Adding custom ship pack to new system FL Explorer issues

Fri Jul 29, 2005 6:29 am by Artemas13

Hmmm, my first post and all, so bear with.

I recently built a mod of new/addon systems using FL Explorer. In this mod are 15 new systems and 26 new bases, so far so good... I obtained permission from Baene to use his ship pack v1.0 in this mod but FL Explorer would not recognize it to add the ships to the bases. So, I modded the market_ships.ini file appropriately to sell the new ships on the new bases. However, when I "add changes/Update Mod" with Explorer, it overwrites the new market_ships.ini file (Thank God I make back-ups of everything).

I suppose my question is this: Is there a way to make Explorer recognize and add the new ship pack... or should I complete the mod with no ships at the new stations and have a seperate mod that has the new ships and base selling market file to activate with FLMM after first activating the systems mod? Personally I don't much care for the idea of having to break it up into two seperate mods but I just have not figured out how the creators of the other large mods (TNG, Flbalance, etc...) do it.

Do I make the system with Explorer and then never touch Explorer again and do everything manually for the addons later once the systems are done? (OK, I know that was an extra question, it's early and I'm not yet caffeinated) I appreciate any insight provided in this.

Nemo me impune lacessit.

Fri Jul 29, 2005 6:42 am by General Drake

You have to add the entries for the ship in the goods.ini of the ship-pack to your mod´s goods.ini

Fri Jul 29, 2005 7:04 am by Artemas13

Can I buy you a beer?!

Thank you!

Nemo me impune lacessit.

Fri Jul 29, 2005 9:53 am by Artemas13

Perhaps I spoke too soon. Excellent advice on the goods.ini, for I indeed had not done that. Thank you again! So, I am one step closer to getting this to work. However, even adding the goods.ini file to the mod folder does not yet make FLexpl recognize that they exist. Now, I added all the ships manually to the market_ships.ini, I manually did the goods.ini as well. Testing the game it worked, ships are there and available for purchase. This is a happy. I will do the same thing with manually updating the weapons and other equipment to make them available at these stations.

Now, when I next fired up FLexpl again and checked the bases in the working mod, the bases come up with "NO SHIPS" in the edit ships menu. I suppose I am simply doing things out of sequence. The only reason I need to use FLexpl is to add NPC populations in space so I am not all alone flying around in space....

Since I have full back-ups of everything, should I just use FLexpl to add the NPC ships and then go back and copy all the .ini files back into place after FLexpl invariably overwrites them? Logic would dictate this would work, but I have never been, nor will probably ever be Dr. Spock, so I try not to count on my idea of logic too often when modding.

Let's call that question #1, now on to question #2....

I have both FL Explorer and FL System Editor, both the latest versions. I have heard good things (and a few bad) of both. In this endeavor of adding NPCs flying around, which would I be better off using? I have modded lots of other games, but this modding system is unlike any of the other programs I know how to use, so forgive my ignorance.

Nemo me impune lacessit.

Fri Jul 29, 2005 9:10 pm by Louva-Deus

For FLE to recognize new ships they have to exist in the goods.ini and shiparch.ini files.

Sat Jul 30, 2005 6:01 am by Strail

Uhm also, you could try activating the mod, then open FLE.
Click "no", when it says do you want FLE to deactivate the mod.
Then if they are correctly entered in the ini files they should show as available to input.
If you are changing/modding your own modded systems/bases this should be ok, but if you do this on unmodded systems (vanilla) systems it will cause you problems, because when you deactivate the mod, it will only pull back the modded files you put in. So, if you have not modded New York sys for example, (LI01) DONT add the ships to the bases there.

Don't know if this will work, maybe you are doing this already, if so, sorry for the post

Sat Jul 30, 2005 6:30 am by Artemas13

Nice trick with leaving the mod activated, I would never have known to do that. Also on adding the goods.ini file, again, an invaluable tip. I also found that by entering the ships manually into the market_ships.ini and modding the goods.ini with the ship pack in its appropriate folder and *not* ever pulling up the ship trading properties menu in FLEx seems to work as well, the files were not overwritten. With the help you have all given the problem is solved and it's off to other programming conquests. Again, I thank you all for your extremely valuable input!

Any new difficulties that I may stumble into I will be putting in a new thread, but for now (knocking on wood) things are running quite smoothly.

Nemo me impune lacessit.

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