Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: aldo_14 on March 03, 2002, 12:47:35 pm
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Just an idea I had - in releasing a mod (new model), would you prefer to have it all in a VP file you can slot into the main directory, rather than having to place the individual files in their sub-directories?
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VP definitely; it's much cleaner and makes it easier to switch between mods.;)
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you should do VP for the bigginers and the vets could just extract them anyway.
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VP; if you really want a file you can just use VPView.
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Yeah, VP files :nod:
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That depends. If it is a campaign or some other situation where a number of mods are meant to go together, a VP is defintely better, but individual ships are easier with the files, I think.
Say I want to use Bobboau's Kato and Aldo's Reshef at the same time, but I downloaded each in its own VP. I'm going to have to extract the files anyway and then disable the VPs to use them simultaneously, am I not?
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Partly because with a VP, I believe, you could just put it in the directory and you're all done, except if you wanted to just modify the tables :nod:
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a 0wn made exe file that auto extracts it.
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Hm, do custom VPs always override Volition VPs?
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Originally posted by Sesquipedalian
That depends. If it is a campaign or some other situation where a number of mods are meant to go together, a VP is defintely better, but individual ships are easier with the files, I think.
Say I want to use Bobboau's Kato and Aldo's Reshef at the same time, but I downloaded each in its own VP. I'm going to have to extract the files anyway and then disable the VPs to use them simultaneously, am I not?
Nope.
VPs are sorted alphabetically, and can share data. fore example, the Reciprocity VP is called (something like) prereciprocity.vp, and it overrides the tables in the volition VP files (so the models, etc work), but FS2 will still use the original models and maps in sparky.vp.
So, if you had say Kato.vp and Reshef.vp, all you'd need to do would be to copy them into the data directory and have a shups.tbl in the data directory.
It's much 'cleaner', but arguably a bit more complex/tougher/annoying to use those ships in a campaign.
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VP All the Way!:D
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FS2 basically reads data from the first VP it detects (going, as aldo said, in alphabetical order) and if it finds a duplicate filename in a VP that it has already loaded from a previous VP, it ignores the file. You just have to make sure that your VP filename comes before root_fs2.;)
a 0wn made exe file that auto extracts it.
This is another thing I was wondering about; do you guys like to have auto-extractors for campaigns or just simple zip files containing the campaign and a readme? I personally like the zips because they cut the download filesize down and don't mess up your existing files. (I once had my custom tables deleted by the Twilight installer:p)
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I didn't vote for option 1 and 2..
I'll say go for EXE files. better and easyer. IMHO
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Originally posted by aldo_14
That nice clear explanation
Really? Well, then I take back my vote. VP's would be nice.
Orignally posted by CP5670
do you guys like to have auto-extractors for campaigns ... (I once had my custom tables deleted by the Twilight installer)
I am not a big fan of auto-extractors. Derelict messed things up quite thoroughly for me when I tried to disable it. I lost my nice, highly ranking pilot, I lost some custom files, various other things got messed up, and in the end I had to reinstall the whole game. I was not a happy camper.
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In my opinion, it is better to have an EXE file that contains all the stuff which can be self extracted. But you have to be a good programmer if you want to make a good one ;)
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what the hell does VP mean
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vp is a form of file compression/archive that freespace2 uses to store all its core files. Very nice and clean.
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I belive its called 'Volition Package'
and archive is the word, not compression
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Can we please have some sort of automatic two or three month timeout on polls, or at least have a way of knowing who to lynch?
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Originally posted by Black Wolf
Can we please have some sort of automatic two or three month timeout on polls, or at least have a way of knowing who to lynch?
dear gpd, not another one?
admins, could you either include those features or have someone lock every single old poll.
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I voted VP it is more pratical for installing and uninstalling mods and for downloading it...
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Originally posted by kasperl
dear gpd, not another one?
admins, could you either include those features or have someone lock every single old poll.
[color=66ff00]Frankly I think thread revival can be a good thing provided it's something useful like this. If we lock it then it can't be popped back into the public eye and generally good info will be lost to most people.
[/color]
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Just a question about VPing:
I have a campaign which uses customized TBL data. If I put that TBL into a VP with the missions, then will only that campaign will use that TBL, or all missions I begin?
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Originally posted by TopAce
Just a question about VPing:
I have a campaign which uses customized TBL data. If I put that TBL into a VP with the missions, then will only that campaign will use that TBL, or all missions I begin?
FS2 will use the first table it comes across. If you have another table in your data/tables folder it will always use that. Then after looking through data it will use the first table in the first .vp file it comes across (vp's are checked alphabetically so if your .vp has a name behind root.vp FS2 will never see it).
This remains true even if your missions are in the same vp as the table. FS2 always uses the first table it sees.
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What a stupid thing!
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stupid?
it is what makes fs2 an heavy moddable game so i wont call it stupid
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Originally posted by TopAce
What a stupid thing!
Not really. It seems pretty sensible to me. All you've got to do is make sure there are no other table files around and make sure your .vp starts with a letter before R.
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The difficult thing is the tables (ie. between small things like fighters). What we need is a program that will add a chunk of table data into the standard ships.tbl.
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Originally posted by J.F.K.
The difficult thing is the tables (ie. between small things like fighters). What we need is a program that will add a chunk of table data into the standard ships.tbl.
What's wrong with cut and Paste in wordpad??? :confused:
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Originally posted by J.F.K.
The difficult thing is the tables (ie. between small things like fighters). What we need is a program that will add a chunk of table data into the standard ships.tbl.
a table is pure ASCII, right?
if so, you can easily do that using QBasic, this would be the code:
OPEN "tbl path +filename" FOR APPEND AS #1,
OPEN "tbl data chunk path+filename" FOR INPUT AS #2,
DO
INPUT #2, data$
PRINT#1, data$
LOOP UNTIL EOF(2)
EDIT: my register datre has been fixed, when did that happen?
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Originally posted by J.F.K.
The difficult thing is the tables (ie. between small things like fighters). What we need is a program that will add a chunk of table data into the standard ships.tbl.
I thought of doing this, but I couldn't think of a way that would really be any better than just using wordpad.
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Originally posted by aldo_14
I thought of doing this, but I couldn't think of a way that would really be any better than just using wordpad.
the only thing i can think of is a little program which opens the tables, places the pof in the right place, puts the textures where they belong and checks for tbl limits.
now, if all of the stuff, (textures,model and data chunks) is in one dirt and unzipped, i can make a little MS-DOS thing to do all of this, but i think someone else can do it in windows, and even include something to unzip the files.
together with a packaging program, you can just distribute exe's which put everything where it's supposed to be.
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Originally posted by KARMA
stupid?
it is what makes fs2 an heavy moddable game so i wont call it stupid
The stupid thing is FS2 can't detect the right TBL for the right campaign/mod. It is evident that a mission in XC.vp would use the table in XC.vp, and HF.vp will use HF.vp's table. :confused:
I have no doubts how moddable FS2 is.
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Originally posted by TopAce
The stupid thing is FS2 can't detect the right TBL for the right campaign/mod. It is evident that a mission in XC.vp would use the table in XC.vp, and HF.vp will use HF.vp's table. :confused:
I have no doubts how moddable FS2 is.
The rules are pretty simple. Stick the table in data and it will replace any other table. I don't know why you want a more complicated method of doing things.