[TUTORIAL] Ship Porting For Dummies - A Guide To Porting XSP Ships Into X3:TC

[CaptainX]

Greetings everyone!

After stumbling through the severe frustration of trying to port the old X3 XSP ships into X3:TC, I decided to save everyone else the same frustration and write a "Ship Porting For Dummies" guide.

I would like to extend special thanks to TERRAN-CONFLICTOR for his original ship porting guide, which got me going on the right path.

I would also like to personally thank him for giving me the go ahead to write and post this guide - I asked his permission before hand because I didn't want it to seem like I was trying to take credit away from him.

Although his guide is informative, it's geared more towards those who have modding experience.

I have spent several hours writing this 15 page guide that takes you step by step through the entire process. It's designed for those who have no modding experience at all.

I want to be clear that I'm sure the guide isn't perfect, and there may be situations that come up that aren't covered. But this will at least get everyone going in the right direction.

Please feel free to post comments, suggestions, feedback, errors, and anything else related to the guide in this thread. I'll be watching and updating the guide accordingly.


Click here to download "Ship Porting For Dummies" Now!


UPDATE #1:
In Section 8 of the guide, when it refers to changing the turrets in the TXT editor, I forgot to put in that after you change the data folder on the "Settings" screen, you must close the TXT Editor and then reopen it for the drop down list of cockpits to update. You'll get a popup box with an object error several times after you reopen the editor, but you can just ignore that. Once you've made the changes, don't forget to change your data folder in the Settings screen back to your X3:TC directory.

[pelador]

Thanks and kudos to you (and TC) for putting in the effort for a universal guide.

[Idea]

Great work
It is allways welcome to see the people which are willing to teach us something about moding.THANK you CaptainX

[CaptainX]

SPECIAL UPDATE:

For those of you utilizing the guide right now, I have noticed that there is a bit of information in it that is incorrect.

Apparently, some of the files that you are told you don't need, you DO in fact need in order for the ported ship to be complete, such as the Dummies file.

I am continuing to research this. For now, follow the guide as it is and you should be able to use your ship without any issues.

If anyone does run into any issues, please post here and let me know. I'm starting to believe that porting a ship over will require using every single file you see in the XSP, and it's simply a matter of copying and pasting the information from each file into the main file that shipped with TC.

If this is the case, I'll need to change the guide around to show everyone what to do with each file. I'll post updates as I learn more.

[TERRAN-CONFLICTOR]

Very good Captain X, clear, conscise and to the point.

Kudos!!

[Zayltsin]

CaptainX: First off amazing guide, extremly easy to follow.

But...There is always a but..

The ship i've decided to port is the Klingon Vorcha Class from the www.blackpanthergroup.de website that you linked.

Ill supply some screenshots to make it easier to explain the problem and it might make your replay a little easier to.

Now i've followed the guide perfectly and i went over things about 10,000 times. Im up to Section 8 in your guide so pritty close to the end.

The problem starts when i doubleclick turret number 2 and search for the correct turret for the ship, its simply not there but it is in /working folder/types/Tcockpits.
Pic shows the Tcockpits document open with the cockpit that im after highlighted:
[ external image ]

This one shows the cockpit missing from the slidedown option:
[ external image ]

And This one show that i've selected the correct folder in the X3 TC editor under settings:
[ external image ]


I hope the pics help more than how i typed it, any help would be appreciated as i really want that ship in my game.

Reguards,


Zayltsin

[CaptainX]

Zayltsin,

You've found the first major error in the guide. I noticed it yesterday afternoon but I hadn't had a chance to post it yet.

In order to see the new cockpit, you must save the Tships file and close the TXT editor. You don't have to close the entire X3 Editor, just the TXT Editor part.

Then reopen the TXT editor. You'll start getting a few errors about an object not found or set or something like that. Just hit OK and ignore it. It'll pop up a few times while you're working, but it's no big deal.

Now when you go back to edit the cockpit again, you'll find your new one in the list. The error was that I forgot to mention that you must close the TXT Editor and reload it for the Cockpit list to refresh.

But that should fix the error for you. And don't forget to change your data folder back to the X3TC directory in the Settings after you're done

[Zayltsin]

Ah right, always the smallest things eh.

Well just so you know i ported the ship in with some'standard' cockpit views just to test if the ship would be ingame or not and it was so now im testing a load of others out.

Thanks for saying what the problem was so fast, i think you might have found me a new hobby whilst im stuck on guard duty doing jack all.

Edit: And now we have an ingame USS Sovereign Class Battlecruiser: Clicky Picture Link

[Gugger]

hi

I play the german version of x3TC. Must I add the textfiles in 44 or in 49?

I did it in 44 and in game my ships have readtxt as names.

second problem..my turrets dont shoot.

everything else works wonderful.
a very good guide..my cockpitprobs are history

[gandy|UKCS|]

I think you need to use the german language files ( 49 ) as 44 is the english version

[Gugger]

Hi,

Thanks...it was the file 49.

After that i watched a little bit in HawksBs BSG-Mod and looked how he managed the things.
Result: I have my Babylon5-Mod with 10 Ships and everything works as it should.

Now I am very excited for playing with some Mimbari Cruisers and an OmegaEA Destroyer against some Kha´ak Shadowships

have fun an thanks for all the good work all Modders did in this forum
greetings from Germany

[apricotslice]

I havent had a chance to look at the guide yet, but something does need clarification just from the posts here.

The X3Editor uses the current amalgamated game file as its source for all things.

So if you add a cockpit using the editor, it will not be available to use in tships, until after you have added the changed tcockpits to a mod, inserted the mod into the game, started the game using the mod and shut it down again. Only then are the game files updated to include the new cockpit. Then and only then will it show up in the list of available cockpits in Tships editing.

This applies to all the types files, and the text files.

Edit : I've just read it, not bad at all.

However, I suggest you cover components first, text file second, then tcockpits, then tships last. This is the logical order to add things. Start with the basics and add upwards.

You can also open tcockpits in the X3Editor, and changing the guns is much easier done in there rather than notepad.

So the order of events as I would recommend is :

Modify components.
Add text.
Add in cockpits using notepad.
Add guns to cockpits using X3Editor.
Assemble into mod.
Start game, load save, shutdown game.
Edit tships in X3Editor.
Add tships to mod.
restart game and shutdown.
Check tships to make sure everything is as it should be.

A note on Text files - Its bad form to use 0001-L???. If the resulting mod is ever given to other people and a subsequent patch comes out, the mod will override the patch. Likewise, the next patch will force you to edit your mod to use the new text file. Using your own file avoids most patch issues.

Always Alway Always, create a new text file, and only add into it, the specific page and item numbers you need to change or add. The additions get added to the game dynamically as its started up.

This then needs a setup load.text script to load your text into the game, but is simple to modify from an existing one. Grab mine out of the AMS mod as an example if you want.

Also, given that you are creating a new mod, the text numbers used in the XSP's can be changed to anything you like. Just makes sure if you use new ones, that you change the number in the tfiles to match the new entry in the text file.

[apricotslice]

Just a note that with the v2 patch, tships, tcockpits and 0001-L044 are all now located in cat/dat 07.

All 3 files were changed in the patch, so any mod that uses any of these files has to be updated.

Any non-0001 file is unaffected, except with ships, theres a vague chance that egosofts new ships may have used the name and description slots you chose. Worth a check anyway.

[Street21309]

Im currently working on converting a couple of XSP ships over into TC and currently am working on one that does NOT have a components file included in it, so I cant convert any over. Any suggestions?


{I think it is better to merge this into one of the tutorials in order to append the problem (and hopefully solution) into the tutorial. jlehtone}

[TERRAN-CONFLICTOR]

Capt X,

The link is down. Anyone have the file to send me or link me pls ! ! !

[StormMagi]

Know a good place to host? I will upload a copy.

[Dragon93]

Filefront?

[TERRAN-CONFLICTOR]

Media Fire

( To a Moderator...

Any reason we can't re host this file or is it upto CaptX? )

[TERRAN-CONFLICTOR]

On behalf of Capatain X i've reuploaded the tutorial. Peeps you need to be aware of the changes made by the 2.0 patch. I know for sure that the Tships file was altered and the language file.


Here is the file

Porting for Dummies v1.0.zip

[Shadow1980]

I've also uploaded the file for those people who can't access some of the 'free file hosting' sites:

Ship Porting for Dummies v1.0 (ZIP)
Ship Porting for Dummies v1.0 (PDF)