[MOD] No Suns

[Graxster]

Not sure if anyone would be interested in this, but I figured I'd throw it up here since I already made it for my own use. One of the small annoyances I find in the game is trying to dogfight, read menus, or just plain look at something when I have the glare of the sun and lens flares in my eyes. This mod effectively removes each sector's suns by making them emit no light. Note that you will still see light on objects such as asteroids (they will have a lit side and a dark side). Enjoy!

-Grax

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[jordan kirwan]

ever here of moveing in a dog fight you should* be followed by the attackers just fly away for a sec or two so that the sun is not blocking your sight

[Baleur]

If you could just remove the lens-flares, not the actual glow, i'd be happy. I cant believe they have lens-flares in this game lol. You dont put lens-flares in games or cgi, its something unwanted, artifacts created by crappy camera lenses. They look like shit and its just unrealistic since the only way to see a lens-flare is to have a crappy hand-held camera.
Why would our pilots look through a hand held camera?

[Momiji-chan]

I don't mean to argue as such, but I personally feel it adds to the game and atmosphere, having the sun blind you in a dog fight just makes it realistic, its simple dog-fighting tactics.

[ACrazyGerman]

I don't mind during a dog fight but I can't read the menu half the time I have to move just to command my fleet

[reanor]

I think instead of touching the sun, which is natural if you wanted to know , the menus could have adjustable transparancy feature.

[Bel-O-Kan]

Transparency in X3 reunion menus was adjustable. I don't understand why it's different in TC. Probably later with a patch ?

[Realspace]

I see a pretty use fot this mod. If you create fake suns put on the nebula background, then use your invisible suns just as a light source, means we can finally have suns BEHIND a planet that don't show in front onf it instead! this meas if you make a very big sector) max 4000km unfortunally, you can fly around the planet, this meas also that if you animate the background the sun would move around planet, i.e. the planet seems orbiting around it, unfortunally the source of light would remain fixed

[KNT79]

if you make a very big sector) max 4000km unfortunally,

The engine keeps distance in a single 32 bit variable obviously. So you have 4,294,967,296 length units. The smallest length unit is set to 1 mm which gives you a maximum of about 4,294 km.

Now you can change the size of all the ships, and velocity and linear acceleration values accordingly - make them, say, 10 times smaller. The stations would then be 10 times bigger relatively which is ok I think, or you can change them too. So, if e. g. Titan was 2 km long and 100 m/sec fast, it will be 200 m long with 10 m/sec max velocity. Now you have effectively 42,940 km maximum sector size at the cost of the distance resolution decrease from 1 mm to 1 cm.

The only problem is the HUD. You have to change the displayed distance and velocity values accordingly - it must print 20 km instead of 2 km or 2 km instead of 200 m now. I do not know ATM if it is possible to control the information printed to HUD.

[Realspace]

I've been struggling with this limit (the 4290km) for so long...and didnt find any solution. So what you say is we have to change ALL MESHES of ALL OBJECTS of tha game to 1/10??? it would be a huge work! or do you know an easier way?

[LV]

aha

I always end up being blinded right in the middle of a complex script then having to save reopen and scroll which when your churning out the amount of code i write can be very annoying indeed.

[KNT79]

So what you say is we have to change ALL MESHES of ALL OBJECTS of tha game to 1/10??? it would be a huge work! or do you know an easier way?

You can change them to 1/1000 and obtain a 4,294,000 km sector effectively with still acceptable 1 m distance resolution If I would start this project I wouldn't change gates, stations, and asteroids, just ships and some junk that has to be comparable to ships in size. Still lots of objects and huge yet simple work.

The good - huge sectors, stations, asteroids.
The bad - huge work and download size, yet unknown but possible issues.

No easier space stretching technology known to me ATM

[Realspace]

I see, changing the size of the meshes is quite aeasy and fast, just a wordpad is needed and maybe a day of work. 1/100 would be the perfect ratio, since 1/1000 would make stations, gates, etc. 1000x bigger!

imagine the terran stations that are already huge...with 1/100 the resulting 400.000km sector is perfect (and realistic!!!) for containing a planet and its moons, but is probably too big for a game, isn't it? we habe to fullfill it with 'something'...routes, hidden objects, secrets behind far away asteroid

and what about such a huge sector, would it give some AI problem with traders, civilians, etc.?

last, the hud change...I prefer the illusion of big space into a small space instead of the contrary...if the hud says 1km instead of 100Km...

but if we scale the game to 1/000 would't it be enough to find a way to make the hud call "m" as "km" and km as ".000 km" ?

[KNT79]

just a wordpad is needed

Change all that mesh data with wordpad? I think import body to 3ds max, uniform scale end export back is far easier. Or maybe I don't know something?

and what about such a huge sector, would it give some AI problem with traders, civilians, etc.?

I am almost sure that there will be no AI problems. What you do is only the ships size change, the sector is the same for the game engine and only seems huge for the player.

Don't know about the HUD, needs investigating.

It seems to me that I have started an offtopic discussion here.

[Realspace]

yeah mybe too opyimistic... eh eh eh!!
I'm so used to use wordpad since planets and nabulae dont open in Gmax...anyway I tried it and it was easy actually (opened an argon_m5 mesh and changed the value from 4001 to 401, the ship became 10x smaller), the only problem is the ship becomes yes smaller, but the scene remains the same...weird...nano-ship with huge trail behind
I think we are OT, mybe let's start a new one on this...

[Xenon_Slayer]

aha

I always end up being blinded right in the middle of a complex script then having to save reopen and scroll which when your churning out the amount of code i write can be very annoying indeed.

Add SHIFT+Arrow keys to your basic flight controls so you can rotate when in the SE. Also helps if you're on a collision course while in a menu.

[wga]

Hi, I've tried it on AP. It seems not working ?

[glenmcd]

Hi, I've tried it on AP. It seems not working ?

same

[X2-Illuminatus]

Two possibilites:
1) Extract the Lensflares.pck from the mod's cat/dat and place it in the "types"-folder (if it doesn't exist, create it) of your X3AP "addon"-directory.
2) Repack the mod's cat/dat so that the folder structure within the cat/dat is addon\types\Lensflares.pck

[glenmcd]

thanks X2-Illuminatus!
I tried both methods, both worked