Questions here: an inquiry thread! [Updated Sep 15th, 2014]

[TaxiService]

Let's see... these are the last settings i used for a miniship.



The blend mode shouldn't actually do anything in this case, so don't mind that.
An interesting thing to experiment with would be the Contour graph. Editing it can alter the look of the glow quite significantly. Check it out!

[Fantasysci5]

Thanks for helping! It seems to be working, I just had two questions (one pretty straightforward, and another has me scratching my head). One is, what file would I edit to rename the ships that are attacking (like in the right hand corner when it says Rebel Scout, Relationship:Hostile). The 2nd question is, when I try to head to a specific spot (not when I try to change sectors), it crashes to my desktop and says, "Assertion failed! File:src/rapidxml/rapidxml.hpp, expression:text, line:1383". I can't find a xml file called rapid, so I'm not sure what to change. I can go back into the game, continue, and go to a different spot just fine, but if I try to go back to that specific one, I get the same message.

Any help would be much appreciated, I'm sorry to bother.

[Biohazard063]

Thanks for helping! It seems to be working, I just had two questions (one pretty straightforward, and another has me scratching my head). One is, what file would I edit to rename the ships that are attacking (like in the right hand corner when it says Rebel Scout, Relationship:Hostile). The 2nd question is, when I try to head to a specific spot (not when I try to change sectors), it crashes to my desktop and says, "Assertion failed! File:src/rapidxml/rapidxml.hpp, expression:text, line:1383". I can't find a xml file called rapid, so I'm not sure what to change. I can go back into the game, continue, and go to a different spot just fine, but if I try to go back to that specific one, I get the same message.

Any help would be much appreciated, I'm sorry to bother.

The enemy ship names are located in the blueprints.xml, think you can edit those from there.

Can't help you with the second question though.

Got a question of my own for everyone though :
Will this code add the weapon with the blueprint name "ION_8" to the autoblueprints list of ion weapons? If I put it in an autoBlueprints.xml.append naturally...

Code: Select all

<mod:findName type="blueprintList" name="WEAPONS_ION">
   <mod-append:name>ION_8</mod-append:name>
</mod:findName>

Pretty sure it will, but I haven't used that SMM tag yet.
And I'm getting pretty annoyed by myself that I still have to copy the entire blueprint list that I need and add my weapon in there.

[TaxiService]

It looks like it should work! Dude. You should totally try SMM's XML Sandbox function!!! It allows you to test how your code would append to a file.

Here's how to use it:

1. In the SMM window's menu, go to File > XML Sandbox..., a window will pop up.
2. Click on the Open Main... button. It will ask you to open one of the game's xml files. Choose the one you want to test with.
   The file's contents will appear in the Main tab in the window.
3. Go in the Append tab, and enter your code as if it was a .append file.
   You can use the text field under the window's tabs to search for text into any of them. Press enter to perform the search.
4. Click the Patch button. You can check the console and the Result tab for errors, then fix your code and repeat.
5. When your code accomplishes what you were trying to do, you can paste it into your .append file and call it a day!

SMM's advanced functions might look tricky, but they're a powerful tool that lets us really do whatever we want. I suggest studying what arguments some of these functions use to fully grasp their potential. The instructions for them in the readme_modders.txt file are kinda crispy, but i think it's a must-read!


PS: Not to mention, mods that append instead of replacing don't clash with other mods, and compatibility is great! I think there should be an etiquette for coding mods.
Like, if everyone used unique names for their content (for example MODNAME_WEAPONNAME rather than something vague like "HUGE_LASER") and used the appending philosophy, most of the mods out there would be compatible with each other!

...maybe a tool could be made that compares the contents of a mod with those of the original game, then rewrites it so that it only appends new things. That would allow for different modders to add alternative options to the same event, or weapons to weaponlists!


PPS: oh, check if somewhere in some of the dlcOverwrite things your list is overwritten. : \ i mean, it shouldn't make a difference since you would be appending the weapon to the new list, but still...

[Crazybat]

Does anyone know how to edit the Mod Manager Description of a mod? Just as a nice little finishing touch - I notice that some ships as well as the larger mods have all these links and details in the details pane.

[kartoFlane]

...maybe a tool could be made that compares the contents of a mod with those of the original game, then rewrites it so that it only appends new things. That would allow for different modders to add alternative options to the same event, or weapons to weaponlists!

Isn't that precisely what the mod: tags are for?
By the way, props for advertising SMM's XML Sandbox -- it's an awesome feature that doesn't see enough use, IMO.

Does anyone know how to edit the Mod Manager Description of a mod? Just as a nice little finishing touch - I notice that some ships as well as the larger mods have all these links and details in the details pane.

You need to add a mod-appendix folder to your .ftl file. Inside of that you need to put a file named metadata.xml. Check out some mods that make use of this feature to see how to use this -- for example, my Auto-Cruiser mod.

[Biohazard063]

You should totally try SMM's XML Sandbox function!!!

Why am I only learning this now !?
That is so friggin usefull.

Not to mention, mods that append instead of replacing don't clash with other mods, and compatibility is great!

Yeah, it's the reason I started using them as much as possible. I tend to keep my mods AE and CE compatible.
Some events get changed in CE, and with all the new weapons, I can't use the AE autoBlueprints without removing all of CE's weapons from said lists.
Using the CE list just makes the mod bigger for no real reason and can only weird people out who go snooping in the files.
Another perk from being a modder and player...
"Wonder what the outcome of that option is in that event ? Let's have a look before committing to anything ..."

Oh, check if somewhere in some of the dlcOverwrite things your list is overwritten.

I'll just finish the mod and load up an event that has a blue option for an ion weapon with MTE CCP.
And with "an event" I mean "the event"...
So much hassle for giving people 1 blue option. Beauty is in the detail I guess.

[TaxiService]

Isn't that precisely what the mod: tags are for?

Yes! What i meant to say is: what if a tool converted non-compatible mods into compatible mods?

Let's say there's an old mod that adds a couple of weapon blueprints. Let's say its code also replaces an original weaponList to add the new weapons in. This imaginary tool would compare the mod and the game's data, then rewrite it so that instead of overwriting original lists, it appends to them instead. (It would leave the new contents untouched though.)

It would have to work more or less like this:
- for item in new code, check if item has same name as existing item.
-- if it does, compare it with the original item and record differences.
--- If it's different, rewrite the item using mod: tags so that it only appends the differences.

I used to code in python a little, but didn't really ever mess with GUIs or stuff like that. : \ If nobody else does it, I might look into writing this script someday. It'd take a while and won't have an interface, but it might be useful for somebody i guess? XD

So much hassle for giving people 1 blue option. Beauty is in the detail I guess.

Don't tell me about it. I'm writing a quest in which at some point you have to engage in conversation with a pirate to distract them from something. ...I then realised that i would have to write like 27 different outcomes for it. I've been writing for weeks and i'm not even halfway done!!

[Biohazard063]

So much hassle for giving people 1 blue option. Beauty is in the detail I guess.

Don't tell me about it. I'm writing a quest in which at some point you have to engage in conversation with a pirate to distract them from something. ...I then realised that i would have to write like 27 different outcomes for it. I've been writing for weeks and i'm not even halfway done!!

[5thHorseman]

Okay I'm about to throw in the towel on this one but it seems *so* *easy* that it should just work. Of course, this is FTL so it doesn't

I'm trying to, in an event, remove a human from your crew and replace him or her with a ghost. I can remove the human. I can add the ghost. I can't seem to figure out though how to do BOTH in the same event.

Here's what I think should work:

Code: Select all

<event name="GET_A_GHOST">
   <text>Living beings are not suitable for this ship. One must be removed and replaced with a ghost.</text>
   <choice hidden="true" req="human">
      <text>The Human</text>
      <event>
         <removeCrew class="human">
            <clone>false</clone>
            <text>The human dies and a ghost appears.</text>
         </removeCrew>
         <crewMember amount="1" class="ghost"/>
      </event>
   </choice>
</event>


This particular setup gives you a ghost but doesn't kill the human. Anybody with a clue why?