Could the duration attribute in Audio/voices_space_*.ini for the corresponding [Sound] block be too short? Just a guess, I only have the SDK lying around right now, so I can’t really test.

in my opinion the easiest way of adding hardpoints is using the tool hardcmp after you exported the model as cmp file. Give it a try

DragonRider wrote:
When I want to add a ship from an existing mod, what files do I need to copy and where do I need to put them?

You will need the following parts and files:

shiparch.ini
[ship], optionally multiple [CollisionGroup], if present directly below, and the referenced [simple] entrys
You will also need the referenced model (cmp), textures (mat) and collision box (sur) files.

Goods.ini
[Good] named “<yourshipnameabbrhere>_hull”
Also copy the referenced hud icon model file (3db).
[Package] named “<yourshipnameabbrhere>_package”
Depending on whether custom ones are used, you will also need the equipment stuff referenced in the package, usually a power and an engine, you will find those in the …_equip.ini files, usually misc_equip.ini and engine_equip.ini some of this equipment stuff might also have/need a [Good] entry from one of the …_Goods.ini files

I don’t have Freelancer installed currently so I can’t check whether that is all. I would suggest you try to create a working modified copy of a vanilla ship’s entries first to get used to what stuff you need for a working ship.

edit:

NovaII wrote:
try using something like Freelancer Explorer for this purpose.

Be careful with this tool, it likes to restructure your files and sometimes messes up, at least that is my experience. Create a backup of yout files before you use it, or do it by hand like it is done in the ship creating tutorial I linked before.</yourshipnameabbrhere></yourshipnameabbrhere>

Hi DragonRider, and welcome to the starport!

Have a look here, that should cover your hardpoint related questions. If not, feel free to ask!
Need Help with First Time Editing: Ships and Weapons

About new ships: Are you more interested in the modeling side, or in the coding part of it? Maybe this helps:
drizzt4.0 ship creating tutorialv1.5 This tutorial already is a bit older, and by now there might be some better alternatives to the tools used. I am pretty sure there are newer exporters available, and instead of fl_ids you might want to try other tools like flDev. On top of that I suggest you don’t edit the files directly in your Freelancer installation folder though, but make use of the mod manager tool instead.

Regarding question 1:
I have no idea why it is that complicated, but feel free to experiment with other combinations ;). You du not have to add your new package to all the stations. Adding it to these you want it buyable on is enought.

Question 2:
To make a gun a turret, the only really important thing is on what kind of hardpoint it mounts. You can change the model, as all vanilla turrets strangely use the same one, but this is definatly not necessary!
A different name usually comes with it, too ;).
Another difference between vanilla turrents and their weapon aquivalent usually is the higher projectile speed, probably to make it easier to shoot at targets behind you.
LOD means Level Of Detail, the numbers in there define the distances between camera and model between which differently detailed 2d models are used.
I guess in your case the easiest way would be to give your freighter the ability to mount class 10 weapons on its turret hardpoints?

Question 3:
In Freelancer\EXE you can find several resource dll files which contain the names and descriptions. There are different programs to edit them, which work in different ways or offer different features - have a look for fled-ids, or flDev for example.
So if you just want to add a few things, you should be able to find free spaces inside the existing files, but you can also start a new file - there’s an empty one available somewhere here, I think. The texts themselves are adressed by these numbers you have already seen - I think the best way would be to have a look at existing ones to see how formatting works. Sorry that I can’t give you more in-depth help regarding this topic, but it’s been a longer while since I last activly had to do with this game, and I don’t have the files on this computer to test myself.
Have a look into the different tutorials around, there may not be one exactly for this topic, but it may be covered in system or ship creation. It has to be somewhere, as I learned it via tutorials myself

Hi cronty, and welcome to the starport!

To question 1:
You are right, ships are defined in shiparch.ini
The Humpback’s internal name is rh_freighter
Changing hitpoints is pretty easy, just change “hit_pts = 5800” to whatever number you like. Parts of your ship that can be shot off (e.g. wings) have their own hitpoints though, which are defined in the [CollisionGroup] entries directly below the [ship] code in shiparch.ini. Damage done to these parts is rerouted to the main hull though, so if I only shoot your wing and it blows off at some time, your ship still takes the damage.
Which type of equipment can be mounted onto which hardpoint is defined by the code below, example taken from the Humpback too:

...
hp_type = hp_gun_special_7, HpWeapon01, HpWeapon02
hp_type = hp_gun_special_6, HpWeapon01, HpWeapon02
hp_type = hp_gun_special_5, HpWeapon01, HpWeapon02
hp_type = hp_gun_special_4, HpWeapon01, HpWeapon02
hp_type = hp_gun_special_3, HpWeapon01, HpWeapon02
hp_type = hp_gun_special_2, HpWeapon01, HpWeapon02
hp_type = hp_gun_special_1, HpWeapon01, HpWeapon02
hp_type = hp_freighter_shield_special_7, HpShield01
hp_type = hp_freighter_shield_special_6, HpShield01
hp_type = hp_freighter_shield_special_5, HpShield01
hp_type = hp_freighter_shield_special_4, HpShield01
hp_type = hp_freighter_shield_special_3, HpShield01
hp_type = hp_freighter_shield_special_2, HpShield01
hp_type = hp_freighter_shield_special_1, HpShield01
hp_type = hp_thruster, HpThruster01
hp_type = hp_mine_dropper, HpMine01
hp_type = hp_countermeasure_dropper, HpCM01
hp_type = hp_turret_special_7, HpTurret02, HpTurret03, HpTurret04
hp_type = hp_turret_special_6, HpTurret01, HpTurret02, HpTurret03, HpTurret04, HpTurret05, HpTurret06
hp_type = hp_turret_special_5, HpTurret01, HpTurret02, HpTurret03, HpTurret04, HpTurret05, HpTurret06
hp_type = hp_turret_special_4, HpTurret01, HpTurret02, HpTurret03, HpTurret04, HpTurret05, HpTurret06
hp_type = hp_turret_special_3, HpTurret01, HpTurret02, HpTurret03, HpTurret04, HpTurret05, HpTurret06
hp_type = hp_turret_special_2, HpTurret01, HpTurret02, HpTurret03, HpTurret04, HpTurret05, HpTurret06
hp_type = hp_turret_special_1, HpTurret01, HpTurret02, HpTurret03, HpTurret04, HpTurret05, HpTurret06
...

As you see the format is hp_type = <thing you=“” want=“” to=“” mount=“”>, <name of=“” hp=“”>, <name of=“” another=“” hp=“”>, …
Notice that the same hardpoint name appears in multiple lines, which allows not only to mount level 7 weapons on HpWeapon01, but also the lower classes.
Let’s say you add the following:

hp_type = hp_torpedo_special_1, HpWeapon01, HpWeapon02
hp_type = hp_torpedo_special_2, HpWeapon01
```This would allow you to mount disruptors on both weapon hardpoints, and even torpedoes on the second one. If you don't delete the other lines of code regarding HpWeapon01 and 02, it would still be possible to mount the weapons on these hardpoints. If you delete the hp_gun_special_1 line, you could still mount weapons of levels 2-7, but not of level 1.
Same applies for the shields, turrets etc.
Note that there is no restriction on the the hardpoint names, you could even allow mounting mines on the weapon hardpoints and the like. On the other hand, whether or how much a hardpoint can rotate is part of the hardpoint's definition in the model file.
Another note: Changes done here will not be reflected in the ship descriptions in the game. These texts have to be edited manually, but thats a topic for some other time. Hint: code like ids_name = 237051, ids_info = 66598, these reference to texts stored in dll files.

Power source related values are not part of the ship, but of a special equipment. To understand this, we have to go a bit deeper into the "goods", and that is what all these …_goods.ini files are for. For every part of equipment, ship, trade good that can be seen in your inventory or at a trader there is an entry in one of the goods files. For our needs, have a look into Goods.ini. There you should be able to find something like:

[Good]
nickname = rfr_hull
category = shiphull
ship = rh_freighter
price = 152000
ids_name = 12011
item_icon = Equipment\models\commodities\nn_icons\rh_freighter.3db

[Good]
nickname = rfr_package
category = ship
hull = rfr_hull
addon = ge_rfr_engine_01, internal, 1
addon = rh_freighter_power01, internal, 1
addon = ge_s_scanner_01, internal, 1
addon = ge_s_tractor_01, internal, 1
addon = shield01_mark05_fr, HpShield01, 1
addon = LargeWhiteSpecial, HpHeadlight, 1
addon = SlowSmallYellow, HpRunningLight01, 1
addon = SlowSmallYellow, HpRunningLight02, 1
addon = SlowSmallYellow, HpRunningLight03, 1
addon = SlowSmallYellow, HpRunningLight04, 1
addon = SlowSmallYellow, HpRunningLight05, 1
addon = SlowSmallYellow, HpRunningLight06, 1
addon = SlowSmallYellow, HpRunningLight07, 1
addon = contrail01, HpContrail01, 1
addon = contrail01, HpContrail02, 1
addon = DockingLightRedSmall, HpDockLight01, 1
addon = DockingLightRedSmall, HpDockLight02, 1

But we can see we have a power source mounted which is called rh_freighter_power01\. Let's see if we can find a piece of equipment with this name. Have a look into misc_equip.ini. You should be able to find the right values.

The level needed to buy a ship is part of the defenition what you can buy on which station. In market_ships.ini there is one code block for every station that has a ship dealer. Look for all the lines which include your ship package name, and change the value directly behind the package. Be careful though, every station has every ship listed, but the 0's and 1's at the end define whether the ship is available or not. Also not that every single station can only sell a maximum of three ships.

About using your modified files:
You don't have to encrypt the files again, Freelancer can read both.
The simplest way would be to directly replace the files in your freelancer directory, but I don't recommend this as it might be difficult to keep track of your changes and, with more complex changes, give you problems with different savegames.

Much better would be to get the Freelancer Mod Manager, create a new subfolder in it's mods folder with any name you like and put in all the files you changed, keeping the original folder structure of the game. Using the mod manager, you can easily activate and deactivade different mods, and it even keeps the savegames separated. If you want to use your old save with the mod, simply copy it after activation.

About savegame compability:
As long as you only edit or add things like equipment, using old save games should be fine. Deleting things might be a problem (e.g. you have a weapon mounted, but it's code doesn't exist anymore). Changing faction relations requires a new game, as these relations are saved in the save file. The save file "restart.fl" also has to be deleted in this case for the changes to take effect.

About Question 2:
This should be as simple as adding the turret to an trader via market_misc.ini. You have to find out the nickname of this turret though - a search through weapon_equip.ini for nomad should give you several turrets.
All weapons in the game, so even station turrets and the like, should already have an [good] entry somewhere, and they should mount onto any weapon or turret slot. Might look a bit silly though, with turrets bigger than your fighter… All equipments info texts about its stats are auto-generated, but they probably have no descriptional text.

Edit: About viewing models and their hardpoints: Try out HardCMP! It allows you to add new ones as well.</name></name></thing>

As far as I remember there is the possibility to add the sound effect to the muzzle flash effect and not the gun itself.

Wow, that looks great!
I really hope you manage to make a working starsphere of it.

Have you tried to put your texture on one of the spherical vanilla backgrounds?
That was the only thing that worked for me when I was investigating on this topic some time ago. Although my textures always were meant to tile up/down and left/right…
I never hat any luck exporting one myself, too.

have you tried skipping that notice? That has always worked for me.

Bobthemanofsteel wrote:
As for the HP of your destructible parts, I believe the magic lies in the hit_points line of the [Collision Group] section of your ship in the shiparch.

That is right. And when such a part is destroyed, all equipment mounted on hardpoints attached to this part is lost, too. These parts are definded in shiparch.ini as [Collision Group] entries under the ship itself.

Jerico wrote:
I have done this, but I have since found that the main Freelancer menu screen still says v1.0. Is that right, or have I gone wrong somewhere?

That ist right, as that 1.1 patch does not destroy compability with the unpatched game.

Don’t know about quickfix though as I don’t use it, but I thinks it’s the same.

MISSIONS\LootProps.ini might help.

So you are another one who works on a system generator. Good idea to use such a thing to generate concepts, not for actually creating usable systems. That’s why I stopped my project, I realised it won’t have any use the way I wanted.
Still, your program sometimes places objects too close together, although it seems to take care that objects are not on top of each other. But as it is not meant to produce finished layouts, that’s no real problem though.

Ok, I will explain a litttle bit.
As ColdFire said, an entry for a base starts with a [base] block. There the nickname, faction it belongs to and how npcs call it are defined.

After that is a [MVendor] block, which defines how many jobs there are on the board (only for SP).

Then there are some [BaseFaction] blocks, one for every faction present on that base, it controls wether the given faction gives missions, which npc (defined below in a multitude of [GF_NPC] blocks) belong to them and their weight relative to the others theyhave on that base.

The [GF_NPC] contain the info for the individual npcs (body parts, voice, name, rumors they tell, if you can bribe them sometimes, wether they know some wrecks and bases they can sell the info of and so on. The Vendors are also defined, but usually don’t have any voice and rumors and so on.

There is one [MRoom] block for every room you can enter on that base, traders and the baarkeeper have to be set as fixtures here to be always there, not only sometimes like the other npcs.

And then follows the next base starting with the [base] block and so on.

Adding a ship dealer room by hand to a base that has none at default is quite a bit of work - have a look at the files where the station interiors are saved. You would have to add the shipdealer hotspot (the button) to every other room, and add a file for the dealer itself.
If you speak of the person: This you have to do inside mbases.ini. You could simply copy a shipdealer (and his fixture line) from a base that has one to your new base and edit the nickname.

Welcome, smuggler.

Well, there are servers that have a dynamic economy system running, e.g. the Hamburg City Server, but for single player this is immpossible exept for random prices as far as I know. Note that fpr joining such a server you might need the mod this server runs.

So your goal is to remove all the level requirements for equipment and ships? Do you still want the storyline to start?

Hi and welcome to the Starport!

About your model: I tried to open it with HardCMP, which gave me an empty model, and importing into Milkshape crashed the importer. So probably there’s also a problem with that .zip file you uploaded.

Try it, or get 88flak.

He means that only the other palyers see the hit effects of projectiles.
I think 88flak had a workaround by adding an explosion block with the projectiles hit effect, but without any damage to wvery normal weapon.