[WIP][ALPHA] Snow Pirates (Now Released!)

Welcome to my mod! The mod adds one race and a bunch of ships and modules (See below). It’s currently in Alpha and I would ask you do not treat it as a fully balanced mod.

[size=150]Progress:[/size]
Red = No progress
Orange = Some progress
Blue = Finished but continuing
Green = Finished!
Functional = Coding finished but using placeholder textures.
Done = Completely finished.
Min = Current goal (beta)

Fighters: min: 2 current: 1 functional: 0 done: 1
Frigates: min: 2 current: 1 functional: 0 done: 1
Cruisers: min: 4 current: 2 functional: 0 done: 2
Other Ship Classes?: min: ? current: 0 functional: 0 done: 0
modules: min: 20 current: 6 functional: 1 done: 5
Scenarios: min: 1 current: 0 functional: 0 done: 0
Sound/music: min: 2 current: 2 functional: 1 done: 1*
*“Done” music refers to music currently in use.

[size=150]Content:[/size]
[size=125]All ships:[/size]
http://puu.sh/286GQ

[size=125]Modules:[/size]

Key: Cruiser | Frigate | Fighter

Light Electron Armour:
Light Electron Armour is light, durable and requires no crew. The downside of all the positives is that it requires an extremely high amount of energy.
Cost: 261 | 130 | N/A
Crew Required: 0 | 0 | N/A
Damage Absorption: 125 | 62 | N/A
Hit Points: 75 | 32 | N/A
Power Usage: 75 | 32 | N/A
Stacking Efficiency: 1.0 | 1.0 | N/A
Weight: 35 | 16 | N/A

Shard Artillery: (May need balancing)
Shard Artillery cannons fire 10 small crystal shards at near the speed of light, resulting in huge capacity for shield and armour penetration.
Armour/Shield Penetration: 100/100
Cost: 240 | 120 | N/A
Crew Required: 5 | 2 | N/A
Damage: 12 | 6 | N/A
Fire Interval: 0.05s | 0.05s | N/A
Hit Points: 125 | 62 | N/A
Min-Max Range: 500-1500 | 250-1750 | N/A
Optimal Range: 1000 | 1000 | N/A
Power Usage: 30 | 15 | N/A
Salvo Size: 20 | 20 | N/A
Salvo Interval: 5s | 5s | N/A
Weight: 220 | 110 | N/A

Pulse Laser:
The Pulse Laser is a rapid firing low damage laser good against frigates and fighters.
Armour/Shield Penetration: 54/7 | 54/7 | N/A
Duration: 0.05s | 0.05s | N/A
Cost: 192 | 90 | N/A
Crew Required: 9 | 5 | N/A
Damage: 5 | 2 | N/A
Hit Points: 105 | 52 | N/A
Fire Interval: 0.05s | 0.05s | N/A
Min-Max Range: 10-475 | 10-475 | N/A
Optimal Range: 275 | 275 | N/A
Power Usage: 15 | 7.5 | N/A
Weight: 165 | 80 | N/A

Crystalline Shield:
The Crystalline Shield is made of a natural crystal-like element. The shield projects itself physically, making its Damage resistance and regeneration extremely low while its capacity huge.
Cost: 430 | 215 | N/A
Crew Required: 3 | 1 | N/A
Hit Points: 250 | 125 | N/A
Power Usage: 1.2 | 0.6 | N/A
Resistance: 0 | 1 | N/A
Shield Points: 5000 | 2500 | N/A
Shield Regen: 0.01 | 0
Stacking Efficiency: 1.1 | 1.1 | N/A
Weight: 530 | 275 | N/A

Flak Autocannon:
Flak Autocannons fire low damage explosives at extremely fast rates to combat fighters. Currently ‘Broken’
Armour/Shield Penetration: 100/100 | 100/100 | N/A
Cost: 230 | 115 | N/A
Crew Required: 0 | 0 | N/A
Damage: 20 | 20 | N/A
Fire Interval: 0.0001s | 0.001s | N/A
Hit Points: 73 | 34 | N/A
Min-Max Range: 5-250 | 5-250 | N/A
Optimal Range: 150 | 150 | N/A
Power Usage: 5 | 2.5 | N/A
Weight: 175 | 90 | N/A

Normandy Plasma Beam:
The Normandy SR2’s signature weapon, fires a large projectile that deals massive damage to both shields and armour.
Armour/Shield Penetration: 75/75 | N/A | N/A
Cost: 250 | N/A | N/A
Crew Required: 14 | N/A | N/A
Damage: 300 | N/A | N/A
Fire Interval: 29.55s | N/A | N/A
Hit Points: 230 | N/A | N/A
Min-Max Range: 320-800 | N/A | N/A
Optimal Range: 560 | N/A | N/A
Power Usage: 30 | N/A | N/A
Turn Speed: 0.1 | N/A | N/A
Weight: 145 | N/A | N/A

Prototype Gatling Cannon:
The Prototype Gatling Cannon was built from ancient tech found on our home planet. The structural design resembles the Shard Artillery cannon. Could there be a connection?
Armour/Shield Penetration: 100/100 | 100/100 | N/A
Cost: 240 | 120 | N/A
Crew Required: 22 | 15 | N/A
Damage: 3 | 3 | N/A
Fire Interval: 10 | 10 | N/A
Hit Points: 145 | 75 | N/A
Min/Max Range: 0/1000 | 0-750 | N/A
Optimal Range: 500 | 400 | N/A
Power Usage: 22 | 11 | N/A
Salvo Size: 1000 | 500 | N/A
Salvo Interval: 60000 | 60000 | N/A
Weight: 110 | 110 | N/A

[size=125]Music/Sounds:[/size]
Placeholder(?) Music:
soundcloud.com/black-snow-8/pir … ic-looping
AWESOME SOUNDTRACK (Yes it’s original):
youtube.com/watch?v=oBLP6Cq01Kg

[size=200]Download[/size]

0.6: http://www.mediafire.com/?p47mq978318sx2u

[size=150]Change Log:[/size]
0.6:
- Removed old cruiser hull
- Fixed Frigate Crystalline shield
0.5:
- Added Gatling Cannon
- Changed Cruiser texture and moved cruiser module hard points.
- Added custom textures for muzzle flashes (Blast Texture)
- Added Frigate Gatling Cannon
- Changed Shard Artillery texture
- Added cruiser damage & Hulk textures
0.4:
- Named cruiser. (Ölvaldi)
- Partially fixed Flak Autocannon.
0.3:
- Ported Cruiser modules to Frigate size.
- Restricted modules to SnowPirates to fix mapping crash. (Thanks Darkstar!)
0.2:
- Fixed shield texture bugs.
0.1:
- Release!

[size=150]To Do:[/size]
Red = Important
Orange = Semi-Important
Green = Insignificant

    - Fix Autocannon
    - Fix module locations on Normandy
    - Create custom sounds for weapon fires

[size=150]Known bugs (Help?):[/size]
Red = Severe
Orange = annoying
Green = Insignificant

    - EXAMPLE

[size=150]Credits:[/size]
Black–Snow: Code and Placeholder Graphics/Music
darkstar076: Bug fixing
Justalittlebig: Music (Not registered to forums)
FlavoredPickle: Ship Design/Module Design

depending on what sort of design you have in mind, i might be able to help out with the ship graphics (no 3d stuff though, it takes way too long to do for more than one mod)

as example of what i can do, check out my other (also unfinished) mod, the Deserters and i also helped out with various ships for other mods, such as…

the Uni-T Destroyer

my entries for the Praetorian ship design contest

and of course, my legen- wait for it… -dary overall winning design that got featured on cliffskis blog

wow, i have made more ships than i realised… and i even left some out…

(yes this post was partly me expressing my bragging rights, but foremost it was to offer the help you asked for)

And you do have something to brag about too!

The ship style I was looking for was almost exactly the same as the rebel ones, but not sure on the colour scheme.

Also the ships should have some glowing parts with neon wiring or holograms, just something that would make you think of ancient powerful tech (I mean mass effect style where ancient means better and cooler).

[size=150]UPDATE[/size]
New music made by my awesome cousin!

Have a listen:
youtube.com/watch?v=oBLP6Cq01Kg

Also, Ship & Turret graphics are being discussed between me and an awesome graphics artist that will be revealed soon. * Suspenseful music queue*

As for the actual coding i’m too stuck in Eve Online ATM to do it, I plan to start after the graphic scheme is decided.

[size=150]UPDATE[/size]
Revealing Graphics artist now, it is… Drumroll

FlavoredPickle!

I’ve started to get a move on with the actual modding now that I have some incentive (Some posts here might help too? Just a suggestion) completing a module and helping a ship meet it’s technical-file counterpart!

Screenshots coming soon!

Really wanting to see the result of this little modding team! Good luck guys! ^^

Thanks. :3

[size=150]UPDATE[/size]
(I will keep posting new posts for updates as long as it’s 1 day apart, other wise I will wait or edit)

Frigate and Fighter sprites/coding done, but le’ wild bug has appeared!

The fighter sprite is only displaying half of it as the entire fighter.

If you got some time, i think we should be able to solve that bug in 5 minutes

It probably has something to do with this: Fighter Sprites

Get on skype then, you were literally the first person I checked for. XD

Ok, here is what you need to do.
(from the modding guide)

The Fighter Sprite:
These ships are put together a little differently then the other two types of ships.

In the configuration file there are three main differences to keep in mind when turning your sprite into a playable ship:
The image for the Ship, the files for the Damage & the files for the Hulk.

(For those that are playing along at home)
Looking at the Federation Falcon you have the following lines
[config]
classname = fighter
name = Federation Falcon Fighter
guiname = Federation Falcon Fighter Hull
sprite = Federation Falcon Fighter.dds
damagetexture = Federation Falcon Fighter_damaged.dds
hulktexture = federation_hulks.dds
hulkUVstart = 0
hulkUVend = 3
width = 11
height = 11
powerproduced = 3
cost = 44
racename = federation
…
…
…

The first fix is your Snow Pirate Fighter 1_sprite.dds file, it needs to look something like this

On the left side is the image of your ship unharmed - on the right is the damaged version
(If you make a sprite file with only one ship, you will get half a ship in game)

Now, you still need your Snow Pirate Fighter 1.dds file because that is the image that will be displayed in the loadout screen.

::Modders Note::
To avoid a ship that looks like it is being affected by gravity (stretched) keep the width and height the same

Damage:

You will notice that the damagetexture file has an _damaged at the end of it like frigates and cruiser. However when we navigate to where the hull file is kept you will only see these two files:
(found in\Gratuitous Space Battles\data\bitmaps\ships\federation\Federation Falcon Fighter)
Federation Falcon Fighter.dds
Federation Falcon Fighter_sprite.dds

The _sprite.dds file provides the damaged look for the ship. It is a combination of the Hull sprite and the Damage sprite placed side by side in the same image.

So, your Snow Pirate Fighter 1_damaged.dds file is surplus to requirements

NOTE: It is important to have the name of the Hull file and the _sprite file the same. So when your entering the line damage texture copy/paste your file name in and replace _sprite with _damaged and you can avoid that annoying “white square” error.

::Modders Note::
Now, when you combine your Hull and Damage file to create the _sprite file. Keep the damage file with the others. It will prove usefull when you use the ship editor and want to place the damage on the ship. (you can do the same for hulks but you then have to rename the hulk texture to your fighter hulk map)

Hulk
With Cruisers and Frigates, you have a unique hulk file which the game will generate leaving various pieces of the wreckage to twist and turn independently. With fighters the hulk is one complete image however you can have multiple hulk images to be randomly chosen by the game. The random selection of fighter hulks is controlled with the following code:

hulktexture = federation_hulks.dds <-Which file has the hulks
hulkUVstart = 0 <-Where the hulks start
hulkUVend = 3 <-Where the hulks end

This tells the game that when the fighter goes kaboom, choose a image between the start and end numbers and display that image as the chared remains on screen. (In this case when they die the game will randomly select from the locations 0,1,2 or 3 in the federation_hulks.dds file)

So you desire, you can have several hulk images for a single fighter if you desire. AFAIK - this image is static, there is no way to make it twist and turn like frigates and cruisers.) If you want (and you have the time) each fighter have its own fighter hulk maps so you can have multiple ways (max of 16) for each fighter to meet its demise.

So lets have a look at the federation_hulks.dds:
(found in\Gratuitous Space Battles\data\bitmaps\ships\federation)

We can see the hulks are arranged in a 4x4 grid (yes the last row is blank)

So if we number them it would go like this

0 1 2 3
4 5 6 7
8 9 . .
. . . .

Disclaimer - as far as i am aware the game will split the hulk file into a 4x4 grid (total of 16)- so if you have 5 fighters and want to have 4 hulks for each, (total of 20 hulks) you will need to make a second hulk file.

So in your case, i would suggest that you take one of the hulk files and delete all the ships off it and place your hulk file on it (save it as a new name). also you can delete the Snow Pirate fighter 1_hulk.dds as it is also surplus to requirements.

remember to add the lines:
hulkUVstart = 0
hulkUVend = 3
into your hull file
(that is, if you have 4 images of twisted wrecks.)

::Modders Note::
The naming of sprites, textures and hulks is case sensitive. Be careful when entering them into the config file. One way to avoid miskates is to use copy paste.

After a long rest filled with Eve Online, Sanctum 2 and Borderlands 2, I am back to modding.

Today was a day of getting used to the feel of the game and my mod again, tomorrow I shall start adding more shiz niz.

Wow, welcome back, and what a comeback! Nice graphics sir! I’m already wanting to playtest your creation =D

Those design look higly compatible with [pulseglow] variable, try it!

What exactly does it do?

I have to go to sleep now, can’t put it off any longer; But i’ll be sure to try it out in the morn!

Also, if you look closely I have your mod installed. (It over-writes the default sprites, so now they’re my place holders. XD)

Yep, noticed that
You can appreciate one of the various applications of pulseglows when playing with the EX-Tityan Dreadnought, the pulsating generators lights, another example is The Ghosts Mod, were every ship has pulsating effects.
If you need any help or guide to figure out how they work just ask! ;D

I have updated the post with new stuff!

A new 3D texture for the cruiser is being worked on by flavouredpickle… AND IT LOOKS AMAZING!

I’m planning to release the first ‘Alpha’ version sometime on the weekend, hopefully Saturday!

Looks like that The Yoma and The Snow Pirates have something in common, “Crystaline material based technologies”! Crystaltech!. Wich is nice to read, expecting awesomeness from you guys!

Maybe you could help me out?

On your last ‘campaign’ mission (The one with the large command ship), what lasers does it use - located on the front of the ship?

The Praetorian Leviathan? It packs two Leviathan Quasar Beams at the front, and other two Blazar Beams right behind the first ones.

I find your question quite… interesting

I was having some trouble with the crystalline shield not absorbing any damage from that ship.

It was either:
A: I had 2 Crystalline shields and 1 Fast recharge shield.
OR
B: I had no armour.

Darkstar did some testing for me and we concluded it was: A.

Is this a bug you know of?

[size=150]Mod Update[/size]
The will not be released this weekend as planned due to floods stopping flavouredPickle from working on the module textures.

Blacksnow, Just to be clear, could you clarify what the bug your are referring to is ?