The neo-standard thread- Standardising additional hull sizes.

[dogscoff]

OK, so I know this little project died way back in the spring somewhen, and the pages devoted to it on my webspace have been festering un-updated for months, but now that the viking production machine is slowing down again, I thought I'd make another effort to create some continuity between mods.

For those who missed it / ignored it the first time round...
I'm trying to create some sort of vague "standard" set of filenames for non-standard hullsizes, so that a shipset creator can make his shipset compatible with a number of different present and future mods more easily.

For example, in S_J's Pirates and Nomads mod, the battlemoon image has to be called
"massivebaseship". In the Star Wars mod though, the Battlemoon (Well, Death Star actually, but it's still a big, grey, round thing) goes by the name of "LDS". Which name should I use for my vikings shipset? I can only be compatible with just one, but I want my battlemoon image to be used by both mods.

If theese two modders agreed upon a standard file name for these big grey round things, then shipset creators might start making shipsets that include them. Then, future modders could call for big grey round thing images in their mods in the knowledge that there are already dozens of shipsets out there with images to support them.

The idea goes beyond just that one example though, obviously: Extra fighter sizes seem to be used by many different mods. Also infantry, mining / resource generating hulls and many others which may exist or come to exist in the future.

The problem comes with those shipsets which have no extra images at all and never will. This problem is solved by adding files to the generic shipset. I am willing to spend time creating new generic images if necessary.

Now that my viking shipset is almost complete and freely available, I'd like to start trying to standardise some of the non-standard images.

So, the major mods I am most familiar with, (other than TDM which uses no non-standard images anyway) are Pirates and Nomads, and the Star Wars mod. Also, you were the guys that showed an interest Last time=-) So...

S_J, your P&N mod currently calls for a pic called "massivebaseship", which is used for the battlemoon. You include a generic image for it, and another identical image titled "battlemoon". You also have extra hull sizes, but no special images for drop
pods, bio-fanatics, resource ships/ stations and 2 extra fighter sizes.

Andres, your mod calls for:
3 death star images called "sds", "mds" and "lds", & one picture called "infantry"
I'm assuming you have generic images for these.

There are also fighter sizes including a TIE bomber, which just use standard fighter images.

Here is my suggestion for a working system- and it is just a suggestion. If necessary I can create generic images to fill in any gaps. (Even if I just copy another generic image and rename it)

EDIT: Table wasn't clear, so I attached it as a text file.

If you guys were to establish this as a starting point, i think other modders and shipset creators would follow suit and we could start the ball rolling.

Would this system work? Do you think those images are compatible? Are there any changes you want made? I know it sucks using a generic fighterbomber image rather than a race-specific largefighter image, but if this idea catches on then I believe that most new shipsets will be created with race-specific images for all or most of these extra sizes, and that authors will start to update their back- catalogues. I've tried to show the way with the vikings and I seem to be getting a good response. I can even start making additional images for existing shipsets if necessary.

[ March 12, 2003, 16:24: Message edited by: dogscoff ]