Topic: Some help....please!?!?

[Navall]

How do I actually manage to stick new ships into SFC3 without the game going wrong? I know how the whole process works...but when I put ships into the game, the game usually crashes upon starting, or I can only play as the race I've just added a new ship to. Currently, I've had to make do by "cloning" existing ship profiles and simply "skinning" over them
Can anybody help me on this?...

[Red_Green]

There a dozens of problems you might be encountering. All ships that you download are put into game by naming such as Fedcrusier2  Voyager. Its entirely possible that you already have a ship installed using Fedcruiser2.  Thus you would need to add it as Fedcruiser3 or higher. Also when you copy and paste, 1 extra space anywhere and it will crash. I prefer the clone method myself. I clone then edit after wards. Always saving before editing. Stuff I edit are the hull space weapon space, shield space, cost, ship size and hardpoint directions or degrees.

In default load out, I usually just change types of warp/impulse drive, weapons, thrusters and transporters. The game is finicky about added items here. Its best to go to the end of the line in wordpad and tab over to be sure you are in the next columb. Then check your invalid ship.txt file in the SFC3 root folder. If ships are overloaded then will appear in that file.

[Navall]

Well, I'd thought about just editing the stats. But most of the ships I've stuck in already come with their own stats. Also, I can't seem to go past the second of a class. Battlecruiser 3, for example, and it doesn't show up in the game. Do new ships always have to be purchased as variants?

[Red_Green]

I don't understand the must all ships be purchased as varients, cause all ships are varients.  As far as going past the 2nd varient. I have had up to 5 per class.  I was thinking that which patch you have may be a problem also. Since build 531 added new weapon arcs that were not available before. If someone added the new arcs  from 531 in the defaultcore  and you don't have 531 that might be a problem.  If thats not it, You would need to check to make sure that the hardpoints the weapons are assigned to the ship in defaultloadout are also listed for the ship in default core. If they have a weapon on hardpoint 7  but they don't have hp 7 in defaultcore thats a problem. 

Oh thought of something else. Most ships are listed 4 to 5 times in the loadout file. To get them to show in
the shipyard put them below the 1st instance of the ship listed. The highe number always below the lower in both spec files.  If its a typo or something in the spec that is off, its almost less time to spec it yourself.

Another possible problem is they may have given the ship a weapon from another race, they might have modded there game allow races to share tech. Theres just a lot that could be a problem, even simple stuff like the name being capped in 1 file and lower case in the other. The folder should match the name of how the ship appears in the specs as well as caps or lower case as well.

[Red_Green]

I just ran into a problem myself. I was reinstalling some ships I had installed before. I had copied and pasted the spec lines only for some reason 1 entry was missing in almost all.  The ship size entry was missing in most all of them. So all the entires after that were in the wrong columb. I had these all in game, somehow when they got copied and pasted that 1 entry was lost. No idea why. Puzzling. Onlything is maybe I was using notepad for one and then wordpad or word and the format got off. No idea really. So 1 more thing that can go wrong.

Good luck- It might be best to contact the person that released the ship. They might have the best idea.
The problem I just mentioned may occur in some of the Hydrans I released.

Here is part of the DefaultCore entry  only showing part cause it gets wrapped in the forum.

The 1st line shows a good entry

3600   6000   1550   4000   21000   1062   Klingon-Cruiser7   Dragoon

Now this entry shows what happened, the 1062 (6th number from right) was missing throwing off the columbs. So I had to put the curser just before Klingon-Cruiser7 and type 1062 then hit tab once to move Klingon-Cruiser7   into the right columb.


3600   6000   1550   4000   21000   Klingon-Cruiser7   Dragoon   

Good luck- It might be best to contact the person that released the ship. They might have the best idea.
The problem I just mentioned may occur in some of the Hydrans I released.

[Navall]

Thanks for your replies red_green.

What I meant by saying variants was "can I add any more ship classes to the game?" but I guess from your reply, that I can't.
I suppose I'll just have to learn to start tweaking ships for myself.....

[Red_Green]

Thanks for your replies red_green.

What I meant by saying variants was "can I add any more ship classes to the game?" but I guess from your reply, that I can't.
I suppose I'll just have to learn to start tweaking ships for myself.....

Oh i see what you meant. No your limited to these hull types-SH,PF,F,FF,DD,DW,CL,CA,NCA,BCH,CV,DN,BB,LP,BS,BT,SB,BIO,PLANET

and yea its pretty much learn as you go, cause trying to fix a spec without seeing it is just taking stabs in the dark.
I have put in a number of ships and am still learning.  I believe you can add a ship in as say FedDestroyer3 but give it a DN hull.  Just keep experimenting, always back up the latest working file, in case things go wrong.

Try looking at some spec files from mods like DominionWars for some examples. Wish I could better help. Too bad there isn't a utility for this stuff yet-hint, hint 

[Navall]

The biggest thing I have to point out as odd is that a spec file for a ship worked, but only for the empire I added the ship to. I added the Dauntless to the Federation, and could use the spec in the game, but when I attempted to use any other race, or even view their ships in the vessel library, the game crashed. I thought this a bit weird...since you seem to imply that the game should crash as soon as its started, rather than be selective about when it is going to crash...

[Red_Green]

The game will crash at various points. sometimes as soon as you select a race in Skirmish, it depends on which file is the problem as to when it crashes. I get crashes CTD and complete locups at times.
That sounds wierd though that you can use the Fed ship but no other race. One question, do you add 1 ship at a time? I am guesses that you do, but thought I better ask cause if you add more than 1 at a time, its hard to figure out what happens.

 That sounds weird to me that the Dauntless works but no other race. One thing you might try is open up ItemRules.gf  in wordpad. Located in Assets/commonsettings folder.  Here is what it looks like.


Name = "ItemRules"
[Mixing]
MixRacialTech = 1

[DefaultSkirmishShips]
0 ="Akira"
1 ="Fek'lhr"
2 ="Hawk"
3 ="Sphere"

Now if MixRacialTech=0   change it to MixRacialTech = 1    This may help, if ships are specced with mixed race tech  it can cause crashes.

If this doesn't help then maybe email me the spec files for the Dauntless, I will look it over but no promises on a solution.

[Red_Green]

Just got back-think I found the problem. Check for email. That should work for ya.