20 odfs for one ship? Help!

posted on August 9th, 2012, 12:41 am

Seems like a long time ago I was modding the hell out of a little mod called Star Trek vs Star Wars for Armada 1. Imagine my pleasant surprise upon discovering this glorious mod for Armada 2. Its so awesome I want to mod it!

However, its been a long time since I modded Armada and while odf files aren't particularly complicated I was a little confused by the odf setup for Fleet Ops. For instance, why the hell are there like 20 different odf files for the saber class starship AND like 20 different weapon odfs for just the saber starship?

I realize that there might be more files because of the avatar and ship rank system but I'm at the point that I have no clue which odf to edit just to add some photon torps to the base saber class.

I have looked at the modding guides with this wesite but I dont see any specific answer to my question so any help would be appreciated.

posted on August 9th, 2012, 2:55 am

It's probably to account for the Risner and Mason avatars, and for the Hyper-Impulse system (which is probably a replaceweapon), so there's 24 right there.

I've not tried any modding myself, but I suspect that you might have to edit some / most / all of those ODFs to get your extra torpedo launcher on. I expect the devs have some tools that make the handling of all those files a lot easier, and this news post indicates that some of this tech will hopefully be coming available for modders in the next major version.

posted on August 9th, 2012, 5:34 am

The reason the Saber (and ever other ship) has tons of odfs is because of the Rank system, The Avatar system, and also the replaceweapon system. Take the saber for example: it has 6 odfs for one avatars ranks, + the other is 12, + the hyper impulse drive = 24.+ the complexe cover fire system thats in place now =48(ish?).. and as for weapons, each rank has its own weapon files, and the upper ranks have quantum pules. as for adding a new weapon, pretty much the same as stock, you just have to copy/paste the code in 12+ files (the cover fire mode already has torps)

the saber is also one of the worst ships to start on to. simply because it has soooo many odfs (far above average) even for fleet ops standards.

posted on August 9th, 2012, 8:18 am

yes, we are working on reducing the number of odf files. it is (was) also a confusing matter for us. next major version should improve readability of the odf files again.

posted on August 9th, 2012, 3:47 pm

Well... I hate to say it, but actually next version greatly expands the numbers of ODF files in use... I think 326 Feds had ~1000 files, and currently next version feds have ~5000 (mostly weapons though) . However, like Doca said, the readability should be greatly improved: we streamlined how our automated tools spit out the files, so should be at least nicer to look at

posted on August 9th, 2012, 3:55 pm

Well... I hate to say it, but actually next version greatly expands the numbers of ODF files in use... I think 326 Feds had ~1000 files, and currently next version feds have ~5000 (mostly weapons though) . However, like Doca said, the readability should be greatly improved: we streamlined how our automated tools spit out the files, so should be at least nicer to look at

posted on August 9th, 2012, 3:58 pm

oh yea, have just been briefed about the recent changes... while the new techtree option vastly reduces the odf count, some nifty new gameplay stuff adds a bigger number again

posted on August 9th, 2012, 4:27 pm

Dominus' numbers are a bit over the top. the 3.2.6 federation consists of about 2600 files and the latest dev implementation consists of about 4000 files for the federation.

Yet, the number will probably go down before release. They aren't optimized yet

posted on August 9th, 2012, 8:00 pm

Are you thinking of releasing some of the tools you have for managing the ODFs and the tech tree to the modding community? I can imagine that the difficulty of modifying all the different versions of a ship is one of the barriers to entry.

posted on August 9th, 2012, 8:28 pm

Yup, eventually the tools should be releasable - however, it should be noted that a lot of documentation needs to be created before that's possible. It's also not as simple as "enter: defiant, 5 ranks, super awesome phasers" obviously, as the scripting tools have their own language created by Optec. Oftentimes modifying the base ODFs can be faster for small changes; the tools gain their real importance when building and maintaining large modifications.

posted on August 9th, 2012, 10:25 pm

That extra 2K is all dominus fault.. luz. HAHAHAHAHA... but wow 4000 eh? mostly weapons? i can't even begin to imagine what that might be used on

posted on August 9th, 2012, 11:13 pm

but wow 4000 eh? mostly weapons?

i couldnt help but think of this

posted on August 10th, 2012, 1:46 am

Well this definitely answers my question. Thanks a bunch for all the quick replies. I totally love this mod and if paramount had any sense they would hire you guys to fix the poor reputation of star trek games.

posted on August 10th, 2012, 2:20 am

I was working on a Cardassian avatar mod, but stopped as soon as I got to 50 odf files. Hopefully with 3.3.x we'll get a lot of the cool tools

posted on August 10th, 2012, 3:42 pm

Heh, I have over 160 for my star wars mod(beta) that doesn't even use ranks, and over 300 for my BSG mod having ranks on only a few of them.