A new problem from an OOOLD player... :|

[Bertone]

Hello, guys!
Maybe the oldEST players here remember me, I was here some years ago, and now I'm back... I made the mistake to reinstall Terran Conflict and BANG! The modder (wannabe) in me woke up!

So I re-started to work on a mod I thought was LOST into some forgotten hard drive, and it's ok, but I wanted to put some other stuff into it, and... NOTHING IS WORKING!

I added new ships (TShips, Components, Dummies are ok, I don't use the XSP app) downloaded from the most trusted modders here, but what I have is the old ships in my previous mod perfectly showing up in game and XModels3DViewer, while EVERY SINGLE new ship or station doesn't show up at all.

I checked TShips, TDocks and TFactories, and all the references to scene files are ok, so I checked the scene files, and they point to the right bodies... The most curious thing is that when I try to open the bodies with XModels3DViewer it visualizes them correctly so apparently the bodies are ok too, but the scenes included in the mod are not working.

Now... I remember I found myself in the same situation years ago, but I remember there was a reason, and of course a solution. Is there any OLD modder here who can help me?

Maybe a troubleshooting method to seek and destroy what's wrong? Something like "it's obvious, you idiot... You forgot to do THIS!"

Thanks in advance for the help, guys!

[Bertone]

Hmmm... Nobody?

[Bertone]

Sorry to insist, guys... I've explored the forum for days now, and I found no posts about a problem like this.

Can you please help me to find a cause and a possible solution?

[Cycrow]

i take it that its the new ships that you have added that arn't showing up ?

how did you add the new ships, just by editing the TShips file ?

the most likly reason they are not showing up would be which tships file you edited, and where you put it.

there can be multiple files, but only 1 of them is loaded, if that one isn't the one you edited, then your changes wont appear.

do you have a mod file enables, .cat/.dat file in the mods directory, thats enabled via the launcher

do you have any TShips.pck or TShips.txt files in the types directory in the game.

and where did you save your edited file to?

[Bertone]

Greetings, Cycrow. Thanks for your answer, I really appreciate it.

Yes, the "new" ships (and stations) aren't showing up; I used quotes because they aren't really new, they were on my old HD and stayed there for years.

I edited the TShips, TDocks and TFactories files (.txt then converted to .pck using X3 Editor 2), adding the new ones to the end of it (again with T File Editor from X3 Editor 2).

I added the scene files and bodies to my .cat (.bod became .pbd and .bob stayed .bob), a false patch one, and all the entries in T files are right, and the scenes point to the right .bob files (right directories and subdirectories).

There are no T*.txt files in any directory of the game, my edited files are saved in a separate HD partition.

With the XModels3DViewer app I can see every single "old" ship (and station) I added to the mod years ago, and they show up in game too; nothing appears when I try to load one of the "new" ones.
If I open the .bob files the scene files are pointing at everything is fine and I can see the ship or the station (or more often parts of a station), it's like the scene files fail to point at the right bodies, but the paths are correct...

What could I be doing wrong? I'm really getting crazy, pls help me...

[Cycrow]

do you have a mod that you are using in the mods directory (rather than a fake patch)?

if so, then if that has TShips in it, it will be the one thats used, so you need to save your edited file in that mod

if not, make sure when you save TShips that its in the highest numbered fake patch, as they are loaded in order.

you could also leave the TShips file in game directory in the types folder, this one is loaded ahead of fake patches

[Joubarbe]

Fake patches should be used in production, not in development. Extract your files into the types folder like Cycrow said, and test them like that. That way, you are absolutely positive that they're going to be loaded after everything else (meaning they have priority).

[Bertone]

Thanks again for the answers.

No, I don't have any other mod or T file in Types directory. But I'll try to do what you say and let you know.

[Retiredman]

oldEST players here remember me,

I challenge the age thingie..

I think I can claim the Oldest player....



Let's start...

Nobody under 60 is allowed...

(Hey even old people need games too)

I'm out if you can claim the over 70 group...

[Bertone]

Nobody under 60 is allowed...

You won, man!


Ok, I tried to re-create a new mod, placed it into the "mods" directory and activated it, but nothing changed, apparently, except that XModels3DViewer doesn't see the files in mods stored into that directory.

So I renamed and moved it to the main directory as a false patch again, but this way something changed: "new" ships are again not visualized, but a couple of "new" stations give me the "out of memory" error (which I don't think is real, I have 32Gb).

Does it mean anything? I am pretty sure the game uses the TShips, TDocks and TFactories files from my mod, because when I remove it everything is vanilla (and of course everything works fine): no new ships, no new stations, no new names (I renamed some of the ships/stations) and so no.

Could the "new" objects be created for X3R or AP and I need to do something before I use them into TC? Or could they have anything to do with custom shaders or effects I didn't include in the .cat?

[Cycrow]

how are you actually checking if the new ships are in the game ?

the easiest would be to install the cehat scripts if you havn't already, then use the create ship functions.

this will give you a list of ships that the game can see.

its possible that its also a text error, so also look for any ships named ReadText-##-####

[Bertone]

Yes, I use a cheat script downloaded here to spawn ships in game. I have some working ones with the "ReadText" name (because for some of them I edited the text file, but not for other ones), but for the new ones no matter if I use a known text or not, they're not showing up, I see the little transparent square...

The symptoms are those of scene files pointing to wrong bodies, or maybe a TShips/Docks/Factories pointing to wrong scene files, but every path is correct. Can a T file or a scene file be somewhat... I don't know... Corrupted? Is there a way to diagnose that?

[Cycrow]

ah so the ships are listed in the game, but just not rendering ?

then its most likely something to do with your scene or model files.
it could be that they are in the wrong place.

what game is this for, TC or AP ?

if its AP, then dont put the model/scene files in the addon directory, these go into the same directory as TC.

also make sure they are inside the objects directory, and the rest of the directory structure matches whats in TShips

[Bertone]

The game is TC, and the ships and stations are all in objects/ships and objects/stations, the T files point to the right paths (without the "objects").

I'm really going crazy, everything seems correct but nothing is working as it should...

[Bertone]

Ok, I think I figured out where's the problem.

Sometimes, when importing a file into the .cat with X3 Editor 2 the program freezes for some seconds, and it's like the importing process fails. I don't know if it's a bug or if it just happens with Win10 or just to me...

What's wrong is that the .cat gets somehow "corrupted", and no matter how many times I try to import the file(s) again, overwriting or deleting the previous version, the entire .cat is apparently screwed.

Recreating another .cat file (if this issue doesn't happen again) everything works fine. Is there any known X3 Editor 2 issue like this, as far as you know?

[Cycrow]

its not an issue i've come across, but its possible something is interferring with the disk writting process. Things like anti-virus can sometimes cause problems like this, as well as windows itself not behaving correctly.

[Bertone]

I don't use any antivirus, but I'm pretty sure Windows 10 interferes with something, as it does with other programs... I should reinstall an older OS, but I have ZERO willpower in these days...

Anyway I started backupping the .cats after every modification, so I'm sure they will work.

Thanks, Cycrow (and everyone else)!