TC - PHQ Paint Job examples +Blueprint issues

[deca.death]

.

Is there some place/post where I could see examples of different hue/saturation value on different race ships...? With plenty of pictures, you know.. Try to find it with search but fail...


EDIT:
Added few blueprint issues, at the end of thread.

[cmdnenad]

You can experiment using 3D Models and Stats Viewer.

[Carlo the Curious]

An old thread (X3R, but the principles should be the same for TC).

[deca.death]

My findings:

For, of course, Hyperion Vanguard:

What i wanted was sort of graphite dark gray stealth color, alas no luck
Seem like all combos for Hyper are quite lousy. Hue determines color and saturation it's intensity. Here is what I 've found

(first color stands for body, second for ship details)
Hue/Sat
000/000 default - metallic gray/green
now put saturation on max (255), hue as follows
030 purple/green
090 pink
135 reddish/blue
150 reddish
180 beige. kind of nice, for a change
210 greenish /lilac. doesn't look so bad if you like green.
240 similar as above, slightly more green
300 emerald turquoise
340 bluish cyan

Ahh! just find out about negative saturation. Let's see
now we go with -256

000 silvery graphite, almost monochromatic
In general negative saturation produces far less variations among
different values, if set too low, all colors look exactly the same (like
first one described) when set lower, there are similar to described
colors of positive sat. but less pronounced.


on the end I will take 180 /30 just for little change

[SIMON POPPLEWELL]

The Paranid and Teladi don't get great results. Split and Argon are probably the best. Actually managed to get a black mamba once, but can't remember the hue/saturation numbers.

[deca.death]

Few examples, 180 beige:

[ external image ]


210 green
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320 blue
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and one note, don't have anything docked, my stupid adv. mamba got accidental paintjob : D

[ external image ]

anyway for mamba I've got nice green color - 090
couldn't find gray /black as well, otherwise mamba paints very intensively, as you can see : )

[aka1nas]

The split ships generally paint best, IMO. I'm using Hue 100 and Saturation 255 which gives you a dark green paintjob.

[ConCorDian]

couldn't find gray /black as well, otherwise mamba paints very intensively, as you can see : )

from what i know of it by rights black should be unacheivable.

iirc the way the colour system works is if you picture a colour circle using your primary and secondary colours (depending how deep they went into the system perhaps even tertiary and so on and so forth) the HUE is like rotating the colour wheel around on its centre point, you can either stop on one of the solid blocks or somewhere in between a mix of two of them.

the saturation is what the title suggest how intense the colour is (hence why all ships ive tried appear grey at a -255 saturation because there is no colour.

therefore if i am correct in order to achieve white or black you would need a third variable that being the 'Value' which we dont have. the only way it might be possible is if the standard colours of the ships "0" in the HUE shift is not its possition on th colour wheel but the colour wheel imprints over the standard. only the programmers will know if thats right or wrong i suppose though.

then again im going back nearly 8 yrs to high school art so could be wrong in what im saying

[David Howland]

The only time I could see a practical use for the paint shop was when I wanted to change the colour of an Aran to go Aran hunting in! After much time and effort and input by many experts in my thread on the subject, I had to call it a day with no change of hue on the Aran at all.

[AjaxDude]

You still have to enter those hue and saturation values. Did it ever occur to Egosoft to put in a simple list of colors and/or a preview window?

[deca.death]

.

So, about blueprints. I've noticed now that various pirate bases offer me blueprints of their ships for sale (I presume you can buy race BP this way, right?) In the beginning I thought buying them all but later I realized that there is no sense in buying BP of a ships you will never produce. So... what would be interesting /recommended BSs of ships you like /use and where to look for those. Is that offering of BP completely random or there are some bases more interesting then others (say, Duke's HQ, or bases in Gaian star maybe...?)

BTW I presume that pirate vessels produced in your SY do have that nice pirate colors?

One other thing, about resources for shipbuilding and plex I considered making for that - well building anything proved to be completely unnecessary. I have well connected HUB (ore belt, elysium, queen's retr. basically i wanted to connect argon with boron : ) I docked TL there with cls2 setup loading all interesting goods from HUB. To HUB I added all stuff needed for ship building and I assigned two mistral CAG pilots, to keep HUB "full" (In reality he is always empty : ) pricing on average +1 for all, 50 jump range.

As result I'm full of resources, NPCs bring them, my pilots buy them, I already sent several TLs to PHQ, and still have plenty. And yes, when I have enough of some good (some are naturally collected faster then others) I just lower buying price to minimum, to avoid messing with CLS settings : )

[SIMON POPPLEWELL]

.

So, about blueprints. I've noticed now that various pirate bases offer me blueprints of their ships for sale (I presume you can buy race BP this way, right?) In the beginning I thought buying them all but later I realized that there is no sense in buying BP of a ships you will never produce. So... what would be interesting /recommended BSs of ships you like /use and where to look for those. Is that offering of BP completely random or there are some bases more interesting then others (say, Duke's HQ, or bases in Gaian star maybe...?)

BTW I presume that pirate vessels produced in your SY do have that nice pirate colors?

One other thing, about resources for shipbuilding and plex I considered making for that - well building anything proved to be completely unnecessary. I have well connected HUB (ore belt, elysium, queen's retr. basically i wanted to connect argon with boron : ) I docked TL there with cls2 setup loading all interesting goods from HUB. To HUB I added all stuff needed for ship building and I assigned two mistral CAG pilots, to keep HUB "full" (In reality he is always empty : ) pricing on average +1 for all, 50 jump range.

As result I'm full of resources, NPCs bring them, my pilots buy them, I already sent several TLs to PHQ, and still have plenty. And yes, when I have enough of some good (some are naturally collected faster then others) I just lower buying price to minimum, to avoid messing with CLS settings : )

First off you can only get M5 to M6 blueprints, but you can get any of ships that are offered for sale at SYs. Don't no about pirate colours as I never bothered with them, but you can get all the pirate versions iirc. I tend to build my own complex to supply the resources, then have CLS ships deliver the items. Very important to go in to dock manage and cap certain resource though, otherwise you could end up with too many of one resource.

[Rhox]

.

So, about blueprints. I've noticed now that various pirate bases offer me blueprints of their ships for sale (I presume you can buy race BP this way, right?)

Right, but you will only get blueprints for ships up to M6 class, not higher.

In the beginning I thought buying them all but later I realized that there is no sense in buying BP of a ships you will never produce.

If you do not aim at collecting all available blueprints, there is no reason in buying those you won't use. Unless you want to impress your partners when negotiating with them in your office

BTW I presume that pirate vessels produced in your SY do have that nice pirate colors?

I haven't tried with bought pirate blueprints yet, but why shouldn't they? In Reunion built pirate ships still had the decals...

best regards,
Rhox

EDIT: Ninja'd by Simon

[Tru]

My guess is that Ego went ahead with the assumption that everyone has used Photoshop or similar software before and understands hue and saturation (and the wierdly omitted brightness). The lack of a preview window strikes me as odd. Both ommisions probably came down to memory limitations, or simply were not important in the grand scheme of things.

[Rhox]

My guess is that Ego went ahead with the assumption that everyone has used Photoshop or similar software before and understands hue and saturation (and the wierdly omitted brightness). The lack of a preview window strikes me as odd. Both ommisions probably came down to memory limitations, or simply were not important in the grand scheme of things.

I think this is more due to the fact that the Engine used for X3R an TC is still basically the same since X-btf, so I think it simply wasn't possible to give a preview window...

best regards,
Rhox

[Master of the Blade]

So... what would be interesting /recommended BSs of ships you like /use and where to look for those.

Pirate Buzzard Vanguard is stupidly awesome for an M4. 15MJ shields, ~250m/s, big laser generator and IIRC 8 main weapons instead of the usual 6. Pirate Scorpion is also really good - higher speed than the Split model, but 10MJ shields.

Pirate Harrier Raider is a good ship for exploring and fighter interception - it's very fast, comes equipped with a Triplex scanner and has PACs.

All of those you can capture and RE though. I don't think there are really any Pirate ships worth buying the blueprints for. Maybe Centaur and Osprey, with the Centaur's high agility and Osprey's all round PBG coverage.

[deca.death]

Some new colors or pictures:
(saturation is always on max unless stated)

[ external image ]
Green menace : ) in better lighting for this color. Actually not bad.
hue 210

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[ external image ]
Finally, the Wolf himself : ) Make room for the king. Just look at those guns : ) REd and produced and colored in PHQ.
hue 180


[ external image ]
green advanced mamba
hue 090
saturation 180

[deca.death]

Small update, few interesting color combinations :

[ external image ]
Blue Viper. 180/130


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Yellow springy. 60/256


[ external image ]
Now this one is a treat. Cobra at 210/0. Sort of midnight purple. But in dark sectors...


[ external image ]
Becomes dark shade color. This is closest I could get to "stealth". Works on all split ships too ; ) Note angry osaka and Tokyo chasing : )

[Darrell Whiter]

For Purple Arans choose Hue 50 Sat 356 (Full on)
For Crimson Arans Hue 200 Sat Full on
For Green Arans Hue 300 SAt full on

Purple Arans are cool especially in dark sectors.

The best way to review paint jobs are to dock with PH and undock with small craft to do a fly by near paint job. Then paint desired craft and view it with the craft your flying near it.. I have accomplished many paint jobs with Pirate and Aran crafts..
But full on Saturation is a good way to see full effects and adjust Hue to suit going up or down in blocks of 5 or 10.
If you like a paint job for a particular ship write it down and copy paint job for the same craft / ship.
Each ship has different Hue and Sat outcomes.. Hue 50 for Aran is purple but Hue 50 in Pirate Centaur is Fire red.
If you have a great Graphics card then some paint jobs reveal metalic paint and brighter colours.

All Pirate ship paint jobs are cool.. Thus enabling the player to create squads of ships that are identifable in sector by paint jobs.
The Pirate Kea has some of the most changeable paint jobs and the Pirate Centaur is very colourful especially the fire trim.
So the myth that the paint jobs are crap is wrong..Its really worth the time to use Saturation at max and hue to change ships limited colours.

[Nanook]

@deca.death:

You do realize that the color of the local suns and nebulae will determine to a large degree what colors show up on your ship. Most of the screenies you've shown have suns and nebulae that are affecting the color of your ships. For getting 'true' color views, you need to view them in a sector with a white sun.

For Purple Arans choose Hue 50 Sat 356 (Full on)
For Crimson Arans Hue 200 Sat Full on
For Green Arans Hue 300 SAt full on....

I'm rather partial to pink Elephants and Panthers, myself.