Topic: Adding a Ship Class to SFC OP: Help please

[Arcanum]

Ok here's the question

I have used Ship Edit, added 1 spiffy new ship to the Assests both of them.  Edited the ships names txt file to add in some hull numbers and ship names.

But here is were I hang up, where in the Op files do you put your new class? I am guessing the strings file but it doesnt seem to work . . . so when you get to ship select you have lets say  F-XCLS so you have chosen an Advanced Light Cruiser, but the ship Description is: ? ? ?
so it looks like this;

 

  XCLS: ? ? ?      

Instead of XCL: Advanced Light Strike Cruiser.

How or where do I fix those question marks?  There is a way, Firesouls brillant OP+ additions dont have question marks . .  what am I missing and where is it?

[J. Carney]

YOu have to add the ship in the Strings and Shipnames .txt files- here is a lesson that Rod O'Neal gave me.

For ship classes

|LDR Civilian Ba|LDR Civilian Base Station
|LDR Police Carr|LDR Police Carrier
|LDR Police Esco|LDR Police Escort

Above is an excerpt from the strings.txt file. To stop the ??? in the ship description
when looking through the "vessel library". Note that the column on the left is 15 characters maximum, including spaces. If you are using ShipEdit this is the info from the
top of the UI panel called "Full Name".

The left column has to be EXACTLY as it appears in ShipEdit. The right column is
what you want to appear in game. If the "Full Name" in ShipEdit is longer than
15 characters (including spaces) just use the first 15 characters as it appears
in ShipEdit and leave off the rest.

If the first 15 characters would be identical in the "Full Name" section of ShipEdit
(as it would have been with the LDR Military Police vessels on the top of the
section above if I had spelled out "LDR Military Police") then you'll have to
get creative on how you list them.

For refits:

|PLAF PH3|PLaF Ph3
|PLAG ARC|PlaG Arc
|PLAS|PLaS

Above is from the strings.txt file also. It is to make the refits show in game.
The refits are in the lower left corner of ShipEdit. Note that the left column
is all upper case. This is not necessary in OP. It was in Empires at War though
and it's just a habit that I carried over to OP. it makes it easier if I want to
copy and paiste from one game to the other (I mod both games). So, I've continued
to list the refits in Upper case for OP. It functions in the same manner as the
"Full Names" above it does.

For ship names:

|K-E4K|IKV Unbreakable
||IKV Keeper
||IKV Obdurate
||IKV Safeguard
||IKV Swatter
||IKV Trustworthy
||IKV Procession

Above is an excerpt from the shipnames.txt file. That should be pretty self
explainatory. Nothing too tricky there. You don't need to have more than one
name for each ship-class. So don't rack yourself trying to come up with multiple
names for each shipclass, unless you really want to.
The only thing that might not be apparent on first glance above is that there
is a single "|" after the ship-class, before the first name and double "||" before
each additional name for the same ship-class.


Hope it helps!!!

[Arcanum]

Ah Ha . .  15 characters in the first section of the string! thats what I didnt know!

Thanks J. Carney!

[J. Carney]

NP, man...

[Rhaz]

Good tutorial J.!

[J. Carney]

Good tutorial J.!

Not mine, man... Rod O'Neil of the Galaxies at War project gave that to me whenI was working on something for him.

All his work, man... not mine- i just posted it.

[Rhaz]

Good tutorial J.!

Not mine, man... Rod O'Neil of the Galaxies at War project gave that to me whenI was working on something for him.

All his work, man... not mine- i just posted it.

J. Thanks for posting it!

Rod - nice tut!