Hey! THAT'S MY SHIP!

[Wendy]

You've been shot at, there's a FF missile sticking out of your ear that the doc said he could remove IF you cough up enough chump change, and you FINALLY got the credits together to take care of the rust on the old bird.

WHat's it gonna be, Missile ectomy or a new paint job for the ship?

Hey, bread-n-butter first, the ship gets the paint!
You spent hours figuring out that fancy pants paint scheme only to find every swingin'... Errr...every yard bird with a ship like yours is sporting the same paint!

Gah!!!! Is there no equanimity?

Relax, it's simple to fix. Just create a new directory, something like demon1, copy the files in your current demon directory there, add a line to the units file and paste your ship type there and add a 1 to the name. Copy your demon units directory. Change the new directory name to demon1, restore the original unit textures, edit your save game so your ship is demon1, rename your demon.csv file to demon1.csv and you're in business. Oh! You need to sell your ship? Add a line to the master_part_list.csv for demon1.

See? Simple. And it only took you how long? Not as long as the ship design and custom paint. That I can promise you.

Now, how much is that puppy worth with the custom paint?

W.

[mat_yarrow]

I think the above is the best approach that makes for a truly unique ship (and not only because you can have a customized loadout/subunits) , since even ships of the same make that belong to your own faction(ex. cargo wingmen) will share the same paint job with the following method:

the game always looks for factionname_texture.png

like for isntacnce I can customize my centurion by making

privateer_body.jpg
instead of body.jpg

and so forth

no text editing necessary

[spiritplumber]

again -- if you guys make skins, please send me a copy

[Wendy]

I DID send you a copy. Somewhere 'round midnight. Din't you get them? The mail didn't bounce.

W.

[blue_paladin42]

Actually it might have. I tried to send a file to spirit, and it didn't go through for some reason. Yahoo said it is because the email doesn't exist.

[Wendy]

Y'know, using a combination of the two could give you some interesting things. YOUR ship woould be distinctive, as the commander of the strike-force. You fly the custom1 craft, then use a slightly different set-up for privateer.body for the centurion and privateer_demontop / privateer_demonbot for the demon.

That would give you a way to ID your group at a glance. Think about it, you'll be able to target your enemy by sight as well as the MFD and keys, making it easy to fly from outside your craft and dog it out.

W.

[mat_yarrow]

Yes, it does. Just don't do it like I did :"Paint it Black" to camouflage it in space. I ended up shooting my almost invisible wingmen, and since this was before the option to prevent civil war was added, once my radar was damaged I had a hard time targetting attackers that were extremely difficult to see against the background (AI-controlled ships have no difficulty seeing through my 'camouflage'; this could eventually be an issue if multiplayer option is added:D ) .

In short, my own custom paint jobs often use a 3-part process:

Step 1. The good - The default paint scheme was already good. I just wanted to spice it up and give my ships a unique twist.

Step 2. The bad - Using the GIMP, I tried to make use of every effect/plugin that was available. Apparently; cool effects, gradients, and layering can make the creation of modern art pretty easy.

Step 3. The butt-ugly - Put the texture in-game and saw it for the first time with specular and reflective lighting enabled. Day-glo colors clashed with swirly tiled patterns that looked cool by themselves but hurt the eyes when combined. After getting headaches with less than 30 min. of game time , I went back to the default texture. Blame it on my lack of artistic talent, but I don't think I'm partial to the color 'bong'.