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Taldrenites => General Starfleet Command Forum => Topic started by: jdmckinney on January 17, 2003, 11:04:59 am

Title: SFC3 Ship Specs Modding Tutorial Available
Post by: jdmckinney on January 17, 2003, 11:04:59 am

For anyone who needs a little help learning how to modify the ship specs for SFC3, the SFCX site is now hosting "Engineering 402: Starship Design and Production" by yours truly. The tutorial is in PDF format, and zipped for easy download.

The tutorial runs through the basics of modifying existing ships and creating new ones. It teaches the basics by walking you through each step. The latter half of the tutorial helps you create a cloaking USS Defiant for single-player use.

Remember, if you edit any of the game files, including these ship specs, you may have problems playing the game in multiplayer modes. Please save backups of the original files, and be aware that you will need to swap your modified files and the default ones whenever going back and forth between mod play and multiplayer.

The same techniques will work for anyone hosting a server who wants to use a custom set of ship specs. However, if you modify the DefaultCore.txt, players who want to join your campaign will have to download the file.

Get the Engineering 402 tutorial from SFCX.

Included in the zip download are the two finished spec files you should end up with after completing the latter part of the tutorial. Feel free to compare your files with these if you get stuck.

If anyone needs to review the old Taldren forum topic replies, here's the thread.

Did You Find This Tutorial Helpful?
Yes
No
Need More Help

 

Title: Re: SFC3 Ship Specs Modding Tutorial Available
Post by: jdmckinney on January 20, 2003, 07:00:52 am

Bump up for new folks.  

Title: Re: SFC3 Ship Specs Modding Tutorial Available
Post by: mathcubeguy on January 20, 2003, 02:03:44 pm

I really am glad that you made this guide, its helping me greatly. Thank you.  

Title: Re: SFC3 Ship Specs Modding Tutorial Available
Post by: jdmckinney on January 21, 2003, 09:37:04 am

I'm glad you're finding it useful.

I did have someone email me with some questions. He ran into problems with typos and Excel doing strange things to the file (like tabbing in places you don't want it to). This is another reason to keep plenty of backups. Another issue is the game won't always load the modified specs in a new campaign. I've seen that since I first started editing the specs, but still haven't determined what causes it. He found success by switching races from one campaign to the next to clear things out. Perhaps the campaign creation process is "remembering" previous specs and not checking for new ones unless you change races. I find that odd, if true. Either way, try changing your campaign race or difficulty level to get the ships to appear before you go searching for typos or errors in the file.

Title: Re: SFC3 Ship Specs Modding Tutorial Available
Post by: carl boxer on January 21, 2003, 10:02:50 am

I'm downing loading and will let you know how it turned out. That is just the info I was looking for.

Title: Re: SFC3 Ship Specs Modding Tutorial Available
Post by: jdmckinney on January 22, 2003, 07:54:03 am

I've had a few people ask for clarifications or additional help lately. Feel free to post here or send email if you have questions.

Title: Re: SFC3 Ship Specs Modding Tutorial Available
Post by: jdmckinney on January 29, 2003, 09:13:02 am

Bumping up for those who need it.

Title: Re: SFC3 Ship Specs Modding Tutorial Available
Post by: jdmckinney on January 31, 2003, 06:52:55 am

Bump. Again.

Title: Re: SFC3 Ship Specs Modding Tutorial Available
Post by: jdmckinney on February 11, 2003, 02:13:40 pm

Whoa, let this slip pretty far back.

Bump.

Title: Re: SFC3 Ship Specs Modding Tutorial Available
Post by: Pestalence on February 11, 2003, 02:24:03 pm

ok so is anyone working on this issue for the upcoming patch?

37) Mixing of Tech Between races now no longer allowed by default.

in public beta, trying to add HP or weapon of a different race (including cloak) to 1 specific ship will make the game dump the ship model and list it in the invalidships.txt.

Just currious..

Title: Re: SFC3 Ship Specs Modding Tutorial Available
Post by: jdmckinney on February 12, 2003, 12:43:56 pm

You can have mixed tech in Conquest, storyline solo, or D3 campaigns, but NOT in GSA/skirmish games, as far as I can guess based on what Dave Ferrell has said in the past.

So, you'll be able to mix tech for campaigns, but no more cloaking Defiants on GSA.

As far as the mod tutorial goes, the steps are the same. You just need to find the right .gf file setting to change for campaigns.

Title: SFC3 Ship Specs Modding Tutorial Available
Post by: jdmckinney on January 17, 2003, 11:04:59 am

For anyone who needs a little help learning how to modify the ship specs for SFC3, the SFCX site is now hosting "Engineering 402: Starship Design and Production" by yours truly. The tutorial is in PDF format, and zipped for easy download.

The tutorial runs through the basics of modifying existing ships and creating new ones. It teaches the basics by walking you through each step. The latter half of the tutorial helps you create a cloaking USS Defiant for single-player use.

Remember, if you edit any of the game files, including these ship specs, you may have problems playing the game in multiplayer modes. Please save backups of the original files, and be aware that you will need to swap your modified files and the default ones whenever going back and forth between mod play and multiplayer.

The same techniques will work for anyone hosting a server who wants to use a custom set of ship specs. However, if you modify the DefaultCore.txt, players who want to join your campaign will have to download the file.

Get the Engineering 402 tutorial from SFCX.

Included in the zip download are the two finished spec files you should end up with after completing the latter part of the tutorial. Feel free to compare your files with these if you get stuck.

If anyone needs to review the old Taldren forum topic replies, here's the thread.

Did You Find This Tutorial Helpful?
Yes
No
Need More Help

 

Title: Re: SFC3 Ship Specs Modding Tutorial Available
Post by: jdmckinney on January 20, 2003, 07:00:52 am

Bump up for new folks.  

Title: Re: SFC3 Ship Specs Modding Tutorial Available
Post by: mathcubeguy on January 20, 2003, 02:03:44 pm

I really am glad that you made this guide, its helping me greatly. Thank you.  

Title: Re: SFC3 Ship Specs Modding Tutorial Available
Post by: jdmckinney on January 21, 2003, 09:37:04 am

I'm glad you're finding it useful.

I did have someone email me with some questions. He ran into problems with typos and Excel doing strange things to the file (like tabbing in places you don't want it to). This is another reason to keep plenty of backups. Another issue is the game won't always load the modified specs in a new campaign. I've seen that since I first started editing the specs, but still haven't determined what causes it. He found success by switching races from one campaign to the next to clear things out. Perhaps the campaign creation process is "remembering" previous specs and not checking for new ones unless you change races. I find that odd, if true. Either way, try changing your campaign race or difficulty level to get the ships to appear before you go searching for typos or errors in the file.

Title: Re: SFC3 Ship Specs Modding Tutorial Available
Post by: carl boxer on January 21, 2003, 10:02:50 am

I'm downing loading and will let you know how it turned out. That is just the info I was looking for.

Title: Re: SFC3 Ship Specs Modding Tutorial Available
Post by: jdmckinney on January 22, 2003, 07:54:03 am

I've had a few people ask for clarifications or additional help lately. Feel free to post here or send email if you have questions.

Title: Re: SFC3 Ship Specs Modding Tutorial Available
Post by: jdmckinney on January 29, 2003, 09:13:02 am

Bumping up for those who need it.

Title: Re: SFC3 Ship Specs Modding Tutorial Available
Post by: jdmckinney on January 31, 2003, 06:52:55 am

Bump. Again.

Title: Re: SFC3 Ship Specs Modding Tutorial Available
Post by: jdmckinney on February 11, 2003, 02:13:40 pm

Whoa, let this slip pretty far back.

Bump.

Title: Re: SFC3 Ship Specs Modding Tutorial Available
Post by: Pestalence on February 11, 2003, 02:24:03 pm

ok so is anyone working on this issue for the upcoming patch?

37) Mixing of Tech Between races now no longer allowed by default.

in public beta, trying to add HP or weapon of a different race (including cloak) to 1 specific ship will make the game dump the ship model and list it in the invalidships.txt.

Just currious..

Title: Re: SFC3 Ship Specs Modding Tutorial Available
Post by: jdmckinney on February 12, 2003, 12:43:56 pm

You can have mixed tech in Conquest, storyline solo, or D3 campaigns, but NOT in GSA/skirmish games, as far as I can guess based on what Dave Ferrell has said in the past.

So, you'll be able to mix tech for campaigns, but no more cloaking Defiants on GSA.

As far as the mod tutorial goes, the steps are the same. You just need to find the right .gf file setting to change for campaigns.