Request: an easier way to implement paths (no idea whether this is even possible)

I’ve always assumed that path-legs are bi-directional, mostly because it would be awfully inconvenient if they weren’t […]

Yeah, makes sense.

So, is the zone primarily a property of a certain area in the system that gets ‘alive’ by the player’s ship approaching, or a condition of the player’s ship being in a certain area? (Of course, these are hard to distinguish between, and I’m not even 100% sure whether I fully comprehend what I’m asking :D)

Sounds like you’re asking is there traffic because of where you are or what you can see. A quick experiment suggests the former (from Manhattan I went 21K straight up, outside New York’s NW ambient zone, and the traffic stopped). That makes sense, too, because where you are is a lot easier to test than what you can see.

I should be able use two [c]pos[/c] values, if you like (although then you’d have to supply both, as there’s now way to tell if begin is missing). There’s also the option that having the plugin deliberately prevents the patrol paths from being read. Well, not really a big deal with paths, but if there was a similar trade lane plugin, it would hide those from things like Companion.

I’ve had the thought of using a separate file, allowing all your custom patrol paths and trade lanes to be stored in a single file (per system), The tool would then take that file and generate the equivalent FL version, which you would then (manually, possibly automatically) insert into the system file.

I’m not entirely sure of exactly how I’ll format it, but given something like:

[PathPatrol]
nickname = Zone_Li01_path_navy6 ; underscore & number appended automatically
sort = 99
toughness = 2
; etc
; path_label, if absent, could be based on nickname, taking everything after "path_"
pos = <begin point="">pos = <next point="">attack_ids = 24 ; specific to this leg
pos = ...

[PathPatrol]
...

[TradeLane]
; normal common stuff
start = <number of="" first="" ring="">begin = <point of="" first="" ring="">end = <point of="" last="" ring="">; still haven't decided how to handle ring-specific values

[TradeLane]
...</point></point></number></next></begin> 

you would end up with a file (or maybe stdout or clipboard) containing the proper Freelancer zones/objects.

Here’s the first version of Tracks, a program to generate complete FL definitions of trade lanes and patrol (or trade) paths given abridged definitions. For example, this will generate the first trade lane found in [c]Li01.ini[/c]:

[Settings]
system = Li01
reputation = li_p_grp
loadout = trade_lane_ring_li_01

[TradeLane]
number = 16  ; nickname number, not number of rings
first = 3628, 0, -52369, 196776
last = -11163, 0, -78469, 261658
zone = 839, 3  ; size (both width & height) and nickname number
sort = 14
toughness = 1
density = 6
...

and this will generate a patrol path found in [c]Br01.ini[/c]:

[Settings]
system = Br01

[Path]
name = molleys, 7
pos = -71115, 0, 27545
pos = -52152, 0, 9177, return
pos = -40132, 0, 12130, return
pos = 7661, 0, 26736
pos = -9684, 0, 46240
tradelane_attack = 10
pos = -40162, 0, 12415
tradelane_attack = 10
sort = 99
toughness = 7
density = 3
...

There’s a [c]readme.txt[/c] that describes the format; hopefully that’s sufficient documentation, along with the program’s own help.

Current limitations:

[olist]* it’s 2D - Y is ignored (could do with examples if this is desired);

• there’s no provision for individual trade lane rings having a different loadout;
• only writes to file (options for stdout or clipboard shouldn’t be a problem);
• it’s intended that a single file has a single system, but could add extra housekeeping if you’d like multiple systems in a single file.[/olist]

1. It’s a console program, so ideally you’d run it from Command Prompt. Running it from Explorer should display the help and wait for a key (it does for me on 7). Drop a file on it (say [c]tracks.ini[/c]), it’ll open & close, and you should end up with the output file ([c]tracks-fl.ini[/c]). … Ah, in testing on 10 I realized I forgot to mention that it expects Freelancer to be installed (I use its ini-reading code). If that’s not the case copy [c]common.dll dacom.dll dalib.dll zlib.dll[/c] to subdirectory [c]EXE[/c] (or point [c]HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Microsoft Games\Freelancer\1.0\AppPath[/c] to where you installed FL).

2. Not at all - Freelancer does not read them (same with [c]difficulty_level[/c] and [c]pilot[/c] in [c][Object][/c]s).

3. I know it’s apparently treated as a percentage (the value is divided by 100), so presumably higher means more likely.

With regards my point 4: I need to do that anyway, as it should work with multiple files. And with point 3: I’ll test if output is redirected and send it there if so; piping to [c]clip[/c] will then put it on the clipboard.

That’s working, thank you, Adoxa!

GUI is not matter for me.

create points in mod studio
put into tracks file
get your ini data
profit

I made it yesterday.

A minor update is now available on my site: settings are reset for each file, but I’ve decided to leave them be within a file; redirected output is detected, writing there instead of to file; fixed the flashing window if the DLL couldn’t be loaded.

Dromedary wrote:
FL Explorer is the easiest way of doing paths. You just need to be very very careful when doing them, especially with path numbers which must be consecutive. There’s a lot of editing after doing them with Explorer. If you’re careful, no issues

Back in time when i’ve a done a mod, i used FL Explorer to do paths. It makes it much more easier, copy/paste the ini text generated in the actual system i wanted to edit.

Those paths, tricky as hell, isn’t it!