Questions here: an inquiry thread! [Updated Sep 15th, 2014]

[Fantasysci5]

Hi! I was wondering, is it possible to change the name of the Federation or Rebels, wherever it occurs in the game? Just a name change, nothing more deep than that. I think I read you couldn't change the alien race names, but I have no idea if changing the name of the Federation or Rebels is even possible. Thanks for any answers.

[stylesrj]

You can just edit the text of all ships and events to say something else. There are plenty of mod overhauls out there that are doing just that.

The alien names and sprites can be changed but you can't add or remove abilities from them. So you could turn Humans into Tentacle Demons or Space Cows but they'd still have the stats of the common and uninteresting filthy, slimy Humans

[Biohazard063]

Hi! I was wondering, is it possible to change the name of the Federation or Rebels, wherever it occurs in the game? Just a name change, nothing more deep than that. I think I read you couldn't change the alien race names, but I have no idea if changing the name of the Federation or Rebels is even possible. Thanks for any answers.

Well... The "easiest" way of accomplishing this would be to use a word editing program like Sublime Text 2.

Copy all events.xml files, then with the use of that program have it change the word "rebel" or "federation" to something else.
Then turn that into a mod.
I'm actually wondering whether or not this would cause issues...
I mean, some event have the word "REBEL" in their blueprint, then again, the code that loads up that event would also have the word REBEL changed...
And the word rebel would probably still show up here and there on the UI and other prompts. So you should probably do the same with the misc.xml folder. And even then.
Hmm... highly intriguing.

[Fantasysci5]

Well... The "easiest" way of accomplishing this would be to use a word editing program like Sublime Text 2.

Thank you so much!! I downloaded Sublime Text 2 and tried what you said, and it seems to have worked! I can't tell you how much it tickles me to change the names, and it feels like I'm roleplaying my favorite sci fi show even more now. I am so happy this worked, and utterly surprised that I was able to change the game, even in such a small matter. Thank you so much!!

EDIT: Seems to be working great, except when I try to jump to a new sector, it crashes to my desktop. It must be something about the sector generation in my mod, but I'm not sure what to change so it won't crash. Any ideas?

[Crazybat]

I've been having this tiny issue in Photoshop - I'm attempting to replicate that reddish/orange background glow that all the ships/mini icons have, in order to make the mod seem more authentic. However, all my attempts at creating it just seem...off. If anyone else here uses Photoshop, could you please let me know what kinds of settings and colour values you use? Any advice is much appreciated!

[Biohazard063]

Well... The "easiest" way of accomplishing this would be to use a word editing program like Sublime Text 2.

Thank you so much!! I downloaded Sublime Text 2 and tried what you said, and it seems to have worked! I can't tell you how much it tickles me to change the names, and it feels like I'm roleplaying my favorite sci fi show even more now. I am so happy this worked, and utterly surprised that I was able to change the game, even in such a small matter. Thank you so much!!

EDIT: Seems to be working great, except when I try to jump to a new sector, it crashes to my desktop. It must be something about the sector generation in my mod, but I'm not sure what to change so it won't crash. Any ideas?

The only thing I can think of is you tried to jump to a rebel sector...
Maybe the blueprint name for those sectors is hardcoded ?
Try using the default sector_data.xml. Means you will still have the "rebel controlled sector" show up but will probably prevent the crash.
And if you haven't touched the sector_data.xml try changing the word rebel there as well.
So basically if you haven't touched that file, change the words, if you have touched it, revert those changes.

I have no experience with this myself, so I'm already surprised that you got this far.

[TaxiService]

I've been having this tiny issue in Photoshop - I'm attempting to replicate that reddish/orange background glow that all the ships/mini icons have, in order to make the mod seem more authentic. However, all my attempts at creating it just seem...off. If anyone else here uses Photoshop, could you please let me know what kinds of settings and colour values you use? Any advice is much appreciated!

The color should be #FFAABA, it's this pink. Did you know you can sample half-opaque colors if they are on a transparent background? Try it! I got this color from the kestrel's base image. : ) I was actually surprised the first time i did this! Didn't expect no pink.

These are the settings for the Outer Glow layer effect I use to make ship glows. I think i copied and pasted these over most of my ships, but i suggest to play with the settings a little and see if they can look better on your particular hull. The range slider has a lot of influence on the final result, experiment with it. It might help to compare your glow to that of other vanilla ships!

[Crazybat]

Thanks for the quick reply! I really appreciate it!

[TaxiService]

You're welcome! While i was at it i recorded myself going over the whole process and posted it here. I guess noobs can be directed to it for future reference.

[Crazybat]

Sorry to bother you again - your technique works perfectly, I'm just having to resize my images, but it's all good! Anyhow, it seems to me that the glow on the ship thumbnails is more intense. What settings do you use for those?