I didn't foudn a Thread like this and so I think it's time to open one

So I'll start with two questions:



1.) Is it possible to edit the small ships that represent fleets on the galaxy map? If yes, how?



2.) I edited the Terran Ship Icons included in the Resource pack. What have I to add in the Index file of my mod so that ES loads these edited files instead of the vanilla ones?

1.) These are 3d models I believe, I honestly wouldn't know where to begin editing that. Someone more versed in that aspect of modelling might be able to help.



2.) You need Hull.xml

Edit the references to the Terran ship graphics to point to your icons.



For Example:

[CODE]



[/CODE]



If your icons are in your mod folder under /ShipIcons/ and your Files for the Small Terran Ship are called MySmallTerran1Small.png and MySmallTerran1Large.png:

[CODE]



[/CODE]

Note, you don't include the extension of your file.



Grab the vanilla index.xml and put it in your mod folder - edit the bits referring to mod name, version, author etc.



Edit Standalone="true" to Standalone="false" - this way your mod folder only has to contain edited files.



The rest doesn't really matter, play with that later



To make it easier to find what files your mod changes, you could edit the section to look as follows;



[CODE]







Simulation/Hull.xml





Simulation/Hull.xml







[/CODE]



Since Hull.xml is the only file you're loading, you don't need to include all the other Repositories. Of course, if you change the filename to something else (not Hull.xml), change the section accordingly.

EvilTactician wrote:
To make it easier to find what files your mod changes, you could edit the section to look as follows

I am curious to know if this is the "right way". Does the game loader make a union of the files listed here, along with the files in the vanilla index.xml? If it does not, then this will cause most of the game files to not be loaded, and not work. If it does make a union, then how are we supposed to delete a vanilla file? For a total conversion type mod, we might not want any of the original game files. What I have done for each of my mods is to copy the latest vanilla index.xml and then modify it only a little. This is very different than your suggestion, which is to delete almost all of the content after copying.

davea wrote:
I am curious to know if this is the "right way". Does the game loader make a union of the files listed here, along with the files in the vanilla index.xml? If it does not, then this will cause most of the game files to not be loaded, and not work. If it does make a union, then how are we supposed to delete a vanilla file? For a total conversion type mod, we might not want any of the original game files. What I have done for each of my mods is to copy the latest vanilla index.xml and then modify it only a little. This is very different than your suggestion, which is to delete almost all of the content after copying.

I believe that's pretty much the purpose of Standalone="false" - it makes the loader load all the original game files as well as the ones you have in your modded folder.



For a total conversion you would set Standalone="true", so that it doesn't load any of the original game files. My suggestion is mainly to keep things as clean as possible in the index.xml file and follows the format that ThorThillas/Florian from the development team used in another topic to show a small mod.



I've also tried using a combination of both original and modded files, using the same filename but removing most content except the specific entries/objects that I changed. This makes it much easier for other modders to work with your files and also works fine. It still loads all entries from the original game folder, after which it reads the modded version and ensures for each 'modded' entry it uses the one from the mod file instead. So an object can exist twice, both in the original file and in your modded file and it will still use the correct one even if there's nothing else in the modded file.



My main purpose is easy of use for anyone using my content in the future. Plus it means I can easily rip bits out of my mod without affecting anything else.



Not sure if this is the 'right' way, but it's the format I followed when modding for different games in the past and it felt like a good way to go here. If you download a copy of my mod for the sole purpose of looking at the index file and the general structure of most files, you'll see what I mean.

EvilTactician wrote:
I believe that's pretty much the purpose of Standalone="false" - it makes the loader load all the original game files as well as the ones you have in your modded folder.

Oh, right. I had gotten so used to false, that I had forgotten the utility of true. You did not see the pre-release of ES modding, where there was no variable and "true" was the only possibility. Fortunately they took my advice and added the variable.

Hrm - that would have made modding quite a chore, especially maintaining mods through patches. Glad it works the way it does now

Eggsactly.

Thank you so far, as far as I understood right I have to copy the following entry



[CODE]




Cost="25"

MaxHealth="450" MaxWeight="100"

Speed="1" FreeSpeed="0" CommandPoint="1">

ShipSizeSmall

A

ShipClassSmall1





%ShipClassTerranSmall1Description



1





[/CODE]



in my mod's index file (one per ship I want to edit) and I have to change the green marked line. But, can I delete the rest of it (everything which is marked red?)

The copied section from Hull.xml either goes in a file called Hull.xml or you could call the file anything else. Like Quaresma7Hull.xml

I suggest you keep complete sections, not just partial directives to ensure nothing goes wrong. It also makes it easier to edit your modified hulls later as you don't want to find info on a hull in 2 places. So include each hull you mod in it's entirety.



You put this file in a folder called Simulation



Your index file sits at the root of your mod - and literally describes the name of the mod and the files which it needs to load. You don't put any actual modification code in the index.xml file itself.



E.g. your folder structure would be:

/mod-name/index.xml

/mod-name/Simulation/Hull.xml

/mod-name/ShipIcons/MySmallTerran1Small.png

/mod-name/ShipIcons/MySmallTerran1Large.png

etc.



I do strongly suggest you read the modding tutorial and/or download an existing mod to follow the logic/file structure you see there. You will learn a lot from this and it should enable you to accomplish what you are after. We could give you a step by step, but that's equivalent to just making the mod ourselves in the first place and to be honest with you - the modding tutorials are relatively clear. Together with the info above you should be armed with absolutely everything you need to get this done



If you have any specific questions or run into problems - please do post them as there's plenty of people here who can point you in the right direction.

Ah okay, sorry for that question. I already modded xml files in Civilization 5 where it was completely equal whether putting the changes in different files or put them all together

No need to be sorry, I am happy to help. Just prefer making sure that at the end of the process you're fully comfortable with what you did and are able to support / modify your own work rather than handing it on a silver plate



Give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man how to fish and he eats for life.

in fact, you could put all your modification in one file and then add it to each necessary repository in your "Index.xml"...



your file could be something like that :

[CODE]

allMyStuff.xml









allMyStuff.xml





allMyStuff.xml



[/CODE]



But I think it is more clear (to you or to anybody who want to understand what you've done) to separate your several changes in different file. Like all my modules in this file, all system improvements there and all planetary change in this other one...



But well.. that is just my point of view of course and I guess I am not really objective ^^

No, I agree with you Flo - having things in separate files makes it a lot easier to modify your work later. The cleaner and more structured, the better

Ah okay.



Well until now it's not working very well but no problem. I will manage that. Something what agitates me more is that after deleting the hull.xml and the repository entries in the index.xml my Mod doesn't work anymore... It always freezes in the Loading Screen, or better keeps loading until the world ends...

Before making this mod it worked without any problems, but although I recreated the mod completely it don't want to load



Can sbd of you maybe take a look on it? It's a ship mod and completely based on the CustomShips Mod from the Tutorial. I didn't change anything except adding the .obj, .mtl and a texture file and I added some entries in the Index file.

You can download it here: http://www.file-upload.net/download-6808725/CustomPlanetsAndShips.zip.html

If you're trying to add 3d models, you'll need someone more versed in that aspect of modding. There are a number of topics on the forums about it but I agree that the modding tutorial is a little vague on the subject as a number of steps are omitted from the guide in the assumption that the reader knows them already. A more thorough step-by-step would have been quite useful and is probably the reason why we haven't seen more ship models yet. (Something almost anyone would love to do in their mods, I know I would - but I have no 3d modelling skills whatsoever)



Your game installation folder contains an error log - I also suggest you check this for any errors right after trying to load your mod as it will inform you of any problems.

You can find this log here: /EndlessSpace_data/output_log.txt