[IDEA] Mod-Library for Ship components/props/stuff

[Killjaeden]

Basically there are very few ships for X3TC. There are a couple of guys that want to build new ships but they are limited to vanillaressources when it comes to give their ships their components/props (hangars, turrets, laserdummies, radar,...). There are almost no new components modded so far. If someone makes new components they will be hardly used because of ???... maybe it's a bit inaccessible for (new) shipbuilders.

So here is the idea that could help to make it easier to add custom components AND make it easier to make different shipmods compatible and less difficult to merge (especially for 'lusers')

The mod (obviously a mod) would contain the meshes those components need + the Dummies.txt; Components.txt and CutData (afaik needed for internal hangars, didn't try to make one without it).
This mod would be compatible to any ship/station/whatever mod.

A shipbuilder who wants to add those components to his ship just needs to download this library and can add them by adressing the right path in the shipscene. When he releases the shipmod it only contains the bodyfiles and Tships.A player that wants to use this ship just needs to download the library.

Merging two Tships is pretty easy with the Editor, copy&paste.
The only thing someone can do is to place the new entry into the wrong place in the middle of the Tships.
Components and Dummies are more sensitive then Tships because they can easily break your whole game.

Patching the library to a new version is savegamecompatible if the files are handled correctly (by the author)

If a modeler wants to add a hangar/dockingdummy/turret/whatever he sends his bodyparts + the entry needed for Comp/Dummie-files + the settings for making the dummie functional in the Tships (e.g. as screenshot) to the author.

The author keeps track of the changes to components- and dummies- and cutdata-files. He has to test if everything works correctly before releasing a new version.

This also prevents that multiple mods add dockingdummies that serve the absolute same purpose (M5 docking, TS docking,...)

What do you think?

[apricotslice]

Good idea, as long as the player doesnt end up with a patch and a mod. That seems to confuse everyone. EMP is bad enough now.

But a modders mod, that stores all the extra stuff they can use, which they download and extract what they need from into their own mod is a good idea.

I assume that components and dummy work fine even if whats in them isnt present in the game ? If thats true, then they just need to be extracted as the base files for anything else the mod adds.

[Killjaeden]

Good idea, as long as the player doesnt end up with a patch and a mod. That seems to confuse everyone. EMP is bad enough now.

I don't see the problem.
You need a mod for certain parts of a ship.
The player has to download the required version for the mod and that's it.
Install as fakepatch.

Imo if you describe exactly how they should install this and why they need this it doesn't confuse them. The word 'information' is the important thing. What does this base-mod, why shouldn't it be included in mods, etc.

I assume that components and dummy work fine even if whats in them isnt present in the game ? If thats true, then they just need to be extracted as the base files for anything else the mod adds.

Yeah that's right.
i didn't try if it does matter (to a savegame) if you have them in different order in the components/dummiefile(e.g. saved with order a,b,c - loaded with b,a,c)
but it doesn't matter if the files you need for those dummies exist.

But a modders mod, that stores all the extra stuff they can use, which they download and extract what they need from into their own mod is a good idea.

Well that's not my idea because then modders would still include components/dummies in their files + turretmodels and that stuff.
possibly with their own entries in both files.
It would be pointless to create a 'global' version of those files for better compatibility if everyone changes them how they want them to be.

And (maybe this sounds a bit strange) if you """"force"""" modders to use this base-mod (if they want to include new ship-props) this base-mod gets more attention
which helps the project to keep it alive (doesn't has any use if only a handfull of people know of this project and if no one uses this) and somehow to get a 'standard' (to reach the maingoal -> more variety and options + greater compatibility + ease of use)

[Cycrow]

the problem i see is that users are still only going to be able to use 1 ship mod at a time, so having a few common files isn't really going to help. As the mods can simply include thier own componants/dummies to work.

most users are not going to know, nor want to start trying to merge TShips to get multiple ship mods. And of course, if your doing this, you also need to merge TCockpits, for any ships that have custom cockpit entries, and make sure you adjust the references to the cockpits to match the merged file.

and of course, adjusting the text and description ids, as chances are, if you dont have a common list of used description ids for ships, you are bound to get multiple ships using the same id, which would need to be changed in both TShips and the text files.

for a modders point of view, it could be of some use, but it will only be of limited use for the users.

These problems are exactly the reason i created the Ship Installer to do all this automatically

[Killjaeden]

hm...

These problems are exactly the reason i created the Ship Installer to do all this automatically

does it merge components and dummies?
if there would be a TC version a library-mod would be (almost) obsolete.

If modders don't act in concert (presumably, it's natural) it doesn't help much so i won't try to start something like this.

The game has more potential in terms of 'graphical alternation' and who-knows if ES had more time for X3R we could have race-stations, turrets, hangars, ...
But we don't have. Modders can fill the gap but most effords seem to go to the realization of non-X Sci-Fi-series-ships instead of improving the great game *shrug*
ok bit OT but that's the way i think

[Cycrow]

hm...

These problems are exactly the reason i created the Ship Installer to do all this automatically

does it merge components and dummies?
if there would be a TC version a library-mod would be (almost) obsolete.

If modders don't act in concert (presumably, it's natural) it doesn't help much so i won't try to start something like this.

The game has more potential in terms of 'graphical alternation' and who-knows if ES had more time for X3R we could have race-stations, turrets, hangars, ...
But we don't have. Modders can fill the gap but most effords seem to go to the realization of non-X Sci-Fi-series-ships instead of improving the great game *shrug*
ok bit OT but that's the way i think

it does do components and dummies yeah, as well as TCockpits. And it will do Cutdata as well.

it also solves the problems of using the ships in scripts, as scripts references the position in TShips to use ship types, if you try to merge TShips, then any scripts you want to use will have to be adjusted as well.

the TC version will be available soon, infact the current plugin manager lite is already capable of installing ships

[TheLastHero]

my problem with getting ships into TC is I have no idea how to do it, I have ships I have textures, I have gmax and I have shadows tools

but modding for X3 seems to require you to bend over backwards and screw yourself up the ass.

I had an easier time editin Titan quest models with a Hex Editor then I do trying to get a model into X3 games.

Not to mention gmax has decided to stop working...

The real problem I see is that compoent parts will have diffrent textures and you will need to cut and paste textures.

To get around this you would need to make texture files into a grid format, and assign each peice its own grid, then people could merge texture files by using layers of each grid.