Ranking up the Newton

posted on August 17th, 2010, 7:53 pm

Alright so what all do I need to do here? I think i've got the idea but I need to make sure first. I want a veteran Newton to be on par with a veteran K'tinga basically. I want to add the pulse phaser from the Venture And ofcourse have its exsisting phaser deal more damage as it ranksup.

Can someone please walk me through this so I don't screw up lol.

[Tyler]

posted on August 17th, 2010, 8:01 pm

Last edited by Tyler on August 17th, 2010, 8:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Copy 'fed_newtonZ' and rename the copy 'fed_newtonZr2', then add into the first one:

nextrankclass = "fed_newtonZr2"
xplevel = 1
nextrankxp = 36

Second one:

basename = "fed_newton"
originalclass = "fed_newtonZ"
xplevel = 2
worthxp = 33

Then copy the Phaser and increase the damage, then replace the entry in the rank2 odf with the new phaser. Adding the Pulse Phaser would require simply copying the weapon entry to the Newton and changing the weapon number to 1 higher than the last in use.

Repeat that for the other ranks. You'd also have to do the same for the upgraded version, including adding the ranks odf's into the upgrade itself.

posted on August 17th, 2010, 8:14 pm

Except that the upgraded versions arn't avatar specific so what do I do there? Just U/UU/UUUr2 then?

posted on August 17th, 2010, 8:32 pm

Yes, the seperate avatar odfs are only around because off techtree requirements. Other than that, they're the same.

posted on August 31st, 2010, 2:20 am

Did I read this right?

As explained in the Introduction to Modding, editing the in-game text (tooltips) is mostly done through the Dynamic Localized Strings file. It is recommended that you use Notepad ++ to gain access to several features which will be most helpful for determining what the strange symbols that appear in lieu of numbers actually mean. To see the numbers in dynamic_localized_strings.h it is necessary to click the tab called "Encoding" in Notepad ++ and "encode in UTF-8". You should get a display of many black characters that seem to make no sense. Here is the translation matrix for what they are used for in Fleet Operations. To edit those numbers you will probably need to use a hex editor.

Notepad ++ is only useful for viewing the DLS file and not actually editing it?

That would explain this...

"AUTOTOOLTIP-fedW_newtonr61.odf", "
      x81 x8F Damage
   x81 xBD xD7 Shot Delay
         Weapon range: Medium

         Phasers are powerful beam weapons that
         utilize Nadion particle emissions. They
         are very popular among space-travelling
         species of all kind. Phaser Arrays are
         a special mounting method for the
         emitters to achieve short reload times
         and wide attack arcs
",

Also, the icons. How do I add the pulse phaser icon and change the special weapon energy icon back to the phaser icon for the ranked up ships?

posted on August 31st, 2010, 12:19 pm

Ok...notepad ++ is what you should use.  It have found it a little tricky to actually do it though.

So heres what you do to edit the symbols.  set the editor in ANSII.  you should see a couple of symbols.  Open a new one and click the TextFX tab, then tools, and then insert an Ansii character chart.  if you are still in ansii, you should see most of the symbols.  Then what you do is make it utf -8 like it says in the guide, and you will again see all those icons.  what you need to do is look for the corresponding icons and copy the ansii characters(some of which will be invisible).  For some reason you can not copy the icons when they are in utf - 8, only when they are in ansii form, so that is why you need to switch back and fourth.  It is a little complicated, but it does work in the end.

As for the weapon icons, They are called SystemImages.  You can find all the weapons that use them in the systemimages.spr file in the sprites folder.  if you open it with a text editor, you can see and edit any ones you want.  For more information on editing sprites, look in the sprites section of the Introduction to Modding in the guide.


I hope my rambling helps.

posted on August 31st, 2010, 2:20 pm

Notepad ++ can be used to edit the text in the DLS file, but to get most of the same type of numbers (like the red numbers) that are in Flee Ops proper, it seems it is not possible to use Notepad ++ (you won't be able to copy/paste those numbers etc). Unfortunately you will have to use a hex editor. Since hex editors each have their own way of going about this... it requires trial and error. Optec has stated that when he has the time he will create a parser to make this easier however .

posted on August 31st, 2010, 4:07 pm

Well, I was able to do it to create the numbers for my Doctor who tooltips, it just takes trial and error, as you said.  you can only copy the symbold inansii format, and they are usually invisible.   Verry difficult to tell if you are doing it right.


But hey, if you already know what you want it to say, I would be happy to do it for you.

posted on August 31st, 2010, 4:37 pm

Ah, didn't think to do it that way. Neither Blade nor I could figure out how to copy it in UTF-8 format, so we gave up at that point (as in ansii they were invisible as you said). I'll add that explanation into that modding section.

posted on August 31st, 2010, 7:57 pm

Yeah, all im doing is changing the weapon/ship stats as far as damage per shot , shot delay and off/def/system values for each rank. I have it setup so that it ranks up only after all three upgrades are applied for both standard and klingon mixed-tech. So, Adm. Zaxxon I think I will take you up on your offer lol. This is just a little over my head.

I'll mess around with the system images last.