[MOD] [TC/AP] X3 Rebalance Mod (XRM) - Total conversion - v1.30d (02.12.13)

BlackArchon · Post by **BlackArchon** » Tue, 31. Jul 18, 17:01

You should only generate a wall file if you use the script "Bounce" (which is a completely separate download and has no connection to XRM whatsoever).

As you have analyzed, you don't have installed XRM correctly. I suggest you try again and ask if a part of the install instructions is unclear.

Lenient · Post by **Lenient** » Tue, 31. Jul 18, 17:37

Paul said this at some point:

"The only thing that causes mammoths everywhere is a conflicting tships. Possible reasons are:

1 - youre not deleting the bounce cat/dat after generating your wall file.

2 - you are not starting a new game after removing the bounce cat/dat.

3 - your cat/dats are not consecutively numbered.

4 - you have another mod which has a tships in it.

Whatever the cause, the game cannot see the XRM tships."

Look at number 1. This is why I mentioned it. My suspicions were 100% justified. At number 2; irrelevant, I didn't add any bounce stuff. Number 3; they are. And 4; wrong. I've only installed XP: AP and then XRM. NOTHING ELSE.

Either the mod is broken (most likely) or these ships are supposed to be Mammoths. Or the instructions are missing some steps for no reason. I've tried loads of mods in my days and man, so many of them have terrible instructions.

SirNukes · Post by **SirNukes** » Tue, 31. Jul 18, 19:42

Lenient wrote:Either the mod is broken (most likely) or these ships are supposed to be Mammoths. Or the instructions are missing some steps for no reason. I've tried loads of mods in my days and man, so many of them have terrible instructions.

Given that the mod works fine for so many others, why would you say it is likely broken?

Anyway, use X3 Editor 2 to track down what is wrong in your install. Its VFS display will show the highest priority files the game will see. 'addon/types/Jobs.txt' has the Boron transporter; its assigned ship type is SS_SH_B_TSP. 'addon/types/Ships.txt' has the various ships; there should be a matching ID at entry 377. If there is no match, look at where those files are being sourced from in the VFS; they should be from the same XRM catalog.

Lenient · Post by **Lenient** » Tue, 31. Jul 18, 20:01

I think so because I did everything correctly. Seriously, you have to believe me.

This seems a bit complex. I found the 5 different "Military Supply Transporter" jobs. ID 377 seems to be the Dolphin Sentinel, right? The ship class coincides in Jobs.txt. I don't know what's wrong. I could take pictures using Gyazo to illustrate.

Do I uncheck the Vanguard and Hauler variants (that's what it is right now without changing anything) and check the Sentinel variant? Will that fix it?

SirNukes · Post by **SirNukes** » Tue, 31. Jul 18, 20:21

Yes on the Dolphin Sentinel. It sounds like your files match up. I'm pretty sure the variant flags get ignored when a specific ship type is requested.

My other thought: are you starting a new game, or just loading an existing game to see if the mammoths went away? With the way X3 works, once the ship (mammoth) is selected and spawned, it will not be affected by messing around with the selection criteria. You need to start a new game, or else kill all of the bad mammoths off so that they eventually respawn properly.

If there is still a problem in a new game, one other thing to check for is a loose TShips.txt or TShips.pck file in the addon/types folder (not in a catalog file), though the X3 Editor VFS should pick up on that if present. There is also the "select mod package" option in the X3 launcher that could cause problems if in use.

My final thought is that the XRM installation is different between TC and AP (since most AP source files are in the addon folder), but it doesn't sound like that is the problem here.

Lenient · Post by **Lenient** » Tue, 31. Jul 18, 20:45

I tried it just now, started a new game as an Argon, flew to a Teladi sector. Right away I see a "Teladi Military Supply Transporter" in a Mammoth.

I have a TShips.txt file in the types folder within the addon folder. This was made to remove the engine trails that caused a lot of performance issues for me. I should hope that isn't the culprit, as it shouldn't fiddle with jobs.

Interestingly, the types folder did not exist before, I had to create it.

There's a "TShips pre editing" file. I'm guessing that's not the problem.

Either way, seems like there's not much to do. Maybe I can remove these jobs somehow?

SirNukes · Post by **SirNukes** » Tue, 31. Jul 18, 21:07

Can you verify if that modified TShips.txt has the extra XRM ships in it, like the Dolphin Sentinel? Your problem is consistent with those entries being missing. X3 will only load the highest priority version of each file found, so the modified tships will block out the one in the XRM catalog file.

Lenient · Post by **Lenient** » Tue, 31. Jul 18, 21:37

I Ctrl-F'ed for "Dolphin" and couldn't find any entries. Is there any real loss if I just remove these jobs and start a new game / wait for all of them to die out? They don't seem to have much of a point, aside from fly around to get killed.

BlackArchon · Post by **BlackArchon** » Tue, 31. Jul 18, 21:48

Lenient wrote:I think so because I did everything correctly. Seriously, you have to believe me.
...

This is what all people say before they actually follow the install instructions correctly.

SirNukes · Post by **SirNukes** » Tue, 31. Jul 18, 22:20

If you have a non-XRM tships file, you are missing all of its ship edits on top of every XRM ship spawning as a mammoth (not just those traders). If you want to remove engine trails, you need to do it by modifying the XRM tships.

Lenient · Post by **Lenient** » Tue, 31. Jul 18, 23:12

I followed this guide here: https://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php ... c&start=15

Page 2, by BlackArchon.

So there's another way of removing engine trails? I assume this one is even more complicated.

SirNukes · Post by **SirNukes** » Tue, 31. Jul 18, 23:47

I'm guessing that code should work if run on the right tships file. Maybe try moving that tships file somewhere else (or renaming) and starting a new game to see if the mammoth problem persists. Or open that tships file in x3 editor to verify it matches the one in the catalog for ship counts and such (like having the dolphin sentinel).

My customization tool (link in sig) has a Simplify_Engine_Trails option that does the same thing, removing engine trails, which worked fine for me with XRM. The central edit is similar to BlackArchon's code, though with more automated catalog extraction and repacking and such, with an option to use vanilla engine trails instead of complete removal. You can also do the edit manually in X3 Editor by changing the "particle emitter" field for each ship in tships, as I recall.

Post by **Cycrow** » Wed, 1. Aug 18, 14:31

just to confirm, the issue with lots of Mammoths is usually a mismatch between the jobs and the TShips file. So if either of those have changed, then it'll cause an issue.

as you have changed the TShips file, that is whats breaking the mod.
simply removing them from jobs wont really work. As you will also be missing all the ship rebalancing, as well as any new ships that are added. Which is a large part of the mod. And scripts that also reference those ships will no longer work correctly

Lenient · Post by **Lenient** » Wed, 1. Aug 18, 18:11

I will try your tool, SirNukes. Hopefully not too complex to use.

EDIT: Okay, I will be 30 years old by the time I figure this out. Nevermind. Thanks anyway.

SirNukes · Post by **SirNukes** » Wed, 1. Aug 18, 20:26

BlackArchons code should work fine; just double check that you used it on the right tships file that has all of the new XRM entries.

Lenient · Post by **Lenient** » Wed, 1. Aug 18, 23:27

I reinstalled without using Jack08's code stuff, it works properly. But now the game runs far worse.

Which .cat and .dat file am I meant to modify? Part 1, or part 2? I think I chose the larger one of the two.

SirNukes · Post by **SirNukes** » Thu, 2. Aug 18, 01:05

In general, modify the one in the highest numbered catalog with a copy of that file.

Kaunit · Post by **Kaunit** » Mon, 20. Aug 18, 22:25

Khaakbuster wrote: My guess is that this is defined in "types\hq.pck". If you compare the vanilla hq.pck with the XRM hq.pck you will notice that XRM has a lot more data in it.

What puzzles me most are the "<factor racemask="0"..." entries for Water, Terran MRE and Hull Plating. I guess "racemask=0" means "all races". My suggestion is to mod this file with X3 Editor 2 and remove these lines (after making a backup of the original file of course). This way only Terran and ATF ships should require these resources.

edit: I was curious so I tested the change myself. It works. Just remove the "racemask=0" lines from the three Terran resource types. For testing I tried to build a Nova.

Do you by any chance have a step-by-step guide on how to do the changes you'v mentioned? The incorrect ship resources have always been one of my main gripes with the mod - since it seriously hampers my particular playstyle - so I'd love to correct them. However I have never used the X3 Editor and I don't even have any idea where to find the hq.pck file... probably in some archive/package I assume?

BenS123456789 · Post by **BenS123456789** » Tue, 21. Aug 18, 23:25

All of a sudden, the war between argon and terrans cooled down in my game, have you ever experienced this ?

I mean, I used to have 4 sectors invaded at all time but now... nope
not any invasion from anyone, did they go too hard on each other and mutually annihiliate their whole fleet ?

Quite funny, but I miss the big fights, the universe seems to have cool down a notch... How can I reset the big fights

I also use Improved Races, but not so much action there either,
I heard a lot about MBBR, can I use it with X3AP XRM without crashes ? Same for RRF ? Or do you guys know of anything to intensify conflicts ?

BlackArchon · Post by **BlackArchon** » Wed, 22. Aug 18, 00:07

What does the Military Network say about the current state of Argon and Terran advances?