Invalid probably means "use abilities" then...  Makes sense for capitals..

MANUALLY EDITING MESHES IN TXT FORMAT

These are Left and Right oriented weapons, respectively, from the Illuminator
    Point
        DataString "Weapon-0"
        Position [ -27.531000 0.000000 -0.797713 ]  -X LEFT, -Z Rear; Faces Left
        Orientation
             [ -0.000000 0.000000 1.000000 ]
             [ 0.000000 1.000000 0.000000 ]
             [ -1.000000 0.000000 -0.000000 ]
    Point
        DataString "Weapon-0"
        Position [ 27.531000 0.000000 -0.797717 ]  +X RIGHT, -Z Rear; Faces Right
        Orientation
             [ -0.000000 0.000000 -1.000000 ]
             [ 0.000000 1.000000 0.000000 ]
             [ 1.000000 0.000000 -0.000000 ]

Front Oriented weapon from Illuminator
    Point
        DataString "Weapon-0"
        Position [ 0.000007 0.000000 79.560600 ] +Z forward set
        Orientation
             [ 1.000000 0.000000 0.000000 ]
             [ 0.000000 1.000000 0.000000 ]
             [ 0.000000 0.000000 1.000000 ]

Rear Oriented weapon
    Point
        DataString "Weapon-1"
        Position [ -21.103998 19.282158 -55.494915 ] -X LEFT; -Z Rear
        Orientation
             [ -1.000000 -0.000000 -0.000000 ]
             [ -0.000000 1.000000 -0.000000 ]
             [ 0.000000 -0.000001 -1.000000 ]
    Point
        DataString "Weapon-1"
        Position [ 21.104492 19.282158 -55.494915 ] +X RIGHT; -Z Rear
        Orientation
             [ -1.000000 -0.000000 -0.000000 ]
             [ -0.000000 1.000000 -0.000000 ]
             [ 0.000000 -0.000001 -1.000000 ]

Exhaust Example
    Point
        DataString "Exhaust"
        Position [ 0.000000 -0.389800 -294.155914 ]
        Orientation
             [ -1.000000 0.000000 0.000000 ]
             [ 0.000000 1.000000 0.000000 ]
             [ 0.000000 0.000000 -1.000000 ]

CapitalShip Tech Mesh Hangar Points : angled forward
     Point
        DataString "Hangar"
        Position [ -15.876904 38.784996 305.145691 ]
        Orientation
             [ 1.000000 0.000000 0.000000 ]
             [ 0.000000 1.000000 -0.500000 ]
             [ 0.000000 0.500000 1.000000 ]
     Point
        DataString "Hangar"
        Position [ 42.409424 -57.426571 228.552994 ]
        Orientation
             [ 1.000000 0.000000 -0.258819 ]
             [ 0.129410 1.000000 0.500000 ]
             [ 0.224144 -0.500000 1.000000 ]

Having looked over the TEC Capital Carrier, top hangars and bottom hangars, I need to preface this with GRIDDING those 9 numbers.

[A][B][C]
[D][E][F]
[G][H][I]

What do each of these sets of numbers relate to, how does each affect orientation?  I've observed the above and drawn some conclusions.  The arrangement of the values can't be without pattern or reason.

A and I, if A and I are +, then Forward Oriented. 
A and I, if A and I are -, then Rear Orientated.

G E C, if G is -, C is +, then Left Orienated. 
G E C, If G is +, C is -, then Right Oriented. 
+G decimal value means hangar orientation is angled just slightly to the right, if negative it would be rotated slightly left.  Not sure why C must be opposite of G.

As relates to the Hangars... I see they face forward, that the top ones are angled 45 degrees.  Values in F and H seem to deal with that.

E so far is always positive
Positions B, D are a total mystery.

I think I understand the basics.  I can put weapon hardpoints pretty easy if only Front, Rear, Left, Right oriented.  If the weapon hardpoint or hangar requires any rotation around X, Y, Z axis', I think I can get away with a little.

However, if I wanted to make a new missile hardpoint, have it oriented 45 degrees off straight forward and also angled 45 degrees up, I'd be really lost.  I'd also be equally hosed if I had to make a (choose facing) missile hardpoint that fired straight up or down

Can anyone explain the Orientation Positions in detail so those of us who want to manually hardpoint weapons, flairs, abilities positions and not have them be the basic Front, Rear, Left, Right facings?

I'll be doing a lot of testing and experimenting, but any help welcome.

Can someone running vanilla SINS Entrenchment confirm whether or not the Psi Starbase has Weapon-2 that fire to the LEFT.  Weapon-2 are those little LaserPsi shots.

To answer my own question, I found this post in another thread:

So it looks like I'll have to think about a clever workaround, or give up on the idea.

Starbase capital ship builder work possible around

Make a copy of the PLANETMODULE_TECHORBITALCAPITALSHIPFACTORY.entity and rename to 
PLANETMODULE_TECHORBITALCAPITALSHIPSTARBASE.entity 

add the new structure to PlayerTech.entity and update the count

Change the mesh linked to PLANETMODULE_TECHORBITALCAPITALSHIPSTARBASE.entity from
meshName "PlanetModule_TechOrbitalCapitalShipFactory" to 
meshName "StarBaseTech.mesh"

There are no weapons on the Capital ship factory though so you could try the abilities from the Gauss defence
 ability:0 "AbilityGaussDefenseMissileBurst"
ability:1 "AbilityGaussDefenseRailGun"
but this will use up star base ability slots

just spit ballin' here

@Lavo i've found a xsp data base:

http://www.blackpanthergroup.de/x3/XSP-Schiffe/

This has loads of ships for X3 reunion/terran conflict

Is this any good?

Theo

Could someone point to a convertXSI tutorial or something?  I've tried following the instructions on the SoaSE weebly, but they don't seem to be working...  I'm using the mod tool.

Also, how do you name nulls?

This is a great out-of-the-box idea but it would ruin the rest of my mod as the starbase would either be defenseless or use up too many ability slots with weapon abilities.  So for now, Capital Ship building on starbases is out.

New question: I am trying to make a research item so that you can increase the number of available upgrade slots on a starbase dynamically while playing, instead of fixed at the beginning as it is now.  I have successfully created a new research item in the Defense tab but I am having trouble finding the exact wording to link to:

MaxUpgradeLevelCount

in the StarBaseTech.entity and other race's files.  I have tried:

researchFloatModifiers 1
researchModifier
 modifierType "StarBaseMaxUpgradeLevelCountAdjustment"
 baseValue 16.000000
 perLevelValue 1.000000

and also things like

researchFloatModifiers 1
researchModifier
 modifierType "maxUpgradeLevelCount"
 baseValue 16.000000
 perLevelValue 1.000000

and so forth but neither does anything in the game.  I can click and research but nothing happens to the upgrade slot max.  I can of course manually set:

maxUpgradeLevelCount 12 (changed from 8)

in StarBaseTech.entity and so forth and it works just fine.  I am stumbling around here in the dark trying to find the correct modifier name for maxUpgradeLevelCount.  Perhaps it is not even possible.  I remember reading someone else trying to do this but for the life of me, can't find it anywhere in the Mod forums.

Has anyone done this or know how to do it?  Thanks.

There is no command that can increase the level count for starbases by way of research.

Maybe for Rebellion.

It has been done before. The limits were already doubled once. Ironically not long afterwards issues with performance began to surface spinning out of control with Diplomacy. Wouldn't recommend it again.

They're actually constant but there are other things that affect them.  Planet income is affected by the population that is present, as well as the the 'morale' of the planet as well as distance from the homeworld.  Trade is affected by the number of trade stations on a planet, the number of trade ships completing their voyage, if they are a part of the longest chain or not, and cultural influence, and any trade pacts in effect.

Then there are the drawbacks such as pirates and enemies stealing your planet income while they are present, opponent's culture spam on a planet dropping it's output, and trade ships being destroyed, and fleet supply being increased.

If you're re-balancing the economics of the game, these are things you should know about...

Overall, you should get a gradually increasing line for the amount as you expand your empire, your population counts grow and your culture spreads, as well as adding more trade ports and trade ships and making that longest chain expand, and combining the data should look like cubing a number because two gradually rising numbers added together will look like a quickly rising number...  But that's not what's really happening.  Instead you're looking at numbers that are affected by several variables and not isolating those variables.  If you did isolate the variables, you would see straight lines that only jumped up when you added another income earner.

If you go into the gameplay.constants file and edit the values for planet allegiance to be 100 no matter how far away from the home planet something is, then you remove that variable from your data.  Play a game with the dev.exe where you build no trade ports and no culture centers and max out your planet population as soon as you colonize, now you're removing a few more variables from your data.  Turn pirates off and end the game before your opponent's culture or ships start to influence your economy and you effectively remove those variables.  If you look at your after game stats after letting it run for a few minutes, you'll see your income really is just a straight line.  One that only jumps up when you add another planet.  No curves.  No squares.  No cubing.  Just straight lines that step up.  Once you have your baseline data, you can do the same thing over again, but allow a variable in.  Like culture.  After you colonize, max the population and plop down a culture center.  You'll see the allegiance number climb above 100 and you'll see income increase as well.  Wash rinse repeat with only one variable each time to learn their specific effects.

once you have a full understanding of each variable and their effects, then you can start a meaningful rebalance.

The save stats are just what you see at the end of the game when you're looking at the graphs.  If you want to view them again, just reload the associated save file and quit right away.

The best way to blend the team colour would probably be to use the eraser tool set to 50% or so.  I have not tested this though but it works with other graphic textures.

If you open a SoaSE ships -cl and look at the alfa channel you will notice different shades of white on black. Solid white would be solid team colour where if you use a slight eraser it would look more greyish, this lets some of the ships actual colour come through the team colour. Or zoom in close and use a 1 px solid eraser on the white and make a few scraggly lines to make it look like the team colour paint is cracking. Solid black is ignored and shows the ships RGB colours.

And yes that and old Stress tutorial modified slightly with screenshots.