****NEWBIE QUESTIONS?? - look no further2!!****

how do you make people start with more money.

PS: some more questions, 1:Is it possible to make engines mountable specific to ship classes if so how. 2:Is there someway to model new planets, like metal mechanical planets and new bases? 3<img src=smilies/icon_smile_shock.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>n that, is there a tool for modelling new npc characters, like the ones at the bases/planets? 4:I´ve asked this before but I´ll try it again. I have three front_freelancerlogo.tga´s I would like to use, the semi transparent ones. I have the three different intro scripts with a soundtrack of my choice for each one. How the heck do I tell freelancer to apply a seperate logo for each script. I have tried adding a line to SystemsIntroRooms(Intro).ini such as: [RoomInfo set_image = ambient, interfaceintrofront_freelancerlogo01.tga (Im not at home right now so Im not sure if thats 100% correct but its more or less along those lines) It either, depending on how I change the line, causes the game to crash or has no effect at all. I really have spent much time on all these issues so Im not just looking for quick lazy answers but as I have no experience at changing any file of any sorts to harvest my ideas, I could really use some help here. THANX in advance. Edited by - AdenX on 11/22/2004 7:19:08 AM

OK... stupid question time again. Ok, more like 2 stupid questions: I´m getting closer to releasing Alpha 4 of my mod. I want to set its Version Number. How do I do this? I assume that I need to do this for the freelancer.exe AND the flserver.exe, which means that I´m releasing hacked EXEs. I also assume that so long as I don´t release a no-cd version of the freelancer.exe, that I´m not going to get into legal troubles... so long as I make sure not to obscure Microsoft´s credits as publisher, etc., etc. Could somebody please let me know how to do this? I want server ops to feel comfortable installing my new Alpha, and I naturally want players to be able to play it online without server crashes. In addition, I´d like to hack the freelancer.exe so that it shows accurate speed. I´ve done this with the no-cd version... do the instructions given in StoneD´s article still work for the vanilla version? If not, what entries do I need to hex-edit? Answers to both would be greatly appreciated <img src=smilies/icon_smile_big.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>

HELLO..., is there anybody here? Am I in the wrong place or what? If my questions are unanswerable, which I doubt since they have been done in some mods, then at least tell me that nobody wants to answer them. While I´m here, is it possible to have guns that IGNORE shields and go straight to the hull? Like some old fashioned machine guns that require ammo? Please Please Please answer some of my questions someone. Its lonely here on the Southern tip of creation&lt;no-one to help, NO-ONE&gt;

ok, i read a lot about it, but how do you creat systems, bases, fractions, etc... i cant find the first nubie (is that spelled right???) forum that had all the tutorials. how do you enter them in? please help. why cant they have a spell check on this thing? pease of ---- macs. cant play the game... oh, if only i had a sledge hammer... can someone please tell me how to make changes to your profile!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Edited by - Major Nick on 11/23/2004 2:54:06 PM

Alright, rather than going through the 38 pages in this thread, I thought I might ask this question... If it hasn´t been covered already, is it possible to create new factions and, if so, how do you make a new faction? Thank in advance to anyone who replies to this rather old thread. <img src=smilies/icon_smile_wink.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>

Chips : whoa... so you can´t do the speed hacking on the original EXE, because of SafeDisk? Bummer, but I guess ppl will live. Got the version number fixed... going to the Version Number thread to reserve a spot...

Chips, thanx a mil man! My mind has been set slightly more at ease. Just a few things I´d like to clear up though, when I said tools I knew it would involve me having to create new models and find a way to insert them myself, what I actually wanted is a program/plugin that would enable me to view the models that are currently in the .dfm format, not some magic prog that would do it all for me. Since I have been trying to do the upgrade thing for over a week now I DO realize its all hard work and patience, I have however made a shield generator with zero capacity, zero power drain and a really high regen rate, just to test if it actually does boost the overall regen rate of the shield. I created new shield HP on the ship that I use to test these things and in shiparch.ini made these entries: hp_type = hp_elite_shield_generator, HpShield02, HpShield03 . I have also tried removing the _elite bit. In the misc_equip, I added the same line to the shield generator block, also tried without the _elite bit. But I seem to come across 2 problems: 1: The shield upgrade is mountable, but only one! When I try to mount two, the game freezes. Hence I can not get the stackable effect. I have changed ALL shields plus my upgrades to combinable = true. Does this have something to do with the shield_link bit, cause I´ve even added shield_links for the generator HP´s which I also added in the select_equip.ini file but with no success(not sure what thats for,just EXPERIMENTING). 2: OK, so I only settle with one upgrade for now, with the extremely high regen rate, my shield should almost instantly regenerate, but it doesn´t, hence the upgrade actually has no effect, why is this? This seems to be the same for armor. I set the armor scale to really high but it doesn´t actually change a thing. Never actually thought about using a shield generator to create a power upgrade by using a negative power drain, duh. Definitely gonna give that one a try, but how would I make it increase the thrust capacity and thrust regen rate as well if its a shield generator? I´ve already figured its almost impossible to mount two power sources, so trying to use a power source with zero capacity just doesn´t gel. Since you didnt reply on the engine upgrade bit I take it its a little more complex, if not impossible, than the power upgrade. And what about guns that IGNORE shields? Is it possible or not? Or am I just reaching for a star? Here´s an idea, scanners that use power when one scans cargo, obviously the better the scanner (range) the more power is used, trying to figure this one out but it doesn´t seem doable. (Since I don´t have an internet connection at home, I read through the forums when I get a chance at work, after Ive come across a brick in the road, searching for a solution. If I cant find one I ask. I have been trying to mod for about 2 weeks now and I have NO experience whatsoever in changes things on any file, except maybe a letter or postcard, and I dont recall asking how to make a shield, thats piss. So Im trying to clear up the fact that Im not a freakin freeloader looking for the easy way out, I experiment , I investigate and fiddle where Im sure Im not supposed to, and I certainly dont WANT to just copy what you guys put in cause I have ideas and thoughts of my own, just like everyone else. All I was asking for was a little help, sorry if I didnt elaborate enough.) BTW, thanx again, you have given me new hope! O joy is me!

To mount more than one Shield, your ship must have more than one HardPoint for mounting Shields on. You can add new Shield Hardpoints using HardCMP, which you can download from this website. Then you´d add more lines to your ship´s INI entry... hp_type = hp_shield01, HpShield02, HpShield03 hp_type = hp_shield02, HpShield02, HpShield03 ... and so forth. Go take a look at the Prometheus mod that´s currently about 2 pages down in the News to see how this was done. Guns cannot ignore Shields. What they can do is knock them down with one hit, if they´re of a certain Type of shield. So, from a game-design perspective, it´s quite possible to have weapons that ignore the shields of one &quot;side&quot; or another- you can boost the shield damage to a very large number, if that type of weapon strikes that type of shield. This would, of course, lead to all sorts of game-balance issues, but that´s besides the point. FYI, in my mod, Warriors of the Sky, I´ve basically set up all of the &quot;aircraft&quot; with no Shields whatsoever. Damage goes directly to the Hull and Componants. Shields are used as &quot;armor ratings&quot; for heavily-armored things like warships (the ocean-going kind), and only a few weapons do any Shield damage whatsoever- aircraft, for example, carry &quot;bombs&quot;, which are a specialized kind of missile, and these deliver a warhead that does Shield damage, thus knocking down the warship´s &quot;armor&quot;. Once the &quot;armor&quot; is gone, the warship is then vulnerable to all sorts of weapons, and I´m game-balancing it so that this basically means that the warship dies. So I´m kind´ve taking an opposite approach here- different &quot;armor-piercing&quot; weapons will have different balances against certain types of Armor Rating, which gives me a lot of different tools to use when game-balancing &quot;armored-vs-armored&quot; combat, besides just raising the hitpoint levels of larger warships´ shields to some ridiculous degree... I can allow them to mount different shields that are effective against certain types of damage, but ineffective against others, and allow players to make the decisions about what kind of damage they´re most likely to face. This is what DA intended their shield_mod files to be used for. Where they went wrong (imho) was that they didn´t game-balance it very well, and in the end... if you do the numbers... it makes more sense, in 90% of your possible combat situations... to simply take the shield with the highest number of hitpoints. Instead of going that route, I´ll allow each class of &quot;armored&quot; object to mount one or more Shields, keep the hitpoint values of every &quot;type&quot; exactly the same, but give it a strength... and a weakness. Powerful game-balance tools are available, if you look at the issues as a totality- you need to consider the hitpoint levels, the recharge rates, the time-after-failure... AND the damage vs. weapons levels very carefully. By keeping the first three things the SAME for every &quot;armored&quot; object, and then simply altering the number of shields an object can mount and the damage mod... you can do better game-balance than DA did <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> Edited by - Argh on 11/25/2004 2:48:50 PM

Thanx Argh, I´ll try that out as soon as I can, but I seem to be stubbed by another problem. I have just started to learn how to use ms3d and for my first model Im trying to create a &quot;deathstar&quot;, very simplistic version though, just a few extrusions here and there and a big extrusion at the bottom half of the sphere for a docking point. So heres the problem: The first time round I did everything I wanted for the model, groups, textures, HPs, welding the vertices and running the model cleaner. (tell me if I wasnt meant to do one of these). When I ran the cmp exporter it worked, but the HPs didnt show up in the .cmp nor the poly.tga, whatever nodes. Along the line after messing around with probably all the tools it eventually worked and everything showed up in the cmp. So now I could finally open it with HardCMP and see the darn thing, oops, it seems the shield HP is about the same size as the model, I did scale it downa bit but not that much I think. I started readoing the model from scratch, since it did work before(though I cant remember how I got that right?) I know I did everything else ON the model correctly, HPs, textures, etc. But I cant get the HPs nodes or the poly nodes to show up in the cmp? What have or havent I done? The sphere is originally really big, maybe the size of Manhattan maybe bigger maybe smaller, I cant really tell, but it would ultimately be a BIG BIG base. Can I have a BIG BIG base? What ms3d tools do I need to run before I export the .cmp (after Ive applied the textures and created the HPs). Any help greatly appreciated.

Ok... lemme take that one at a time: 1. Don´t do the Hardpoints in MS3D. That´s one of the sections of the old manual that is obsolete. Do the Hardpoints in HardCMP. You´ll get much finer control, and it´s much harder to make mistakes (especially if you study existing CMPs). 2. For your first time out... start with a SINGLE SPHERE, with a single Material. Make sure that the Sphere has a UNIQUE NAME, such as &quot;Argh_Sphere_Of_Doom&quot;, and that the Material has a UNIQUE NAME, such as &quot;Argh_Sphere_Of_Doom_TEX&quot;. Don´t try to run until you´ve learned how to walk (that´s probably the no. 1 reason a lot of would-be modders crash and burn, and run away screaming). So, basically... leave that model you´ve built &quot;to one side&quot; as it were, and build something much, much simpler. And use it to go through the steps: 1. Build the model. It´s a sphere, so... uh... it´s built now <img src=smilies/icon_smile_wink.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> 2. Import the Material, and Assign it to the Model, by using &quot;select all&quot; and then hitting the Assign button in MS3D. 3. Go to File--&gt;Export--&gt;CMP Exporter and export the CMP file. If MS3D crashes, then you´ve either not given both the Material or the model unique names, or you haven´t assigned Materials to the entire model. So double-check everything- the CMP Exporter will not crash with a simple sphere unless you´ve made a mistake <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> 4. Go to File--&gt;Export--&gt;MAT Exporter and export the MAT file. Make sure to give it the same name as the CMP file, except for the file extension .MAT. 5. Open up the CMP file with HardCMP. If you´ve done everything right, then you will see a textured sphere. Not brilliant work, obviously, but it´s a CMP, and it works. 6. Now add all of the appropriate Hardpoints. This is where things get a bit tricky. First off, it´s good if you know what the Hardpoints *do*- otherwise, you´re just copying things you don´t understand. And I can´t help you much there- if you´re not willing to take the time to study the entries in shiparch.ini and loadouts.ini to get a feel for what´s doing what... then you´re in trouble. But, let´s assume that you want to learn by doing... here are the Hardpoints that a ship NEEDS to function in FL: HpBayDoor01 HpBayDoor02 HpEngine01 HpTractorsource (note the lack of &quot;01&quot;... in HardCMP, you need to turn the &quot;use numbering scheme&quot; option OFF for these) HpMount HpCockpit HpCockpitEx And that´s it... those are the only Hardpoints a ship NEEDS. Now, &quot;wants&quot; is another matter- I didn´t put in Weapons, Shields, Contrails, Lights, FX... etc., etc., etc. These things can wait until you understand what you really want to do. And now... you need to make the relevant INI entries to put your ship into the game. I am currently working on an ultra-streamlined way to do this via XML and FLMM, but I haven´t gotten anything like a Tutorial done yet, as it´s all being done for my mod. But it can be done the &quot;old-skool&quot; way, and honestly I suggest that everybody do it that way at least once (that way you´ll appreciate what I´m doing with the XML tut. when it´s done, hehe).

Is there a way to make Non-player ships buyable? Like Nomad ships or any others?

Yes. Definately. For Sure <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> And... please don´t take this the wrong way, but you can find out <i>how </i> to do this by reading the Tutorials <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>

Doh, the HpCockpit and HpCockpitEx, what do they exactly do? I have set up my Prometheus model without those 2, and all is working fine so far. Am I correct if assuming that HpCockpit defines the camera position in cockpit view? But what would HpCockpitEx then do, because you modify external view with the camera offset values in shiparch.ini, that´s how I did it...

Ok... first off... So far as I know... if you don´t specify HpCockpit or HpCockpitEx... then what´s going to happen is two things: 1. The Cockpit view will be from the center XYZ of the ship. Which, at least imho... is not ideal. So I always carefully position the HpCockpit. 2. The HpCockpitEx is not truely necessary, I think, because you can also define that location in the shiparch.ini file. But I prefer to put it in there... DA has one on every FL ship, and I´ve come to the belief that if something like that is in there... it´s almost certainly being used, either in cutscenes or elsewhere. So... I´d go ahead and add one.

Well, I always thought the engine simply places the camera to the front tip of the model. If you look at the Dagger´s CMP, the HpCockpit is where the cockpit is. However, ingame you experience the camera to be right at the nose´s tip, try fly that thing directly in front of a station, so that the nose just hits it (turret view helps for fine adjustment) and then go to cockpit view.

I have a big Question. How do you get instant docking like in the rebalance mods????? I have read for hours, and my eyes are sore, some help would be great.

You´ll hate me for this one<img src=smilies/icon_smile_big.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> how the **** do you make a ship if you have no idea of doing 3d moddelling??? is there any really good (and short) tutorial for those kind of things?????????????

@FlyBy You need to look in Data/Solar/solararch.ini. Find the archetype of the station you want to change (e.g. largestation1 is the model for Newark etc.), and scroll down to the &quot;docking_sphere = &quot; lines. The best way to do this would be