I've decided to try my hand at an ambitious project.
Well, this has been slated to be done for so long, but with lack of enough people to do it, it has been... well... not done. So, here are plans of what I want to do. I may need help along the way, so...Overview:
What I intend to do, if anything in the list affects VS for the worse then tell me, or better yet tell me a better way to do it.
1. Relocate all units to properly named folders inside /units. Many of the curent units retain their old names, making it particularly confusing for people not familiar with the ships. Rlaan ships for example are still placed in folders according to their old naming standards, so the Taizong bomber is still in the vidar folder. I intend to move it into the proper folder, specifically, units/taizong/.
2. Take this a step further. Change all the files inside the folder to reflect proper naming. The admonisher for example. I will use the mesher to chnage it back to xmesh, edit the textures to show proper correlation (i.e. all blank textures will be renamed using the new names and standards), before changing them back to bfxm. So the original puma specular map, puma_spec.png will be renamed to admonisherPPL.png and linked accordingly to the xmesh.
3. Add missing maps, most of the ships lack damage, spec, and glow maps. Using existing maps, I will modify them to create the missing maps and add them to the xmesh's textures. Note: I will probably be modifying some of the maps to standardize them, but I will keep back-ups.
4. Add factional versions of the ships. The most important part of this job. I will be adding logos and colors on the ships themselves. Standardize logos and colors once and for all. The original textures will be retained for the blank/neutral versions. Each unit folder will then have different subdirectories for each faction's version of the ship. e.g. /admonisher will have 3 folders inside it. /admonisher/HS-admonisher; admonisher/admonisher, and admonisher/Pirate-admonisher. Each will contain its own textures, hud images, and bfxm files.
5. I need help in modifying the templates. How do I do this? Ideally, still using the admonisher example above, I want each version to have different specs. I don't know what those functions inside the template files are for. As well, as me having inadequate knowledge of the uses of the unit variables inside units.csv.
6. Again help in adding all the ships to units.csv and the unit spawner.
Well, reasons for doing this, i.e. how will it benefit VS?
1. For one, there'll be the illusion of ship diversity. An admonisher will now have 3 different versions.
2. Make it easier to identify a ship's faction immediately.
3. Eye candy of course. Fancy seeing a fleet of Andolians with proper charcoal grey and blue colors?
4. Add the missing files for each ship.
Aside from possible problems/better suggestions with the above plans, I need answers to these questions:
1. Is anyone else working on any of the files inside the units folder? I would like to know if any of my changes could affect their work. I may need to change the entries within units.csv itself when I finish with all of the units. If someone is, can I still work on this without affecting your work? AFAIK, someone is rebalancing the unit properties right?
2. How can I make these ships available for sale at proper places and spawn points?
Well that's it. As I said, I will need help testing them ingame. I plan to proceed slowly. Taking ships one at a time, modifying it, and making it available ingame before moving to another.
Violent reactions?
I'm basing the faction colors on the list JackS provided me before:
Code: Select all
Primary color Secondary color Hull Client of
1.Aera Light Gray Mustard Yellow White
2.Aera_Bzbr Light Gray Powder Blue White Aera
3.Aera_merchants Light Gray Dark Gray White
4.Andolians_Klk'k Electric blue Neon Green Slate (blue-gray)Andolians
5.Andolians_purth Electric blue Dark Brown Slate (blue-gray Andolians
6.Andolians Electric blue Dark Blue Slate (blue-gray)
7.Confed Hunter Green Dark Blue White
8.Confed_Andolians Hunter Green Electric blue White
9.Confed_High Born Hunter Green Purple White
10.Confed_Mechanists Hunter Green Dark Gray White
11.Confed_Merchants Hunter Green Orange White
12.Confed_Purists Hunter Green Ivory White
13.Confed_Shapers Hunter Green Burgundy White
14.Confed_Unadorned Hunter Green Pink White
15.Dgn Burgundy Brown Green Shapers
16.Forsaken Yellow White Dark gray
17.High Born Purple Orange Dark gray
18.Hunters Dark Blue Hunter Green Charcoal
19.ISO Red Yellow Gray
20.Klk'k Neon Green Electric blue Slate (blue-gray) Andolians
21.League of independent human worlds Teal Charcoal Dark Brown
22.Lmpl Green Mauve Dark Gray Rlaan
23.Luddites White Bright Yellow Steel Blue
24.Mechanists Dark Gray Steel Blue Dark Green
25Merchants Orange Hunter Green Dark Gray
26Militia Hunter Green Yellow Orange
27.Mishtali Crimson Pink Yellow Unadorned
28.Neutral
29.Pirates Charcoal Crimson Dark Gray
30.Planets
31.powerups
32.privateer Charcoal White Light gray
33.Purists Ivory Light Gray White
34.Purth Dark Brown Electric blue Dark gray Andolians
35.Rlaan Mauve Crimson Dark gray
36.Rlaan_hunters Mauve Bright Red Dark gray
37.Rlaan_Lmpl Mauve Green Dark gray Rlaan
38.Rlaan_merchants Mauve Charcoal Dark gray
39.Rlaan_Nuhln Mauve Orange Dark gray Rlaan
40.Rlaan_Saahasayaay Mauve Brown Dark gray Rlaan
41.Saahasayaay Crimson Mauve Dark gray Rlaan
42.Shapers Burgundy Dark Gray Green
43.Shapers_dgn Burgundy Pink Green Shapers
44.Shmrn Light Gray Electric blue Brown
45.Spaceborn Light Gray Dark Gray Charcoal
46.Uln Orange Yellow Red
47.Unadorned Pink Dark Gray Dark Green
48.Unadorned_Mishtali Pink Crimson Dark Green Unadorned
49.unknown
50.upgrades 
(But since you are using the SVN snapshots you still have what has already been deleted as "delete" commands cannot be transfered via zip. 
the amount of traffic is awesome 
So how do I edit obj files? I guess that's easier, I'll take a look at samples when I get back home. thanks 
