JFLP / Jason's Freelancer Patch
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Some things I’ve learned over the years. Probably basic for most of you, but for some newer folks this might be helpful.
We used SDK 1.3 when we developed our mod. In order for our mod to even install, the client has to install SDK1.3. That’s because, with the exception of ADDED directories and files, FLMM does ALL of our mods edits via scripting and with no problems. We will be switching to the JFLP for future edits.
In order for the SDK and mods to work, there is some prep work you have to do however.
You need to start with a clean install of FL. This is normally a no-brainer, but surprisingly often, it’s the last thing players, modders, and even admins think of. Uninstall Freelancer after saving your savegames to another location, (if you’re running a server, save the multiplayer folder in your my documents\my games\freelancer folder to another location).
*** Win7 and Vista Users Note: *** For Win7 and Win Vista users, Install all Freelancer programs by right-clicking on the setup.exe file and choose ‘run as administrator’. Some people have found it necessary to disable User Account Control in order for it to work as well.
Now, reinstall FL. Running the MS 1.1 update is necessary only if you’re running a server. I think it’s a good idea to do regardless. After installing FL, reboot your machine and run FL in order to set up your multiplayer profile on your client machine.
Once that’s done, right click on the installation file for the SDK and again, choose ‘run as administrator’. Make sure the SDK file installs to the same location as your Freelancer\DATA folder. It overwrites the ini files in that directory and subdirectories. When that’s finished, verify correct installation by opening any *.ini file in your FL directory. If you can’t read it, you installed the SDK to the wrong location. If you installed FL into it’s default location, the SDK install should just follow it there automatically.
Now, right-click on the installation file for FLMM, (we’re using version 1.4beta4 as it has some features 1.3 does not have. It also has some issues such as not deleting directories that have been added in, but there are ways around that…). Choose ‘run as administrator’ again.
You should now be completely set up to run mods via FLMM. For best results, when switching mods you need to shut down FL (duh), and then verify that it is indeed shut down by making sure the Freelancer and FLServer processes are no longer running in Task Manager (start/run/taskmgr) If the program is still listed there, some files won’t be written to because they’re still showing up as ‘in use’. After disabling/deactivating a mod, go to the Tools/Restore Backups option in FLMM and run that also. Once you’ve done that, you should be gtg to activate the next mod you wish to use.
Now, regarding scripting… Whenever our players complain that the mod won’t activate, it’s almost ALWAYS because the above directions weren’t followed. With Win7 and Vista 64-bit installations Freelancer is usually installed into the C:\Program Files (x86) directory instead of the C:\Program Files directory. For best compatiblity results in running a 64-bit OS, manually install FL into the C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Freelancer\ directory.
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Good point. I always recommend players run the SDK before running our mod in order to ensure a good clean install, but also because my mod is written to the SDK. If my mod is written around a file that the SDK has already edited, it may not find the correct line(s) to edit if they’re still vanilla.
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warlordfmike wrote:
Im not gonna use FLMM any longer. il keep 1.5 installed just to have it. but to me 1.3 is just as unstable as 1.5.1.3 does not support vista or win 7 so its unstable there. plus it still creates FLbak files and i for one feel those cause problems of some sort. either way FLMM either needs to be updated or not used. for the reason of it only supporting Win xp.
Some people don’t want to listen.
SDK 1.3 just replaces some files in FL just like 1.5 does, there is no such thing as incompatibility with Win Vista/7
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StarTrader wrote:
SDK 1.3 just replaces some files in FL just like 1.5 does, there is no such thing as incompatibility with Win Vista/7He speaks about FLMM (which works with Vista though). Learn to read before you tell others to listen…
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robocop wrote:
Good point. I always recommend players run the SDK before running our mod in order to ensure a good clean install, but also because my mod is written to the SDK. If my mod is written around a file that the SDK has already edited, it may not find the correct line(s) to edit if they’re still vanilla.Your mod should be replacing the file with a complete one, not appending to it.
The fact you can append lines is fine but many times FLMM cannot undo the append correctly to de-activate the mod.
Be sensible.
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Doesn’t FLMM create a backup of all files it modifies? So it should be able to undo these changes.
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We keep trying to tell you about what we have, our utilities are not 100% reliable in function. In fact only a few of them are reliable.
With FLMM, should ¬= does
Over to you, do what you want.
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StarTrader wrote:
robocop wrote:
Good point. I always recommend players run the SDK before running our mod in order to ensure a good clean install, but also because my mod is written to the SDK. If my mod is written around a file that the SDK has already edited, it may not find the correct line(s) to edit if they’re still vanilla.Your mod should be replacing the file with a complete one, not appending to it.
The fact you can append lines is fine but many times FLMM cannot undo the append correctly to de-activate the mod.
Be sensible.
afaik FLMM tries to create a backup of any file edited - otherwise section delete could not function as it will not have any content to replace it with.
You all talk about 1.3, try 1.31 instead - it was better than 1.3, and with extra functions from memory.
Or do you actually mean 1.31? edit having checked downloads, I believe you have 1.31. Never had any issues with that version, it was great!
The problem with the built in decompression is that if it still uses Mario’s original Bini decompresser, that generated errors… certain lines had their start truncated, and then the remainder appended to the line before (or was it the second half after a = sign truncated, and the line below appended to it).
Needless to say, use the original bini, open your ships or mbases file and you’ll be able to locate errors within a minute.
Now flbak files can’t cause issues.They are an existing FL file with .flbak appended - no voodoo or mystery :lol: Any method of mod management MUST utilise this method, OR have access to ALL Freelancer files (i.e. the full 1Gb) to re-overwrite all existing files upon “deactivation” - at which point, doing a reinstall is the exact same thing.
At the moment I have my own FL Mod Manager programmed in Java. It is very basic - it backs up files, it correctly restores and deactivates - but I wouldn’t even have been aware of “support for Windows 7/Vista”. I program in Java, ergo, I don’t worry about OS compatibility - but it sounds like OS compatible, and more OS function… it requires the User to specifically OK a program to carry out certain tasks.
If a program is able to execute itself as Admin and make changes to the file system without any user interaction, then the security feature of Windows 7/Vista that requires this is utterly POINTLESS.
What I am saying, until someone who knows this stuff specifically, is that due to those OS you’ll always have this admin problem irrespective of whether it “supports” the Operating system.
Since all it does is copy files and edit files, they’re supported already imo
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FLMM v1.31 shows as v1.3 on its “About” screen.
My method is to make mods that don’t need FLMM. I can just unzip them over a vanilla Freelancer game folder, and they also work with FLMM.
But FLMM has always given me trouble eventually.
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uh.huuhhh, ‘duh, yup, yup
I shorely do be larnin’ sum skoolin’ here today…There’s NOTHING wrong with running a mod with scripting instead of copying over entire files. IF you do it correctly following the procedures I listed above. Plus, by using scripting you can keep the size of the mod download MUCH smaller.
As the primary developer of our mod team I can’t TELL you how many times I’ve activated and deactivated our mod during the coding and testing phases. Must’ve been thousands…
I’ve NEVER had a problem with FLMM 1.31 or 1.4beta4 hosing my files without me having done something contrary to my posted instructions above. The only problem I have is when you deactivate a mod, the deletefolder file does not seem to be in any ADDED directories to the mod such as additional systems, etc. Big deal. Once the mod is deactivated, the paths to those directories are removed from the *.inis and the folders become inert, just taking up space. They’re easily enough deleted.
Our server mod has a LOT of switchable options available to the server admin. (Think Chips’ Server Operator 2 mod on steroids). One thing I would like to see is a system wherein one can instruct FLMM to run scripts in order. Right now, in order to be able to run one instruction only after another has been done is to have it all in one giant script. I’d like to have multiple scripts in the mod to keep separate sections of the mod apart. Much easier to locate all of the edits necessary to implement an option than to search for all edits in a single large script.
For example, all edits related to countercheats would be in a script titled countercheats.xml, all edits related to server side only mods could be in a script titled serverside.xml. Our mod is mostly set up in this manner, but sometimes there are options that are dependent on others for their edits. An example escapes me atm, we’ve scripted around that, but it would make things easier.
Oh, I know. Let’s say we have the client option to change the colors of jumphole tunnels. Let’s also say we have the option to add jumpholes to server specific systems. If the server specific systems aren’t enabled, the jumphole colors changes will choke the moment it searches for one of the added jumpholes and doesn’t find it. It’s doable, but a pain in the butt.
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All right ST… Now that I’ve made the argument that FLMM has no problems if used properly, it looks as if the fates are messin’ with me for my insistence. (never say never)
Just as an update, and to show that when I’m wrong, I’m the first to admit it, FLMM v1.4b4 has just started showing some anomalies. I’ve been using 1.4b4 for years without problems and now they begin.
The weird thing is not that it’s not running certain scripts, but that it’s not running the whole script. In fact, in one of my scripts it runs up to a point and then skips an entire section of the script only to pick up near the end again.
I’m going through the scripts to see what is going on, but it doesn’t make any sense.
The scripts are numbered (01, 02, 03, etc.) in the order in which they’re supposed to be run. My presumption is that FLMM doesn’t run script 02 until script 01 is finished. It’s just odd that it would run part of a script and not all. At least not without kicking out some kind of error message explaining why it couldn’t do the instruction.
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Ouch!
I know nothing about scripting language, but…
Could it be that it has a “start-of-comment” character that’s not cancelled?
e.g.
/*…
…
…
…
*/ -
each <datafile line=“” has=“” a=“” comment=“” attached.=“” looks=“” like=“” this:<br=“”><data file=“data\equipment\st_equip.ini” method=“sectionreplace” options=“7:0, 7:1, 7:2”>;NPC Shield Regens
I thought the same thing but don’t see any problems. What’s interesting is that I can remove one of the *.xmls (any one) and the rest will work properly.
I just used a different approach which seems to be running OK atm. My mod has about 12 options that the server admin can enable or select from when setting up the server. Instead of adding development stuff to the existing ‘activate flu mod’ option, I added a 12th option to ‘activate development updates’. and gave it the correct options=“12:1”> setting.
That seems to work for some reason. Gonna keep an eye on it.</data></datafile>
