How the mods work is if a mod is enabled everything that is in the mod folder will take priority, load first, and override any vanilla sins files that the mod replaced. Then it will load vanilla sins files that the mod did not replace.

Just like Jay said. Our meshs will load, and the vanilla sins meshes our mod replaced will not load. Same with effects, sounds, UI, etc. etc. That was our mistake with the 0.3E series. We did not override the vanilla sins factions, and files. So EVERYTHING in vanilla, and the mod loaded. So we went over the mesh, and texture limits on top of the 2 gig limit.

When i finished the 0.4E foundation it didnt use more than 1.5 gigs fully loaded, but this was before we added the Borg, the rest of the sounds, and all of the researches. I am not sure how much ram our sounds, and music takes up. Again we use fewer sound files than vanilla sins, but i need to research this furthur to make sure sins doesnt load up what we do not use, and make sure our stuff overrides the sins files.

The UI takes up a HUGE chunk of memory with the ridiculous amount of UI textures This most certainly can be optimized some more. Ether by reducing texture size, and/or combining some UI elements into one sheet. I got several ideas i will experiment with.

Effects themselves (particles) can also use a second look to make sure we are not overdoing it. There is no need for a particle to have a texture size that is 512x512, or 256x256 resolution when a 64x64, or 32x32 looks EXACTLY the same in game. SoA 2 uses far less effects than vanilla sins does, and many effects are shared. So this really should not be an issue. Again i will have to research to make sure what is not needed is not loaded.

When you disable skybox's in vanilla sins it releases a HUGE chunk of ram. This is another thing i will look into optimizing some more.

The most common mistake modders make is excessive overkill on their meshes, and textures. More polys, and extreme resolution textures do NOT make a better model! As far as meshes themselves the rule of thumb in the gaming world is "less is more". Not to say the poly counts should be so low that the meshes look like legos, or flying box's, but to portray the best art in as few polys as possible. I always built my meshes with that standard, but much of the 3rd party work in the mod does not follow that standard. Some meshes in the mod really are way over the limit. The Romulan Blackwind at 7000+ tri's, The Galaxy at 6000 tri's. The Fed shipyard at 6000-ish, The Klingon starbase at a ridiculous 8000 tri's on a model that looks like its 3000 tris. There are more that can use some optimization as well. I will have to pull every poly reduction trick in the book (and some that aint in the book) on these models just like i did for the SoA 1 mod.

Why use a 4096 resolution texture when even today most cards can "barely" handle it? It doesnt make any sense. Sins went ballistic as far as excessive resolution textures are concerned. The Skybox's and planets are a glaring example. As well as the UI. WHY?? and we wonder why we have issues.

I am tired ill talk more about this later.

Well yeah I can't skin or texture or uv or anything so none of my ships will ever have more than a tiling texture on them. So I can't really turn some of the details into normals or something like that. Really it's turrets that jack up the polycount by a lot.

I don't really ever expect to finish my mod in the first place though so I'm not too worried at the moment.

Also tangents tend to destroy half the detail on the model that it would have otherwise, anyway.

Since I haven't spoken to anyone on the team about this yet, here are some suggestions for memory saving after a quick glance through the folders:

All of the UI textures specific to race, along with their associated brush files, are doubled up; we have two of everything to accomodate the additional 2 races.  There's absolutely no reason for all of the non-race-related icons in some of those textures, along with the entire additional race, to be included.  I don't think it will be HUGE savings, but it will definitely free up some space if we can trim away the excess and combine all of those textures into a single set of files .  Or maybe it's just easier to crop the textures and delete lines in the brush files.

We also had an entire set of explosion effects specific to the Borg, which was fine before we included the volumetric stuff and before the memory issue cropped back up.  The particle effects obviously need to stay because the cubes and unimatrix necessitate larger explosions, but (and I hate to say this because it renders 48 hours of my time spent useless) all the borg-specific explosion textures can go away.  (We're talking megabytes of space with these).  The colors can be mimicked in mostly the same manner within Particle Forge itself without the need for different textures. 

Trivial suggestion, but what about shield meshes?  There are some ships that can use the same mesh, like the Norway and Steamrunner.  Or the K'tinga and the Stormbird.  Any little bit helps, eh?

I also noticed that we have the newest set of files for volumetric explosions, which includes Advent- and Visari-specific effects.  I like the variation, but I think it's safe to say that we can have a trek game where all the ships can explode with the same colors.  It only adds up to 100KB, but it still might be worth it.

The string file also still has stock research and ability-related entries that are hogging up space still. 

Note on the starbases:  I find it unbelievable that those two starbases are using 4096x4096 texture sheets.  The klingon texture looks more like 1024x1024! 

Plus side:  The Borg only have three texture sets for all of their ships and structures.  Thank goodness for small blessings.  

I will have to use every trick i learned modding HW1 to deal with the Sins 2 gig brick wall. It is kind of ironic that HW1 and sins have similar brick walls. In HW1 we had a 32 meg hard code texture limit. Sins is limited by 32 bit (2 gigs). Obviously much more room to play with than HW1, but we also have to take into account that Sins loads EVERYTHING into memory. I have plenty of optimization plans that i will attempt for 0.5D. 1st on the list is to reduce ANY 4096 texture by HALF. Be it Vanilla, or Mod. 4096 is totally unnecessary. Especially on a 32 bit game. The computer elitists will whine, but i want everyone to be able to enjoy SoA 2. Not just the guys with high end rigs. Dont matter, Sins crashes on high end rigs anyway when it goes over 2 gigs.

Yes the Borg share textures, but the meshes themselves need a look through. The standard cube should be just 12 tri's (6 sides 2 tri's a side). IIRC its in the 2000 triangle range.... WHY? I didnt build the model so it is obvious the person that did thought that cramming tri's in the mesh would make for a better model...WRONG. Remember my last post.. "Portray the best art possible with a few polys as possible". If a detail can be shown just as well by textures, and bump maps. Then that should be how a mesh is done. My Excelsior at 1900 tri's is better looking than the klingon starbase at 8000+ tri's. 8000 tri's WHY?! The klingon starbase has many hidden faces, and redundant polys that should be removed. The Vanilla starbases are 10,000 tri's with 4096 textures..WHY?!  I was going to do the optimizing just before real life smacked me in the face, and left me unemployed. Some meshes you must add polys otherwise they look like total crap. Federation saucers are an example. However there are some tricks you can do to keep the counts to a minimum. Yet retain the details. You can texture details on a model you dont have to mesh them. Eye candy is nice, but if it pushes the game over its limits, and crashes the game then it is pointless.

The mods shield meshes are very low poly spheres, and use much less resources than the vanilla sins higher poly "hull hugger" shields do.

We may have to reluctantly remove the volumetric explosions mod again... Just to make sure we dont hit the brick wall.

The UI uses a HUGE texture to represent each function in the build menus, The normal, curser over, pressed, and disabled status. Thats FOUR 4096 textures. We had to copy this to make room for the extra factions in the mod so now that count jumps up to EIGHT 4096 textures. EVERY aspect of the UI has a normal, curser over, pressed, and disabled texture. This is ABSURD. We havent got to the ship icons themselves yet. There MUST be a better, more streamlined way to do this. Ether by breaking up those huge ass textures into many "tiny" textures, or mapping the UI to just ONE single sheet that can be 4096x4096, but the game will load only that ONE sheet. This is why i asked the dev's for GRID TEMPLATES for the UI textures, and recieved stoic silence in return. Obviously we will have to fumble with the UI grids in the brush files ourselves, and learn the hard way.

The Skybox's can be reduced by half too. 2048 res textures "should" look identical to the 4096. Maybe some detail loss, but if it keeps Sins from dumping SO WHAT, Better than disabling them so sins wont hit the 2 gig brick wall. Eve online is an example to follow as far as skybox's. Their skybox is exactly that.. A BOX with 2048 textures, and it looks great. I think this is the next mesh i will make for the mod. a sky-BOX, not a 6000 tri/4096 res sky-sphere. Much ram is wasted in sins just rendering the background.

Its late i am tired long day ill talk more later.

Grrr! Just once i would like the forums to NOT go BOOM when i got something important to say.

Actually, the regular Borg cube has around 5,000 polygons.  There are a ton of little rectangles and shapes all across the sides to create the various hull plating effects, which the texture does not do, unfortunately.  Still, it's rather hard to tell there are changes in surface depth.  Personally, I'm totally with you on the 12 triangle aspect, but a new texture will be needed to simulate the recesses, angled plating, and protrusions.  The Next Generation cube is one thing, but once you get into the First Contact hull plating it's a whole new ball game.  Honestly, I'd say that particular job is best suited to a polypainting program like ZBrush.  The surface features can be added to the model in ZBrush, the texture applied, and then create a normal map based on those surface features rather than the basic piping, all without every actually adding any polygons to the mesh itself.  

That's how I understand it at least.  I'm still in the infant stages of learning the program.  

Incidentally, try not to look at the tactical cube until I get a chance to redo it, please.  I'd rather save you from having another meltdown or heart attack.   It was my first model and texturing job, which I can now do much better and also, as fortune would have it, more economically.

One thing I've noticed is that structures do seem to take up a lot of memory.  I was playing a huge random map, and the stupid AI was fortifying the heck out of every planet it had, and in the process slowing my game down a lot.  I found that after I went on some raids with my fleet and took out a few heavily defended planets the game sped right back up again.  In short, I just suggest that you really optimize the buildings, since they take a lot of memory up.  Also I've noticed that setting the planet detail lower increases performance, so that's another thing.  I know you already mentioned it in a previous post, but just in case this helps....

You are correct. That is because the Fed phaser turrets take up 6210 freaking triangles! ....WHY?!!!

The other structures that "I" made like SB 375, and the regula type stations are in the 4k range, but that is as low in tri's as they can get without looking completely stupid. I did use every optimizing trick in the book on those meshes. Same with the Ambassador at 2500 tri's The Excelsior based ships. None over 2200 tri's. The Constellation at 2800 tri's which is a marvel considering it has 4 nacelles. The Trekmods work never exceeds 3k. Its the damn 3rd party crap that has excessive overkill as far as poly counts. It is obvious there is some mesh rebuilding to do. Because 6k, and up for meshes that shouldnt be any larger than 2k to 3k is totally UNACCEPTABLE. The 3rd party work has to go. It was nice to have for placeholders, but now these overkill high poly models are causing more trouble than what it is worth.

Sigh, I tell people what the freaking poly limits the models need to be before they import them in game, but nobody listens. This is the end result, and we wonder why we have so many problems. Most of the 3rd party ships i chose for the mod are well within the limits. That model, and some other models that were imported during my hiatious are definetly NOT, because if i was online when that model was imported it would have been WAY optimized before it got in game. The importation was well intentioned, but obviously the importer didnt realize what kind of problems we would run into. I am just now beginning to see how serious these issues really are.

The 3rd party models will remain for the 0.4 series but now it looks like i am gonna be doing some SERIOUS mesh building for 0.5.

It will all get fixed, Just need some time to get it done.

With bump mapping you can simulate the borg plating. You underestimate my texturing skills.

I don't think anyone has underestimated your modding/texturing skills. I am really surprised that the ambassador and excelsior are such low polys because they some of the best looking ships in the game!

On a side note, in the 0.3c and e build you had smoke trails after damaged ships, however I havn't noticed it in the latest releases. Is this part of volumetric explosion effects? The problem with the 2gig limit might restrict this but the effects really improved the immersion of the mod.

I noticed the same thing, the smoke trails are gone.  It's not any big deal, I just thought they looked cool... is there any way to enable them again?  Or does that eat up even more memory??

Any chance of adding more planet options and things like black holes and planets from the solar system to add more variety In maps?

I'm trying to do it myself but would be good If  it was made official as it would save the time it taked to mod each update you release.

Tryig to think of any other improvments but i cant really. Maybe do something with the pirates? And abit of polishing.

Like the work you done on the borg.

A bit of polishing?  Seriously?  I won't go off on a rant, but please take the time to read the information provided thus far.  This mod is still very much a work in progress.  Polishing is being done by at least one person nearly every waking hour of the day.  Pirates are on the list.  Additional content is on the list.  

I doubt very much that new planet types are on the list.  We're trying our best to cut back on as much as we possibly can due to the 2 gig memory issue that causes minidumps in all versions of the game, most notably in Diplomacy.  Honestly, when we're done I doubt that you'll be able to cram much more content in without suffering from the minidump.   

Seriously guys, keep you suggestions to yourself, the team knows what they want in the mod and will get it done at a reasonably pace. Also the less annoying comments you put on here the more time they can spend on the mod instead of answering your posts

I've been adding planets from the Distant Star mod into my copy... but only for my own personal use...  I can import new planets, but not all the other features included in DS... plus I don't have permission so I'm not going to repost it.  But it's not hard to add a few more planets if your into re-modifying a mod...

The hardest part is re-writing the GalaxyScenario.def file for all the new planets... it's tedious, but do-able.

My biggest problem is I don't want to get into a full scale Distant Stars add-on kinda thing because SoA is still a WIP... I don't want to getinto anything big until this is done, or I'll just have to do it all over again...

Actually, I just had a thought about the other planets...

Stress... if I add more planets from say the DS or CB mods, is that also gonna effect the poly count and all that... this 2-gig RAM problem you've been talking about?  Or is a planet a planet no matter what the texture???

EVERYTHING .. ALL game assets get loaded into memory upon sins startup. So yes adding extra planets, and map objects will only add on to the problem. Its not just an SoA 2 problem.. EVERY mod has this problem. I intend to make my own planet meshes, and replace the vanilla sins meshes.. Can anyone tell me how many tri's a vanilla sins planet is? More than likely some ridiculosly high number.

To answer your question just jim, the way sins works (which is also stupid IMO) Is a separate planet mesh must be used to represent the different planet types.... WHY?!! Its just a freaking sphere! But hey i didnt build this game.. The way the texture system works is a terran planet must be on one individual mesh. Desert on another mesh. Ice on yet another mesh, and so on, and so on. You cant share textures between planets meshes. Which would make a hell of a lot more sense, and save that much more resources. Adding more of anything effects poly counts, and texture usage.

We used the latest volumetric explosions mod.. The smoke trails dont seem to be in the new version. Which surprised me as well. Regardless it has to go. I dont want to remove it, but due to the situation it must be removed.

As far as "polish"... You are joking right? (goes into "smug mode") This mod in its present condition despite all of its problems is far more "polished" than ANY other "professional" Trek game in existance! Show me a recent trek game, and ill show you how "dumbed down", absurd, and childish it is. Most trek games are targeted for KIDS. We are ADULTS! We demand better! We demand a story that makes some sense, and for it to at least look like someone over 12 wrote it. We demand to remove everything that made Berman, and Braga trek so damn absurd, and retarded to begin with. I think we achieved that. You can thank SoA 2 Team for that. Even in my absense they knew the standard i wanted for the mod, and followed it brilliantly. Sure there were some bumps, and mistakes made, but hey we are only human, and sins is a broken game. We are doing the best we can with what we have to work with. You want "polish"? Go play crysis, or some other no brainer FPS.

Yes, it will affect the memory issue.  Adding additional meshes and/or textures, which will be loaded upon the game starting, definitely contributes to problem.  In fact, I'm fairly certain that's the reason I've had problems with Distant Stars dumping on me in Diplomacy.  I know there are other things contributing, like the various new skyboxes, etc, but the huge planet textures play a big role as well. 

I don't have much experience with running multiple mods at once (in fact, I don't think I've never done it), but I think you should be able to load both SOA2 and one of the planet mods like Celestial Bodies to achieve the interesting new planets.

If the mod doesnt conflict with anything we modded then yes you can run add on mods like celestial bodies. We did modify our galaxy folder, so be careful. The only thing i can suggest is experiment.

Stress, I don't know if you guys have looked into it yet, but when I was modifying the UI for my own version, I noticed that sins doesn't seem to care what .dds format quality you save it in- you could probably save a few megs by only having 2 bit alpha or so in your DDS's- I don't think Sins uses any more than that anyway.

Also, regarding the .tga UI files, the stock sins (and your own) files are all saved as 32bit .tga's (taking up 4 megs each). The data contained within them is only 16 bit colour- so you can cut your UI file sizes down by half by simply converting them down the 16 bit UI files. I've tested this out fine with the research sheets- if you can honestly tell me which sheet below is the 16bit and which is the 32 bit I'd be surprised. Sins can't tell the difference either- it's strange, but it looks like IronClad just designed 16 bit photo sheets so graphics wouldn't look screwy in 16bit mode, but then saved them as 32 bit files for the hell of it.

http://i694.photobucket.com/albums/vv305/Micael456/Sins/side2side.png

Just an idea to look up on if you guys haven't already done so- I obviously don't know what your latest files look like, else I'd be able to tell you if it'd save a lot of space, but if you haven't changed this, you'll end up halving the amount of space your UI takes up.

wow either you guys are complete dicks  or some ones in a bad mood. Its called being constructive.  I'm not some fanboi yes man.  I like the mod and I know your working on it. BUT ITS NOT PERFRCT. And yes you are working hard to sort it. And hey if you guys were not so rude I may have even lent a hand. I was gunna write a full review when I have time. Rember a good review points out the good things as well as bad no matter how good a game/mod is.

When I ment polish I ment yes there are some small thing that need working on. And I know full well your working on it all.

Anyone would think I called your mod crap or rubbish. I did'nt, its a good mod, and yes better than the others around. But it not perfect and that not againt the skill of anyone working on the mod, it to do with a broken game and time.

And as for suggestions? WELL ITS A BLOODY MOD, fan based content, therefore fans have a right to make suggestions.  If you take them on board is up to you. Its only to add input you  may of havent thought about.

Anyway I will leave you brainless fanbois to brown noise the developers.  Just remeber your no diffrent than a borg drone.

crazy, no, it is not perfect nor do i believe it will ever be. As a work in progress, why would you believe it to be anywhere near finished yet?

The content that appears in-game is the dev teams choice, and since you are not on the dev team you do NOT have any say as to what goes in or not.

They did not say that they dont want ideas at all, they just said they dont want them YET. not until they get towards the end of development and only need to do small adjustments, when they actually have the time to do what you are suggesting.

You sir, do not have a right to be pissed off at them, as they said MULTIPLE TIMES before you that they DO NOT WANT REVIEWS OR IDEAS YET, and you went right on ahead against their wishes. besides, how does it make any sort of sense at all to review a game/mod that isnt even half completed? are you brainless?

I am not a brainless fanboy. I am an 18 year old kid who enjoyed all 11 movies (even if XI isnt being paid any attention here) and only saw a few episodes of any of the series, and takes interest in the trekverse. Not to mention, this UNFINISHED mod is just plain fun.

Please sir, get off of your high horse and take a look around. I do not see brainless fanboys, only devoted fans that want to get THEIR work done and share it with the rest of us.

O and in my RL job I know what it like to run a project and construct stuff only to have someone pull it apart. I also know how satisfying it is to prove someone wrong at the end of a project. I also know how to accept people giveing there input in and help even if it not wanted.

Let's stop this right there. If you guys want to go back and forth fighting by all means do so, just not here.

We do appreciate feedback.

We are very much aware that the mod needs polishing, however polishing will not take place until the core work is done. Speaking of which the 2 gig dump creeping back up on us like that has forced us to do extra work now that would have been saved for a polishing stage otherwise (replacing models and such). Right now the priority for us is making sure it works.

Stress:  Every planet mesh is 2,320 polygons and measures 9914.642 units in diamter, with the exception of the gas giants.  Those are around 50% larger, but the polygon count remains the same.  I haven't tinkered with the galaxy entity file, but surely the planet entity files could be altered so that each individual mesh entry uses the same mesh with different characteristics applied to it.  Now that I've finish the Orbital Weapons Platform I'll look into.

Crazywok:  Be constructive, not critical.  We know it's not perfect, so we certainly don't need you or anyone else to tell us that.  Make that one change, and you can expect a far better reception from all involved.  Trust me.

im on right now if others wanna join it will be marked as SOA.2.2

oh and by the way love the mod, i just finished getting to RA 5 on STO  and i always wanted to control many ships like that.

BTW. it is a role playing game borg vs the rest. it will have a 10 min delay as for those who are in the same galaxy as the borg to leave or have the borg move on.