[MOD] XPANed Sectors

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Aranov
Posts: 134
Joined: Mon, 3. Jun 13, 23:08
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Re: [MOD] XPANed Sectors

Post by Aranov » Fri, 9. Aug 19, 14:18

Just wanted to chime in, I'm fine with privately used edits, especially if there are errors preventing the mod from working at this early stage.
I may not be able to help with those edits, or debug any future issues caused by said edits, but if you have the knowledge to make them, that is fine.

In the case for this mesh, It maybe a left over from when I was messing around trying to customize the planet appearances.
I'll remove the MD in a future update, was wondering if it was really needed.

Steve_V, I'm sorry for the issues you found, and thank you for taking time to look into them. I'll take a deeper look this weekend.

As for loose files, I can provide them, with the next update. My issue with loose files however is the debuglog screaming about missing .sig files.
I assume those are "signature" files, used by the game for the modified tag.

And to everyone, I apologize for any issues. Things worked well enough for me, but there's always another error around the corner.
I'm not going to be able to address things today, working on a project with a deadline, but as I said this weekend I'll comb out as many issues as I can.

Vectorial1024
Posts: 222
Joined: Mon, 30. Jul 18, 04:16
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Re: [MOD] XPANed Sectors

Post by Vectorial1024 » Fri, 9. Aug 19, 16:05

While we wait for further updates, I'd like to suggest something: to use GitHub (or GitLab?) to store the loose files, and to provide the catalog files as the front-end release files.

This way, users can load the files without the sig file error messages (supposedly), and interested people like us can just go to the repo and skip the unpack processes.

That's how I do it with my mods anyway.
The future awaits.

X4 Foundations mods:
Civilian Fleets: Managing your civilian ships has never been easier.
Station Logistics: Managing your station networks has never been easier.
Scrap Delivery Coordination: No more starving scrap processors.

steve_v
Posts: 159
Joined: Sun, 12. Jun 16, 08:39
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Re: [MOD] XPANed Sectors

Post by steve_v » Fri, 9. Aug 19, 17:32

Aranov wrote:
Fri, 9. Aug 19, 14:18
Steve_V, I'm sorry for the issues you found, and thank you for taking time to look into them. I'll take a deeper look this weekend.
No need for any apologies, I'm grateful for the free shiny. :)
The only issue that actually causes any problems in-game (at least on GNU/Linux) is a stupidly easy to fix packaging SNAFU anyway.

Aranov wrote:
Fri, 9. Aug 19, 14:18
My issue with loose files however is the debuglog screaming about missing .sig files.
I assume those are "signature" files, used by the game for the modified tag.
I know, right? I don't know what clown at egosoft decided to treat the modding community to this error-spew. Probably the same who thought utterly broken handling of case-sensitive filesystems was "good enough". :roll:

And yes, that's exactly what they are. Why those errors couldn't be suppressed in favour of just printing "file not signed, save will be marked modified" at game-startup is beyond me. GNU sed on the cleanup crew as usual.

Aranov wrote:
Fri, 9. Aug 19, 14:18
I'm not going to be able to address things today, working on a project with a deadline, but as I said this weekend I'll comb out as many issues as I can.
No rush, it's working fine.

Vectorial1024
Posts: 222
Joined: Mon, 30. Jul 18, 04:16
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Re: [MOD] XPANed Sectors

Post by Vectorial1024 » Fri, 9. Aug 19, 19:44

--- Message Retracted ---
Original Message
Show
steve_v wrote:
Fri, 9. Aug 19, 17:32
I know, right? I don't know what clown at egosoft decided to treat the modding community to this error-spew. Probably the same who thought utterly broken handling of case-sensitive filesystems was "good enough".

And yes, that's exactly what they are. Why those errors couldn't be suppressed in favour of just printing "file not signed, save will be marked modified" at game-startup is beyond me. GNU sed on the cleanup crew as usual.
Well I'd be damn well satisfied when I am allowing any pair of cat/dat files for loading and when I never checked them. Security sure is something easily expendable and unimportant for the modern 2019 folks. Who cares when somehow the packing goes wrong and the file goes corrupted, and got loaded into weird machine code, potentially deleting /System32 and wiping the entire Windows file system? It's the end user's fault anyway, they must have been downloading strange mods from strange places.

Just a note: in X Rebirth, EgoSoft loaded mod files that are not packed in cat/dat pairs without spewing any errors. I guess not knowing the dangers behind signature files sure is truly blissful for everyone, including the developers themselves.

Oh god. Why.
Spoiler
Show
sarcasm lol h8ers gon h8
Last edited by Vectorial1024 on Fri, 9. Aug 19, 21:28, edited 1 time in total.
The future awaits.

X4 Foundations mods:
Civilian Fleets: Managing your civilian ships has never been easier.
Station Logistics: Managing your station networks has never been easier.
Scrap Delivery Coordination: No more starving scrap processors.

teleportationwars
Posts: 158
Joined: Fri, 12. Jul 19, 14:03

Re: [MOD] XPANed Sectors

Post by teleportationwars » Fri, 9. Aug 19, 20:30

Vectorial1024 wrote:
Fri, 9. Aug 19, 19:44
steve_v wrote:
Fri, 9. Aug 19, 17:32
I know, right? I don't know what clown at egosoft decided to treat the modding community to this error-spew. Probably the same who thought utterly broken handling of case-sensitive filesystems was "good enough".

And yes, that's exactly what they are. Why those errors couldn't be suppressed in favour of just printing "file not signed, save will be marked modified" at game-startup is beyond me. GNU sed on the cleanup crew as usual.
Well I'd be damn well satisfied when I am allowing any pair of cat/dat files for loading and when I never checked them. Security sure is something easily expendable and unimportant for the modern 2019 folks. Who cares when somehow the packing goes wrong and the file goes corrupted, and got loaded into weird machine code, potentially deleting /System32 and wiping the entire Windows file system? It's the end user's fault anyway, they must have been downloading strange mods from strange places.

Just a note: in X Rebirth, EgoSoft loaded mod files that are not packed in cat/dat pairs without spewing any errors. I guess not knowing the dangers behind signature files sure is truly blissful for everyone, including the developers themselves.

Oh god. Why.
Spoiler
Show
sarcasm lol h8ers gon h8
Pretty sure you have completely misunderstood what a sig error is. What's with that spoiler?

Vectorial1024
Posts: 222
Joined: Mon, 30. Jul 18, 04:16
x4

Re: [MOD] XPANed Sectors

Post by Vectorial1024 » Fri, 9. Aug 19, 21:16

Whoops. After a quick check, it seems that sig files have nothing to do with my usual understanding of "signatures". Packing things inside cat/dat pairs did not resolve the sig file errors.
Spoiler
Show
Excuse me for being blunt, but the way steve_v speaks... it just triggers me. He really sounds like that childhood hater that I unfortunately acquainted with and couldn't get away from, who acted all fabulous and aggressive and stuff, breaking the rules, even breaking my heart once.

Well, go on and report me for hate speech, but that really was what I felt like.
I must have caused quite some disturbances in this thread, so allow me to take my leave from here. And banish me far from this thread.
The future awaits.

X4 Foundations mods:
Civilian Fleets: Managing your civilian ships has never been easier.
Station Logistics: Managing your station networks has never been easier.
Scrap Delivery Coordination: No more starving scrap processors.

steve_v
Posts: 159
Joined: Sun, 12. Jun 16, 08:39
x4

Re: [MOD] XPANed Sectors

Post by steve_v » Sat, 10. Aug 19, 04:36

Vectorial1024 wrote:
Fri, 9. Aug 19, 19:44
Security sure is something easily expendable and unimportant for the modern 2019 folks. Who cares when somehow the packing goes wrong and the file goes corrupted, and got loaded into weird machine code, potentially deleting /System32 and wiping the entire Windows file system?
Signature checks in X4 (and most other games for that matter) have nothing to do with security. They're usually used for anti-cheat measures, or in this case to detect files not signed by egosoft and apply the "modified" tag.
If a mod wipes system32, you've got bigger issues - i.e. WFP isn't doing it's job.
Vectorial1024 wrote:
Fri, 9. Aug 19, 19:44
It's the end user's fault anyway, they must have been downloading strange mods from strange places.
If the end-user runs random code from the internet with admin privileges, there's very little the system can do about it. Heuristic malware detection is becoming a thing, but engineering can only go so far in fixing user behaviour.
The alternative is to only ever run signed code from "trusted" vendors, and then you end up in the "who is trustworthy" bramble patch.

Do you trust J. Random modder and accept his signing key? How do you know the .sig itself hasn't been tampered with? How about we require all mods to be vetted by egosoft and signed with their keys? Better to just print a warning and leave it to the user to decide IMO, the trust-chain rabbit hole is deep.


Vectorial1024 wrote:
Fri, 9. Aug 19, 19:44
lol h8ers gon h8
Childish much?
Vectorial1024 wrote:
Fri, 9. Aug 19, 21:16
Excuse me for being blunt, but the way steve_v speaks... it just triggers me. He really sounds like that childhood hater that I unfortunately acquainted with and couldn't get away from, who acted all fabulous and aggressive and stuff, breaking the rules, even breaking my heart once.
What the...?
Please, this thread is for discussion of the XPANed Sectors mod, not venting of unresolved childhood trauma.
Vectorial1024 wrote:
Fri, 9. Aug 19, 21:16
I must have caused quite some disturbances in this thread, so allow me to take my leave from here.
Thanks to your continued efforts to derail it into attacking me, this thread has now devolved into the patently absurd.
"Whoops" is not an apology, and frankly I feel I deserve one at this point. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

raim729
Posts: 157
Joined: Mon, 17. Dec 18, 16:21
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Re: [MOD] XPANed Sectors

Post by raim729 » Mon, 19. Aug 19, 16:59

Hello ,

Nopileos' fortune no Gates?
Silent witness XI no Gates?

How can that be?

Vectorial1024
Posts: 222
Joined: Mon, 30. Jul 18, 04:16
x4

Re: [MOD] XPANed Sectors

Post by Vectorial1024 » Thu, 22. Aug 19, 13:55

raim729 wrote:
Mon, 19. Aug 19, 16:59
Hello ,

Nopileos' fortune no Gates?
Silent witness XI no Gates?

How can that be?
Let me finally be constructive here dammit.

Aranov, your mod still got some problems.

Let's take the example of the galaxy.xml file that your mod contains. This should make the discussion less vague.

I unpacked the mod a few days ago, and realized a critical error. (Quite fundamental, to be honest.) The galaxy.xml file is placed as /xpan/xpan/maps/xu_ep2_universe/galaxy.xml !!! Now let's compare this against the usual content.xml file. This content.xml file is placed as /xpan/content.xml !!!

I'm not sure how the mod was packed, but seeing that only the content.xml got placed in the correct place, I am thinking either Nexus/Vortex intelligently extracts the content.xml out towards the open or the entire mod is packed incorrectly.

Still, Aranov, if you are reading this, you do not need to further nest your contents inside an additional layer of /xpan folder. The game will fail to locate *any* of your new/patching files, unless you plan to change references in the index.xml from "extensions/xpan/..." to "extensions/xpan/xpan/...", but then it would be messy as you now have both "[base directory]/maps/xu_ep2_universe" and "[base directory]/xpan/maps/xu_ep2_universe" to manage.
The future awaits.

X4 Foundations mods:
Civilian Fleets: Managing your civilian ships has never been easier.
Station Logistics: Managing your station networks has never been easier.
Scrap Delivery Coordination: No more starving scrap processors.

LucianDragos
Posts: 39
Joined: Wed, 28. Mar 12, 00:29
x4

Re: [MOD] XPANed Sectors

Post by LucianDragos » Thu, 29. Aug 19, 03:23

Vectorial1024 wrote:
Thu, 22. Aug 19, 13:55
raim729 wrote:
Mon, 19. Aug 19, 16:59
Hello ,

Nopileos' fortune no Gates?
Silent witness XI no Gates?

How can that be?
Let me finally be constructive here dammit.

Aranov, your mod still got some problems.

Let's take the example of the galaxy.xml file that your mod contains. This should make the discussion less vague.

I unpacked the mod a few days ago, and realized a critical error. (Quite fundamental, to be honest.) The galaxy.xml file is placed as /xpan/xpan/maps/xu_ep2_universe/galaxy.xml !!! Now let's compare this against the usual content.xml file. This content.xml file is placed as /xpan/content.xml !!!

I'm not sure how the mod was packed, but seeing that only the content.xml got placed in the correct place, I am thinking either Nexus/Vortex intelligently extracts the content.xml out towards the open or the entire mod is packed incorrectly.

Still, Aranov, if you are reading this, you do not need to further nest your contents inside an additional layer of /xpan folder. The game will fail to locate *any* of your new/patching files, unless you plan to change references in the index.xml from "extensions/xpan/..." to "extensions/xpan/xpan/...", but then it would be messy as you now have both "[base directory]/maps/xu_ep2_universe" and "[base directory]/xpan/maps/xu_ep2_universe" to manage.

Thank you for this post.. I unpacked the mod and am using it as loose files cutting out the extra folder atm, and it is working great now

-EposOne-
Posts: 72
Joined: Sun, 28. Sep 08, 10:30
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Re: [MOD] XPANed Sectors

Post by -EposOne- » Mon, 9. Dec 19, 19:21

Hi all
Is this been fixed now? on Nexus the .4 is up but installing it still shows no gates and no new sectors.
Could maybe a modder link the loose files at least which have been fixed, I am unfamiliar with extracting cat dat file extensions. thanks and great work Aranov for this mod
Cheers

Misunderstood Wookie
Posts: 377
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Re: [MOD] XPANed Sectors

Post by Misunderstood Wookie » Fri, 13. Dec 19, 09:26

You can also apply overrides using sub_ext01 naming.
You may also provide extension dependency and load order using the content.xml
*modified*
*X3 LiteCube User*
MOD GemFX Real Space Shaders
MOD Variety and Rebalance Overhaul Icon Pack
I lost my Hans and should not be flying Solo.
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steve_v
Posts: 159
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Re: [MOD] XPANed Sectors

Post by steve_v » Sat, 14. Dec 19, 11:37

See nexus for 3.0/SV update.
Last edited by steve_v on Mon, 6. Apr 20, 19:06, edited 3 times in total.

Aranov
Posts: 134
Joined: Mon, 3. Jun 13, 23:08
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Re: [MOD] XPANed Sectors

Post by Aranov » Wed, 1. Apr 20, 13:28

Hey all, sorry about the lack of support. Real life took over, and didn't return to x4 till recently.
Did a quick update to the mod, as at least one new sector over lapped. Should be save compatible.

I'm also hereby granting permission to freely modify, as I can't guarantee further support.
Again, I apologize for any inconvenience. In fact, it feels a little embarrassing how many have had problems.

steve_v
Posts: 159
Joined: Sun, 12. Jun 16, 08:39
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Re: [MOD] XPANed Sectors

Post by steve_v » Mon, 6. Apr 20, 19:04

Aranov wrote:
Wed, 1. Apr 20, 13:28
Did a quick update to the mod, as at least one new sector over lapped. Should be save compatible.
Much appreciated. :D
I'll remove my link above to reduce confusion.

X2return
Posts: 363
Joined: Sat, 19. Nov 05, 22:54
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Re: [MOD] XPANed Sectors

Post by X2return » Wed, 7. Oct 20, 02:25

Hi there,
is it somehow possible to remove this mod temporarily from my savegame? I'm using many mods and f.e. it seems that Scavengers prefer to live in that sectors and build all their stations there.
Another mod crashed the scavengers so i have to restart them. I thought loading without that two mods will easily remove the additional content in these sectors - like it works with ventures offline - but it doesn't.

Can you help me?
Greets
X2return

Edit:
My question doesn't matter any more. These days I've seen, that many people have the same problem - it's a bug within the scavengers-MOD.
Thanks anyway for reading :)

ziplock815
Posts: 296
Joined: Wed, 8. Oct 14, 20:30

Re: [MOD] XPANed Sectors

Post by ziplock815 » Sat, 24. Oct 20, 17:41

Anybody knows how do I remove asteroid fields (or at least make them less dense) from new sectors? I like this mod, but can't play with it because of low FPS in some sectors with lots of asteroids and debris (my CPU is rather old).

FlynTie
Posts: 36
Joined: Wed, 12. Dec 18, 01:42

Re: [MOD] XPANed Sectors

Post by FlynTie » Sat, 24. Oct 20, 18:40

ziplock815 wrote:
Sat, 24. Oct 20, 17:41
Anybody knows how do I remove asteroid fields (or at least make them less dense) from new sectors? I like this mod, but can't play with it because of low FPS in some sectors with lots of asteroids and debris (my CPU is rather old).
Check out "Asteroid Fade-in" & "Reduce Fog Density" by SirNukes. Both mods help a lot with keeping the frames up in dense sectors.

Aranov
Posts: 134
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Re: [MOD] XPANed Sectors

Post by Aranov » Tue, 27. Oct 20, 00:42

ziplock815 wrote:
Sat, 24. Oct 20, 17:41
Anybody knows how do I remove asteroid fields (or at least make them less dense) from new sectors? I like this mod, but can't play with it because of low FPS in some sectors with lots of asteroids and debris (my CPU is rather old).
Hey,

So I doubt another mod will fully fix this, as I added my own fields, rather then reuse the vanilla ones.

So to lower or change, extract the cat file, and in \libraries, look for region_definitions.xml. There are some defs I made but didn't use, but others are in use.
To remove, you want to go to \maps, clusters.xml, and look for example <region ref="xpan_station" />

ziplock815
Posts: 296
Joined: Wed, 8. Oct 14, 20:30

Re: [MOD] XPANed Sectors

Post by ziplock815 » Wed, 28. Oct 20, 02:31

Much thanks for answers)

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