. I've made it so it can be used as a standalone mod, now trawling through to dig out the bugs that pop up during gameplay.
marhawkman: Would you mind if I uploaded the standalone version once I'm done?
Re: Asteroid habitat
It took me a while to work out how to get this running as it only gives you the pictures and data files... i believe i've got them in the right place.. all in pictures/models? there appear to be several 'interesting bugs' with the habitats as a mod on its own. if you try to edit the technology when making a new empire the game crashes.. really badly. also the asteroids all look quite messed up. on a lesser note a domed huge asteroid set seems to be better than a domed ringworld (i think it was that one).
anyway i'm really looking forward to better versions.
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Grand Lord Exelsiar of the Azra-Dun Commonwealth, at your service
Re: Asteroid habitat
took me half an hour to find this topic... oh well
of late my sleep paterns been really messed up, waking 1am, falling back to sleep when im sufficiently nackered.. leading to me doing some tinkering on this mod, i've fixed a lot of errors, one can actually play starting with asteroids as a racial thing, i've yet more work to do.
anyway my main purpose of this post is to get permision to post my changes as a fully fledged mod.
with the state it was posted in i've gone along the thinking lines of it was put out here for ppl to do with as they've wished.
In reference to my last post, the asteroids didnt look messed up, they just have atmospheres. and the huge asteroids being bigger than the ringworlds.. it apears what i was looking at was a constructed habitat, ie large field of asteroids.. i think it looks pretty cool around the sun...
all in all more tweeking to do, and i think all in all it's in line with marhawkman's vision as much as i could keep it.
its amazing how much i've learnt from this. its good preperation for making my own mod in the future ^_^
after this weekend if its ready and i've either not gotten a responce, or if its a yes, then i'll post it online, naturally with original rights and thanks to him.
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Grand Lord Exelsiar of the Azra-Dun Commonwealth, at your service
Re: Asteroid habitat
Re: Asteroid habitat
As Isopsycho says, credit the owner - preferably both in the mod_description.txt, and as part of the title screen, if you want to play nice - and go for it. I was actually planning to do the same general thing myself (Even had a pretty asteroid picture for it ), I just never quite got it finished up before getting distracted by my own work... A bug-free set of colonizable asteroids would be a major boon, however.
Re: Asteroid habitat
right cheers guys, i've a few more minor tweaks, and the readme to do (for readme, history, etc i'm using kwoks style). i'm definatly planning on crediting all those needing it along the mods journey.
Reiver after getting my step-mum to explain boon, you'll be happy to know.. their most definatly colonizable, not everythings 100% upto scratch, but it works from what ive tested. no AI adaptions for it... yet but most definatly usable.
oo just a thought after thought, what do you mean by title screen? i know that in SE4 there was litterally the title screen with each mod loaded, but not the same in se5, unless im thoughly mis understanding you....
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Grand Lord Exelsiar of the Azra-Dun Commonwealth, at your service
Re: Asteroid habitat
What I mean is the little picture the mod has on the mod selection screen - BalanceMod has a funny little green alien with a meson blaster and anti-proton-beam in each hand, various other mods have their own.
Most mods I work on get 'working titles' of my logo (right) with a picture superimposed over them - hexagonal grid for the Grid Modifications, silouette of an army tank for the Troop Modifications, etc. They're easy to do - just hack a picture to fit 192x192, and save as .bmp.
Re: Asteroid habitat
Oh that, i've added a small little logo of my own onto the defalt one, but no idea what i could put for Marhawkman...
the mods now ready for public release and i'll be making a topic for it over at spaceempires.net asap for those interested ^_^
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Grand Lord Exelsiar of the Azra-Dun Commonwealth, at your service
Re: Asteroid habitat
Are you, uh, going to announce the release link in this thread too, perchance? >.>
Re: Asteroid habitat
Is there any reason for the following?
If the asteroids are an actual colony, the icons are offset 2 hexes to the right. And a ship's icon's also jumps 2 hexes to the right altho the ship is actually on the asteroid belt. Just not the icons.
I noticed this in the normal view when one of my ships ended it's movement on an asteroid belt and appeared to jump. Switching to a top-down view of the system really shows this more prominently. Now it can be misleading when you try to select your ship but it's not in that hex but really still in the asteroid belt. Move the ship in or out of the asteroid belt and you'll see the jump.
This is true of either version.
Re: Asteroid habitat
Can you post another link please? I don't feel like hunting back to the top. Edit your first post even.
Re: Asteroid habitat
marhawkman didn't actually post the new version - exelsiar has come up with a new, bugfixed one, but it's apparently on SE.net at the moment. Here's hoping a link appears shortly >.>
Re: Asteroid habitat
Re: Asteroid habitat
I put a Copy in my link below as well.
Re: Asteroid habitat
Mind if I use this mod in a mod I'm working on right now?
Re: Asteroid habitat
My apologies for taking my time, havnt had access to the net for a while, and when i last did i was on a public library computer and didnt get to finish what i was doing at the time
http://home.spaceempires.net/ftopicp-25874.html
thats the link to the topic i made, i plan to keep that as the main discusion thread on se.net
marhawkman, good to hear from you, i shall add your logo into the next release along with my own ^_^
fyron, cheers for posting that link, didnt know that page even existed
romulus68 thanks for hosting it, slight typo on your page, 11.03, should be 1.03
general mingsk, feel free to use as you wish, tho its very easy to break a mod by adding this, best of luck doing so as it will be a while before i get around to making some form of guide for adding to a mod.
santiago the cause of that bug graphical bug is currently unknown, what even affects it is still unknown. if marhawkman knows the cause i'll be exceptionly happy to know more about it...
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Grand Lord Exelsiar of the Azra-Dun Commonwealth, at your service
Re: Asteroid habitat
Oh? the offset bug?
There's a number associated with the graphics for a planetary object. I think it's called offset or something like that. This determines where it draws the icons above the planet. My problem was that I never figured out what the right number should be.
Here's a list of the things I changed:
Substituted pictures for asteroid skins. I did this because I couldn't figure out how to edit .x files. This required me to go back and edit all of the stock asteroid objects to not use the skins I substituted in. (most of the pictures I subbed out weren't used in stock anyways) My mod uses 2 skins for uninhabitable asteroids, the stock game used 3-4 and had another 4 or so that weren't used. I added new pictures for the unused ones, and made the new asteroid objects use them and not the old ones.
Created planet physical type "asteroid"
Created a for each size/type of asteroid planet.
Added data table entries for asteroid planets, yes I intentionally made them not as small when domed as others. It's a flavor thing, you don't really live on the surfaces of the asteroids. (hence the colored domes on the )
created Techfield for colonizing asteroid planets (no I don't remember why I made TWO fields where one is nothing but a pre-req for the other. I think it was some sort of workaround/fix, but I don't remember exactly why)
Created several constructed planet sizes and s to go with them. (these are basically asteroid versions of ringworld, but smaller) BTW I intentionally made them not blow up planets.
Created tech item for creating asteroid constructs, It doesn't upgrade, each tech level is a seperate item. They create different planet objects, and the code won't accept a formula.
I also screwed around with the Galaxy/solar system definitions, some changes were flavor, some for fun, some testing.
Flavor/useful: made the generation actually spawn asteroid worlds. This is very important. If you leave this out, any race that starts as an asteroid colony won't find any habitable planets, until they research another colony type. but because asteroids are "special" they don't spawn the same way regular planets do. BTW I made the systems that were giant asteroid belts have some habitable asteroids too. Depleted Galaxy is a galaxy definition that (theoretically) gives asteroid races an advantage.
fun: I changed somewhere the number of solar systems the galaxy spawns. To make this work I also had to add a list of names to use. BTW I made the list using several comic books as a "resource". Have fun figuring out which ones. 
a small bug I've never bothered to fix: I ally made two that are identical.
Testing: I made a few new solar system types and a few galaxy types. I think they're all labeled Petri dish. I have to advise against using it in a serious game. Oh there's a solar system type with no sun and several randomish asteroid belts. It's used by Depleted Galaxy, so it's probably best if you don't get rid of it.
No I'm not sure that I listed every change. If you have questions, ask.
Re: Asteroid habitat
ahh cheers, i'll try decipher ya message and reply to it properly later, probly tommorow.
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Grand Lord Exelsiar of the Azra-Dun Commonwealth, at your service
Re: Asteroid habitat
ok my appologies on taking a while to get back to this, been kinda busy.
the offset thingy is mostly sorted, or rather we've worked out what to do to fix it over at the spaceempires.net forums.
for the asteroid.x files a 3d model viewer is needed, that should allow you to edit the skin of the asteroid file.
for the tech thingy, i just removed the second entry, nothing appears to have broken because of it...
you may be saddened to know ive removed most of the non asteroidy files, including your system names, as cool as they were...
cheers for the list of random changes, all this kind of info is helpfull. I'm planning to essentially re-build the stock files adding in the neccessary things from the mod to remove some of the random testing. by doing that i myself will probly come to understand more of your changes ^_^
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Grand Lord Exelsiar of the Azra-Dun Commonwealth, at your service
Re: Asteroid habitat
I think its been nearly a week since i was able to progress with the mod thanks to help over at spaceempires.net, but it was only this morning i felt like doing any work 
anyway the point of todays ramblings is that version1.04 is out
the download link shall be up soon over at: http://home.spaceempires.net/ftopicp-25874.html
Version 1.04
1 Fixed - Most of the empire logo jumping on asteroid planets
2 Changed - Re-organized asteroid placement making it a bit more even for asteroids
3 Fixed - Normal asteroid fields had no images
4 Changed - The asteroids in asteroid belt systems are no longer colonizable
5 Added - New design type Colony (Asteroids)
6 Changed - The colour of the asteroid dones slightly
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Grand Lord Exelsiar of the Azra-Dun Commonwealth, at your service
Re: Asteroid habitat
Um... #4 was intentional.... 
BTW did you dump the Depleted Galaxy? That was something meant as an improvement. The rest of it sounds cool though.
Re: Asteroid habitat
with number 4, i had changed all the asteroids in a belt system to be colonizable, but with recent changes that would really over power asteroid races
naa your quadrant and system types are still there, havnt touched them other than to make asteroid belt 2 compatible with other changes, the petri's should still be the same ^_^
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Grand Lord Exelsiar of the Azra-Dun Commonwealth, at your service
Re: Asteroid habitat
Enh... the Petris were never meant as any thing other than a way to force the game to spawn stuff. Only really intended to be used for testing.
Actually it might be better to make a few more asteroid system types. One of my changes effectively made one of the trinary types into an asteroid system. That would give you three. I changed the Stock one to have about half colonizable asteroids. And added another(with no sun) that had semi-random asteroids. I think it was also about 50% colonizable. Maybe make one that has asteroids spawn in a nebula? Actually a simple one would be like asteroid 1 but with only 25% colonizable.
Re: Asteroid habitat
aye i know their testing, as such i never touch them as i dun like testing in that style, i prefer to test things as if i were playing the game
i looked through your second belt system (guessing thats the one you ment for no sun), and it had a sun, but then again thats only used in depleted galaxy i believe. I'm planning to work on the way planets and asteroid fields and created so its more like stock, now that the files are set up properly (thanks to a few things pointed out on other forum), the colonizable asteroids pop up where normal planets are generated ^_^
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Grand Lord Exelsiar of the Azra-Dun Commonwealth, at your service
Re: Asteroid habitat
aye the nasty hydrogen asteroids come from fixing the jumped out empire flags... no idea why atm, all the other asteroids are smaller than normal, which is from the same thing, my plan is to toy with the size values to get things a bit more back to normal with them.
as for the colours yeah i'm gonna change them back, i forgot about them blending in, was only thinking of atmospheric acuracys... yeah i was half asleep
as for the system name things i dunno, i'll look into it when i get the chance >_
Re: Asteroid habitat
Hmm... I'll look at that again. Obviously this needs more testing.
Re: Asteroid habitat
aye i figured yee had ment for them not too, but i changed it for an easyer matter of balance and such without cluttering up systems
btw incase anyone was wondering there wont be another release before xmas, ive not been this busy in a loooong time, an amazingly its nothing game or xmas related >_
Re: Asteroid habitat
*pokes with stick*
Anyways I did new skins over the holiday. I managed to come up with something that even makes the dust specks visible, without looking horrible in a larger size.
Working on an improved Solar sail tech idea, still testing it. Yeah it hasn't much to do with this but hey, it's a tech I've been wanting to tinker with ever since I started playing.
Re: Asteroid habitat
that sounds pretty cool, i've got a guy working on models, textures and the AI for this mod. might be able to make use of yours too, as im not sure exactly what he's working on..
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Grand Lord Exelsiar of the Azra-Dun Commonwealth, at your service
Re: Asteroid habitat
exelsiar, speaking of the AI for this mod. Are you wanting it to be based off stock, Balance or another mod's AI? Reason I ask is the new tech will cause problems with coding the AI, it requires numerous code line entries for the AI to use and research it. If it where changed to something already in the tech tree (like rock colonization, say level two) then its an easier AI conversion that will allow someone to keep up with any patches and adapt to most other mods much more easily.
As for the asteroid models, almost done, playing with some textures.
Re: Asteroid habitat
currently, the asteroid habitats are only available with steller manip level 60+, so its not available to anyone until then. You could easily give an empire level 2 in rock colony at the beginning, the setup scripts are already set to take level changes on tech.
Or you could make a racial trait along with either of the steller of rock colony tech. Racial trait is easy to code in.
I could do it the original way, but its going to take me a little while to code it.
Re: Asteroid habitat
another question: how come the settings for the gravity plating and density cables are used? I would think the asteroid habitat wouldn't be as difficult to build as an entire planet. Essentially one is just stopping asteroids from rotating and setting up buildings from the remains of whatever ship hauled everything.
Re: Asteroid habitat
Ah! you missed it! ring/sphere world require LOTS of plates and cables. My level 1 asteroid thingy only uses one of each.
Erm... level 60? No.... I made it so that plates and cables could be built by having tech 1 in asteroids colonization.
the thing with making it a subset of rock colonization is that choosing asteroids would give you TWO colony types to start. Doesn't sound like a good plan to me.
RACIAL TRAIT? O_O... when you create a race you can choose "rock, gas, ice, or asteroid" it is completely independant of racial traits.
Re: Asteroid habitat
I might have the wrong mod version or it has changed since. Let me check the versions and see...
Re: Asteroid habitat
oooo so much activity. i cant remember how the habitat construction was setup in the original, but now its researched and done in the same way as rings/sphere.
also building habitats isnt done on asteroids them selfs as marhawk orignialy desired as that didnt work (i think), instead it builds a field of asteroids around the sun. the plating and cables wouldnt really be used in the same way as rings/spheres, but would essentially represent general construction matterials for all the domes and tubing between the asteroids.
and yes using the asteroid module in a rock lvl 2 way would essentially give a player rock colonization and asteroid colonization at the same time, it may be more dificult for ai coding, but is necessary.
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Grand Lord Exelsiar of the Azra-Dun Commonwealth, at your service
Re: Asteroid habitat
ahh i hate it when i use one of my fav emoticons here.. it counts as coding and breaks the entire message, i've removed it now and the whole message is there
an interesting sounding bug. wouldnt it be easyer to just have the module require asteroid tech? i think thats what ive done, much simpler, and possibly more balanced as it can essentially be as powerfull as a ringworld.. if im understanding you right
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Grand Lord Exelsiar of the Azra-Dun Commonwealth, at your service
Re: Asteroid habitat
“I cant remember how the habitat construction was setup in the original, but now its researched and done in the same way as rings/sphere.”
I can. It wasn’t very complex. Habitat modules were researched by researching additional techlevels of asteroid colonization. (although we could change that somewhat, giving them the same insane requirement as ringworlds makes them useless.)
“and yes using the asteroid module in a rock level 2 way would essentially give a player rock colonization and asteroid colonization at the same time, it may be more difficult for ai coding, but is necessary.”
Why? Adding asteroid colonization field did not create bugs. The only bugs I created were created by other things.
“an interesting sounding bug. wouldn’t it be easier to just have the module require asteroid tech? I think that’s what I've done, much simpler, and possibly more balanced as it can essentially be as powerful as a ringworld.. if I'm understanding you right”
No you missed it. The bug was created by giving plates and cables two possible requirements. Starting the game with one would, for unknown reasons, force you to take the other. We can’t simply give plates and cables to asteroid only, then ringworld tech would be completely useless, instead of nearly useless, like it is in stock. It’d work adequately well to put plates and cables at tech 1.
Asteroid field generation DOES have a limitation. It’s expensive, and you STILL need a 2000k+ hull for the plates and cables. That takes a crapload of research into hulls.
Anyways I'll be upgrading the mod to 1.66 later this week, and probably tweaking stellar manip in general.
Re: Asteroid habitat
1. ohhh i thought you ment those large asteroid fields around the sun as thats what i think of as the habitats, the colony tech ya meaning is still the same just fixed to work properly
2. if your gonna start someone off with level 2 rock tech for the asteroids then there gonna have rock module at lvl one, and the lvl 2 would give asteroid as you explained it. also for the record the way it was to start there were problems getting it as a starting racial thing.
3. surely its simpler just getting the cable and plating at the same time as the first habitat creation module, or just before as it is in stock.
if ya want yee could take the project over again, all the latest data files are uploaded as i havnt made anychanges since that upload, i'll post my notes online as soon as i get the chance to grab them from home, they wont be up till saturday earlyest, probly end up being monday.
I dont have any drive left for the project and almost no interest in the game... hell most games are getting a lack of use from me, i suppose im goin through a drepessive patch in life.. ahh well, it'll come to an end.
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Grand Lord Exelsiar of the Azra-Dun Commonwealth, at your service
Re: Asteroid habitat
2: I don't get why you felt the need to remove asteroid colonization tech field. My testing didn't have any problems there. I don't think you can set the game to start people at 2 anyways.
3: Cables and Plates need a techrequirement. Since they're used by both types of planetary construction, we can't make that something restricted to asteroid colonization.
4: Aww... I liked having someone else help.
Re: Asteroid habitat
2: ive no idea now, was too long ago :s
4: i'll probly still keep tabs and help with input when ever i visit the forums. heck ive still gotta get around to checking in with the other topics >_
Re: Asteroid habitat
Heres the 'bugs' and 'changes to do' lists, they should help you get to grips with whats left. Also here's the links to the other topics, they should serve to be usefull.
enjoy
http://home.spaceempires.net/ftopicp-25874.html
- my asteroid topic
http://home.spaceempires.net/ftopict-3688.html
- asteroid AI topic
Bugs:
Sometimes when changes are made, random asteroid planets turn into habitats
- cause and fix very worryingly unknown
- havnt seen for a couple of versions... fixed?
Empires flags are out of place by 2 hex's on habitable asteroid fields
- Santiago may have found the cause and fix for it, now for some testing
- Mostly fixed, hydrogen asteroids flag's are a little out of place
- Huge only it would appear
Hydrogen asteroids are larger than any other asteroids, many clump together looking fat and extra ugly
- all settings are same as others, bug appeared after fixing the jumped empire flag bug
Notes/Changes to do:
stuff to find out from / tell comunity
- get someone online to make a custom planet picture for habitats to replace 646
- 646 is huge asteroid planet image
- ask for someone to do a more percentage based change to planetsize.txt
- ask for ideas on AI
- only relating to colonizing asteroids
- is it fine like this? or would tiny - medium only be more appropriate?
- balancing issues based on an already reduced number of fields in asteroid only systems and if it were to be used as a races main planet type
- How to move asteroid colony component without breaking everything else
get ai to use asteroid tech
- research
- design type
- design colony ship
- construct colony ship
work on asteroid planet generation
-use stock system style to generate them as normal planets and leave in normal asteroids?
-keep a couple of tiny planets in asteroid belt systems
toy with the size of the asteroids, they get lost in space..
create a note to modders
have double asteroid models
- 1 to show up uncolonized
- 1 to show when colonoized
- requires special scripting, if even possible
edit these files to create a working file set with asteroid fields:
XFileClasses_Stellar.txt
StellarObjectTypes.txt
SystemTypes.txt
so that i have a working file set with asteroid fields
- only if theres demand for it
make mergers with FQM when finished
- include mini guide on how to merge
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Grand Lord Exelsiar of the Azra-Dun Commonwealth, at your service
Re: Asteroid habitat
as for atmosphere types as far as i know theres only 5... as for work arounds i'll leave that to you, just remember that its pretty essential to read those topics i linked too, they cover and explain most of the changes ^_^
nono 646 is the planet icon, namely the ones used when viewing the planet screen.
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Grand Lord Exelsiar of the Azra-Dun Commonwealth, at your service
Re: Asteroid habitat
its not a need, just a desire to be different from asteroids as this is for the habitats, which a tad bigger, but still not needed, just a minor possible addition
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Grand Lord Exelsiar of the Azra-Dun Commonwealth, at your service
Re: Asteroid habitat
Can this mod be used in conjunction with Unnamed's improved AI mod?
Re: Asteroid habitat
yep easilly, tho the ai wouldnt be able to colonise the asteroids as yet.
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Grand Lord Exelsiar of the Azra-Dun Commonwealth, at your service
Re: Asteroid habitat
How would I add Asteroid Habitats mod to Unnamed's AI Mod?
Re: Asteroid habitat
Mmm, reminds me of SE3.