different engine classes? and content.dll?

Thu May 13, 2004 6:55 am by Black Eagle

Hi, me again!
I'm working on the next version of my mod (The Monkeys).

My first question: Is it possible to make engines and/or powerplants ship-specific like the shields (Heavy Fighter Engine, Light Fighter Engine, etc.)? I thought of making different shipclasses (Light Fighter: fast, light armor, light weapons; Heavy Fighter: average speed, average armor, medium weapons; etc.), but also want engines to be buyable. So I need different engine classes and different powerplant classes.

If this is not possible, is it possible to make new internal and class specific hardpoints for every ship, where I can mount the different engines and powerplants?
Are there any unused internal hardpoints on the Freelancer ships. I think in the Rebalancemod the ships have new hardpoints for the shield capacitators and powercells. In the INIs they're called hp_fighter_shield_generator.
Are there any other unused hardpoints, or were these hardpoints added by Michael Dan?

If all this is impossible, is there any possibility to make different shipclasses and(!) make engines, or at least engine upgrades buyable? I hope so! If not I have to decide between different shipclasses or buyable engines

My second question: What exactly do I have to change or add to the content.dll to make my new factions appearing in mission and bribe texts? I added the factions in these files: resources.dll
nameresources.dll
offerbriberesources.dll
mpnewcharacter.fl
initialworld.ini
factionprop.ini

But I read that I also have to add something to the content.dll (The factionname is fc_ap_grp and the IDs are 196943 and 196944)!

My last question: How can I make a max. Level above level 40? I already changed the pthough.ini, but it does only work till level 40. I think I have to change something in the content.dll, but what?

Thanks to all for your help and to the modmakers for their great mods! Since I started my own mod I know how much work you do!!!

Thu May 13, 2004 7:25 am by LordFjord

to the engineclasses: nope
to the new hardpoint types in general: nope

to the shipclasses: u mean additional ones to the 0(=lf), 1(=hf), 2(=hf), 3=(fr) (this is outta my head, could be wrong)
i never tried this so far. give it a try and let us know

most ships have a HpCloak01 that is unused - use that for shield or other addons.
engine boosters "could" work with this hardpoint as well -> would be the same as ships with 2 engines. (double cruise, messed up enginekill)...
i think thruster "upgrades" could be possible (additional weaker thruster).

most of ur questions can be answered with experimenting. takes time, butu learn a LOT.

Fjord

---------------------------------
Excelcia Mod Leading Developer

Thu May 13, 2004 7:54 am by Black Eagle

Thank you LordFjord!
This is terrible! I can't make engineclasses!

But I will see what I can do then!

With the shipclasses I mean, that I will change the existing classes. I will make the LF engines faster and give them less armor. For that I would need different engine classes, because if someone flies a VHF he shouldn't be able to mount a LF engine and have a fast VHF!

Thanks again!!

Thu May 13, 2004 8:00 am by Anton

Instead of engine classes try leaving engines unbuyable and tweaking their 'max_force =' lines... That way each ship can potentially have unique speed as well as armour, handling etc.

If you're adding extra equip to HpMount as Fjord suggests, don't give the equipment an archetype and mount new bits onto lights, contrails, engines, anywhere you like...

*Edit - I've not heard of anyone modding content.dll for factions except Reynen... but it was looking for that which lead me to unblocking factions on the rep menu so all good. As for the levels, lvl 40 seems to max whatever in SP modes but v1.1 patch content.dll allows more levels in MP games

*Edit2 - Maybe the content.dll bit for factions stops SP game ignoring custom factions...

Edited by - Anton on 5/13/2004 9:03:18 AM

Edited by - Anton on 5/13/2004 9:07:07 AM

Thu May 13, 2004 8:15 am by Black Eagle

Thanks Anton!
I now how to make engines faster and also thought of leaving engines unbuyable. But I want to have different ship speeds and buyable engines! But I think this will not be possible!
The new equipment without an archetype is a good idea!

For the factionnames:
I read a thread about making new factionnames appearing in missiontexts and bribetexts. In this thread Reynen said that you have to add something in the content.dll. But I don't know what!
I already searched for the word "grp" and only found gd_bh_grp.
Then I added fc_ap_grp behind this, but with this Freelancer crashed on startup.

Now I will try the content.dll of version 1.1.
Thanks!

Thu May 13, 2004 9:14 am by Anton

My guess at the gd_bh_grp entry is for SP missions - when you buy a ship in New London after meeting Tobias your bad rep is cancelled (works at any base in the system). You could make the engines buyable i spose but you'll end up with every player using the best one and defeat the object of making them different for ship classes

Tue May 18, 2004 1:31 pm by Black Eagle

Hi!
Thanks Anton, you are right with the Bounty Hunters in Content.dll!
I now only made different shipclasses, and left the engines unbuyable.

But I still don't know how to see the names of my new factions in bribe texts and mission texts. Does anyone know, in which file I have to add something (I think in Content.dll?)!! Please Help!

For the third question: I now tried the Content.dll of version 1.1, but then I'm not able to use OpenSP anymore. Is there someone who has a Content.dll with OpenSP, which also supports higher levels than level 40 (I think in the Rebalancemod there are more levels and also an exe file which will make the gameplay like OpenSP, but I couldn't use this one for my mod. It didn't work)!!

Thanks to everyone!

Tue May 18, 2004 2:00 pm by Chips

its got nothing to do with content.dll file - you should have read my solution in that thread dozy!! You musta "scrolled" straight past it. To get factions appearing in SP reps - sod the content.dll file - thats crap too - its the newplayer.fl file that you should be adding the faction name too.

Tue May 18, 2004 2:19 pm by Anton

The higher levels are in content.dll. (The .exe downloaded from the official freelancer site will open in WinRAR to unpack and play with so you don't have to overwrite any files

). Sadly however the extra levels only work for multiplayer...

I've been playing with content.dll and have identified a function call change from Xerx's .dll and several strings which target the mission .ini's. Making the call change and making the mission01a.ini point to mission13.ini has allowed most of what opensp acheives but still says 'mission' for next level up instead of the 4350 (or whatever) that opensp usually gives. That said i did not NULL out the rest of the ini references to see if it would work fully because tests showed that no amount of money would level up past the usual maximum with a save made after SP campain was finished.

This is the function call info :

v1.0 content.dll
4F059 - (06FDF059 in win32dasm) call 06F91890 (actual hex line : E83228FBFF)

opensp content.dll
4f059 - (06FDF059 in win32dasm) call 06F958E0 (actual hex line : E88268FBFF)

(note : opensp content.dll is the 1.0 version)

v1.1 content.dll
4F0C2 - (06EEF0C2 in win32dasm) call 06EA4FE0 (actual hex line : E8195FFBFF)

needs to call 06EA1220... so call 06EA1220 = E8B020FBFF

FYI : the call 06xxxxxx come from w32dasm disassembly and offsets (eg 4F0C2) from xvi32 (the hex editor i use). The parts labeled 'actual hex line' are hex strings to search for/replace using your hex editor.

the ini file references can be found by doing an ascii search through the .dll with your hex editor.

Tue May 18, 2004 3:44 pm by Anton

@Chips - it was unblocking The Order, Nomads etc in common.dll that i was referring too btw, not custom factions

Edited by - Anton on 5/18/2004 4:46:39 PM

Wed May 19, 2004 3:03 pm by Black Eagle

Thank you Chips!
I now also added the factionname in the newplayer.fl, but the names are still not showing up! I can't immagine why. Does anyone know something else about this?
Please Help!

Also thanks to Anton!
It's really bad, that the extra levels only work in Multiplayer. So I won't make more levels than 40.
The OpenSP function call is interesting. I will try to find the bug with the inability to level up!

Thanks again!

Wed May 19, 2004 5:23 pm by Mannfred

Black Eagle :

what about making the ships for sale twice but with different engines ? ie have one with a fast engine and one with a not so fast engine , the fast one would cost more and only be accessible from some places while the medium engine one would be more readily available

Wed May 19, 2004 5:34 pm by Indy11

For non-weapon/externally viewable equipment - shields, and other accessories like fusion generators, shield capacitors, etc., etc., can't you just create more Hp nodes in the cmp file with only marginally different position data, if necessary, and then add the new Hps to the shiparch.ini? HpShield01, HpShield02, etc.? I don't even think you need to add position or orientation nodes to them.

I've messed around with this approach and it seems to work quite well. No crashes or anything and what's buyable is mountable so far in both Rebalance and in Evolutions. Haven't tried it with other mods yet.

I don't know about engines though.

Thu May 20, 2004 2:46 am by Black Eagle

Thanks Mannfred!
This is a very good idea. It will be lots of work, but I think I maybe will do this on some ships!

I don't know so much about new hardpoints Indy11, but I will try what you said! This would be great!

Thanks to you two again!

Does anyone know about the faction name not showing up???

Hi again:
Does anyone know if it is possible to make NPCs using Torpedoes (I mean that NPC fire with Torpedoes)??

Edited by - Black Eagle on 5/20/2004 4:44:05 AM

Thu May 20, 2004 3:56 am by Chips

Yes, check the thread by Reynen once more - as i posted how to get custom faction names appearing in missions text, bribes, bribes affects and everything else. Its all in there!!!!!

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