Newbie Q:

Sky-Blazer wrote:
I have a few Q’s on the files. I have been poking around in the files, read me and tutorials long enough to make me understand that just when i Know somthing. I Know nothing.

Q: is on the cmp.files verses sur, versus, 3db, vrs mat.
i don’t want to even suggest my supposed knowledge
but hope someone can give me a run down of there basic functions
i think it’s true that Cmp and Mat both have texture files associated with them but I’m certianly not aware of how they correspond to one another in the game.
––
I would belive that the cmp is the main body that you see in space having the hard point’s to attach the stuff to.
it seems that the surs are the damagable parts and the 3db the repaired
i thinkk i read that the 3db where icons. that is that they would be what you would purchase from vender but it seems ive seen a variety of differences in each.

Any way i was hoping that someone could fix my ignorance.

Thanks: Sky-Blazer

Blazer,
a Quick run down for your question.
CMP is indeed the model with the various HPs are attached. The model when it is created in the designer’s program of choice has the textures assigned to the desired faces before it gets exported to cmp format. These texture names are used in the .mat file

Every Mat file has 2 branches, or nodes as its called in its file. The Material Library is the list of the textures used in the CMP file, and is the same name used in the texture assignment screen in the designer’s program of choice. Milkshape 3d calls it their Materials tab.This is where it somehow remembers where in the model those textures were placed. Each texture has its own 3 nodes of its own. They are:

\

material library
->Texture name
–>Dt_flags
–>Dt_name
–>Type

Not sure on the flags reference,but for our example there is a @ (Shift-2) in it. Dt_name refers to the name of the texture in the Texture Library. Type tells the mat file that the texture is either a .dds or a .tga file. The texture Library, where the actual file resides, has its own nodes. They are:

\

texture library
->Texture Name.tga
–>MIPS

Even if the designer’s texture is a .dds file, Freelancer still requires the .tga reference every time. If the designer’s image was an actual.tga file, the -->MIPS would say MIP0(zero)

The .sur file, as you have guessed, makes the model a solid object where the weapons collision damage is registered. Without that .sur file you could fly through another object in space or be unable to damage it.

.3db files are indeed used for icons in game for anything. they are also the file format for the commodities’ physical model, and various other elements in the game.

Hope this helps reduce the confusion some.

Fus

Sky-Blazer wrote:
relating to the sur file.
some thoughts i was having for my ship.

I was hoping to do a few things in particular that would directly relate.
1: I was thinking to keep my design as close to my ships character as possible which would mean that guns would not be seen.
my hope was to mount them inside the ship and when fired they would appear to be coming from somewhere on the ship. In short my ship is based on my book and it’s weapons fire through a proccess called Microscopic switching and are not limited to where they can fire. By building the surs to accomadate weapon movment and stratigicaly placing weapons i was hoping to do this. Q: the weapons fire Could go Through Then??
–-------------------------------------------------

Weapon HP’s can indeed be place on the inside of your model. The energy/missile/Torp will fly through your cmp and .sur file to hit your target. I do it with one of my bombers in our mod. Think of the sur file as a one way mirror. You can see into another room, and someone in that room couldn’t see you. Once the fired object is on the outside (Mirror side of anology) of your sur, you will take damage.

Fus

Sky-Blazer wrote:
so i would not have to even leave a hole

I could make a sur section from a section of say a wing
from my model and it would treat it as no material until it cleared the mirror so to speak.

Basicaly (sp?) correct. The Hypothetical wing could be completely .sur-ed and the weapon’s discharged substance wouldn’t care. In fact, as I am aware, when making the .sur file in the first place, there is no material assigned to the surfaces of it at all. Can someone else plz confirm that?

Edit: Let me clarify a statement from my previous post.

Once the fired object is on the outside (Mirror side of anology) of your sur, you will take damage.

That statement should have read “Until the fired object is on the outside (Mirror side of anology) of your sur, you will not take damage.”

Fus

You lost me. you want to do what base related?

Fus

The sur on the ship you are firing is ignored. This is because FL knows what weapons fire belongs to who and it simply does a check to make sure you dont shoot your own ship. It’s the exact same thing i did in my game engine since simply rotating the guns around would hit my own ship.

In other words, you can stick the guns dead center of your ship and it will come out without hitting you.

Sky-Blazer wrote:
also of all the downloads i seem to have i dont have Exporter 0.2. and have been unable to find it searching i tried exporting the starflier again based on reply i and as far as groups go the starflier has more than 18 i tried exporting by the number of groups Named and it tell me they dont match thought i would try

so i was hoping to get the sugested exporter and try it

i can import like a greedy fiend but it dont do me any good to import if i cant export

I can fix that. Here is my Exporter 0.2 and my Importer 2.7.

Fus

Concerning the base question, I think I have an idea what your trying to, but since I’m at work as of this post, I will have to elaborate when I get home.

Fus

Trader,
I will now elaborate on my suspicion. It comes to me that you are interested in putting your dockable battleship base basicly (for lack of a better anology) in a snow globe shell. This “globe” sphere would have no .sur file, so you could fly thru it and dock with the afore (sp?) mentioned battleship. Am I on the right track?

Fus

Sky-Blazer wrote:
I actually do want the base ship to take a sold form but YES in just one area on both sides of the ship

lwould also like to be able to initiate a dock command there as well that would take you directly to equipment dealer i dont know if its possible to have multiple docking features in one object but i thought to fly around inside like you can in the nomad lair but possibly dock within to like say a ship dealer Ect…

but i dont want it to look like there’s a hole there.

That’s the tricky bit. Setting the default room at a particular base is easy, that’s a .ini file setting, which is beyond the scope of my knowledge. Others here can give you the information on that detail better than I.
Docking at a specified HP to get a specific room I also don’t know about, I think that you are stuck with one docking HP sequence, and then the ini tells the game the default screen you end up at after the cinematics. (sp?)

Fus