The neo-standard thread- Standardising additional hull sizes.

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

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This sounds clever, but it's the kind of thing I'd rather see in the game itself. Also, when would you run it? Would it leave all your files with the wrong names if you then wanted to run a different mod?

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Some Clarification:
- The utility would be run once, when you install a shipset.
- The utility will not change or delete any existing images.
- The utility will add all the images described by your standard, by copying the closest existing image.

So, the shipset will look exactly the same in unmodded SE4, and in mods that only use images created by the shipset designer.
Under mods that use your standard image names, the shipset will have one of the original images, rather than using the generic race default.

Running the utility on one of the shipsets included with SE4 (Eee), it would add to the shipset the following:
New picture name ===> copy of Old picture
Eee_mini_troopinfantry ==> Eee_pop_portrait
Eee_portrait_troopinfantry ==> Eee_race_portrait
Eee_mini_fighterLight ==> Eee_mini_fightersmall
Eee_portrait_fighterLight ==> Eee_portrait_fightersmall
Eee_mini_PlanetoidLarge ==> Eee_mini_starbase

etc...
The pop -> infantry is nice, the small -> light is OK, and the starbase -> planetoid is pushing things.
If no reasonable choice is available, the image can be left nonexistant, and the race can use the mod's default.
The goal here is to keep each races picture's unique, so you don't have to play a game where everybody is using the same default image for their ships & units.

P&N Eg. "Who's battlemoon is that? They all look the same!"


Essentially, you could see it as the practical implementation of:

quote:

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All this talk would be redundant if the vehiclesize.txt allowed you to specify a secondary image (between the first choice and the generic) if the first choice wasn't found.

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since, if the primary image (specified by your standard) is not there, the secondary choices will be tried in order.
MY utility: "No baseship image? Then is there a starbase image? Copy the starbase image to 'baseship'"
SE4: Looks for "baseship", and always finds it.
Either it is the designer's original intention, or it is the backup "starbase" image, if the designer didn't make an explicit baseship image.

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 16 November 2001).]

[dogscoff]

Clever...

So it would be a bit like your AI patcher. In fact you might consider integrating the two.

Would it be for P&N only or would it get instructions from a text file so that other modders could make it work for them?

------------------
SE4 Code:
L GdY $ Fr- C- Sd T!+ Sf-- Tcp-- A% M>M+ MpD! RV Pw Fq+ Nd- Rp+ G-
/SE4 Code
Go to my meagre SEIV pages to generate your own code.

[Andrés]

I haven't updated that mod since before Last time this topic was discussed. I think I was about to change the name of old deathstar pics.
I'll change that when I get to work again in that mod and also make it compatible with seiv ver 1.49, and complete things I never got to add.

I think that to make modders use the new "standard pic names", it will be more important to create compatible shipsets than to create one or two compatible mods.
If a few sample shipsets are available, I think that other shipset artists will start copying that, making pictures for all those extra sizes. And modders will find that pictures are already there and use them in their mods.
It looks like your Viking shipset is going to be the first example.
I will make all images for the shipsets I have in progress and then my priority should be to "upgrade" all of my shipsets to the "new standard", and not edit that obsolete mod.
If we can convince other people such as Atrocities and John Beech to upgrade their shipsets and promote this standard in their websites, then most of the shipset makers will follow.
suicide_junkie's proposed program sounds cool.

Andrés

[Andrés]

quote:

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No way! That would be ridiculous. I was just pointing out that if Malfador isn't going to be fastidious about ship names, why should we? I agree that we should use the shipadjective format (ie transportlarge) rather than adjectiveship (lightcruiser) because it Groups files together nicely when sorted alphabetically. Other than that, I'd rather be a little creative with the names rather than tie ourselves to conventions which may not suit in the future.

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I agree, do not change pic names such as lightcruiser to keep compatibility with non modded game without the need of redundant copies.

quote:

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Yeah, I think a range of giant death stars would be good. 3 is enough though... anyone modding more than that probably needs to spend more time away from their computer.

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Remember my ultimate vehicle size mod?
I was planning to revamp it once we agree with this standard.

Ok these are the names and sizes I propose:
Ship Name – Pic Name – Description

Normal ships:
Scout – Scout – smaller than Escort
Baseship – Baseship – let’s standardize this pic name for baseship size, some shipsets (Atrocities’) use bs as pic name
Small PlanetCraft? Small Planetoid? Small Worldship? Small WorldCraft? – Larger than Baseship
Medium PlanetCraft? Medium Planetoid? Medium Worldship? Medium WorldCraft? – Larger than previous one
Large PlanetCraft? Large Planetoid? Large Worldship? Large WorldCraft? – Larger than previous one

Ships such as Corvette, Heavy Destroyer, etc are not necessary. I agree the names sound cool, but there’s not an important gap between ship sizes. Maybe there is a gap between the Dreadnought and the baseship. What about a Monitor, or Super Dreadnought?

Troops:
Infantry – Infantry – IMHO InfantryTroop is unnecessary redundant, there are not things such as InfantryFighters. Looks like SJ now agrees that smallest troops should be infantry and not drop pods?

Fighters:
The standard are Small, Medium, and Large changing them or adding others such as Light and Heavy will only generate confusion.
Sizes I propose are:
Tiny Fighter – FighterTiny – Smaller than small fighter
Massive Fighter – FighterMassive or FighterBomber – Larger and maybe slower than Large Fighter

Specialized Ships:
Large Colony ship – bigger than standard one

And not sure about this one.
Special Ship – ShipSpecial – A ship with special abilities, such as resource ship, resource miner, stellar manipulation barge, etc. Maybe a small, medium and large ones.

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

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Looks like SJ now agrees that smallest troops should be infantry and not drop pods?

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I still use a troop size called "drop pod", and I don't plan on changing it. (The vehicle is a "drop pod", and the components of the drop pod include infantry. The larger troops are tanks & stuff, so they can probably survive a surface landing without being inside something else)
I figure that theres no point in having a picture of the pods; we want to see the units in action, so I will use a picture of the race when this standard is nailed down.
I agree that we need an Infantry unit image, and it only makes sense to call it troopInfantry.

By default, the racial pictures
"raceX_pop_portrait" would be perfect for the "raceX_mini_troopInfantry", and
"raceX_race_portrait" would be great for the "raceX_portrait_troopInfantry" images.

[dogscoff]

OK, It think we're making real progress=-)

IMHO, the important ships to discuss are the ones already in use:

Infantry (Storm troopers, bio fanatics. Maybe or maybe not drop pods.).
I think the standard name for this image should be "TroopInfantry"

Big Round Grey Things (death star/ battlemoon).
I think the standard name for these images should be "PlanetoidSmall/ Medium/ Large)

Mining Ships & Stations (S_J's nomad resource hulls)
I think the standard names for these images should be "Prospector" and "MiningStation")

Fighters. S_J says he doesn't need extra fighter images after all, so I think just "FighterBomber" for Andres' TIE bomber.

Does this cover all your extra hull sizes? Would you guys be happy to make the above changes to your vehiclesize.txt files? Should we vote on "planetoid" vs "worldship" or "prospector" vs something else?

Like I say, these are the important ones since they are the ones actually relevent to your mods. I think we should agree on these before we discuss tiny fighters, stellar manip barges, corvettes, troop transports and whatever else. They can be added afterwards - the standard can grow and evolve to accomodate them as necessary.

Oh, and thanks for your support with all this, guys=-)

BTW, I still haven't had any response from other modders=-( but it is the weekend. Good news about Devnullmod though=-)

------------------
SE4 Code:
L GdY $ Fr- C- Sd T!+ Sf-- Tcp-- A% M>M+ MpD! RV Pw Fq+ Nd- Rp+ G-
/SE4 Code
Go to my meagre SEIV pages to generate your own code.

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

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Mining Ships & Stations (S_J's nomad resource hulls)
I think the standard names for these images should be "Prospector" and "MiningStation")

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I don't have resource hulls anymore; I replaced that with 1% maintenance, plus the minimum production, plus trade/thefts.

As for the prospector/miningstation, I'm thinking we want to get across the idea of "big ship with scoops/loading bays"

- Some sort of Scavenger, Collector type idea.