Modding assistance - Where do I start?

posted on May 13th, 2009, 3:27 am

Actually it would work, in till the ship leveled up, then it would lose the pulse weapons, unless you added them to the others as well.

posted on May 13th, 2009, 3:30 am

Hmm....I have the sod importer..obatained from armada2files....but it will only let my import stock A2 sods and not FO sods....any suggestions? or are the hardpoints the same for a stock A2 sod to a FO sod..as in defiants hardpoints and galxy hardpoints the same in both versions?

posted on May 13th, 2009, 4:53 am

@ RYDERSTORM
I can't say for sure, but I think that they made it so that the SOD Importer will not import custom SODs (which obviously FO SODs are custom) to prevent people from copying other peoples' modeling work.  From what I understand there is a version that can import custom SODs but that is much harder to find as its distribution is controlled and only a handful of people have it.  As to whether the hardpoints are the same as stock, only the devs could really answer that.
Also, yes if you wanted to add a new weapon to a ship, you would need to add it to all its leveled up versions as well or as Adm. Zaxxon said, the ship would loose the new weapon when it levels up.

@ S'klar
It is actually fairly simple, the easiest thing to do is:
Make sure you BACK UP your installation or at the very least the files you intend to change, so you have original files to fall back on if necessary!

As an example I will use the Federation Torpedo Turret which uses the file fturret2.odf
1) Copy the ODF for the desired turret and rename it... copy fturret2.odf and rename the copy to fturret3.odf.
2) Using original model and graphics:
Open fturret3.odf and add the line baseName = "fturret2" (this will tell the game to use the model, build button and wireframe of fturret2.  Maybe it excludes the build button and wireframe, I can't remember atm, but it definitely uses the model and textures of the defined unit).
3) Add to the Tech Tree (the unit and prerequisites must be declared or they won't appear in the build menu)
Open Tech1.tt and freetech.tt (in the Techtree directory) and add fturret3.odf 0.  in Tech1.tt you can add prerequisites if you like, you could just copy the fturret2 line and change  fturret2 to fturret3).
4) Adding to the construction ship's Build Menu:
Open fconst.odf and underneath buildItem 12 add buildItem13 = "fturret3"

At this point you should have a working turret buildable by your construction ship which uses the same graphics as the original turret you copied.  Some settings could be different between races, but on the whole you follow the same steps.  You should test to see if it works here before tinkering with the weapons and other settings, that way you know what the problem might be if it crashes later on.

5) Adjust weapons and health:
Change the unitName and tooltip lines in fturret3.odf to whatever you want (the original tooltips can be found in the file Dynamic_Localized_Strings.h).  Also change the weapons and health to whatever you intend (just make sure to use a weapon already in the game or you will need to create new weapon ODFs).

You can then work to create a new model, textures, build button and wireframe, but you will need to change global.spr to get the build button and wireframe in-game and you would need to remove the baseName line for it to take effect. Make sure you keep the "" wherever they are needed (or you will get out of memory errors) and make sure the weapon ODFs you use exist and are spelled correctly or the game will crash to desktop when the station is finished building.

If I accidentally left something out let me know, and ... this is my first post here, hi everyone

posted on May 13th, 2009, 7:49 am

@ RYDERSTORM
I can't say for sure, but I think that they made it so that the SOD Importer will not import custom SODs (which obviously FO SODs are custom) to prevent people from copying other peoples' modeling work.  From what I understand there is a version that can import custom SODs but that is much harder to find as its distribution is controlled and only a handful of people have it.  As to whether the hardpoints are the same as stock, only the devs could really answer that.
Also, yes if you wanted to add a new weapon to a ship, you would need to add it to all its leveled up versions as well or as Adm. Zaxxon said, the ship would loose the new weapon when it levels up.

I can say that for sure unless you have the unlocked sod importer. Hopefully soon ill figure out how to reverse engineer it.

posted on May 13th, 2009, 4:55 pm

Avoid SOD importers. Modders do not like it. And it won't help you learn how to model (because you won't know how they made it).

If you want to learn modelling, start with the basics, use tutorials etc, improve your skills a bit at a time. Do not resort to kitbashing other peoples' work. =)

posted on May 13th, 2009, 5:10 pm

I am not going to kitbash anything but i am wanting to edit models to fit in with FO (eg engine glows ect) i have a little modeling experience. Also i want to see some of the FO models to understand the hard points and the like.

[RYDERSTORM]

posted on May 13th, 2009, 8:53 pm

Last edited by RYDERSTORM on May 14th, 2009, 12:53 am, edited 1 time in total.

Ok thanks to all who replied to my questions. I can understand why the sod importer is the way it is with not importing cutom sods. Afterall people put in a lot of work to make those nice FO models. Im just wishing to see the hardpoints so that when I modify Odf's the weapons are originating from "realistic" points on the vesel. My goal is to make a near perfect game(for me anyways) perfect in terms of how I would have things behave and to learn new skills from the process. Also I have found that the best way for me to learn things is to read read read and then also reverse engineer things...and when I get stuck or have questions read some more and when that dont work ASK!.....

NEW question!....

Ok so I added a weapon to the defiant. I added the sabers phaser to the defiant as a lil excercise. I added it to all the dif versions of the ship not just "fed_defiant" or "fed_defiant2" but to the other ones as well which seemed to be the mixed tech versions. My phaser worked beautifully ingame til the defiant gained rank..then the game crashed. I have made sure to match the weapon and hardpoints and I made sure that my added saber weapon was the last weapon..

EX:  For  "fed_defiant" my added phaser is weapon 4 cuz critical shot is number 3 andthats as high as the        weapons listed go. For "fed_defiant5" my added phaser is weapon 7 as the defiant seems to have 6 weapons listed in this version in the odf.

I triple checked my additions and made sure that all 19 versions of the defiant had the added phaser listed and conected to the hardpoint...I couldnt figure out what I did wrong and then restored the defiant back to how it was since the game kept crashing when my ships would level with the added phaser.

Maybe I shouldnt have added it to all the versions maybe?
Any help would be appreciated!

posted on May 14th, 2009, 4:25 am

As a test, I just now done the same thing, I added the Saber's lvl 1 phaser to all variants of the defiant...

I triple checked my additions and made sure that all 19 versions of the defiant had the added phaser listed and conected to the hardpoint...I couldnt figure out what I did wrong and then restored the defiant back to how it was since the game kept crashing when my ships would level with the added phaser.

I have only tested Mason's variant (there are 4 variants, Mason's, Risners, and Klingon and Romulan Mix-Tech with 5 ODFs each, making 20 in total) but essentially they are almost the same, during my test I encountered no problem with leveling up and even reached maximum rank with 2 separate vessels...

EX:  For  "fed_defiant" my added phaser is weapon 4 cuz critical shot is number 3 andthats as high as the        weapons listed go. For "fed_defiant5" my added phaser is weapon 7 as the defiant seems to have 6 weapons listed in this version in the odf.

Mayson's and Risner's defiant variants use 3 weapon slots in fed_defiant, fed_defiant2 and fed_defiant3 (adding a r or Yr before the number, depending on the avatar) so the next weapon number should be 4, however in fed_defiant4 and fed_defiant5 they have 5 weapon slots used, so the next number should be 6.
The Klingon and Romulan variants have 1 extra weapon slot used, so in the first 3 ranks you would need to use weapon slot 5, while in ranks 4 and 5 you should use weapon slot 7.
You mentioned you used weapon7 in fed_defiant5 (assuming you mean fed_defiantr5) when you should have used weapon6.  As long as there were no spelling mistakes or missing "", I believe that may be where your error lies.

Once you do get it working, I'd suggest using a shorter range phaser so the defiant can make more use of its short range weapons.

posted on May 14th, 2009, 5:47 am

i dont think that should matter as long as there are not 2 weapons assigned to the same number. From the way that you described it it sounds like this is the problem.

posted on May 14th, 2009, 6:11 am

I've accidentally set up multiple weapons with the same number before and all that happened was the second weapon using the same number was ignored, it didn't crash the game or make the ship unusable in any way, but i have never made the mistake of skipping a number, so I don't really know what happens in that case.

posted on May 14th, 2009, 10:32 pm

Ok thanks all again..I have fixed the issue. It was a spelling error(bows head in shame)...I have learned that if you obmit "_" from a weapon name it crashes the game. Guess I shouldnt be editing odf's with only 2 hrs sleep under my belt. Now to make the defiant more like the one that battled the Lakota and the klingon supersized nehgvar in the mirror universe.

posted on May 14th, 2009, 11:14 pm

Yeah the later i stay up the worse my coding gets.

[Anonymous]

posted on May 16th, 2009, 3:30 am

Last edited by Anonymous on May 16th, 2009, 3:34 am, edited 1 time in total.

i can't get the 8th race to work with stock.

numberOfRaces = 10
race0 = "borg.odf"
race1 = "fed.odf"
race2 = "kling.odf"
race3 = "rom.odf"
race4 = "card.odf"
race5 = "fer.odf"
race6 = "species8472.odf"
race7 = "vulcans.odf"
race8 = "starfleet.odf"
// this one is 'uninhabited' for planets
race9 = "norace.odf"

this is what it looks like.
the 8th race won't show up in the selection menu. 

[Dircome]

posted on May 16th, 2009, 5:16 am

Last edited by Dircome on May 16th, 2009, 2:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The next line is critically important:

// Instant action slot, negative means not playable
instantActionSlot = 6

got this from Starbase 34 sounds like it might be your problem id check their guide for how to add a race.

posted on May 16th, 2009, 12:55 pm

also there is a different set of numbers you need to see.  the actual build order.  this can be found  in the corresponding odf for that races starting build list, its gui ans sound, and its buid place.  the problem is you have to make sure it is next in line.