So I saw that enhanced 4X mod and I liked a bunch of the stuff it did/fixed, like culture being somewhat useful now.

Is there any chance of you guys asking the creator of it if you can add it in Distant stars? And if not, how much work do you think it would be too get both mods working at once without mini-dumping?

Here's a copy of them in text format so you can read them.

http://sites.google.com/site/steelers086/gamefiles/BuffEscapes.rar

Let me know what you discover.  The dev.exe complains about a lot of things that aren't necessarily problems, at least, not game breaking ones.

I just whipped everything up while I was literally unpacking from my vacation so everything is largely untested as a group pack, however individually each thing has had extensive play testing before I left and shouldn't cause issues.

Depends on the files that were changed, realistically, as long as all necessary files are present, and the entity manifest, galaxyscenariodef file, and player entity files all agree on what is there, then it's very easy.  For example, if you simply copy and paste over the DS files with the 4x mod files and there are no new additions, then you're done because DS already accounts for everything.  If there are a lot of new files, then depending on how many new files and where they fit in the game, you could spend a couple of days just trying to sort everything out.

Bleh spending days sorting through files is not something I feel like doing right now, so I hope the copy-paste works then... kind of doubt it though.

BTW did anyone figure out the reason for the ATI video card graphics bug yet? Still been wanting too try and fix that

Taking a look at the 4X stuff, I must say that I really do love the 'Random Encounters' that are present. It's just, really neat. I don't suppose, with permission, that we could include these into the DS mod Stant?

DO explain said encounters or at least give a link.

No Flagship love for me.

If I add the flagship mod then the DS V1 mod, I get a minidump. I can add any of the other mods in proper stacking order and things play great.

Yes, I did the basic just Flagship and DS V1.0 in diplomacy and it is no joy for me.

I even deleted and reloaded the expansion and it still did not work for me.

Has anybody else have this issue?

I apologize for not putting the link up. Scroll down in the OP until you see the Random Encounters. We played with this in a Modder's game last Friday night and the random encounters are really cool. It just makes it 'feel' that much more awesome.

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/414639

For some reason whenever converting the files responsible for the crashing from text to binary they become corrupt.  I have no idea why it's just those 6 files each and every time, but I'm in the process of rewriting them just in case its got something to do with their structure.  Will post updated links when I have everything all worked out.

Hey stant, are the escape skill supposed to spawn things continuously, or is the finish condition line not necessary for the skills? I just see "spawns ships at planet" but I don't know if that's frigates/drop-ships/or what.

It says spawn ship on the buff, and the number is limited to 1 by the conditions under the spawnship line.  Therefor a finish condition isn't needed because it'll spawn that single ship, or it wont if other conditions haven't been met like available fleet supply.  It's not like a persistent buff or some other effect that needs to be limited by a time count or another condition like jumping to a new gravity well or stop after so much damage has been given.

As for if it's a frigate, cap ship, drop ship, whatever, that's limited by the line asking for the required ship type and the subsequent count.  In the escape buff, it calls for the frigate escape pod, which in reality can be any ship entity.

Anyway, here is the buffs in text format for the flagship creation part of things.

http://sites.google.com/site/steelers086/gamefiles/BuffFlagship.rar

Those three files in there, combined with the three files I put up before will fix the problem with the minimod crashing.  Tomorrow I'll get around to reuploading the whole thing (hopefully) with all 6 files in text format since converting them to binary just screws them all up for whatever reason...

Never had issues before with those files.

It was a compression issue. they got corrupted in the process somehow, that's why they wouldn't convert again.

lol, hit submit too soon.

But, good job Stant, and thanks for the clarification =D I've been messing with abilities here and there but I haven't delved too far into the spawning ones. Did something to the starbase phase gate that I think made it tremendously more effective. Set the autocast available and moved the duration time 60 seconds short of the cooldown. The autocast is set to nearest orbital body so there's a 60 second window of no phase gate making it a little more realistic for a "sub-system phase gate" instead of a dedicated one. Still costs antimatter and everything else remains the same, and you have the option of deactivating autocast so I feel it adds a bit more incentive to actually get it. but yeah, that's about the most balanced thing I changed lol

Also: got the laser beam mod to work with the Flagships ^^ it looks so awesome

Update: Hey stant, we need an updated string file for those same abilities. Been looking at them and I think I figured out what they do. Upon the flagship's death it makes another "creator" craft to spawn a new one. But the ability is also set to ultimate so, does that mean it would cost a point to keep this ability?

Also, the spawning method for the flagship bugs me, I saw the same method from ZombieRus5's method of "jump in upon destruction" but I was wondering if you could make it build the flagship like how a starbase is built by it's constructor. Just have the blueprint filling in out in a gravity well somewhere, but that's just an idea, think Zombie said there was some kind of crashing issue with it I think, but It's been so long I can't remember exactly x.x

Nope

Fine, what does it do? ;O

The only way to spawn a capital ship outside of a factory is to have it jump in from out of no where.

yeah, that's what you said that I couldn't remember, and now I remember why I stopped nagging at the idea

 and i figured out that buff...it's an auto "revive"?    x.x

No, it was not a compression issue, it was a conversion issue.  I have the text files that were never converted over.  Once I converted copies of them to binary, the files broke and the game crashed.  Trying to convert the copies back to text failed.  I repeated the process half a dozen times.  Every single time, the files broke when they got converted to binary.  Just those six.  Compression was never even used in my testing to figure out what happened because the problem occurred before that step.  Coincidentally, the files included in the archive match up with the broken binaries almost perfectly after they are uncompressed which means winRAR didn't screw anything up at all on either end of the compression/decompression.  Trust me, this isn't my first day on the job, I know how to track down problems and accurately pin down the source.  ;|  I run everything in text form on my end, whenever I release something, I convert it to binary because binary loads faster and prevents people from tinkering with the files, thus I sometimes miss things like that...  But who really cares when it's easily fixable.

Neither have I, don't know why this time it decided to be picky as hell and stop working, but I do remember having this problem with an early release of yours when I tried converting everything back to text it wouldn't work, but the game didn't crash either, then in an update you put out everything in text, so I got what I wanted without having to ask.

Was thinking about it, but that would have delayed the release of the pack and I wanted it out while people were still not in school, not at work, wasting time playing games, etc.  That's how the big guys do it right?  Release buggy content and patch later.    Honestly, though, it's been so long since I played, I completely forgot about the missing strings.  Will work on that.

That's why it's called an escape pod.  ;D  I could however make it fake build something (by that I mean build in spirit, not actually build) by way of disabling movement and making the self destruct take much longer before it actually happens and calls in the flagship.  This way you would have to start the process in a relatively safe place or risk having the escape pod blown up.  Thoughts?

I like the idea, is there a "useonlyinfriendlygravitywell" modifier you could tack to it? that way (sensibly) the escape pod would have to jump out to a neutral/allied/or owned gravity well before creating a new flagship, and if the enemy "pops your pod" before his get away, no more flagships for that fella

Also, would it be possible to have it "fleetbeacon" in a new "admiral's shuttle" at the edge of the gravity well...sucks for you if the shuttle is brought in on the other side of the enemy fleet though

The vasari flagship tech is behind the bombing tech. Wondering about moving the scout's phase jump immunity to the bottom category and putting the flagships tech there

Update: ok, all that up there wasn't necessary, just changed the line Block 0 to Block 1, but the research description isn't showing up in game, apparently it's also unselectable...it's transparent in the research list, and grayed still when you reach the Tier 5

Fixed: alright I fixed the problems, changed Block line to Block 2 and the cords below it to [ 5 , 1 ]  puts it in it's own spot around the shields and hull upgrades, and the research info is now displayed ^^

Not that I know of.

Well, it costs a lot of resources to make one, so as a human player, the best thing to do is turn off the auto use...  That is assuming you're fast enough to select the ship and turn it off before it auto fires the ability.  ;D

That's what it already does.

Yeah i saw it appear and explode in like, 2 seconds lol

so instead I put the auto-cast on default to false lol

Regarding Stant's Addon pack, I noticed that the Powerful Pirates minimod crashes the game when it's time to send out the first wave.

Since I currently have a few days free time, I can work on that a bit myself.

Is there anything more to do, in the ships entity files, for the Dynamic Movement mod than changing "usesFighterAttack FALSE" to true?

You could look into the flagship files and alter their few weapons(I just used notepad++'s compare feature and swopped out their projectile to beam  on the one's they needed changed) worked out nicely, though I had to go back into all the caps and replace the squads with Elites. works out nicely ^^ But I had to add a few files into your mod Norbert =D