Calling all modders!

posted on July 3rd, 2010, 3:58 am

Hello to all of you who are willing to brave Fleet Ops coding!

The Armada II modding community is small and growing smaller (at least it seems so), and the Fleet Operations modding community is growing larger, but there is one ENORMOUS hurdle. I'll spell it out in simple terms:

NO. MODDING. GUIDE. 

In the past, people have promised to work on a guide (something like the BBoM for Fleet Ops), tabulating the odfs, providing examples of how things work, showing how to use the classlabels and new codes - however, as of yet, not much has seen the light of day!

Furthermore, people complain that there are not enough modders out there, nobody to join teams, and it even seems that some knowledge about modding FO is so insular that one would have to go to specialists to understand how some of the things work. That makes Dom very sad, as he'd like to see the FO community become big and strong with a great modding core to carry the mantle high!

In light of this, I'd humbly like to ask those of you who have knowledge to begin tabulating it! I would really like to open a new "tab" in the guide where this information would be readily available and most importantly, useful. Searching on the forums or experimenting constantly doesn't cut it - that isn't going to help many people, especially those who don't visit the forums, who are shy, or who look at FO and scream from fear at the supposed complexity  .

Please PLEASE share the vastness of your knowledge and don't just keep it locked up on harddrives and your minds . Thank you, and I hope that there will be at least a few people willing to collaborate and create something that will be useful for the community. Start simple, and over time it will grow into a truly useful resource 

posted on July 3rd, 2010, 5:21 am

Mine is still just a small bit.  I will update it and send you what I have in the next few days.  It isn't much yet though   I will be able to add more to it after my BSG mod is done.

posted on July 3rd, 2010, 5:30 am

Well, I think Dom is thinking that some of you could pull your resources and write a modding book.  It doesn't have to be pretty, and can be improved upon later.  But there's so many things you guys could write that would help bring in other modders.

Oh, and happy 3000th post.

[Anonymous]

posted on July 3rd, 2010, 5:33 am

Last edited by Anonymous on July 3rd, 2010, 5:34 am, edited 1 time in total.

Yeah, I was attempting to write a guide that would, after teaching basics, walk you though the addition of a ship from scratch(say...Miranda Class? )  Then have an additional section aboout warpin, and sepcial features for advanced modders.  Something like the big book of modding, but...not sos big.

I think I"m about half way through the basics, but I will have to update everything for 3.1.1

Oh, and happy 3000th post.

thanks!  Just noticed that myself.

posted on July 3rd, 2010, 8:24 pm

I think a guide about Fleet Ops specific commands and features would be useful. Also if the commands could be listed and how to use them with some examples it would most likely to be very helpful.

posted on July 3rd, 2010, 8:40 pm

As soon as Sigma's ready to release I'll gladly help put together a modding guide and give examples of all the little tricks I did. I fully support the idea of making a modding guide

posted on July 3rd, 2010, 8:57 pm

hi I have been working slowly on a modding wiki (link on the fo guide). Maybe the community can work together to get the guide finished (atm it has the odf codes from westworlds bbom and some fo codes)

posted on July 4th, 2010, 12:26 am

Just figured I'd crack the whip This is something that is sorely needed for the community in my opinion. Also, screenshots of the odfs (or at least written examples) would be reaaaaaally good too 

posted on July 4th, 2010, 1:00 am

yes boss loli guess we could do blank odfs with comments for a ship, station, pulse, phaser, torpedo and some different types of replaceweapon so people can learn easier (those coments really do help) plus makes things easier to see if nicely spaced and in order (like stock armada 2)

posted on July 4th, 2010, 1:30 am

As much as I know, I do not have the ability to be wordy enough to make a guide. The closest thing to a guide you may see me make is a Armada 2 Code dictionary. :p

posted on July 4th, 2010, 3:06 pm

Just figured I'd crack the whip This is something that is sorely needed for the community in my opinion. Also, screenshots of the odfs (or at least written examples) would be reaaaaaally good too 

Yeah, I actually kinda made mine with the Guide in mind(though tbh it was when it was still a pdf ) so it has  screenies of folders, insides of texture files, and will have screenies of the tt's, odf'z, sprites, ect.

posted on July 4th, 2010, 3:28 pm

Yeah, I actually kinda made mine with the Guide in mind(though tbh it was when it was still a pdf ) so it has  screenies of folders, insides of texture files, and will have screenies of the tt's, odf'z, sprites, ect.

Yeah, the last pdf was... more than a year ago? 

posted on July 4th, 2010, 5:40 pm

Naw, it was about August last year .  It wasn't until a few months after that when you made it a web site, and between that time I started it. I have made some progress, but I have to update it for the current patch.

Anyway, I didn't want to release an incomplete guide, because I wouldn't have time to help with the tons questions it would lead to.  Sn incomplete guide would ultimately just confuse people.

Anyways, I will send it hopefully within this week.  Unfortunatly I haven't had asmuch time to work as I would have liked on my vacation, so not much progress has been made on this nor my mod.

posted on July 6th, 2010, 6:48 pm

sorry to double post, but PM sent.

posted on July 6th, 2010, 9:38 pm

Never an issue If the post is worth it, why not?