Freelancer Mod Studio - 1.2

Thanks for the heads-up adoxa, edited.

I’ve just tried the editor. First question - is the 3D editor actually functional? No idea how to move the objects around.

As for the more strategic approach. I’m not sure if many modders have a demand for visual editing of ini files. Some text editors provide collapsible ini file entries for compact view, and using ctrl-f for searching things is something we’re all accustomed to. Implementing an error checker for all ini entries, and for links between those entries… well, could be useful, but it will take a lifetime. Plus, there are pretty good error checkers available around.

Generally, if I were you, I’d concentrate primarily on the 3D system editing part.

Which leads to the next question. Right now you can open and view the system, change coordinates in “properties” and observe the result. There are several drawbacks here: first, you cannot move them in 3D mode (which was already mentioned), second, there are many excessive properties for all objects that are never used (blank) and make it harder to actually find the coordinates.

Also, I tried saving the file with the Mod Studio, and it looks like all the entries for all objects in the system are re-arranged, with changed ini properties order and changed order of objects. I mean… what for would you do that? Freelancer Explorer, with all its flaws, never messed with the code that wasn’t changed (except for adding the line breaks) and placed entries for new objects in the order used in Vanilla FL. With modders accustomed to Vanilla formatting, I don’t think it’s a good idea to change it. For example:

a base in Vanilla starts like that

[Object]
nickname = EW15_11
pos = -66148, 0, 31979
ids_info = 65713
behavior = NOTHING
pilot = pilot_solar_easy
dock_with = EW15_11_Base
base = EW15_11_Base

and base after saving the file in Studio is

[Object]
Archetype = space_police01
Base = EW15_11_Base
behavior = NOTHING
difficulty_level = 18
dock_with = EW15_11_Base
ids_info = 65713
ids_name = 505200

Anyway - just like with Freelancer Explorer, each tool (especially in testing stage) needs me as a system modder to track the code changes that the tool makes - and in this case, tracking changes is hard as hell.

I believe there are a number of really strong features in this new editor - one of them is showing the direction and size of objects in the 3D view. Planet rings, for example - that’s something that can be used for system editing right now (even with the viewer). So, it’s only a suggestion, but why not start expanding in that area? First thing that comes into mind is implementing direction controls for objects like wrecks - so that you could see in 3D view which direction the wreck is exactly facing. If you could add actual models to 3D view - even better, but preformance issues will arise because of that. If it’s done, it must be optional only, with schematic view also available.

So, in my opinion, the primary things to proceed with would be:

1. Concentrate on systems only, at least for now, to do what FL Explorer can do, and do it better. FL Explorer has good “wizards” to create bases and such, so it would be good to duplicate those, but not essentially.

2. Make the editor usable for fine-tuning systems in its current stage, which means that it shouldn’t re-arrange the ini entries at all, editing only the part that must be edited. Like, if you change angle of planetary rings, only one line of the ini file is actually changed.

3. Make selection of objects in 3D view easier. Several ways to do this - make smaller objects within larger ones selectible, creating sortable lists of objects that would allow to group some, for example, to remove all zones from the view, etc.

All I can think of right now.

FLDev: not speaking for everyone, but we at Discovery use it for one specific (and very much needed) task: importing infocard sheets. And since the format that FLDev uses for it is quite convenient, it’s better to make sure that the new tool supports this import as well. But I won’t consider this a high-priority task.

On second look I tend to agree with Igiss.

If you focus on an ini editor the project will be long delayed.

And yes it is totally important to NOT change line order in most files.

Igiss wrote:
Freelancer Explorer, with all its flaws, never messed with the code that wasn’t changed (except for adding the line breaks) and placed entries for new objects in the order used in Vanilla FL.

But FL Explorer likes to wipe out commented stuff. Really annoying when testing different values. Also it always makes fields display as debris on the minimap.

Well first let’s see if stfx is in agreement with focussing on the system editor only, then we can help him to construct a definition for the editor’s functions, so that he understands the spec we would like and see what he can do.

stfx - it may be a good thing, and then when that part is done and working if you still wish to continue the ini editor would certainly be useful if you agree, so that the Studio gets additional functionality in stages.

What do you think should be the first priority in that case? It’s your project.

But FL Explorer likes to wipe out commented stuff. Really annoying when testing different values.

Never said that Explorer is an ideal tool. Quite contrary, it has its drawbacks. Amd I don’t use comments in systems so I didn’t consider that part.

In any case, I keep the “master” mod files apart from the folder edited by FL Explorer, and apply changes in a selective way. And recommend the same to other system modders.

Also it always makes fields display as debris on the minimap.

Yes, true. But it’s easy to edit manually if you have a table with correct values for varied fields

My goal here is not to praise FLEx but to recommend implementing useful features from that tool into the new one… that’s it.

stfx, thanks for the reply.

But I guess that most users still prefer to enter the values manually since you cant define it that exactly - e.g. I prefer setting it to a “nice” number like 16000 instead of something like 15989.

Never cared about that one actually - it doesn’t matter, main thing is that the object looks nicely in the system, and this usually requires some coordinate fine-tuning.

That means I wont drop the visual editor and will not concentrate on systems only. I will try to improve the tool in general.

Not asking to drop one of course (it’s needed to edit systems anyway). It’s your tool, you decide

About the order of the saved properties. You are right that modders are not accustomed to this order of properties and it is harder to track the changes from vanilla. But you could save every vanilla file using the studio so you will again have the same order of properties. Well as you may have realized they are somewhat ordered by name so I thought it would be easier to find a specific entry. But it is not a big deal to change it you just have to edit the order of those properties inside Template.xml in the app folder. Well … nevermind I will do that for you and it will be implemented in the next version

Depends on how this will be done. It’s not like there is one unified order of entries for all files…

It’s actually one of the crucial issues - whether files are comparable or not, and whether they are in the same format (even if the order of entries is irrelevant and “format” is purely cosmetic). In fact for some files the order is relevant, and we may not know about all of those cases since we rarely change the order. Within one entry - it’s surely cosmetic and doesn’t affect anything, but readability is important too - if you worked with the ini files of the same format for years, it’s not that easy to adopt reading the entries in a different order.

As for the direction controls for wrecks. Thats why ships and jumpgates look like pyramids. Because you can see, based on the tip, the direction it is looking to.

Maybe highlight the “tip” somehow? I didn’t get where that tip is when I first looked, maybe wasn’t attentive enough…

And yes I will also think about a way to make selection easier. If you have some more ideas how to do that please tell me.

The obvious way is to enable selecting smaller objects “through” aerial zones. So that you select the object you need by clicking on it, even it’s within a zone (zone is easy to select by clicking anywhere else on it). More precise controls for zoom in/out will also help.

This tool is nice for positioning objects and finding things in existing systems faster than swimming through the text, even with the current way of selecting objects (you have to peel the zones off to get to them)

What’s more of an issue is that the tool does not support CYLINDER shapes very well (displays boxes and the rotation does weird things), and the rotate = a, b, c entry is not interpreted the same way as in Freelancer. That is probably the most important thing for me, since I would like to use this tool in the future to check patrol path positioning in systems that are not entirely on plane (y=0).

I know this is digging up what seems to be an older topic (march?) but I’m a new modder and I was wondering on the status of this program and what the newest available version would be?

Thanks

The current version is the 0.9.2.0, the link in the first post has been updated, I’ve been using it for a few months now and it has a lot of useful features especially the 3D system view.

Objects can be copied from existing systems and pasted into your new one (be careful with zones if they have exclusions) and the name, location edited as required.

CK256

I think it looks great

But tell me… can i trust it? I code by hand now thanks to FLE & me not working out well… i still use FLE but will never let it touch my mod with its confused sticky fingers… as was stated previously… changes are made, then its a long process of lifting the relevant data from my “dummy mod” into the real mod…

How far removed from that scenario is this proggy?? keep in mind i code just about everything from scratch/templates… and prefer the hands on approach… even to market files… Thus has FLE turned me into an anally retentive monster… will this somehow help in my recovery of trust in modding programs for FL? … besides the ones that actually do as there told… HCMP, FLDev… ect

Looks nice though.

I just tried the latest version but I couldn’t get it to load system ini’s or universe ini’s (or display them), it will read files like initial world so I’m guessing it might be related to the 3D display function.

CK256

Me again! the system ini files now load and display the ini code but when I try to activate the 3D viewer I get the following error message

“FreelancerModStudio, Systempresenter. SharedGeometries” threw an exception

CK256

also the same error for each system

it works for my vanillia folder