Freelancer Path Generator
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Ahh cool! Looking forward to seeing you on there! Hopefully you’ll enjoy it.
If you like what you see and wanna join the team, just let me or FriendlyFire know. I don’t know if you’ll have time for all that jazz, but I figured I toss the offer out there.
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Just a small addition to say source code is back in (see first post).
Whilst the tool is entirely obsolete as FLServer will generate these files for you, the rudimentary source code will just show how I achieved what I did.
I am no pro programmer, this was cobbled together in how my mind designed and saw the thing. I am always open to comments about how I could improve aspects of coding, so please feel free to say what is not optimal, or just plain bad if you do look through and feel the urge to correct me (I honestly welcome it!).
I used Netbeans as my IDE, so if you also use netbeans, you’ll be able to see the GUI builder
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It’s not at all obsolete Chips, yours considers locked jumpgates too and bypasses them.
And I’ve forgotten but there was something else too?
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When you say FLServer does this for you, does that mean path files are not necessary in multiplayer but are necessary for single player?
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Timmy51m wrote:
When you say FLServer does this for you, does that mean path files are not necessary in multiplayer but are necessary for single player?What i mean is that if you have no path files (i.e. delete them) and start FLServer…they are created.
I do not know whether FLServer generated path files obey locked gates, or generates paths for impossible jumps (i.e. the jumpgate in one system that is missing the corresponding jump object in the supposedly connected system) as I haven’t investigated.
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So you do need accurate path files for singleplayer? Your tool is hardly obsolete if that’s a true statement.
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Timmy51m wrote:
So you do need accurate path files for singleplayer? Your tool is hardly obsolete if that’s a true statement.Well, you do, yes. However, if you make a mod - then you would distribute the files with the mod - so players don’t need it. It’s a mod making tool basically.
If someone makes a mod and they’ve added systems though - they don’t need to download this and Java (although most PC’s have it installed anyway now), instead they can just run FLServer and let it generate the files for them and then copy them into their mod (i.e. Activate mod in FLMM, delete the shortest path files in the Freelancer Directory, then run FLServer, copy the files generated to desktop, deactivate mod, and then copy/paste the files over their mod files in FLMM).
Actually, that almost sounds like more work I’m happy if people do use it, and hope it is perfect in how it functions.
However, although path files were a major headache and I was lazy (to not want to create them by hand) - I made it after I finished modding - so it was simply because I enjoyed programming
It is actually very simple, you could remove 95% of the code as only a few lines really do the work… the rest is just to reassure users and make a nice usable interface
So the program itself is a little bloated, but meh -
Timmy51m wrote:
When you say FLServer does this for you, does that mean path files are not necessary in multiplayer but are necessary for single player?No, what it means is that if one or more of the path files are missing, FL Server will rebuild the missing one(s) when it starts up.
Chips and I didn’t know this, and my mod’s FL Server was crashing on startup so I couldn’t prove this, it was because I had more than 10 jumps in one system while it was trying to regenerate the path files.
Once I found the cause and reduced the jumps to 10, FL Server regenerated the path files. I tested by deleting them one by one and all at once and it regenerated all or just the missing ones.
It was yet another case where someone knew this but didn’t document or divulge it, and then someone else pointed us to it after I had gone through such a long troubleshooting episode.
Chips wrote this super utility, which takes into consideration locked jumpgates and badly-made jumps and lists them out and avoids them. Much better.
He was my contractor programmer at the time! rofl
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I think Flak is protected!
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That message is bloody useless I should have made it display the errors it has found - whoops blushes
I think it’s an easy fix for me, but… unfortunately timing is everything, it’s silly’o’clock in the morning and I’m off to bed. In 24 hours I am flying off to Vienna for a week skiing in Austria
If it’s an RC I cannot download to check the mod.
edit Well, apart from having an issue with two versions (whoops, so clumsy of me) on my PC and being unsure which I was working upon - I’ve uploaded the current release with a small fix to hopefully display the errors window.
I did a preliminary test by just renaming Ku02.ini to Ku02a.ini - it throws an ioexception, but displays in the errors window afterwards “missing file KU02” - so whilst I dunno what your error is, I hope this will allow for some clarity in displaying the errors window
Try downloading the original link (file should be 102kb or so).
It will give exception still, BUT hopefully the errors window will then appear saying wtf it is Let me know
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Not at all!
What I mean is that some modders changed some file headings so they can’t be easily opened to be modified, and it is possibly that is causing the error.
I don’t know for sure but I think Flak has some similar changes?
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I am curious as to why you might think locking a mod is going low?
I don’t see it that way at all, I have no problem - some mods are issued with no FLServer. That is extreme to me but isn’t considered going “low”.
Anyway, this is not the problem here, probably just a file problem.
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A note for “completeness”.
Alex sent me a link to the Flak mod, and the paths generated perfectly fine on windows XP - no issues.
Alex is on Windows 7 - which I currently do not have installed, so cannot verify 100% that this is the cause of his issue - or whether “run as administrator” (or whatever the usual fix is) allows the program to work as normal.
BUT
without further feedback about whether it is working, or installing Windows 7 here (I’ll see if I can get it within the next few days, I get a free copy under the academic alliance) I’m going to say that was the cause and therefore the solution should be “run as admin” :-? :-?
I also noticed that I uploaded a badly out of date source code version - whoops. I have therefore uploaded the latest source as well. See the first post.
Again, you don’t need the tool as FLServer apparently generates the path files if they are already missing