Freelancer Mod Studio - 1.2

adoxa wrote:
This is incorrect. Freelancer only tests if it exists, thus separable = false is identical to separable = true. JFLP removes the value altogether, just using separable, which the Studio has a problem with (presumably sees it as blank, so doesn’t write it back). This also applies to autoselect in news.ini and autoplay in the missions.

Oh I did not know that… fortunately thats easy to change and will be fixed in the next version. If you enter = inside the value you will get the wanted result (separable = ).

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

Is that important? Because the tool does not support it currently as well.

Igiss wrote:
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.

I am sorry if I did not make myself clear that the tool does not support 3D position/rotation/scale editing in the viewer yet. But that is actually on my todo list and would not be impossible to implement. 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.

As for the visual editor for ini files. I agree with you that most modders are used to using a texteditor since they used it until now but the visual editor was implemented with the thought to combine it with typecasting (so that you cant enter a string inside a number property) and drop down options just like StarTrader said. My little amount of time is the result for the current stage. That means I wont drop the visual editor and will not concentrate on systems only. I will try to improve the tool in general.

Of course currently the 3D editor is the feature that most users are interested in so I will probably spent the most time to improve that specific part but I am against the use of usual wizards like in fle. I will think about something like the possibility to jump to entries in other files for the selected object - like bases and so on (any ideas?).

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

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. Tell me if the direction does not represent the one in FL. I am not sure if I can implement the display of real models - we will see about that one.

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.

thanks for the feedback

If everything goes well there will be a new version comming out pretty soon.

Changes:

• Load and save blocks in the original order
• Allow to change the order of blocks using drag&drop
• Allow sorting the blocks while still retaining the block order
• Options will be saved in a unified orderer which is used by Freelancer
• Allow to load and save entries which dont have a value (seperable = )
• If there are multiple entries for a single option take the last (Freelancer like behaviour)
• Implemented octahedron mesh display for LightSource
• Fix a crash when opening a system in the universe 3D display when using the english language

Please tell me what you think about =]

Well you should be able to trust it completely. It might try to be clever and reorders options based on known Freelancer .ini option order and you can even change them globally when editing the template.xml in the application’s directory.

In the new version you can manually reorder blocks because those need to be in a specific order in some files.

About the option values. Well FLMS does not try to force any values for them. You can enter anything you like (right now) but Freelancer may not like it. Actually it was planned to support you with that as well but I did not have the time to implement it yet.

OK … what I want to say is that everything you see after you saved the file is entirely your doing except option reordering. Therefore you can definately trust it as it wont magically change things or crash because of strange values or something like that.

0.9.5 released

Download the latest version here
View the changelog

You can also use the autoupdater of your Freelancer Mod Studio if you have it installed to automatically upgrade.

I rearranged a lot of options inside Template.xml which define the save order or options within a block - for example if nickname = … will be saved before ids_info = … or the other way round

But there are still lots of options left to rearrange in template.xml. If anyone wants to help please feel free to compare them with FL vanilla .ini option arrangement and send me your differences. Thanks

duh made a stupid typo - will upload a hotfix now

EDIT: 0.9.5.1 is online

What the heck I guess I didnt test it enough this time.

Mirkha: Mind sending me your universe.ini? Because if I understood you right your vanilla ones works - thats correct?

EDIT:
CK256: Mind sending me your system+universe+solararch file as well because I cant reproduce it with my vanilla files?