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A pirates faction

A alien faction

Another main faction

A unknown faction (Post suggestion)

[Upgradecap]

Thanks for that big explanation, but how do you actully set the weapons on a specific ship, and how do you make your own weapons?

[mendonca]

You set your weapons for the ships in the .variant files.

New weapons are made in a similar fashion to new ships, there is the base weapon sprites (hardpoint, turret, animation sprites / glow sprites as required), a weapon info file, a projectile data file and a weapon_data.csv defining the basic gameplay parameters.

Best thing I would say is to experiment (start simple, if you are struggling to grasp the concepts of the mod structure etc.), and refer to the existing mods other people have done, as well as the simple examples listed in the thread Alex started.

[Upgradecap]

how do you actully create a variaint file of a ship and how do you edit it? (sorry, i'm a complete greenie on this stuff)

[mendonca]

Best thing I find is to take an existing one and copy it, creating a new file. Rename the file to your_ship_name.variant, and then work with that as a basis.

You should open it using your favourite text editor. Something like Notepad ++ or SciTE do me okay. They are like normal text editors (e.g. notepad) but allow for dynamic formatting of code. It makes it much easier to comprehend the files, and subsequently edit it.

If you use the Example 2 mod files, as provided by Alex in the previous link, then use that as a basis, editing the ship files contained within (based around the addition of a Red Tempest) that should give you a flavour of what is going on.

e.g. a part of the code of the ex2_red_tempest.ship file reads like this:

        {
            "angle": 260,
            "arc": 235,
            "id": "WS 002",
            "locations": [
                -4,
                -17
            ],
            "mount": "TURRET",
            "size": "MEDIUM",
            "type": "ENERGY"
        },

This is referring to the weapon mount WS002, it has a stated angle (direction the gun points by default), a coverage arc, and id, a location (see the link to Trylobots thread for more info on these coordinates) and it is a medium sized energy turret. Fomratting, commas, semicolons, bracket types and locations etc. are very important in these types of files, so try and stay consistent.

If you look in the corresponding ex2_red_tempest_Attack.variant file, you can see what weapon is assigned to the Attack variant of the Red Tempest to weapon slot WS002. It will probably be a graviton beam or a pulse laser, but it could feasibly be a mining blaster, or a heavy burst laser or something. Note the weapon is given it's 'code' as dictated in the weapon data, so there might be a bit of cross-referencing needed, e.g. to discern what the ID for an IR Pulse Laser is, but with a bit of digging it should all become clearer and clearer ...

[Upgradecap]

But dosen't Redbull's ship editor already provide this, in an simpler format than manually editing your variant codes, but as i can see, it's pretty much the same, right?

[Upgradecap]

I seem to get a path to sprite problem everytime i load up the game (with my mod which has only a single ship in it) Anyone who can help me with this?

[arcibalde]

Open .ship file. It's in the hulls dir and find this section: "spriteName" after that you have path/to sprite, you have to delete "path/to/sprite" and put your's path starting from graphics dir like this: "spriteName":"graphics/prvi_mod/ships/prvi_mod_orkan.png" This is ofc my sprite but dir structure must be same.

[Upgradecap]

I get this error when i try to look up my ship in the codex, it only shows a white square instead of the sprite, and when i try to click the variant of the ship in the game codex it says: Fatal: slot is null - make sure weapon slot id is correct. Any help?

[arcibalde]

Use this

http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=435.0

With it you can create .ship and .variant files. Best thing i can say to you is that you load some ships from there at botton of page you have search options under ship tab and see how it's done. It's to complex to explain like this.

[Upgradecap]

I know, i've already used that editor to make my ship, but i really don't know what's going on with the sprite, it's like the game refuses to even see it, and i don't draw that ugly

[arcibalde]

Well if error is : Slot is Null that means you dont have any weapons. Load any ship from there and see how did they name weapons. WS 001 is first. After that you must designate to all weapons slots what weapons is in there. Variant tab ->weapon group

[Upgradecap]

Now i have a different problem, how do you implement a ship into a mission (i've made My first ship, it's completely done Now i want to implement it into Alex's example mission.

[Upgradecap]

Alright, i've managed to implement my ship into the mission expect that the weapoons and engiens are on the right side of the sprite (completely off) and the shields are below the sprite whilst the sprite is to the right of the screen. anyone who can help me with this?

[Upgradecap]

Seriously, how do you put the coordinats for the spirte and weapons? and where are the coordinations (which line in the .ship file)

[arcibalde]

Starfarer ship editor.

GENERAL TAB

There you got:

Shield radius - need to be large enough so your ship is inside of it
Shield center - Put it in center of your ship (i think it's always 0,0) Or click in center and then click on button Set from clicked
Collision radius - i put that value large ash Shield radius but it can be bigger.

For engines you have ENGINES TAB.
You out little yellow "+" where you want your engine and then you click on SET FROM CLICKED to set coordinate of engine there.

For weapons you have HARDPOINTS TAB.