About making ship images! Please help!

[wolfboyft]

Hi, I'm new to the forums so I don't know whether this is the right place or not for this topic, so... yeah.

Basically, I'm really interested in creating a few basic enemy ships and possibly a super-OP crusher player ship for people who want to stand a chance against the flagship/have some fun!

I'm using superliminal, got the basics down, but don't know quite how to make pixel-perfect hull, shields, (floor?) and cloak images. First thing I'd need to know would be how many pixels by how many pixels a single square of room is, what the floor image is, whether I have to create more images for a thrusters-on animation or what.

And also, does anyone know how to have the same system in multiple rooms, like the rebel flagship? (For my super-OP player ship.)

As well as where my images and the rooms should go in the grid for proper a proper centered ship in-game?

Thank you!

[5thHorseman]

Floors are 35x35, or 35x70 for the 2x1 rooms, or 70x70 for the 2x2 rooms.

I suggest you unpack the main game data file (there's a tool to do that in the modding forum somewhere) and look at the actual images of the ships in the game to get a feel for how big you can make your ship. I'd suggest not making a ship bigger than the Federation ships (Osprey and Nisos) for your first effort. You can push the limits past that but you need to know what you're doing first.

Don't worry about thrusters. I think you can get them working if you put your ship in the Kestrel spot (which generally everybody does) but I personally have never noticed if anybody has

Room images just have to be the right size for the room you put them in. For a first effort, I suggest just picking room images from the game that are the right size and have nothing in front of the doors. Put your stations where they are in the room images and set the "glow" images to have the glowy bit on the computer.

Don't forget you need a floor image, and it can't just be a blank image or some people will get a black box on their screen. I personally just copy my main ship image to the floor image and go without a floor. The "floor" image is just the little outline around the ships in the vanilla game.

Cloaks can be touchy. Note my signature

And finally, you can't put 2 of any one room on your ship in SL. You CAN do it by editing the raw blueprints of the ship but it won't help. Only one of them will be the "actual" room of that type while the other will just be like any other hallway.

[wolfboyft]

Floors are 35x35, or 35x70 for the 2x1 rooms, or 70x70 for the 2x2 rooms.

I suggest you unpack the main game data file (there's a tool to do that in the modding forum somewhere) and look at the actual images of the ships in the game to get a feel for how big you can make your ship. I'd suggest not making a ship bigger than the Federation ships (Osprey and Nisos) for your first effort. You can push the limits past that but you need to know what you're doing first.

Don't worry about thrusters. I think you can get them working if you put your ship in the Kestrel spot (which generally everybody does) but I personally have never noticed if anybody has

Room images just have to be the right size for the room you put them in. For a first effort, I suggest just picking room images from the game that are the right size and have nothing in front of the doors. Put your stations where they are in the room images and set the "glow" images to have the glowy bit on the computer.

Don't forget you need a floor image, and it can't just be a blank image or some people will get a black box on their screen. I personally just copy my main ship image to the floor image and go without a floor. The "floor" image is just the little outline around the ships in the vanilla game.

Cloaks can be touchy. Note my signature

And finally, you can't put 2 of any one room on your ship in SL. You CAN do it by editing the raw blueprints of the ship but it won't help. Only one of them will be the "actual" room of that type while the other will just be like any other hallway.

Wait... If the flagship has 4 artillery rooms/weapon rooms whatever it is, and that doesn't do anything, how come the vanilla people made it that way!?

About the floor, I have to use the exact format that vanilla uses, so do you know how many pixels are inbetween the floor's outline and the room's outline?

[Kieve]

Wait... If the flagship has 4 artillery rooms/weapon rooms whatever it is, and that doesn't do anything, how come the vanilla people made it that way!?

Hardcoding. There are a great many things in the game that aren't expressly moddable, and simply written into FTL's programming itself. Beam color, racial abilities, and augment function being a few more.
The flagship is very different from your typical enemy ship and plays by different rules.

About the floor, I have to use the exact format that vanilla uses, so do you know how many pixels are inbetween the floor's outline and the room's outline?

The buffer is approximately 5 pixels, I believe, but don't feel like you have to follow that exactly. There are other ways to do a floor image that will look just as good, if not better.

And also, does anyone know how to have the same system in multiple rooms, like the rebel flagship? (For my super-OP player ship.)

Please, please do not do this.
It sounds to me like you're actually taking the time to create an interesting and new ship. This is a good thing. Making it "Super OP" is not. Overpowered ships are ones you learn from in the modding process - teaching yourself how to mod correctly, how to adjust and add systems, and in general, to get a feel for how ships are put together. But just as you wouldn't expect a publisher to print the first draft of a novel, "starter" mods generally aren't fit for distribution. Additionally, OP ships tend to get mostly ignored and it would be a shame if you were putting actual creative work into a vessel (almost) no one will be using.

[R4V3-0N]

Well, OP ships can be done...

but it is usually sided with a really UP part of it that 'ballances' it out.
Also there is a tiny fine line between balance and 'op' which is fun, it is hard to achieve this but when you do you can sure make a mod that will have the effort shown and attention deserved.

every true op ship someone ever made is one that you click all the weapons, set them to auto fire, and go out and make a coffee when you get back, 0 damage taken, enemy flagship destroyed.

Wait about the topic above with multiple rooms of the same system, you saying I can make a room that 'says' it is a weapons room, looks like a weapons room, but doesn't act like one?.. I kinda want to do that...

Does it still take damage to the system or it's completely non existent to the game besides being visually similar and being a simple empty room?

[wolfboyft]

Guess what! I found out that enemy ships, the ships I like to do best, DON'T need to have floor images or miniship images or anything! And hull is not a problem thanks to the room size thing. But about adding the shield in superliminal... thats hardcoding only, can anyone help me with that? What program to use to code the shield image etc?