How can ships be added into units.csv? (VS 0.4.3)

Nightshadow3002 · Post by **Nightshadow3002** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 9:56 pm

In the units folder I found at least three ships I would like to have in the game, but they're not mentioned in the units.vs.

The ships are named "kafka", sartre" and quicksilver".

What do I have to do to get them into "units.vs" and/or get them into the game?

- - Edit: it's units.csv! - -

Halleck · Post by **Halleck** » Thu Apr 21, 2005 3:36 am

units.vs? Never heard of it. Do you mean units.csv?

Nightshadow3002 · Post by **Nightshadow3002** » Fri Apr 22, 2005 4:27 am

Sorry!

Yes it's "units.csv"

*dumdidum*

ack2000 · Post by **ack2000** » Fri Apr 22, 2005 9:31 pm

lets start from the begining.
obj or bfxm? I use 3dsmax export to 3ds, wings3d import 3ds, export to obj and then use mesher to convert obj to bfxm.

then when happy with finnal model I user wings to add tags and export to xmesh for the unit file.

unit.cvs

easy way pick a ship you like (centurion) copy its lines and add new line and paste.
modify to fit you ship name and folder that should be in the unit folder.

once you edit unit file you will understand.

note on ships. You may run into problems if your images are not in multiples of 2 ie 128x128 512x512 blah blah
also if your model has to many polygons.

finnal problem you may see is bfxm didnt transfer your images correctly. 2 problems here
1 image is not uv on model: take your image flip 180 then flip horizontially.
odd i know took me a while to find this one out.
2 model is all white (hate this one) if you edit bfxm (notepad or hexeditor your choice) becareful. change the white.bmp to you image name. problems doing this sometimes it doesnt like you to add extra chacaters. like your images jumppop.png but thats to long cause the game to crash you will need to rename it to 5 characters.

Please note I am generally messing with privateer remake of this engine.

so you want to fly your new ship.

I suggest editing a save game This is quickest way. or you can add to the master_part_list and add your ship so it can be purchased at some dealers.

i hope this helpful. I learn allot the hardway and sometime I wish this forum discussed problem/fix more.

Nightshadow3002 · Post by **Nightshadow3002** » Fri Apr 22, 2005 11:57 pm

unit.cvs

easy way pick a ship you like (centurion) copy its lines and add new line and paste.
modify to fit you ship name and folder that should be in the unit folder.

once you edit unit file you will understand.

Thanks for trying to help, ack2000, but to be honest, I understood at least half of what you wrote.

Well, I'm no programmer...

First of all, I do not want to have brandnew ship in the game. The three ships mentioned above are already to find in the units folder, but not in "units.cvs".

I can't understand when I don't know how to modify the pasted lines!

The contents of the unit-files and the unit.csv are too different for me to know how to get another ship into this file.

May be there is a units.cvs file that has this three ships "inside". If it is so, please let me know where to find it.

ack2000 · Post by **ack2000** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 6:57 am

sorry I will simplfiy (maybe)

I use excel to edit the unit file because it breaks it up into cells. much easier to edit.
Take something like aeon and modify to fit the ship your wanting

below is from unit file the ./aeon is folder location, the .bfxm is the model, aeraburn is thrusters where the animation is placed and photon the loaction on mounting wepons. there is more but that should get you start on modify.

aeon ./aeon Nicander FIXME FIXME INTERCEPTOR WRITEME aeon-hud.spr 1.74716 light_cockpit.cpt 0 0.25 4.5 {aeon.bfxm;;} {aeraburn.bfxm;-0.75;-0.086;-10;8;;;;;}{aeraburn.bfxm;0.75;-0.086;-10;8;;;;;} {Photon;;;light medium autotracking;5.600000;-1.600000;3.200000;;;;;;;;;1;1}{Photon;;;light medium autotracking;-5.600000;-1.600000;3.200000;;;;;;;;;1;1}{Photon;;;light medium autotracking;.5;-1.65;8;;;;;;;;;1;1}{Photon;;;light medium autotracking;-.5;-1.65;8;;;;;;;;;1;1}{Photonswarm;200;100;special-missile autotracking;3.600000;-1.600000;1.200000;;;;;;;;;1;1}{Photonswarm;200;100;special-missile autotracking;-3.600000;-1.600000;1.200000;;;;;;;;;1;1}

Nightshadow3002 · Post by **Nightshadow3002** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 2:38 pm

This is what "units.csv" says about the aeon:

aeon,./aeon,Nicander,FIXME,FIXME,INTERCEPTOR,WRITEME,aeon-hud.spr,1.74716,light_cockpit.cpt,0,0.25,4.5,{aeon.bfxm;;},,,,,,132,132,,11,271,90.5,90.5,90.5,90.5,90.5,90.5,90.5,
90.5,360,360,,,,,,,90,0,1300,500,160,TRUE,1,,90,45,0,30,20000,20000,
20000,90,100,120,18200,10000,10000,10000,10000,10000,10000,300,
270,TRUE,TRUE,300000000,5,180,10,10,,,,,,,0,0,0,1;1;1;1;1;1;1;1;1;1;
1;1;1;1;1;1;1;1;1;1;1;1;1;1;1;1;1;1;1;1;1;1;1,1;1;1;1;1;1;1;1;1;1;1;
1;1;1;1;1;1;1;1;1;1;1;1;1;1;1;1;1;1;1;1;1;1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,0,0,,,{mult_turn_balancer;;},,;;;;;;,{aeraburn.bfxm;-0.75;-0.086;-10;8;;;;;}{aeraburn.bfxm;0.75;-0.086;-10;8;;;;;},{Photon;;;light medium autotracking;5.600000;-1.600000;3.200000;;;;;;;;;1;1}{Photon;;;light medium autotracking;-5.600000;-1.600000;3.200000;;;;;;;;;1;1}{Photon;;;light medium autotracking;.5;-1.65;8;;;;;;;;;1;1}{Photon;;;light medium autotracking;-.5;-1.65;8;;;;;;;;;1;1}{Photonswarm;200;100;special-missile autotracking;3.600000;-1.600000;1.200000;;;;;;;;;1;1}{Photonswarm;200;100;special-missile autotracking;-3.600000;-1.600000;1.200000;;;;;;;;;1;1},,,,,explosion_aera.ani,0,0,16,0

I must say it looks much different to the aeon file in the units folder.

So, where do all the"0"s and "1"s come from? ... and the "TRUE"s? ... e.g. there is a "mult_turn_balancer" you didn't even mention.

So modifying the "units.csv" seems to me be not to be that easy!

ack2000 · Post by **ack2000** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 3:25 pm

the reason i didnt mention any of this was trying to keep it simple.
I may be wrong becuase i never changed it but all those ones are placement of hud image.

Post by **jackS** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 9:21 pm

ack2000 wrote:the reason i didnt mention any of this was trying to keep it simple.
I may be wrong becuase i never changed it but all those ones are placement of hud image.

no, actually, the long string of 1s is the functionality rating of various subsystems. If you look at the first two rows, all of the fields are named.

Nightshadow3002 · Post by **Nightshadow3002** » Sun Apr 24, 2005 2:14 am

@ jackS (or anyone who may know

)

1) The first two lines in what file (unit-file or units.csv)?

2) Is there a reason why the ships kafka, sartre and quicksilver are not included in "units.csv"?

Post by **jackS** » Sun Apr 24, 2005 9:33 am

apologies for lack of clarity - first two lines of units.csv

as to why those ships didn't have entries - I didn't get around to coming up with an appropriate set of stats for the ships before the release.

Halleck · Post by **Halleck** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 1:25 am

You can actually create a second view that makes the first two rows of units.csv always visible when editing the file, which is very handy.

In OpenOffice calc, select cell b3 and hit "freeze". In Excel, as far as i remember, you can drag down that little bit on the top of the vertical scroll bar to create an upper view showing the first two rows, and do your editing in the lower view.

Nightshadow3002 · Post by **Nightshadow3002** » Thu Apr 28, 2005 12:18 am

I really tried to edit units.csv (using StarOffice) ... and failed (nothing to do with StarOffice

)!

I wasn't able to find out, which "0" or "1" belongs to what subsystem with the consequence that VS wasn't playable...

Thank Fortune I backed up units.csv, so - after getting it back and throwing the "edited" version into the garbagecan - I'm still able to play.

All I won is "experience".

Post by **ace123** » Thu Apr 28, 2005 4:59 am

When saving the units.csv, make sure that the file format is set to comma separated values AND make sure that the separator/deliminator is comma "," (I think it defaults to something else like tab even after opening a CSV file.)

Another alternative is to get out a text editor (Notepad on windoes, TextEdit on mac, kwrite/emacs/vim/anything on linux). But this forces you to keep track of which column is which,

reaper · Post by **reaper** » Thu Apr 28, 2005 3:39 pm

Also, when editing the csv file, there are things like the coordinates of gun mounts, the cockpit, etc. You can look at the units/shipname[\i].blank files to find the coordinates. This is important for the three ships you mention since their coordinates will be different than whatever template ship you use.

the Wiki How tos on how to look at xunit files and loading a ship, etc. are marginally useful and that with a combination of messing around seemed to work for me.

GAlex · Post by **GAlex** » Tue May 03, 2005 8:53 pm

hello everyone.

i've developed a small tool to help editing csv files.

i'ts lightweight, about 400kB, has a simple, straight and self explanatory GUI, and all that stuff you need, without needing to buy microsoft office, or downloading openoffice (and waiting for it to start).

it's open source free software released under GPL.

i'ts developed in freepascal with the aid of Lazarus IDE/RAD and thus the app can be built for quite all the os's and processors. for more info see www.lazarus.freepascal.org.

attached at this post you can find a zip archive with the source files and a win32 build.

a linux build will follow as soon as i have the time to install and configure my new SuSE 9.3, and install/configure on it freepascal+Lazarus (or will someone do this in shorter times?)

the executables compiled and linked with freepascal are statically linked, so they does not need any external library, running easily out of the box.

try it and sent me comment in this forum or in the other opened in the developer tool section.

thanks to all.

file removod due to buggy build. reposted

Post by **hellcatv** » Wed May 04, 2005 6:46 am

really awesome

I got it working in wine--have to configure gcc to build pascal at some point in the future

GAlex · Post by **GAlex** » Wed May 04, 2005 4:29 pm

the previous build was buggy and has been removed.
new build attached to this post.

i don't think you will be able to compile a freepascal+LCL (lazarus component library) project with gcc due to compatibility issues, but if it was possible, i don't think it's the best way, cause you'd have to configure also the compiler and linker paths.

if you have time and will i strongly suggest you to have a look at www.lazarus.freepascal.org, in which you can find all the rpms and srpms you need. it's not so heavy to download if you have broadband (i've only 1280 kbit/s dsl and took me less than 5 minutes).

i was also sure it could run in wine, but ... it's better to have it ELF on linux.

i don't think i will have the time for a linux build this week, 'cause i'm going to spend some days in Tunisia.

i will be back on 16.may, and will then reply all the requests/feedbacks posted meanwile.

see you soon.

Post by **hellcatv** » Thu May 05, 2005 12:40 am

cool--well at least it works in wine until then

GAlex · Post by **GAlex** » Thu Jun 30, 2005 2:34 pm

after a long while, here it is a linux build.

enjoy.

Vega Strike Forums

How can ships be added into units.csv? (VS 0.4.3)

How can ships be added into units.csv? (VS 0.4.3)

csv editing tool

gcc and freepascal+lazarus

linux build