Floating Point Crash

[DeadZone]

Ok, ships must have engines put on them (the usual reason a "Floating Point Error" occurs

XFiles are 3d meshes, so I cant say what side effects using notepad would produce (I would be surprised if there was none)

I suggest reading this (will need acrobat reader)

[Sundansyr]

Since the engines are the very first thing put on the ship in the components equipped list... I've put them in every time.

Conversely, if I set 'equipped components' to 0 (zero), there are no problems. There are also no component slots on the ships! Regardless of the components file. I've noticed on the playerpurchaseships that the 'equipped components' line is parsed: 0 // 0 rather than with the number of equipped components for that ship record.

As for the acrobat file...
It says *nothing* about how to open, edit, save, or manipulate Xfiles. It just says what they are and basically what they do for the game... nothing more informative than that.
To whit: I took an existing Xfile and merely pointed it to a new mesh using an existing model (recolored), renamed it, adjusted the spaceobjects file, component layout file, and all that, and it shows up just fine in the game start. Just crashes whenever I try to use it or open the spacedock (when it's made buyable).
My layout is within the required parameters.

May it be weapons? I've noticed that regardless of firing arcs I have seen that very seldom will a ship fire more than two weapons at a time even if they're all in the same firing chain. (button '1', for instance)

This new model has 7 weapons, 5 of which have forward arcs.

[Phoenix-D]

You cannot edit .x files manually; you need a program like Wings 3d for that. You -can- edit, say, spaceobjects_xfiles.txt though.

"Conversely, if I set 'equipped components' to 0 (zero), there are no problems. There are also no component slots on the ships! Regardless of the components file. I've noticed on the playerpurchaseships that the 'equipped components' line is parsed: 0 // 0 rather than with the number of equipped components for that ship record."

This is the problem. If you try to specify a component to equip it MUST go into a valid slot. If you try to put it into a slot that doesn't exist- error. And since your ship *has* no slots..

You need to find out why your ship's slots aren't showing up.

This also explains your Access Violation, FYI. Ships with no components have no hull points, which creates a Divide By Zero error when that ship is created in-game.

[Exan]

I suggest using a program called LithUnwrap. You can open x files with it and then convert them to 3ds format for example. Then you can simply import the 3ds object to almost any 3D program and edit the models with it. Then when you're done you save the model in 3ds format again and open it in lithunwrap to convert it back to x format. Set the convert mode to text and turn of compressed when converting to x format. Works nicely.

As for slots, open the slot configuration in the SlotModder. You can easily see if somethings wrong from there. Then check your ship data in the StartingPlayerShip or PurchaseShipPlayer and check that the slot layout is set right. Besides that I don't know why doesn't it work. I've made over 20 models for starfury and they've all worked with no big problems.

[Sundansyr]

Exan said:
I suggest using a program called LithUnwrap. You can open x files with it and then convert them to 3ds format for example. Then you can simply import the 3ds object to almost any 3D program and edit the models with it. Then when you're done you save the model in 3ds format again and open it in lithunwrap to convert it back to x format. Set the convert mode to text and turn of compressed when converting to x format. Works nicely.

3D program such as what? They're huge and not particularly gentle on the learning curve, or so I've seen. I have not found any small, simple ones yet... but then, I have not looked. Generally I just use PS7.

For this single ship I made a single line adjustment to the abbidon_destroyer.X file, which when I opened it in notepad did not come up a hash. Instead of pointing it to the abbidon destroyer mesh, I put in another mesh name and saved as another x file. This shows up just fine in game, so I don't think the X-file was the problem.

To check that I'm going to adjust the abbidon destroyer to use the new x file and mesh, see what happens.

[Exan]

Like Phoenix said. You don't need to edit the x file if you want to edit the existing mesh. Just copy the ship data you want to modify in the SpaceObjects_XFiles and edit that.

Exan said:
I suggest using a program called LithUnwrap. You can open x files with it and then convert them to 3ds format for example. Then you can simply import the 3ds object to almost any 3D program and edit the models with it. Then when you're done you save the model in 3ds format again and open it in lithunwrap to convert it back to x format. Set the convert mode to text and turn of compressed when converting to x format. Works nicely.

There, like I said before. Try LithUnwrap. I'm not sure if it's shareware or not. The Version I downloaded from internet has worked fine so far.

As for hardpoints (firing points and engine glow points) load the model first in Lithunwrap. Then save it as 3ds. You'll propably have to rename the group names and the texturemap names since 3ds format has it's limits. Then shut down lithunwrap and open Anim8or for example. Import the model there and then create a sphere with 1 radius. Then simply move the sphere around. When it's in place you want to put weapon point take the coordinates up and put them in the SpaceObjects_XFiles. This method works fine.

[Sundansyr]

Exan said:
Like Phoenix said. You don't need to edit the x file if you want to edit the existing mesh. Just copy the ship data you want to modify in the SpaceObjects_XFiles and edit that.

Okay... that's what I did.
Now, in the ship xfile that I was tinkering with: Abbidon_destroyer.x It points to the mesh it wants to use. I changed that in notepad, since that particular xfile did not seem to be much more than text. It seemed to work.

The only editing I wanted to do in the xfile is that, changing what mesh it referred to before changing its name to whatever as a new file.

[Exan]

The x files are text but they also have all the model coordinates etc. So basically the .x files are the meshes.

If you want to create a new ship using the existing mesh/model just copy the abbidon destroyer settings in the SpaceObject_XFiles.txt and rename the design. And if you only want to affect it's components etc. you don't even have to edit the SpaceObjects_XFiles at all. All it contains are the ship's size and hardpoints.

You can edit the Main_StartingPlayerShip.txt and copy the Terran Destroyer and edit the copy. Just change the XFile part to Abbidon Destroyer. Then you can change how big the ship is (how many kT) and what components it has. Also change the ShieldLayout, ShipPortrait and ShipPortraitProfile parts from Terran destroyer to Abbidon destroyer so the game uses proper bitmaps for the design.

[Phoenix-D]

You don't need to change the .x file at all in this case. Just change the pointer is spaceobjects_files.txt. You don't have to change any identifying information in the .x file itself because the player NEVER sees it.

Actually if you aren't going to be changing the mesh you don't even need to copy/rename the .x file..ships can share the same mesh just fine.

[Sundansyr]

Phoenix-D said:
You cannot edit .x files manually; you need a program like Wings 3d for that.

And what else? 3D modelling is not something I have done much if in the past... and even then it was with architectural CAD programs.

*components' line is parsed: 0 // 0 rather than with the number of equipped components for that ship record."

This is the problem. If you try to specify a component to equip it MUST go into a valid slot. If you try to put it into a slot that doesn't exist- error. And since your ship *has* no slots..

I cut those ships out as they were causing problems. I still get a black screen when I open the shipyard, but hitting alt-F4 clears whatever that error is and I can use the shipyard normally.

The '0 // 0' was there *before* I started making any changes to the playerpurchaseships.txt file. Those ships all had their components listed, but whenever I purchase one of them there's nothing on them.

<edit>
I just realized something. Slotmodder offers a 'hardpoint number', which I thought was for weapons. Maybe that also goes for engines? I did not give engines/shields/armor 'hardpoint slot numbers', beyond their facing arcs.