as said, this is possible and pretty simple though time consuming which keeps many modders back from doing it. i guess we will see it in discovery, crossfire, bsg:crossroads, fw:tow and maybe some others one day, mine inclusively.

adoxa wrote:
If you use the latest UTF Editor (topic), it will highlight each part (you’ll need .NET 3.5 and a “recent” DX update). There are also tools on my site for translating nicknames & ids, as well as straight text files for vanilla system and base nicknames.

Hah! Waddyah know. Thanks man.

Edit: Whoa! this gives me a whole lot more info that I don’t know about! lol. Thanks 🙂

The thing is, I no longer accept that it can’t be done, or wouldn’t happen. 🙂

The above posts mention some ways and there are cargo pods in Discovery that are different shapes and colours. So I know that things can be changed ingame. Recently Cannon came up with a light swapping idea (using the light hardpoints and attached light objects - or something), so I know FLHook can also do some amazing things too.

I know this modular idea is possible, I just need to discover how. I might have a look at some of what the others have done.

The animations idea is a good one, I may explore that later. I don’t think many people have used the animations for things, however, these also seems limited to one animation (as far as I know). So it wouldn’t do to only have one ship modification available.

It’s branching some other thoughts though so, thanks for the idea. 🙂

I’ve found Google docs invaluable for centralizing tutorials, concepts, images etc, if you’re working as part of a team the data can be shared and edited by all.

As mentioned earlier keep multiple back ups of your data, burn a DVD every 2 - 4 weeks and put them somewhere safe, an online store/file syncing site like Dropbox (free 2 Gb storage) is very useful too.

I’ve found FL Mod Studio very useful with it’s 3D system display and unlike FL Explorer works with an activated mod.

A couple of tutorials I’ve used are “System building from scratch by Giskard”

http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/913966-freelancer/faqs/25096

and “Trying to understand encounters” by Buck Danny

http://the-starport.net/freelancer/download/visit.php?cid=5&lid=2420

There’s lot more tutorials in the downloads section but as the previous posters said pick a mod topic that you find interesting and work your way through it, then try something else.

CK256