[Help]Add new craft/change craft in the game?

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[Help]Add new craft/change craft in the game?

GeekGamerGuy
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Post by GeekGamerGuy » Fri Sep 18, 2020 12:25 am

Heyas, I'm a total newbie to this and while I'm amazed and awestruck at the level of quality work the Upgrade crew has done, I'd like to ask if it's possible a few questions:

Have any new starfighters, transports, and capital ships been added to the (XWAUCP) and (DSUCP)?

If so, is there a list of the new craft added?

If there are new craft available, are any of them Starfighters with turrets (aka ARC-170's, K-Wing's, etc etc) that can fire independently of the player?

Is it possible to change the type of craft used in the game by the A.I. with brand new craft (aka change a Corellian Corvette in the Rebel Fleet into a Rebel Assault Frigate Mark II, change the X-Wing your piloting in one mission into an ARC-170, etc etc)?

If it is possible to change craft in the game, how does one do it (aka is there an editing software that lets you do it)?

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Will T
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Post by Will T » Fri Sep 18, 2020 10:19 am

GeekGamerGuy wrote:
Fri Sep 18, 2020 12:25 am

Have any new starfighters, transports, and capital ships been added to the (XWAUCP) and (DSUCP)?
Three new craft are added to the game by the XWAU patch.

Darth Vader's TIE Advanced x1 (which is now featured in one mission where Darth Vader cameos as a reference to Shadows of the Empire)

The 'Reef Home' type Calamari Cruiser (Liberty without the wings, one of the designs seen in RotJ). This has been added to 5 missions in the game as part of the Rebel fleet

The 'Home One' type Calamari Cruiser. This replaces the Independence in all missions.

This can be done as the game has a number of empty craft slots. There is a hard limit on the number of slots, but as not all are filled by default in the game, there is scope for further additions.

The DSCUP fills every one of these extra slots, so yes. Plenty of ships of all categories have been added to the game there.
GeekGamerGuy wrote:
Fri Sep 18, 2020 12:25 am
If so, is there a list of the new craft added?
I'm not sure if anyone is still hosting the DSUCP. Let's just say it's no longer officially supported.

Anyone that is hosting it should have the list of craft it adds alongside.

If you've got a copy of file from elsewhere and don't have a list, then the installer's readme file should include everything.

This archive link should also let you find the full list.
GeekGamerGuy wrote:
Fri Sep 18, 2020 12:25 am
If there are new craft available, are any of them Starfighters with turrets (aka ARC-170's, K-Wing's, etc etc) that can fire independently of the player?
For a long time, it wasn't possible to add player controlled turrets to ships other than the Corellian Transports, and AI only turrets on player controlled craft were pretty janky. So no one really made player controlled ships with turrets.

It is now possible, however, with a bit of work. No one has taken advantage of this yet, to my knowledge, but I think that's at least partly because AI turrets break game balance pretty quickly. A fighter scale ship with a turret is going to be problematic both as an opponent and in player control. An ARC-170 with a rear turret, for example, would be very strong because you can't reduce the power of the laser shots to balance better firing arcs. The rear laser would be as strong as the front two, and be able to hit the player with much better accuracy.
GeekGamerGuy wrote:
Fri Sep 18, 2020 12:25 am
Is it possible to change the type of craft used in the game by the A.I. with brand new craft (aka change a Corellian Corvette in the Rebel Fleet into a Rebel Assault Frigate Mark II, change the X-Wing your piloting in one mission into an ARC-170, etc etc)?

If it is possible to change craft in the game, how does one do it (aka is there an editing software that lets you do it)?
It absolutely is, but you'll need a few modding programs to accomplish it. Luckily, all the tools you need are listed in the Downloads page.

The first is a tool to allow you to edit the ship references in the exe, and the accompanying list files. This will let you get new ships into the game. The best tool for this is probably MXvTED. From what I understand, this is the less preferred tool among the community's modders because (and I can also speak from experience here) it's janky as hell and not 100% reliable. On numerous occasions, I've had it mess up and permanently bind two ship slots to one model reference, meaning no matter what you do both ships will always sure one opt model. But it's way more user friendly and slightly more feature complete than BHE. For a beginner, MXvTED is probably the way to go.

There's probably a detailed MXvTED tutorial out there somewhere, but if not ask around here. I'm sure someone (potentially me) can walk you through it.


The second tool you'd need is a mission editor.

Again, there are two you can find here on the Downloads page - AlliED and YOGEME.

Again, they have their pros and cons. AlliED is the original editor, and has a lot of people familiar with it. It also has an interactive mission map that makes it very easy to place objects in the mission, and uses floating tool boxes so that you can reference multiple mission editing aspects at once. However, it's also very old and a bit out of date. It has some limitations that mean it can't use some of the features of modern XWAU modified games. Crucially, I don't think it works on machines without a physical disk drive or a virtual CD drive installed. This may have been patched recently, but I'm not sure. This is the reason I stopped using it, anyway.

YOGEME is newer, and has some super convenient tools for things like backdrop editing or FG colour support beyond just 4, but it's lacking some of the ease of use features AlliED has. It's map is static, for example, and you have to move ships and waypoints manually by setting their co-ordinates. YOGEME also has better support for new craft not originally in the game.

But both tools will allow you to edit all properties of existing ships in missions (what craft they are, their FG colour, their loadout and AI skill etc.)

They will also allow you to add new ships to missions, edit the orders and goals in a mission and of course create your own missions entirely from scratch.

Of the two, I'd probably recommend YOGEME. It has better support for modern XWAU and you'll definitely get used to the map system - especially if you haven't already been spoilt by AlliED.
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JeremyaFr
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Post by JeremyaFr » Fri Sep 18, 2020 2:31 pm

Will T wrote:
Fri Sep 18, 2020 10:19 am
Crucially, I don't think AlliED works on machines without a physical disk drive or a virtual CD drive installed. This may have been patched recently, but I'm not sure. This is the reason I stopped using it, anyway.
Hello,
There is a patch for that:
https://www.xwaupgrade.com/phpBB3/viewt ... 05#p174105

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Will T
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Post by Will T » Fri Sep 18, 2020 3:35 pm

JeremyaFr wrote:
Fri Sep 18, 2020 2:31 pm
Will T wrote:
Fri Sep 18, 2020 10:19 am
Crucially, I don't think AlliED works on machines without a physical disk drive or a virtual CD drive installed. This may have been patched recently, but I'm not sure. This is the reason I stopped using it, anyway.
Hello,
There is a patch for that:
https://www.xwaupgrade.com/phpBB3/viewt ... 05#p174105
Nice, thanks Jeremy.

Knew I should have looked to confirm that before I commented.
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JaggedFel
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Post by JaggedFel » Mon Sep 21, 2020 11:13 pm

Will T wrote:
Fri Sep 18, 2020 10:19 am
[YOGEME's] map is static, for example, and you have to move ships and waypoints manually by setting their co-ordinates.
No, you can absolutely drag ships and waypoints around, even with multi-select. Shift+L-click to drag.
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Will T
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Post by Will T » Tue Sep 22, 2020 6:50 pm

I.... can't believe I missed that, actually.

Noted, I'll stop now before I give out any more bad advice.
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