New ships (need some advice, long post)

<Sorry but fraps hates my sound so it has sound but it pretty bad and has to be turned up XD, also i don’t have $37 so it just 30 sec >.> >
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIq7oqZpARs (This is a video of the ship i originally made for this post lol i guess you tube embedding does not work on these forums =/

This is a ship I am currently adding to the game Gratuitous space battles, calling it the crusader is a cruiser for the federation.

It excels at armor tanking (gets a 50% hull boost very tough to kill, also a 20% speed bonus)
It is weak with shields.

Even though it takes a lot more dmg i balanced it out by simply making it so it could only have 4 weapons total, and it cost is pretty high i.e 2 will cost as much as 4 expensive stock cruisers.

Anyone know how to get the textures to appear clearer it was a resized top down view of a drex files ship that was then turned into a .dds file for the game.

Things done:
1.) working model in game
2.) changed turret placement to make the ship seem more “alive”
3.) when killed it turns into a half ***-ed space hulk gotta work on cleaning it up.

Things to do:
1.) make it clearer I don’t like the blurry ness =/
2.) Implement a good damage over lay.
3.) Make a crusader fighter and frigate and start a separate crusader race.
(That will have 2-3 cruiser hulls, 2 frigates, and just one fighter)

Any thought on the ship? Anyone know how to keep a resized image as clear as it original none resized picture?

EDIT

Working on next cruiser as well, went with a different look, not a huge fan of massive clone fleets XD

Yes there is only one im testing hit points and damages, next i have to get a damage over lay i.e burned up hull plates for these two ships, gonna export a stock overlay and manipulate it vie paint.net to fit these ships.(if that is possible of course)

s.w.a.t

p.s woot thank god for copy and past would sucked having to re type that all :), to keep it short and sweet how do i make a damage over lay? so far i just been using the hull editor to place sparks and smoke, and can i also make the dds 512x512 and just use a different height in the text file? and will this produce a betting looking ship in game?

Thanks for actually reading this XD

p.s one last question should i turn that hull boost into an armor boost then add a small hull boost like 10%? and im gonna add in a -50% shield boost and a 5% cost increase (or what ever amount it ends at) Of course i have yet to figure out how to make them their own separate race lol

Nice job! (Is that your first GSB mod?)

two tips:

1. Use a free software called Gimp (code.google.com/p/gimp-dds/downloads/list) to manipulate DDS files. It handles the gamma MUCH better than photoshop and i just handles well. =)

2. KEEP AT IT!!! Almost any problem you encounter can be worked though with a little googling and patience! when I stated modding GSB, I could barely get new modules to work, and for you to jump right to what is probably the hardest type of mod; I say Kudos!

Oh, and those bonuses should be toward whatever you want the ship’s strength/weakness to be! weak shielding but good hull? you got it! strong armor but costly? same there! experiment and see what works best for your needs.

Hello some up dates

My two cruiser types so far (will have three) The shield (the fat one XD) and the sword the skinny one, also using hull editor i added a sorta cross (will get better XD)

Woot actually got a damage texture to show up (work in progress just to see if i could get it to appear)

Working on:
1.) The fine tuning for complete deletion of the alpha can still see some bits and pieces
2.) A more refined wide spread damage over lay for the shield and sword hulls.
3.) Either a frigate after or the final cruiser type (Horse)

names for hulls (might change)

cruiser: Shield, Sword, Horse
frigate: Tuetonic, Lion, Holy
fighters: Templar

And yes this is my first mod (I have how ever tinkered around with editing ships into game though but i figured hell i have 3 weeks till work picks back up so let see what i can do!)

s.w.a.t

umm… your steam is giving out your multi player CD code… Just saying =P

Hey gotswat, i’m wondering how did you edit the damage area/smoke/sparks/lights/effects etc?
did you use the ingame editor from clifski or work it out in .txt?

lol i will upload none cd-key pictures later XD

For the sparks and what not i used the hull editor in game use the -editor command (warning remember to place your modules every time you use it it seems to move them a little bit each time)

s.w.a.t.

Ah i see.
my in-game editor keeps bumming out on me
maybe i need a re-install, bloody vanilla game expect for 8 files or so lol.

Yeah mine in buggy as hell, it moves modules every time i use it so i have to replace them every time, when i save i have to exit and re-enter game to get the saved changes to appear. Though it does make what would be a very…long process a lot easier even with it issues.

s.w.a.t

Update: Sorry for my inactivity work has been very busy lately.

Working damage overlays, i figured out that if you outline the “damage” in black it comes out looking much better, the crusader is just about done and the firefly will have two small patches placed on the right side.

image:

Will have third cruiser type and fighters in game soon sorry for my inactivity.

s.w.a.t.

Cool! If you need any inspiration, check out my post at http://positech.co.uk/forums/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=5235, I think you would like it!

Looks awesome, you building models then taking top down views? They look so clean and crisp not to mention sick!

update: Third cruiser the solar is in has a lot more work, it is slightly different it a remodeled merchant ship which has 7 hard points but it will no be getting any of the armor/hull upgrades that the crusader and firefly get aka send them in first this cruiser is you firepower for the Crusade! If it goes down you will lose a lot of you abilty to take enemies down fast!

p.s Is there a way to get the images to appear less blurry?

s.w.a.t.

The only way to make the images more sharp is using more resolution in the texture. Use the maximum resolution u can. If the sprite is 700 long, use about 800x800 in the image and paste the sprite in its original resolution. Those models u are using, i have em too xD. I was planning to make a future mod after the one im making now, but i guess those 2 models are no more available for me ^^^.
The x wing type sprite is 552 large, su need to use an image of 700x700 and paste the sprite in its 552x655 original resolution. The other model (not the freighter, the other one) its 572x655, so u can use the same rulez. 552 is not a good resolution, and maybe when u use zoom the sprites appear more blurry than normal, u cant do anything about it. Well, u can try a sharpen filter or an antialias one, if u use gimp u should know how to do it.

Look at the image, with the sharp filter applied, u can see if the ship looks better, but the resolution limits affects how the possible filters look in game, unfortunately.

Good luck, and we waiting for your progress!!

Type star trek model xD.jpg700×700 172 KB

GHA YOUTUBE i curse you all, I just spent three hours on youtube that to your post. I alway go there to see what someone posts about then the keep finding neat videos in the related video and i end up click click click boy i’m getting hungry GHA three hours gone by . . . .

Anyways killer job with it all and I liek what you are doing keep it up.

update: BAD NEWS!!! I have no idea wht i did but i have reinstalled gsb 4 times and every time it crashes with an exe error.

It started shortly after i tried to out this in game:

It the three tribe cruisers stacked and edited i liked it had bulky ima kick you ass feel to it (liked the engines off the front as well ^^)

but…until i figure out what the exe suddenly crapped the bed and stopped working even after 4 reinstalls…i will never see it fire its guns

file: I have uploaded the file to megaupload but honestly im not gonna past the link as I am not to sure if this ship is safe for use (exe crashes =/)

Lol i did this cause i wanted to figure out how other people were making vanilla styled ships and i guess i found a way it worked twice but then nothing but exe crashes

I will be back i have saved all my work on the crusader/firefly/solar and i will dive right back in the second i get these crashes figured out.

s.w.a.t

Check [your documents]/My Games/GratuitousSpaceBattles/ships and delete everything in there. It’s probably having trouble loading a ship design for a hull you didn’t install quite yet.

Thank you so much! I can gsb again XD Luckily i saved my work hehe so no progress lost!

On a side note the tibe merc ship for the federation is working!

In game:

Idk what ill be using for the frigs and honestly after making this ship idk I might be remaking the crusaders from a kit bash of fed/rebel ships, we will see how well the frigates turn out i all ready have 3 top down views i wanted but we will see options options options…and not time time time XD

THANK YOU AGAIN!

s.w.a.t.

[size=200]Sorry didn’t feel like editing my previous post three times![/size]

The fighters Coin and Greed (The vices of the crusaders)

Coin:

Greed:

In game:

Will update eventually having trouble getting them in game hehe they warp in just fine then turn into little white squares and the game laggs like crazy ^^

Got them to work by renaming their class type to frigates idk why but it worked after i did this so what did i do wrng cause they spawn as a group as fighters but they are classed as friggs XD

screen shot:

s.w.a.t.

Edit: The last frig is now in the leader ship this gives me 3 cruisers 3 frigs and 2 fighters (working on a fourth cruiser)

leadership:

in game:

All ships in battle (sorry you cant really see fighters…just scroll up one post XD )

[size=200]If you are reading this yes i am done for today, scroll up to see what has been done, i believe it is evolving into a decent mod or at least i have a direction for once with it XD[/size]

please post thought feeling criticize to your hearts content i swear i will only cry a little

s.w.a.t.

p.s yes i know about the engine glows they will be taken care of tomorrow when i place damage and lights etc and im also hoping to give these puppies a paint job of white and red the classic crusader colors!

Wow… it’s amazing what you can do by just layering existing ship sprites on top of each other (with some parts deleted if need be). Those ships look great!

Thanks! I cant really take all the credit obviously positech is the main reason for the base .dds files! (and they are much better at making damage then me lmao

My shitty in game screen of damage!

The shield at least now has damage show up after being pounded by 3 frigs and two cruiser with out any armor on XD

s.w.a.t.