Upgrading the Ship Meshes

it could be possible, as I believe it, you just need to delcare the funcitons just like how the starbases are called

no really a option for a lot of modder since the system with mesh update use a lot of mesh and that sins is very limited in the number of mesh ( hardcoded )

I believe the main difficulty, not impossibility, with this, is that currently the starbases use a main mesh and appended meshes that are added for the various upgrades. I think it "may" be able to be done with ships, you would have to talk to the devs to make certain. The starbases are currently a "hybrid" type of structure, since they combine features from buildings, like the hangar and trading dock buildings with the firepower of a well upgraded capital. The difference of course is that they are gravity well bound. That may have been a trade off from the dev point of view to make something very powerful, and quickly by adapting a structure frame, and limiting it by having it well bound, so we dont have them full upgraded beasts roaming the planets. As it is now, they "can" get to other planets, but not fully upgraded, they have to be transported via the spawner and then built and upgraded where ever you put them.

The difficulty with the mesh upgrades with ships at present, is we dont have "appending" meshes to add. I could take the entity structure and attempt to make a ship with two meshes, say a battleship and frigate, but i'm not entirely sure it would work, first off the file structure may not go. The engine may not like my added lines. Secondly, "if" the meshes do in fact append on upgrading, or simply building them that way from scratch, will what we have be visually aesthetic?

It seems an experiment well worth the effort of seeing if it can be done though,   I'm all for trying new ideas to see if they will work.

I can give it a try and let you know, but to be honest, i'm up to my ears in schoolwork for the next several weeks for this semester and may not get to it real quick. But it does sound like fun.

I think the main question though, may still be there, even if it "does" work.

It would mean creating "appending" meshes to add to the ships, something very cool, if we could add expanded bridges for the capitals, or altered wing-fins or gun implacements on the caps and frigs. But even then, we would have to "build" them in an editor, texture them and whatever else the graphic modders do to make them look cool, and then we would have to import it into the game in a .mesh form that the game will understand.

Not impossible to make additions for the models, but certainly not easy. Also, if the ship models will "not" take the second or third or ... meshes, then, well... only way around that is to petition the devs. Well, not exactly true, we could make other "structure type ships", but they may be gravity well bound like the starbases as well.

But still an interesting idea.

-Teal

actually, the "appended" meshes aren't "appended" at all.

All units entity files have a line called "MeshInfoCount" or something similar. Thise notes the number of meshes associated with that unit, and the criteria for upgrading the meshes.

For a ship or a normal structure, the upgrading would have to be associated with research done.

The actual setup of the mesh upgrades are- mesh #1- base mesh. Mesh #2-n (n=12<, as 12 is the max # of meshes) are actually just the base mesh with other stuff added. Example of- Mesh1 is the base. Mesh2 has new weapons. Mesh3 has culture stuff. Mesh4 has weapons&culture. Mesh5 has trade. Mesh6 has culture+trade. Mesh7- trade+weapons, Mesh8- trade+weapons+culture; you get the idea.

The main downside to this is- it takes up more memory, ESPECIALLY since Sins caches all the meshes on map load (i.e., when a map is loaded. Thus, a mod which is over the hardcode limits CAN be applied, but may not load properly and may minidump).

Its easier from a code view I guess but it would have been far cooler (and more powerful) if it did actually append meshes together. Oh well.

it would also actually be less memory intensive to use the "prop" system that many 3D softwares use (pro versions at least).

From a game point of view, the "replace mesh A with mesh B which is just mesh A with other stuff on it" approach is likely less code intensive.

When I looked into this feature some time ago the impression I got was that the starbase meshes were replaced rather than appended or added to e.g. an upgraded starbase mesh is a complete and new mesh in its own right its not just the additonal bits which get applied to the original mesh it contains the original mesh as well.