Odd occurance with ship editing...

Fri Sep 05, 2003 3:09 am by Arundor

Hey there. I am a newbie and I thought this might be a dumb question, but I figured that the only dumb question is the unasked one, so I'll just go ahead. I did search the forum before-hand, but didn't find any similar topics that might have helped me.

I'm attempting to make a new ship, based on the Dagger. I'm using the Dagger model, but just adding some new hardpoints. I just added them with UTF Edit. I thought I had succeeded, but then odd things started happening.

After thinking I had succeeded, I was flying around with my new ship, and everything was working great. Then I landed, and after I lauched again, the new hardpointed I added were gone. I could see them on my ship while I was docked or landed, but they weren't there while I was in space. The hardpoints had reverted back to standard Dagger hardpoints. I hadn't exited and restarted the game or anything, I just landed and relauched. I tried restarting the game, and deactivating then reactivating the mod, but neither worked.

My new ship was supposed to be using a new CMP file I made, called "arundor.cmp", but it instead seemed to have started using the standard Dagger CMP file, "bw_fighter.cmp". I don't know why. I immediatly checked the shiparch.ini file, but my new ship was still properly set to use the arundor.cmp file. And yes, I did check to make sure my custom CMP file hadn't been overwitten with a dagger CMP file. It hadn't been.

I started experimenting, and tried the following:

1. Temporarily renaming the bw_fighter.cmp file. I figured that if the game had in fact started using the old file, something would happen if it couldn't find it. Sure enough, when I started the game again, my custom ship was restored to proper form. However, I didn't want to leave things the way there were, since the proper Dagger CMP file was now incorrectly named. I changed the bw_fighter.cmp file back to its normal name. When I did, my custom ship reverted back to using that CMP file instead of my custom one.

2. I tried using various different file names and locations for my custom CMP file. Nothing worked.

3. I renamed my own custom CMP file to "bw_fighter.cmp", and replaced the original version with my version. This successfully restored my custom ship to proper condition. However, this solution would have altered every Dagger in the game, so I kept searching for another answer.

4. Altering my custom ship to use other CMP files, like the Eagle, Titan, and Sabre. Each time, the ship was properly changed to reflect the new CMP file. However, as soon as I changed it back to use my custom CMP file, it started the use the Dagger CMP file instead.

5. Reinstalling Freelancer. No effect.

6. Uninstalling then installing Freelancer again. No effect.

7. Installing the 1.1 patch. Even thought the patch is said to only affect multiplayer, and I use single player, I thought it was worth a shot anyway. But still. no luck.

I'm at a loss as to what to try next. What really puzzles me is that the custom ship worked properly for a short time, then suddenly stopped working. If anyone could offer help, I'd really appreciate it.

Fri Sep 05, 2003 5:25 pm by skyshooter

there are some problems with cloning ships... Within the model there is stored an ID code, this must be unique. If you copy a CMP file, the new ship has the same Id as the original one. If freelancer now loads both CMPs it takes only one model (in this case, the old one). On a station / planet there is only one model the one, that you fly.
if you would to check this theory, go to a planet / station where they sell the dagger and check if your new Dagger has the new or the old hardpoint configuration.

Edited by - skyshooter on 05-09-2003 18:26:06

Fri Sep 05, 2003 9:37 pm by Arundor

Thanks a lot for the help. I havn't been able to test it yet, but I will as soon as I can.

Your answer does make a lot of sense, so I hope it will be the solution. I'll search the forum for more info about CMP files and changing the unique ID code. Since people make new ships all the time, I imagine this info shouldn't be too hard to find.

Fri Sep 05, 2003 11:46 pm by skyshooter

it was a bigger discussion, when the first mods appeared. Try searching for "cloned ships"

EDIT: I searched for it but I can't find the thread I was meaning... did they deleted it??

Edited by - skyshooter on 06-09-2003 01:07:18

Sat Sep 06, 2003 1:32 am by Arundor

Thanks for the suggestion.

With that search query I found a few other posts where people had the same problem as me, but I havn't found a solution yet. I'll keep looking.

Sat Sep 06, 2003 4:07 pm by Arundor

After doing some more searching, I found a solution that will work in some situations. I'll post it here in case anyone else has the same problem as has been watching this thread for an answer.

If you're adding hardpoints to a cloned ship, you can add them directly into the original CMP file. There will be two ship entries in the shiparch.ini file, one for the original ship, and one for your cloned version. You can just edit the ship entry so that your edited version will recognize more of the hardpoints than the original version. This method allows you to use one CMP file for two ships, even if both ships have a different number of hardpoints, or allow different equipment at each hardpoint.

The problem arises when you're not only adding new hardpoints but also moving around old ones. That's what I'm trying to do.

I'll keep searching for a way to change the unique ID code in my new CMP file, or another solution that works. If I find one, I'll post it here for the records.

Sun Sep 07, 2003 5:48 am by Arundor

I've succeeded. Here's a breakdown of what I did, in case anyone else has the same problem and is looking for a solution. I don't know proper terminology for describing what I did, so please bear with me, and I'll try to be as clear as I can.

1. Using UTF Edit, I opened my new CMP file and changed the names of the sections I had edited. I was working with a copy of the bw_fighter.cmp, and the sections I had edited were:

bw_elite_lod1020911030723.3db
bw_port_wing01_lod1020911030723.3db
bw_star_wing01_lod1020911030723.3db

I changed these to new names of my own. Specifically, I changed the "bw" to an "ar".

2. Next I expanded the "Cmpnd" section. There were several sub-sections within Cmpnd, some of which corresponded to the sections I had already changed in Part 1. Specifically, the parts that corresponded were:

"Root" to "bw_elite_lod1020911030723.3db"
"Part_ar_port_wing01_lod1" to "bw_port_wing01_lod1020911030723.3db"
"Part_ar_star_wing01_lod1" to "bw_star_wing01_lod1020911030723.3db"

I changed the name of each of these sub-sections to something new.

3. Next, I expanded the sub-sections of "Cmpnd" as well. Within each of them were 3 nodes, titled "Object Name", "File Name" and "Index". The changed each of the "File Name" sections accordingly to match the new names I chose for the sections in Part 1.

Wed Sep 17, 2003 3:08 am by cD_STRIKER

Thanks......this helped me fix my armored transport mod....it was crashing and shields wouldn't work.

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