Built myself a simple little java program to extract ship variants from a saved game and convert them into .variant files suitable for inclusion in a mod.
Why is this useful? It means you can use the in-game editor - which is quite helpful if you want to, say, design a variant that could be legally designed by someone with some specific set of skills. (How many ordnance points does an onslaught have when you have level four technology aptitude? I don't know, and have no interest in doing the calculations myself.)
Anyway. To use, compile the provided code, then run it; it takes a single command line argument, which is the path to the campaign.xml file for the saved game you want to extract variants from. It generates a set of .variant files stored in the saved game folder; you can then move those wherever.
Yeah, I could clean it up some - provide command line help, maybe package it into a jar with a basic UI so you don't need to worry about compiling it yourself - but, eh. Made this for my own use; I may do some of that work later if there's enough outside interest.
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