Program to make the creation of mods easier.

posted on July 17th, 2011, 1:04 pm

This is likely a larger undertaking than I can afford to work on and have complete anytime soon, but I was planning on making a program that would take care of the creation of a mod for you.  Other than the creation of the texture and model... maybe a few other things, but the text like odfs and such.

I'm just looking for opinions and if anyone has some programming knowledge in any language and could help just say so.  Right now this is in the pre-alpha planning stages, so don't expect to see the program or screenshots anytime soon.

posted on July 17th, 2011, 3:20 pm

Well, the devs are going to release theirs at some point, but it won't be for a long time.

posted on July 17th, 2011, 3:26 pm

I'd like to help.  I have some programming experience.  Mostly web based, but I have dabbled some with Java and C++.  I used to create using VB6 and well... now it's all outdated lol.

I figure I can at least get started.  The more people working on it the faster the progress of course.

posted on July 17th, 2011, 6:45 pm

At the very least, I want to see this made to replace the borg fusion cube 



Now hear me out, there's a back story.  It's the first ship they ever assimilated from earth so they've had plenty of time to adapt it.  They had so many gunports to choose from they decided to leave them and modify them so the smaller ones are pulse energy cannons and the larger ones fire graviton torps.

It's LOVE!

posted on July 17th, 2011, 6:49 pm

The obvious similarity to a certain type of vessel is that rediculous that it's cool again. I like - but not as cube replacement. 

posted on July 17th, 2011, 7:17 pm

Not cube, fusion cube :-)

I see your point though.  Eventually I'll make a mod for my own race.  Orion Pirates maybe?!

posted on July 21st, 2011, 12:36 pm

Well, the devs are going to release theirs at some point, but it won't be for a long time.

It would really, really, really be nice if they would because for some types of mods the amount of work required is staggering.
For example: working on adding a third Fed avatar I have found that the word "saber" comes up 130,878 times in 3,209 separate odfs! Needless to say, it gets discouraging rather quickly.

posted on July 21st, 2011, 12:45 pm

Yup, though one can't stress enough that the automated tools that Optec has will take awhile to be rebuilt for release.

Nonetheless, you'll find that many existing, free programs can help . You mentioned that the Saber is mentioned many times - if you are looking to do a simple auto-replace of that, there are several programs on the web that allow you to find and replace in many files at once. Similarly, if you need to figure out if some files changed between patches, you can do so with programs such as Beyond Compare. 

posted on July 21st, 2011, 6:09 pm

Auto-replace... that will likely not end well, so be sure to backup.

Sorry... I feel the need to throw that out there so we don't get some angry person who has to restart with all their awesome mods.

posted on July 21st, 2011, 10:44 pm

Auto-replace... that will likely not end well, so be sure to backup.

Sorry... I feel the need to throw that out there so we don't get some angry person who has to restart with all their awesome mods.

LOL! No kidding. That would be a disaster. If you're looking to add to the game you're looking at an inordinate amount of work, mainly due to the way weapons are handled in the odfs.

posted on July 22nd, 2011, 4:12 am

...
Now hear me out, there's a back story.  It's the first ship they ever assimilated from earth so they've had plenty of time to adapt it.  They had so many gunports to choose from they decided to leave them and modify them so the smaller ones are pulse energy cannons and the larger ones fire graviton torps.

It's LOVE!

Am i the only one who's totally confused???


And back to original topic: just "YES, PLEASE!". Is there any release date by the devs announced yet?

posted on July 22nd, 2011, 9:33 pm

Somethnig what would spare me the time of creating, editing, typing ODFs would be very awesome

posted on July 23rd, 2011, 2:57 am

I have actually started something along these lines. I'm writing it in Microsoft Visual C++ using the MFC libraries, so a lot of grunt work is done for me.

It was more of something to keep my programming skills fresh. It's nowhere close to being usable though. The thought was to have it be able to do ODFs, sprites, tech trees, etc.; text based stuff. However, I have encountered a number of stumbling blocks.

First, there does not seem to exist a definitive list of ODF commands, either for FO or A2. Yes, I'm aware of the Big Book of Modding, and it does contain a fair list, but it looses effectivness about half way through. Second, my lack of modding experience means that I'm not entierly sure how certain things work and therefore can't really translate them into a good abstract representation. Third, I'm unsure what the primary interface should be. Currently the program resembles Visual Studio for those that are familiar with it. So Properties pane, Project Explorer pane, Output pane, etc. all dockable around a main window. But I'm stuck on that main window. One thought is to make it a form style with multiple controls that you fill info into. However, that makes a Properties pane redundant. Another idea is to have nodes which would display the relationship of elements with most of the editing happening in the Properties pane. So if anyone has ideas shout them out; ideally we want to avoid typing like coding. Fourth, I'm not sure how to represent the ship/rank relationship. From one perspective, you have a class and it can rank up, but technically every rank can override any of the element essentially making it its own ship. So again, if anyone has ideas.

I had also hoped to include the ability to pack to an FPQ automatically, so it would be cool if the devs could create a DLL with the packing/unpacking code.

Realize that this project may never come to fruition and I probably won't be able to work on it much once school starts again, but who knows.

posted on July 23rd, 2011, 3:23 am

Glad to hear of your successes Atlantisbase

We will be completing the list of nested ODF commands and classlabels eventually, but it requires a lot of work from Doca and thus will still take some time. However, it will be done eventually . At the very least, so far, a complete weapons' ODF tool could probably be created  . I would be careful relying on the BBoM for the ODF commands, as there are quite a few errors present - either commands that do not exist/do not function, or are wrong in their description/usage 

posted on July 23rd, 2011, 9:16 am

I would be careful relying on the BBoM for the ODF commands, as there are quite a few errors present - either commands that do not exist/do not function, or are wrong in their description/usage 

I think Starbase34 has a corrected list of A2 commands, IIRC it's quite extensive.