Planet Animations

[Tethys]

How do I do that? Do I need to change the class or what? Plz explain

[Mentat]

1st start a game and save.
Then open the save it with UE.
Edit the system you want, and either change the planet type to gasgiant and choose an animation or move an existing gasgiant from e.g.: position 8 to position 1. But be aware that when you change the oder of planets the terraforming points needed will likely be changed.

[Tethys]

Hmm... not exactly what I was thinking, I wanted to edit them so that on Galaxy generation a Gas Giant will randomly (or in the case of Major races just) show up as the first planet in the system, regardless of a Y class planet in the same system (which by default is always the first planet when present) followed by (not necessarily in this exact order, since these planets show in random places) G, J, L, M, O, B, and lastly (always last) P class planets.

[Trelane_of_gothos]

I have a question: Does anyone know how to get the Gas Giant planets to appear BEFORE other planets, such as the M, O, and J class planets?

As reality would suggest, this is most common among real life extrasolar planets... Just wondering if there is a Hex code I can punch in somewhere to allow ANY planet to be placed ANYwhere... i know there is, just a matter of finding it

think you should remove "Green sun" (never seen a green sun...physics says that this is not possible), make it to "no sun" and so you get it.
perhaps you should set up the "enviroments" so you get more yellow suns...

[Tethys]

i would actually like to solve it correctly, instead of just another workaround (though I COULD add in a gas graphic into a star, but then all stars of that kind would always have that same gas giant... and none of the others would, thats not fun lol)

So this would be good then, I could make a new star type, such as Brown Dwarf or even a Binary system

EDIT: What I would REALLY like to see is someone find out how to add in more star types, or how to edit, say, Neutron Star or Radio Pulsar to be able to have planets...

[Dafedz]

*Extreme super epic bump*

Hey all. Well I was thinking lately about possibly dipping my toes back into the mod game. Maybe Ultimate Mod 5 will happen yet. One whimsical idea I had to include was to introduce a new, rare, super-planet type. I thought it would be cool to look out for and search for these systems that would contain such a planet. That was no problem to do, this is the result:







I called it a 'Super-M' class - one size up from the regular 'Large' planet-type. It would provide all the same features, amenities as a regular M-class, but super-sized. Problem is, as I replaced the Barren planet type (class-J) it still shows up as class-J, and would need to be terraformed. How do I replace the 'J' with some other letter and make it ready to colonise (like class-M) with no need for terraforming?

Thought Tethys or someone else might know, hence the thread bump.

cheers

[Tethys]

In trek.exe there is a line that contains all the planet types, which can be found at hex address 0x180530

enjoy

[Dafedz]

He shoots and he scores...


Thanks Tethys! Stupid hex editor, I scoured trek.exe for a list of planet class letters and couldn't find them. How i missed it I don't know.

I also figured out the terraform problem by changing the planet type coefficient to M class from barren, thanks to one of Gowron's posts. So that's sorted. By the way Tethys how did your project finish up to replace all the planet ani's?

[Peter1981]

Glad to see you kicking around Dafedz

Take a look at the adding planets thread i did some time back might give you some ideas, however UE latest versions can ADD planets now.

[Dafedz]

Yes I noticed that, and it maybe a dumb question but what are people using the Add Planet function for when you can safely edit the properties of existing planets?

Another thing. I want to change the growth rate of my new Super-M class planet to be approximate to a regular M-class. Atm its using the default values for barren planets. I think I have to change something in the file habit.bin but I'm not sure what. Any suggestions?

[Peter1981]

personally I use it for adding new minor race homeworlds et al and removing the old ones;
It can also be used to increase the number of worlds for each type. e.g. more gas giants (IIRC Tythes used this to put in asteroids.)

However the topic was only a stepping stone -- I was hoping to eventually figure out how to allow other planet combos (i.e. arctic no atmospher). This to allow more variety on the super large maps (52x32)

anyway its still work in progress.

[Spocks-cuddly-tribble]

I want to change the growth rate of my new Super-M class planet to be approximate to a regular M-class. Atm its using the default values for barren planets. I think I have to change something in the file habit.bin but I'm not sure what. Any suggestions?

Open habit.bin and set it to 8 bytes per row. See Planet GrowthValues ; habit.bin

Barren default combos:

01 09 03 02 01 03 05 02
01 0C 05 04 03 05 06 04

M-class default combo:

06 0A 09 0A 0A 09 07 0A

So you can just replace the first barren combo entry with e.g.: 01 0A 09 0A 0A 09 07 0A (vanilla M-class defaults)
and delete the second barren combo entry (assuming all your super M-class are set to "rich oxygen" atmosphere in planet.pst).

I was hoping to eventually figure out how to allow other planet combos (i.e. arctic no atmospher). This to allow more variety on the super large maps (52x32)

There shouldn't be any issues with adding new combo entries in habit.bin (i.e. extending file). BotF auto corrects size of dynamic data via ds:5CB474 (length_habit_bin)

[Dafedz]

personally I use it for adding new minor race homeworlds et al and removing the old ones;
It can also be used to increase the number of worlds for each type. e.g. more gas giants (IIRC Tythes used this to put in asteroids.)

However the topic was only a stepping stone -- I was hoping to eventually figure out how to allow other planet combos (i.e. arctic no atmospher). This to allow more variety on the super large maps (52x32)

anyway its still work in progress.

Oh I see now, yeh that is interesting and a worthy project. Might it be possible to introduce a completely new class of planet? Because I imagine Asteroids can only be added by replacing a current planet type (eg gas Giants).

I want to change the growth rate of my new Super-M class planet to be approximate to a regular M-class. Atm its using the default values for barren planets. I think I have to change something in the file habit.bin but I'm not sure what. Any suggestions?

Open habit.bin and set it to 8 bytes per row. See Planet GrowthValues ; habit.bin

Barren default combos:

01 09 03 02 01 03 05 02
01 0C 05 04 03 05 06 04

M-class default combo:

06 0A 09 0A 0A 09 07 0A

So you can just replace the first barren combo entry with e.g.: 01 0A 09 0A 0A 09 07 0A (vanilla M-class defaults)
and delete the second barren combo entry (assuming all your super M-class are set to "rich oxygen" atmosphere in planet.pst).

Thanks very much S-C-T, that's a big help! I'll make those alterations at once.

[Spocks-cuddly-tribble]

Might it be possible to introduce a completely new class of planet? Because I imagine Asteroids can only be added by replacing a current planet type (eg gas Giants).

Unfortunately, your assumption is correct. Adding new planet types is going to be a lot of work and would require tricky major modifications of the assembler code (custom for each moders purposes!). And yes, consequently extending planet.pst is almost pointless at this time.

Thanks very much S-C-T, that's a big help! I'll make those alterations at once.

You're welcome. Below some more issues to take care of:


This changes the barren bonus type from energy to food: (see Planet Bonus Types)

Code: Select all

43EEDB     77 19             JA SHORT 43EEF6
i.e. in trek.exe at 0x3E2DC change 0C to 19

Be careful. Since the vanilla barren planets don't have bonuses, the feature might be somewhat broken (e.g. you end up with funny +2500% or so - see note by Gowron). I don't know if this can be avoided via editing some of this files planet.pst, planetboni & planspac.bin. So maybe your're forced to a minimum bonus of +100%.


- Planets after borg attack (see Monster planet attacks & Borg spawning). You can disable planet change (see first post) or change replacement planet type from 1 (super-M for you) to e.g. 3 (gas giant - this won't affect the borg planet ani's) to make systems unhabitable(=assimilated).


- Climat shifts (see Scheme of the Random Events). BotF won't be able to determine properly between positive/negative changes wrt super-M. But IMHO this small drawback isn't worth the effort to look into it.


- edifice.bst planet requirements for buildings (e.g. planet labels & default requirements for some buildings)

[Tethys]

By the way Tethys how did your project finish up to replace all the planet ani's?

The ani pack is finished and kicking around here somewhere.. I think they are going to use it in the ECM update

Anyway it was well worth the effort I put into it