The neo-standard thread- Standardising additional hull sizes. - Page 14

Suicide Junkie · #**131** January 24th, 2002, 05:28 PM

quote:
The copying program will still be needed to, establish chains.
AFAIK you will only be able to put one second option, not 3, 4 or 5 options (like wepons in a design) in order of priority.
For example the picture for a heavy baseship is "baseshipheavy" secondary image "baseship" and third option "starbase"
Someone also mentioned that some people will never get Gold verion.

Right.
And I still need you guys' opinion on what the chain for resource ship & SM barge should be!

dogscoff · #**132** January 26th, 2002, 10:38 AM

IMHO...

barge > large transport

resource ship> medium transport

resource station > space station

Suicide Junkie · #**133** January 26th, 2002, 05:01 PM

Yes, but what comes after that? The chain has to end at either "Cruiser" or "Race picture", since those are the only two absolutely required images, no matter what the mod.

Eg:
barge > large transport > colonyshiplarge > medium transport > dreadnaught > battleship > battlecruiser > cruiser.

dogscoff · #**134** January 27th, 2002, 10:59 AM

Well, your barge chain makes sense to me, although I think maybe you should have baseships and monitors in there somewhere.

For mining ship, I would go mining ship > mining station > medium transport > small transport > destroyer > leight cruiser > cruiser.

mining station > mining ships > space station > cruiser.

Suicide Junkie · #**135** February 10th, 2002, 07:59 PM

WooHoo!
The Neobuilder.exe is now ready to try out!

Feel free to comment on the alternate chains, found HERE.
Not shown are hulls from Scout to Heavy Dreadnaught. Those have a pattern alternate of try one step smaller, try one step bigger, try next smaller, etc.

Note: some of the constants I used are not obvious. Refer to the legend below.
??H = heavy Version of obvious hull
??G = unit group
T# = Transport (1= tiny, 2=small, etc)
C# = Carrier
TR# = troop
F# = fighter
FF = Fighter Group (conflicts with frigate)
BM = Worldship (conflicts with War Station)
CS = colony ship
MN = Mine
DR = Drone

[ 10 February 2002: Message edited by: suicide_junkie ]

disabled · #**136** February 10th, 2002, 09:13 PM

I wonder what has become of this project. I'm very much interested in it for the UM2. I mean, the new racial techs and such plus having well over 500 different ship, bases, sats, and so on in 96 sizes for the 13 trees...

Phoenix-D · #**137** February 10th, 2002, 09:28 PM

I'll be making TechMod compatable with this once I get Gold and start it up again. Right now I'm planning everything out.. Last time was I just threw things in as they occured

As to "what has become of this", I think at this point it's up to the mod authors.

Phoenix-D

Andr�s · #**138** February 11th, 2002, 01:45 AM

Maybe it's because it looks for default english se4 path name and can't find it, but it always seems to start in the root directory of my hard drive. No matter whare the builder is located. And I have to browse all the way to the races.

In most cases 1st choice for troopinfantry should be race_portrait/pop_portrait.

Your minimun requirements look too high.
I think you only need the portrait battlecruiser to choose in the add new race window. You'd need at least 1 mini to copy, but not necesarily the battlecruiser. Maybe if battlecruiser is not abailable the program should attempt to copy another pic there too.
BigExplosion and Shields are not indispensable either, there are a number of races that are considered complete and do not include custom shield or explosion, and by the way generic pics tend to match different shipsets better than ships here.

What about the idea of an easily editable .txt file defining ship sizes and copy chains.

This is probably beyond your programming capabilities, but maybe you can find some pre-made library to resample bitmaps (note the difference between resample and just resize). You could make it copy and resample race portrait to create pop pictures.

Suicide Junkie · #**139** February 13th, 2002, 03:24 AM

I didn't do any sort of path initializing, so C:\ is the default.

I set the minimum requirements as they were because all of those images either:
A) cannot be created/copied from elsewhere (eg. bigexplosion)
or
B) Are required by SE4.

Re: infantry.
Oops. Copy/paste error. I got into a routine, and forgot about that

.

quote:
there are a number of races that are considered complete and do not include custom shield or explosion

True. I can easily remove those from the requirements.
On the other hand, Battlecruiser is used along with the race portrait when choosing your shipset during race creation.

Minimum requirements are now:
- pop images
- battlecruiser images
- main.bmp

quote:
What about the idea of an easily editable .txt file defining ship sizes and copy chains.

Not a problem, I'll include that in my next Version.
I just hardcoded the whole thing to get it done quickly, but I kept it in a nice format for using a text file for definitions.

quote:
This is probably beyond your programming capabilities, but maybe you can find some pre-made library to resample bitmaps (note the difference between resample and just resize). You could make it copy and resample race portrait to create pop pictures.

You're right. I'm not going to build that Tinman. The axe already has enough bells and whistles

Resampling images would be way too easy for the shipset's original creator to do, and thus not worth my time to automate.

Andr�s · #**140** February 13th, 2002, 06:37 AM

I just made a quick test.
Pics that are required by SE4 "add new race" window are:
racename_main
racename_race_portrait
racename_portrait_battlecruiser

"_portrait_battlecruiser"
Is used even if you make a mod where no ship size uses the battlecruiser picture.

IMHO really minimun requirements to create a shipset are:
_main and _race_portrait
Since they are both, indispensable and cannot be copied from anywhere else
and
_anyship_portrait, and _anyship_mini
It does not have to be necessarily the battle cruiser. Portrait and mini don't even need to be of the same ship. It will eventually be copied to all sizes including battlecruiser if necessary.

For example I have this unfinished shipset that so far only has main, race_portrait, pop pics, escort, frigate, destroyer, light cruiser and colony ship. I'd like the program to be able to make all copies and complete the shipset even if most ships will be copies of the light cruiser in the end. By copying the cruiserlight into the battlecruiser the program will actually be CORRECTING the error. If it doesn't have anything to copy to for example to troops ignore them but make all other copies anyway.

I'd just ignore other pics that cannot be copied from anywhere else.
Pop pics seem to be the only ones that if lacking are not replaced by the default shipset. I'd make copies of the race portrait even if you cannot resample them. It saves one step to the creator, if planning to resample them by giving the pics the right name and if not edited viewing the lower left corner of the race portrait is better than a white square.

BTW I hope you know that this is only constructive criticism, and that I do appreciate all your hard work. The NeoBuilder as it is now is already a very useful tool.

I don't want that Tinman, but I want a swiss-army-knife-like axe