Modding help needed

Well, the best place to start would be to download the forge tools set from the site's Downloads link on top. Inside the archive there's a map maker, a particle maker, text versions of all the files you'll need (the game's are in binary), and there's a Documentation folder that has some tutorials. There's a basic one (sins_modset.pdf) that introduces you to Sins modding and walks you through setting up a mod and tweaking some things, and a few more advanced ones (like importing XSI models).

Should get you started! Some things, like modding research and abilities, are a bit trickier than just messing with stats, so when you get to that stage if you have any questions, feel free to post!

cheers!

Edit: I made a small mod, using the tutorial. I created a new ability and replaced the Dunov Battlecruiser's Magnetize with it. I got the game running, built a battlecruiser, but when I pointed over the ability on the ability management screen, the game had a minidump crash. Can anyone explain what I might have done wrong?

Do the forge tools even work with 1.13?

They should. In the user path, where you put the mod, there's a Settings folder. Open the user.setting file inside with notepad, and towards the bottom there's a line that reads showErrors FALSE. Set it to TRUE, run your mod again, and paste the error you get from your crash please

Created a new ability and forgot to add a new line to string file with the name of ability and description!!!

Now that is what most likely caused your dump!

Nevermind, I've fixed it, but thanks for your error message thing. Thanks!

EDIT: No, I'd put a space in the buff file's name, but not in the line referencing the buff.

I didn't think the tutorial had you messing with strings, but I don't remember

And glad you got it fixed.

How do I make the string work? I've got the ability working, but it can't find the string entries for name and description. The string references are the same as the entries in the .str file. What might I have done wrong?

If it was a new entry into the .str file, make sure you increase the string count at the top of the file by 2 (one for name and one for description).  The game wont reconize new strings unless the count matches the number of stings in the file.

Oh, thanks!

Yep. In essence, it reads the stringCount number and then processes only that number of strings. Anything after that is lost.

It still doesn't seem to work...

Does it need to be at a certain place in the string file?

Nope. When you say it doesn't work, what exactly happens?

This is how the string file works:

Each string entry has 3 lines: StringInfo, ID, and Value. The "stringInfo" tag tells the game to expect an ID and Value to follow. The ID is the internal tag for the string. The Value is the actual text displayed in game.

So if an entity contains this line: nameStringID "IDS_ABILITY_BEAMBLAST_NAME" the game is going to search through the stringInfos until it comes across the matching ID "IDS_ABILITY_BEAMBLAST_NAME", take its Value field, and display it in game.

So, when you make your ability, if you give it a nameStringID "IDS_ABILITY_MYSUPERABILITY_NAME" and a descStringID "IDS_ABILITY_MYSUPERABILITY_DESC", you will need to add this to the English.str file (anywhere works):

stringInfo
        ID "IDS_ABILITY_MYSUPERABILITY_NAME"
        Value "Super Ability"

stringInfo
        ID "IDS_ABILITY_MYSUPERABILITY_DESC"
        Value "This super ability does all sorts of mean things."

and then increase the string count number up top by 2.

It works! Thank you all so much for the help!!! I remembered the show error thing, and it said I needed a new line at the bottom of the buff file. It works! I tested the ability ingame, and it does what it's supposed to. Thanks!

Any idea what I should do next? More of the same? As I said, I have a plan for what I'd like to do when I get used to this game, but that'll probably need more than one person, and a lot more experience than I have. I think I might try some reskins, I do quite a lot of those for other games.

Well, I can't really say what you should do next. I would recommend not jumping into it head first, though. Pick out a few of the more interesting things you'd like to do, and figure out how you'd do them. If you want to have some funky ability (people so far have come up with some rather crazy stuff for abilities!) figure out and practice doing it so you get a better grip on how it all fits together. If you know you want to tweak research, spend some time figuring out how research fits together. Get comfortable doing practice/tests of all that you know you'll have to do, and then the bulk of your time will go towards actually doing it rather than learning how to

It's all up to you, though! There are a bunch of people in the modding community that are fairly active on the forums, if you need help with anything.

Is it possible to convert the .mesh files in reference data to .xsi files to edit in softimage|xsi? thanks.

Nope, it doesn't work backwards.