[SF-Junky]

Hello.

This is no trick, but a serious question. Most serious:

Code: [Select]

$Name: GTF Ulysses
+nocreate
$Species: Terran
+Manufacturer: Mekhu Enterprises/Triton Dynamics
+Description: Excellent all-around fighter. Offers superior maneuverability and a high top speed. Smaller missile payload than other GTA fighters.
$end_multi_text
+Tech Description: The Ulysses advanced space superiority fighter was originally a Vasudan design to develop a successor for the obsolete Anubis fighter. Vasudan engineers had problems with the Ulysses's power grid which could have been solved with Terran help. The outcome of this joint adventure is the most maneuverable craft ever developed by the PVN or the GTA.

$Name: GTF Apollo
+nocreate
$Species: Terran
+Manufacturer: Han-Ronald Corp.
+Description: Original space superiority fighter of the GTA fleet.  Highly versatile, often doubles as assault type.  Low weapon compatibility.
$end_multi_text
+Tech Description: The Apollo is the most common GTA fighter.  It is highly versatile and can perform multiple roles, including space superiority, interception and assault.

Please tell me: What's the difference between those two entries, except that they are about two different ships? Please do not ask me, what kind of question this is, just answer it. I asure you, I am not drunken and in full command of his mental faculties.

[TopAce]

Why ask? Do they break a mod? I can't see a real difference, by the way.

The Ulysses's Tech Room entry is not the same as in FS1. Also, it's only Triton Dynamics, not Mekhu + Triton. If it's about a crash, perhaps the "/" is the cause, Other than that, I have no idea.

[Rodo]

GTF Uly was a joint production and it appears as if it's a terran design, when in the description says that the ship was originally vasudan from the beggining and the terrans only helped to solve minor problems?

also says that the problems could have been solved... but the fighter was actually built so it should say the problems were solved.

[Herra Tohtori]

Why so serious?


...anyway, there's a number of differences between those entries, logically following from being entries for different ships -  ship class, manufacturer, description and tech description fields are different.


The +nocreate flag seems to point to these entries being taken from or written for a modular table, which means that the ships are not created but instead the existing entries for the appropriate ships are altered so that these fields replace the ones in the original table in the parsing process.

Functionally, there is no difference between the two entries, if you look at them as templates, removing the ship-specific information - both resolve to

Code: [Select]

$Name: <ship class>
+nocreate
$Species: <species of the builders of the ship>
+Manufacturer: <builders of the ship>
+Description: <self-explanatory>
$end_multi_text
+Tech Description: <technological self-explanatory>
With the same template you could alter any ship class, but all in all... I fail to see the point in this thread.

Be adviced to provide one.

[SF-Junky]

So you can't see any technical difference between the entries? That's good, because I can't see any, too. But FS2 does. Those two entries are part of the very same .tbm. And always when I add the Apollo entry, it sais:

Code: [Select]

---------------------------
Error!
---------------------------
Error: WhatIf-shp.tbm(line 17:
Error: Required token = [#End], [$Subsystem:], [$Name], or [$Template], found [+Tech Description: The Apollo is].


File: PARSELO.CPP

Line: 670





Call stack:

------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------------



[ This info is in the clipboard so you can paste it somewhere now ]





Use Ok to break into Debugger, Cancel exits.

I find this kinda funny. The Ulysses entry also seems to work according to the random princible. One hour ago, it worked. No the tech room just shows to original tech entry, again. The Apollo entry doesn't work at all - unless I put it right into the ships.tbl itself.

Nah, maybe it's better I keep changing the tech entries in the .tbls themselves and give up all that .tbm stuff...

[TopAce]

Can you actually put two table entries into one .tbm?

[Titan]

yeah, look in the media vps

[Herra Tohtori]

Can you actually put two table entries into one .tbm?

Yes. AFAIK if you have one ship entry in ships.tbl, you could theoretically add everything else (or modify any entry in ships.tbl) with modular tables. Of course then you shouldn't use the +nocreate flag for ships that are supposed to be created by the modular table.

So you can't see any technical difference between the entries? That's good, because I can't see any, too. But FS2 does. Those two entries are part of the very same .tbm. And always when I add the Apollo entry, it sais:

Code: [Select]

---------------------------
Error!
---------------------------
Error: WhatIf-shp.tbm(line 17:
Error: Required token = [#End], [$Subsystem:], [$Name], or [$Template], found [+Tech Description: The Apollo is].


File: PARSELO.CPP

Line: 670





Call stack:

------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------------



[ This info is in the clipboard so you can paste it somewhere now ]





Use Ok to break into Debugger, Cancel exits.

I find this kinda funny. The Ulysses entry also seems to work according to the random princible. One hour ago, it worked. No the tech room just shows to original tech entry, again. The Apollo entry doesn't work at all - unless I put it right into the ships.tbl itself.

Nah, maybe it's better I keep changing the tech entries in the .tbls themselves and give up all that .tbm stuff...

Definitely don't give up the TBM's. They are awesome and made of win and your tbm just has a flaw in it... Compare to the following:

Code: [Select]

#Ship Classes

$Name: GTF Ulysses
+nocreate
$Species: Terran
+Manufacturer: Mekhu Enterprises/Triton Dynamics
+Description: Excellent all-around fighter. Offers superior maneuverability and a high top speed. Smaller missile payload

than other GTA fighters.
$end_multi_text
+Tech Description: The Ulysses advanced space superiority fighter was originally a Vasudan design to develop a successor for

the obsolete Anubis fighter. Vasudan engineers had problems with the Ulysses's power grid which could have been solved with

Terran help. The outcome of this joint adventure is the most maneuverable craft ever developed by the PVN or the GTA.
$end_multi_text

$Name: GTF Apollo
+nocreate
$Species: Terran
+Manufacturer: Han-Ronald Corp.
+Description: Original space superiority fighter of the GTA fleet.  Highly versatile, often doubles as assault type.  Low

weapon compatibility.
$end_multi_text
+Tech Description: The Apollo is the most common GTA fighter.  It is highly versatile and can perform multiple roles,

including space superiority, interception and assault.
$end_multi_text

#End
You need to add $end_multi_text after the +Tech Description: <blah blah blah>. I did a test, and commenting those lines out gives the exact same error report as you noticed, so they are definitely required and the lack of them is responsible for the problem.

Apparently, with one ship only, it isn't a problem because you're not having anything in the tbm after the offending part, so the parsing system can handle your errors in that regard. But with two ships, it goes wrong when it doesn't find what it thinks it's supposed to find, and correspondingly crashes. At least that's what I make out of this, you might want to consult the powers that be about what exactly is going on in the code department.

[SF-Junky]

Funny things aren't breaking off. I successfully put everything I changed in the .tbl entries into a wep.tbm and a shp.tbm. I can launch the game now, but everytime I try to run a mission it says:

Code: [Select]

Error: Can't open model file <>
File: ModelRead.cpp
Line: 1995


Call stack:
------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------


Code: [Select]

Error: Verify failure: Vbuf0 != NULL

File: 3ddraw.cpp
Line: 451


Call stack:
------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------


[Snail]

Sorry if this has been said before, but does this help anything:

Code: [Select]

$Name: GTF Ulysses
+nocreate
$Species: Terran
+Manufacturer: XSTR("Mekhu Enterprises/Triton Dynamics", -1)
+Description: XSTR("Excellent all-around fighter. Offers superior maneuverability and a high top speed. Smaller missile payload than other GTA fighters.", -1)
$end_multi_text
+Tech Description: XSTR("The Ulysses advanced space superiority fighter was originally a Vasudan design to develop a successor for the obsolete Anubis fighter. Vasudan engineers had problems with the Ulysses's power grid which could have been solved with Terran help. The outcome of this joint adventure is the most maneuverable craft ever developed by the PVN or the GTA.", -1)
$end_multi_text

$Name: GTF Apollo
+nocreate
$Species: Terran
+Manufacturer: XSTR("Han-Ronald Corp.", -1)
+Description: XSTR("Original space superiority fighter of the GTA fleet.  Highly versatile, often doubles as assault type.  Low weapon compatibility.", -1)
$end_multi_text
+Tech Description: XSTR("The Apollo is the most common GTA fighter.  It is highly versatile and can perform multiple roles, including space superiority, interception and assault.", -1)
$end_multi_text


[SF-Junky]

But those XSTR things aren't there in the FSPort tables and there everything works perfectly. It also worked just fine for my mod before I switched to .tbms.

[Snail]

But those XSTR things aren't there in the FSPort tables and there everything works perfectly. It also worked just fine for my mod before I switched to .tbms.

They're not in the FSPort because the FSPort just ripped the tables from FS1 and did as little modification they could to make it work (for authenticity). The $end_multi_text entries after the +Tech Description should fix everything, I'm pretty sure of it.

[it got confused because it was never told when the tech description ends and the next entry starts, I think. There was no difference between these two entries. It's just the order of the entries, I think]

[SF-Junky]

The $end_multi_text entries after the +Tech Description should fix everything, I'm pretty sure of it.

But there IS an $end_multi_text entry after any tech description - if it wasn't so, it wouldn't even start the game!

Bah! I wish I never had changed to .tbm. For gods sake, I safed my .tbls...

[Snail]

Doesn't look like it from the stuff you posted.

[Herra Tohtori]

You had it after +Description, but not after +Tech Description... at least according to what you posted.

Not having it produced exactly the error reports you said were occurring.

Adding it after +Tech Description removed the problems and the appropriate tech description was used by the game (I added a line "THIS IS A TEST" to the end of tech descriptions, and it showed up with correctly made table entries).

Just try it yourself. Modular tables are ideal for modding and you should always use them if you are modifying something or adding ships. Only if you are making a full-fledged total conversion or for some reason you need something removed (can't really think of what this situation would be with mods...), you will need to make your own full tables; otherwise the TBM's can deal with everything from modifying an existing entry to adding entries.

[Snail]

Add $end_multi_text after +Tech Description. It will fix the problem. I assure you. I knew the error the second I saw it.

If that doesn't work, I'll speak in light blue and italics for a week.

[SF-Junky]

As I said, I already added a $end_multi_text entry after any tech description:

Code: [Select]

$Name: GTF Ulysses
+nocreate
$Species: Terran
+Manufacturer: Mekhu Enterprises/Triton Dynamics
+Description: Excellent all-around fighter. Offers superior maneuverability and a high top speed. Smaller missile payload than other GTA fighters.
$end_multi_text
+Tech Description: The Ulysses advanced space superiority fighter was originally a Vasudan design to develop a successor for the obsolete Anubis fighter. Vasudan engineers had problems with the Ulysses's power grid which could have been solved with Terran help. The outcome of this joint adventure is the most maneuverable craft ever developed by the PVN or the GTA.
$end_multi_text

$Name: GTF Apollo
+nocreate
$Species: Terran
+Description: Original space superiority fighter of the GTA fleet. Highly versatile, often doubles as assault type. Low weapon compatibility.
$end_multi_text
+Tech Description: After more than two decades in service, the Apollo is the most common GTA fighter. This doesn't come by no good reason. The Apollo is a real allrounder, and can perform almost any role, including space superiority, interception and assault. Engagements with more modern Vasudan fighters, like the Seth or the Horus, and its incompability with new technologies begin to show the Apollo's age, however. That's why GTN intents to stepwise decomission the Apollo during the next five to seven years and replace it by modern fighters like the Valkyrie and the Hercules.
$end_multi_text
$POF file: fighter04a.pof
I will later upload all the stuff, so you can see yourselves. But first I'll look for somethin' to eat.



Alright, since there's no herbal sauce in the house, it's just pizza today...

Link

Includes all .tbls and .tbms as well as one mission. Be careful what ships you click at in the tech room, I didn't add any models (Orion, Typhon, Akula, Lycaon)

[Vertigo 7]

I had a thought, when you run fred, are you using the -mod <directory> command line to build your missions? also, what build are you using?

[SF-Junky]

This build: http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,55095.0.html

And of course I use fred with the -mod command line. Overwise I couldn't make my missions, could I?