Making a Mod for Use in FO

[Rifraf]

I had some questions regarding making my mod for use in FO. I'm trying to understand what the difference is whether my mod is stand alone or would use FO as a parent?

If I used FO as a parent I don't have to use anything from FO necessarily do I? It could still be all my own ships/stations/textures or whatever correct? It would only use FO material if I put whatever reference in my build list or in the build menu of my stations right?

Conversely, if I made my mod stand alone would I then still be able to use all their wonderful ship explosions and shields textures/animations and say some of their weapon textures? I didn't know if it was an either use it or don't kind of deal?

@ Majestic: Not that it's any of my business, but I was curious if you were planning making your Yesteryears mod stand alone or using FO as a parent?

 

[Majestic]

Rifraf, parent or standalone means if you go parent then you only need to add the files into your module that you'll be using. An example say you want to use a different one for the Sabre and change it's odf or you need to do is add the sod, odf and textures into your module and the game will pull the rest of the information from FO and just override the stock FO files when loading with your files in your module. Standalone means (if I remember correctly) you need everything added to your module.

Having a parent mod is easier (less to add in as I doubt that you'll replace everything) and with both YY and TCW I will be having FO as my parent mod. Plus using FO as a parent also means you don't have to use any of their material in your mod.zip file thus not breaking any of their rules about using their models/textures etc.

 

[Rifraf]

Thanks Majestic. Some aspects of it were/are confusing to me. I guess mine will be a hybrid then. I'll need to use FO as a parent as I'd like to use their explosions, race specific shields, maybe some weapon sprites and according to their guide, text like in odf's can be used in my mod since it's not models or textures. But then I'll use all my own ships and stations probably 99% worth anyway. The odd station or ship I use of theirs will just be an odf change.

Now that I've started thinking this through that's pretty cool. Even if it ends up a personal mod and never released at least it'll have all the bells and whistles.

Stock A2 has odf folder like ships, stations, weapons, other. Their folder hierarchy states you need odf/system for the odfs. Do I just dump every single odf I'll use into the system folder together?

 

[CABAL]

I've been doing some FO modding recently and I can say that they do not all need to be placed in the system folder. I'm using the stations, ships, etc. folders just fine. My guess would be that either the big odf archives need them to be in system or FO uses it for performance reasons.

 

[Majestic]

Dumping them into the one folder does decrease load times and increase performance, but as Cabal has said not necessary, especially for smaller mods. Also they have done away with the odf folders (like system) and replaced it with an archive for odf (like a zip file) again that isn't necessary for smaller mods. I won't be using it for my mods, at least not until I am done with the last faction of those mods.

 

[Dominus_Noctis]

With the FPQ system having everything in one folder no longer offers appreciable differences in loading time - we use it still only because the v3FOscript toolset is outdated and difficult to change. v4FOscript (for the next version) uses the A1/A2 style folder hierarchy

ODF folders should still be used within the FPQ archive; if you don't you can get some odd issues.

As Majestic stated, using the FPQ system isn't necessary - for modifications with less than somewhere in the range of 3000 ODFs, loading time won't be appreciably different. The network hash always benefits from the Archive, but if you don't plan on taking it multiplayer, it's not a concern.

 

[Rifraf]

I appreciate all the help. I'm slowly getting it. I downloaded the Star Wars FO Beta to see how the files were laid out and such so that helped to confirm things along with the classic mod and the module template that Majestic posted. I'm starting to plug all my relevant files in to my module so we'll see if it works first time I fire it up. Finger crossed

 

[Majestic]

With the FPQ system having everything in one folder no longer offers appreciable differences in loading time - we use it still only because the v3FOscript toolset is outdated and difficult to change. v4FOscript (for the next version) uses the A1/A2 style folder hierarchy

ODF folders should still be used within the FPQ archive; if you don't you can get some odd issues.

As Majestic stated, using the FPQ system isn't necessary - for modifications with less than somewhere in the range of 3000 ODFs, loading time won't be appreciably different. The network hash always benefits from the Archive, but if you don't plan on taking it multiplayer, it's not a concern.

Thanks for the info mate, although A1 had a single folder called the addon folder, much like the system folder for FO but you could even dump sound files in it. Was quite a mess. Gladly A2 did away with this system and made modding cleaner at least in file locations.

I appreciate all the help. I'm slowly getting it. I downloaded the Star Wars FO Beta to see how the files were laid out and such so that helped to confirm things along with the classic mod and the module template that Majestic posted. I'm starting to plug all my relevant files in to my module so we'll see if it works first time I fire it up. Finger crossed

Best of luck mate, I hope it all goes well. Also remember the first rule of modding (or is it the second?), add only a few files at a time, then test then add some more and test again and so on and so forth. That way if there is a crash you'll easily be able to pin point the file it is in much easier rather than going through hundreds of files. Especially good when you miss out a " in an odf file that causes a nice crash to desktop.

 

[Rifraf]

I know what you mean Majestic. I am hyper careful about that. I keep a separate folder for my backups and for each change/addition I make I keep a copy of the affected files just in case something goes wrong. Every odf, sod, tga, sprite gets backed up at each change.

It also helps in that if I fail to get a permission to use something I can just plug back in the original file without hassle. Can never be too careful