Since I just put up my first post I figured I should introduce myself. takes bow
Just fyi: I put this in a new topic because I didn’t want to clutter up someone else’s with a flood of replies.
Anyway, my real name is Scott, though as Prophet309 I am the proud owner of the “breakthrough” federation and tribe fleets if you’ve ever played them. I have been browsing the Gratuitous Forum for about 4 months but finally got the irresistable urge to post. I mostly follow the modding forum (hence my topic location) and I must say that there are some amazing mods/modders here. At the moment I have the Scavenger, Legios and Uni-T mods installed, and I’ve also used the AMAZING new hulls in the 3xper1ment4l mod. I’ve gotten very good at fiddling around with the text files and such, but I have no idea how to create sprites. Luckily, the ones you guys have created are terrific. I may be alone on this but I actually really really like your glowy corrupted hulls darkstar! I think they fit perfectly with the drones and the new black+purple hybrid hulls. I eagerly await the finish of the Union mod and those short stories are awesome!
I’m honored you like the short stories I’ve written…I’m about 15% of the way through part 3…which will reveal yet another Union ship: the Starburst. Most people would call it a “dreadnaught” class cruiser.
As for making these sprites: they are REALLY easy.
I used a program called Gimp (after downloading an installer to let it run .dds files) then all I did was copy and paste a bunch of parts from other hulls together to make something entirely new.
for instance…look at the grey/silver ship in my second story: essentially its all made of Rebel Parts: a Fenrir cruiser for the main hull, The wings of the Atlantis Bomber, the back end of the Valhalla Cruiser…and a few bits from other frigates and stuff.
and at the risk of sounding high on myself…if you think THESE are cool…you have yet to see some of the BEST stuff I’ve concocted.
First off, welcome from the shadows and into the light that is GSB Modding
The community here is very supportive and we can get you creating your own sprites very quickly.
BTW - thanks for the compliment there are still more hulls to come for the Uni-T Prime Node, but first i want to help Cen2050 finish Union. But as my cohort in crime has mentioned, it is very easy to create sprites once you know how.
WELCOME!! i like you am new to modding but GSB is a great place to start and i already have a few hulls out. it dosent take to long just a bit of creativity and some skills at puzzles
As Cen said, is really really easy to make new hulls and you have many examples of those around the forum. If I was able to create a decent hull with nearly 0 knowledge in the use of GIMP imagine what you could do if you learn to use it
I’m glad you like the ships in 3xper1ment4l. Eich was who created them so he’s the one you need congratulate for those designs. I just did the hard work of coding (and they are still unfinished until I finish with the last update).
Remember that if you have any problem while modding you can always ask for help here
Sir Jamon is correct…Once upon a time (last April) I had only discoverd one could change colors and specifics of modules by altering their text files. Then I discovered Gimp and very slowly started making my own beam images.
But even then…I swore to myself that I’d never be good enough to mod ships, let alone make them.
Then…well I got brave enough to try…and my first attemt was such a sucess that I began to make more.
But I wouldn’t have been able to GET this far without some amazing help from lots of ppl on this form. this is as much a pep talk for Prophest as a shout out to EVERYONE that hepled me get this far!
Well, GSB is one of the easiest modable games ive ever seen, so nobody should be worried about not getting the needed skillz to become a great modder. The only thing u need is a text editor and a image program like gimp. And thats it!!. Your first mods will be a bit crappy, in the sense that u will not be worried about turrets, or placing the slots in the correct way, or just making the damage sprites not too good looking, but all that stuff is improving when u make your fist mod and u start noticing a lot of things that u didnt before!!
Hey there, Prophet309 - welcome to the GSB forums!
Our comrade N3MES1S raised a good point that’s well worth expanding upon:
In my view, quality always trumps quantity concerning overall mod creation. In order to keep players coming back to it again and again, a mod needs:
a crystal-clear view on the part of its creator about what the mod is intended to accomplish;
carefully-playtested balance;
useful ship hulls with a well-defined range of capabilities in mind;
multiple viable weapon-vs-defense choices - not just one killer combo that instantly makes all else into “second best”;
an intriguing creative concept that binds all the content together;
making sure all of the above fulfills that creator’s vision.
I tend to put flashy graphics-for-its-own-sake at the very bottom of my priorities. A mod can look like garbage, but if the gameplay is near-perfect I’ll play it all the time!
That’s not to say that I don’t appreciate the trouble that modders go to with creating original and stunning artwork for their content. However, it’s also got to have high performance, internal consistency, and great attention to playability. It can have all of that while still not needing to be huge or epic in size. A pretty but underpowered “hangar queen” of a mod that can just barely make an unassisted take-off (when it doesn’t crash its own mainframe computer on startup, lol) is not going to appeal to very many folks. And avoiding that sad fate isn’t as difficult as it may seem at first.
Again, just this modder’s $0.02. Hopefully it’s useful as a starting point.
Huh, those are some really good tips Archduke Astro, I’ll definitely have to take those into account. Most of the modding ive done so far has been creating and balancing new weapons and defences. I’m gradually getting better at balancing but it takes a lot of work. I may post my modules sometime but they’re mostly just things ive copied and adapted from the game or other people’s mods.
Hmm, I do prefer gameplay over graphics, if the game’s fun I’ll eventually get used to and ignore the quality of the graphics. But sometimes, although rarely, I won’t play a game or mod because of how bad the graphics are. For GSB, the hulls have a specific style and I don’t like using hulls that don’t match with it, even if they’re actually good designs. For mods like that I just use the module text files and ignore the rest. The only full game I can think of is Half Life 1. I’ve heard it’s a wonderful game and I did enjoy Half Life 2 and the episodes, but the graphics in HL 1 were so awful that I had trouble aiming the gun so I just kinda gave up.
Thanks for the tips guys! They’ll be very helpful.
there are still more hulls to come for the Uni-T Prime Node, but first i want to help Cen2050 finish Union. But as my cohort in crime has mentioned, it is very easy to create sprites once you know how.
Hopefully it’s useful as a starting point.