Modding my old ships after 11 years

[Delphis]

I was on X3 many years ago when it came out and around 2008/2009 I modded some ships and had some fun with it. (Then more life happened.. different job, new child .. new games )

On a whim I re-bought the X games a while ago on Steam, and had a wild hare to pick them up again. I decided to kick off with X3 Albion Prelude.

Anyway, I was able to use the new XPluginManager to install my ships (.xsp files) in to X3 Albion Prelude since I never played that one and wanted to give it a try. They came in just fine, the old files from 2008/2009, so that was great. I was even able to convert my old spawning scripts I wrote way back.

After playing a bit I wanted to make some changes so I loaded up the XSP files in the 'Package Creator'. It seemed to load them fine. I made my changes and saved the file.

(Before exiting the game last, I deleted the instances of my custom ships. I am in a different vessel in-game).

I uninstalled the old xsp and reinstalled the new one. XPluginManager recognized the difference in version number I'd set so it was evident I'd selected the right one I'd just saved.

However, loading the game and scripting the ship in again - it's 'blank' .. like 'not there'. Also, the number of guns has apparently 'doubled', but they are not all usable in game.. stops after 12.

The lower pane of the package creator shows there are files 'within it'. I didn't modify any of that when I loaded the file.

Anyone got any hints on how to get them working again with the new editor so I can continue to tweak them?

Thanks.


PS: It's great to see this forum still active

[Delphis]

To follow up on this, I was able to get it working again.

I had run through the XSPConvert again for the ships I was interested in. Then re-saved from the Creator (*without* editing the TShips part / Ship Data this time) - and it worked.

I then pored over the ship data part relating to the guns. For some reason the number of 'guns' was doubled because of a secondary body selection ( that was there on the original tships but maybe not used?). Strangely that secondary body was not actually within the bod scene and so was not selectable when I went to edit that part, but it did exist within the files for the ship.

Once I removed that secondary body though, the number of guns was correct. I saved it and it then loaded in game. I don't know why an apparently 'wrong' ship worked from the saved file from 2009 but re-saving it meant something was reevaluating to 'not being correct' (older X3 games a bit more forgiving?)

Anyway.. I just wanted to report my findings in case anyone else tries to resurrect their old stuff and has issues with the new tools.

Big thanks to those that made and improved the tools (Cycrow et al) !

[Delphis]

Possibly spoke too soon ... I got it 'working' as in the ship turned up again, but the guns don't work

Has anyone come across this kind of thing before when modding ships in the later editions of the programs (I'm using 1.32 of the 'Package Creator') ? If so, how did you fix it?

[Delphis]

Ended up getting the TShips from the original entry and manually editing in Excel and Notepad++ aka doing it the old fashioned way .. Ship works fine now in game

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Guess it's a bug in the Package Creator 'customize' part.

[XenonArchitect7]

You should probably check out X3Editor2 by doubleshadow: viewtopic.php?t=244283

Most of us who work on X3 mods in 2020 use this instead. It certainly helps when editing TShips.

[Delphis]

Thanks for the suggestion

I had tried to use it to open the XSP files and it wasn't working so I gave up with it.

Seems to be pretty good for editing the file. Doesn't give any UI indication of what is read only or not but it'll get the job done by the looks of it. Thanks