I've been trying to create a custom faction with a custom affinity and ships, but I cannot for the life of me figure out how to associate ships with an affinity, let alone create a new one. I have a custom faction and ship models already in place (based off the Caldari from eve, including the appropriate EVE models), but the only option I've seen thus far is overwriting an existing affinity with the EVE models. Could someone help me figure out how to create an entirely new affinity using Caldari ship models and names?





Many thanks in advance to anyone who responds, and sorry if this has already been asked.

The only way to add new ship models is to replace existing ones for a faction because there is no way AFAIK to associate the new models with any but an existing faction.



It is very possible to create a new affinity and faction, keep in mind the affinity is basically background abilities implemented in the various mod files to give the new faction its own special traits.

For a detailed example of how to implement a new faction please see the excellent sectoid mod here /#/endless-space/forum/37-modding/thread/16184-mod-faction-sectoid

Thanks a ton for the response!



I found that very post and used the template to finish my custom affinity. As far as custom ships go, it seems there are enough variables in the XMLs to add custom ship classes. I think the names such as "SS_Terran_Medium_B" (battleship, in this case) might be generated from properties in Hull.xml, although I still haven't found where the ingame default names of the ships are stored (taken from the actual model name, maybe?).



On an unrelated note, my mod is no longer listed in the mod list, and I have no idea why.



Edit: Missed the note the author of the sectoid mod made about already trying the above. I'm still convinced that there is a way to do this.

Everything is now working well, barring the custom ship models. My mod, in case readers of this thread wanted to know, adds the four races of New Eden (Caldari, Amarr, Gallente, and Minmater from EVE online) to the game. The last foundation thing to do is to get all the custom ship models implemented. This:

[CODE]



Prefabs/Spaceships/Terran/SS_Terran_Medium_B

Templates/Ships/Badger/Badger_Mark_II





Prefabs/Spaceships/Terran/SS_Terran_Medium_B

Templates/Ships/Kestrel/Kestrel





Prefabs/Spaceships/Terran/SS_Terran_Medium_B

Templates/Ships/Cormorant/Cormorant





Prefabs/Spaceships/Terran/SS_Terran_Medium_B

Templates/Ships/Drake/Drake





Prefabs/Spaceships/Terran/SS_Terran_Medium_B

Templates/Ships/Rokh/Rokh





Prefabs/Spaceships/Terran/SS_Terran_Medium_B

Templates/Ships/Phoenix/Phoenix



[/CODE]

results in placeholder models (cones, specifically) in-game. The models involved are oriented and formatted correctly, however they simply wont apply themselves to the ship reference for the custom affinity. Anybody have any ideas what the problem(s) might be?

The problem you are running into is as I've described the link between a custom affinity/faction and custom ships simply does not exist.

The points to a prefab that does not exist.

This is not a reference issue but an issue of an actual file which simply does not exist, the prefabs are stored in the compressed .asset files of endless space.

It is possible to create replacement models and use them with pre existing prefabs such as.



Prefabs/Spaceships/Terran/SS_Terran_Small_B

Templates/Ships/Terran/PinnanceBearbeitet

The first line points at a prefab reference that is attached to the sheredyn faction, the second line points at the actual pre existing terran small ship prefab which defines for the game where the firing points for guns and the emissive points for engines are located relative to the ships center and orientation, the third line attaches a custom model to the mix.

As it stands the dev's have given us the pointers to use custom models and where to link them to existing prefabs, we do not however have access to the actual prefab files or the data files which define the relationship between a faction and its prefabs.

There does seem to be some kind of default logic to the game which assigns craver ship models to any faction which does not have predefined prefab settings of its own.

But at this time the only way to use your own custom ship models is to replace an existing faction with your own and assign your custom ship models to that faction, the engines will be in weird places and the guns will fire from wherever they would on the original model but visibly it will be your custom model you can look at.

Personally I am avidly waiting for the devs to release the prefab files and data as I have modded and modeled ships for freelancer, Starfleet command, X2, X3, and starlancer in the past, and am dying to put my model libraries to good use.



~Crymson~

Very odd that they chose to go that route; seems like It would be just as easy to generate the prefabs at runtime as opposed to making them static. +1 to the waiting list...