General Pants

Spamming my own thread. I have found that updating this thread forces me to refocus. one of the reasons this is taking so long, and the reason it seems so disorganized, it that I have terrible adult ADD and I have yet to find a medication that really helps. ADD is a real pain in the ass. I am alternating between scripting and making new planet graphics right now. The more I switch around, the easier it is to stay focused. Scripting the systems is alternatingly intense, boring, and fru

[quote who="Franco fx" reply="13" id="3682064"] Lots of nice work General. [/quote] Many many thanks! I've been discouraged recently, and the boost helps more than you know! [quote who="Franco fx" reply="13" id="3682064"] I am sort of a minimalist, and not a huge fan of organic ships, so obviously some appeal to me more than others. The old saw about women getting dressed, is to keep adding on until perfect, and then remove at least one thing, (less is mor

I seem to spam my own threads. I forgot to mention: The Bra Thermadora : a once-peaceful race of amphibious creatures who have beaten their ploughshares to swords to fight the Drengin. Their ships look like pickles, sometimes with wings, covered in blisters. Sound familiar? Think about the name, if it isn't blatantly obvious.

[quote who="ScrivenerOfLight" reply="54" id="3682003"] Plan looks good, General Pants, and so do those gas giants! [/quote] Thanks, the encouragement helps. Much of the credit for the textures goes to GC2 and LogicSequence's HRGM textures. I have tried to track him/ her down on here, to no avail. That mod was a real inspiration. Now back to reprogramming my PERL script so I can input multiple star systems. Gotta give the people what they want!

I must have missed that. This is really good news, especially since I loved the old political parties!

So, I reported earlier that the bonuses for having Ultimate Adaptability and Amphibious ability in the Planet Trait Definitions don't make sense. Here are some more issues: In PlanetArts: AridWorld does not have the new halo. Several planets have a goof on the moon graphics, where the moon characteristics have been phase-shifted up one level in the .xml, such that the MoonEffectFile listed is actually the MoonSurfaceTexture, and the MoonSurfaceTexture is

On the advice of another modder, I thought I'd challenge myself. Here is eight hours' work on gas giants:

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="2" id="3681772"] For Crusade I dug into this system. I will indict the developers on your behalf. It doesnt work as you (or I) would expect. i will try to write up a guide on the Byzantine rules on what those numbers do. [/quote] Bless you!

Hey Frogboy et al., Crusade seems to have hit it out of the park. I know the game model at least was two expansions then done, and now it is even more complicated with DLC, but can we maybe expect a third expansion? Is it too early to say? Is it bad business to say? Can you even think that far ahead? FYI: I'm not counting that thing you guys sometimes do where there is a huge huge update that really changes the game. I am sure you can't predict those. I'm just asking f

OK, sorry for all the drama. A quick pep talk from another modder (thank you!) has me looking for ways around the issues and ways to keep going. Maybe we can get some progress with the devs, but until we do, here's my plan, divided into smaller, bite-sized chunks. General Pant's Scientific Accuracy Mod I: Stars . This is core mod. The stars as I have them now. That way others can mod them, and there will be some basic science out there (not to denigrate

Ok, I am working, in between other mods, on this as a civ pack. The Crusade tools are simply not enough. I'm having trouble getting the shipyard to work, but when that is done, I will be spending part of my vacation on these. These will be done in small batches. You will note that, unlike Gauntlet, I am far from original. So far, the line-up is (in approximate release order): The Craiquin Majesty : a race who claim they are Dread Lords, and whose home planet is a Precur

To be absolutely clear, this is NOT an indictment of the developers, the programmers, the support staff, or anyone else! I don't know what it takes to make a game this complex, and I don't know what shortcuts they had to take to make it happen. They have no obligation whatsoever to support the modding community, and the fact that they do is wonderful! This is a list of what I expected based on rational thought, and a summary o

[quote who="BIF" reply="11" id="3681510"] So, y'know what... maybe there ARE balanced star systems out there. Oh wait. For example, ours. [/quote] Have you looked into orbital resonances? They are not the same thing, but they are WICKED-cool, and they show up a lot in the Solar system. We are still trying to see if they are common... from what I recall, it isn't looking like it. [quote who="erischild" reply="12" id="3681550"] I don't consider resourc

[quote who="erischild" reply="9" id="3681495"] I can't find any examples of the planet configuration you describe. [/quote] You have not one but THREE of them. In the base game they can only happen in white systems. You missed them because, in each case, one of the planets was a resource (one thulium, two promethion, the latter two marked with exclamation points). They are still ugly, even if one of the planets is a resource! <img src="http://i.imgur.com/czMvk4j

The following is a list of expectations I had regarding the map generation protocols of the game when I started modding a year ago. I have not tested all of them, but every one I have tested either is disproven, or used to work and does not anymore: Percentages: a percentage should refer to the % chance of something happening (i.e., probability = decimal/1.00): A 1.00 chance (100%) of getting planets should mean that every star system should have a planetary system

[quote who="leiavoia" reply="50" id="3681444"] Let's see if we can get some developer feedback to make this work. [/quote] It might be worth a try. I've never seen the site you list, but the Devs read these forums too. The problem is, the devs' job is to make the game playable to the common gamer, not to make it modable to one idiot. They made these changes for a reason, and my bet is that reason is playability. They are essentially cosmetic changes that make systems

[quote who="erischild" reply="7" id="3681465"] I have seen that configuration, but it is very rare. F [/quote] It is very rare because your planet settings are low. It is possible in half of the built-in planetary systems, and will happen regularly if you set your planets to "abundant."

As of now: Systems can barely be modded; When they are, they look ugly; and System weights do not correspond to system abundances in a linear manner. I have wasted a year of my life on what amounts to just another star mod.

Sensitivity tests suggest that system representation is not directly proportional to system weight. In one experiment, dropping the weight of a system by half resulted in its near elimination from the sample. The total weight was not a significant factor in the experiment, the weight fraction of the system dropped a comparable amount. The expectation was that a reduction by half in weight would lead to a reduction in representation by approximately half (when total weight it sufficien

[quote who="General Pants" reply="47" id="3681339"] now that the probability system for star systems seem to be working better (if this was changed, thank you Stardock!), using accurate proportions of stars produces a galaxy of red dwarfs. [/quote] Actually, this does not appear to be working, it just works differently now. I am exploring it now to see if I can figure out the general rules. please see: https://forums.galciv3

Speaking of playing dice, I have added a very important observation about the system weights above. I am still working on it, but it appears to be a major limitation on the ability to accurately reproduce the relative frequency of star types.

[quote who="erischild" reply="3" id="3681249"] Yeah, it is a lot easier to complain and criticize instead of celebrating when it all goes right. [/quote] Especially when people's jobs are at stake! I'm sure the Support staff are reviewed, and I would hate to think that I contributed to anyone's job trouble. They have families to feed, and careers to maintain, and their morale is important; I'm sure they deal with a lot of negativity, and to come in to work every day an

Not to spam my own thread, but the reason I discovered these problems in the system generator is that I am in alpha a0.02 testing. The Stars module is almost finished, and the second draft of the Systems module is in now back in place and being tested. Dwarf planets will be in a0.03, and it was already the furthest along. I am still using my old system code, and beta may go out with those systems, despite the new system generation PERL script. There seems little point in wasting additional ef

With a planet cap of three random planets per lane and the horrible 'triangle of ugliness,' systems would have to expand from almost all being five lanes to most being eight or nine lanes, and some binary/ trinary/ quaternary systems being up to fourteen-fifteen lanes. This would significantly increase the size of star systems, and result in probably a four-fold reduction in total stars and systems. This is way too much for the game to be playable on any map setting. If I keep

Here is the 'triangle of ugliness':