Hard Light Productions Forums

Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: Silver_Scythe on April 15, 2002, 08:25:08 pm

Title: Help me PLZ!
Post by: Silver_Scythe on April 15, 2002, 08:25:08 pm
When I ever try to  put a new model into FS2 now it always crashes just before my test mission starts :confused: :confused:
Title: Help me PLZ!
Post by: vadar_1 on April 15, 2002, 08:46:45 pm
Theres litterally hundreds of reasons this could happen, so lets start from the top.

Did you make this model, or is it from someone else?
Did you make a proper table entry for it?
are all the textures in /maps/?
Did the donkey steal your yellow raddish?
Title: Help me PLZ!
Post by: neo_hermes on April 15, 2002, 09:41:41 pm
Quote
Originally posted by vadar_1

Did the donkey steal your yellow raddish?

:lol: :ha:
Title: Help me PLZ!
Post by: Silver_Scythe on April 15, 2002, 09:56:15 pm
I got the mods from other people but they didn't come with the actual PCX map files just the model and data entry but the model was fully mapped :confused:
Title: Help me PLZ!
Post by: WMCoolmon on April 15, 2002, 10:18:27 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Silver_Scythe
I got the mods from other people but they didn't come with the actual PCX map files just the model and data entry but the model was fully mapped :confused:

You've got a couple of problems. First, you need to make your 'ships.tbl' smaller. Extract it using VPView from 'FS2_Root.tbl', and open it up with notepad. Remove all the lines with a semicolon (;) in front of them. Now, open up the ship data file with notepad and select the line that starts with '$name' to the end of the last line that ends with '$subsystem'. Copy this, then paste it right below the line that says
Quote
;=====>> TERRANS <<=======

Save and move 'ships.tbl' to 'Freespace2/data/tables', then save the model file to 'Freespace2/data/models'.

If you don't have VPView, you can get it here (http://www.descent-network.com/cgi-bin/descman.cgi?module=vpview) :nod:
Title: Help me PLZ!
Post by: vadar_1 on April 15, 2002, 10:31:33 pm
ah yes, too big of a ship tabler.... that would do it. You can really stick the entry anywhere, its just easier to find if its under its designated race.
Title: Help me PLZ!
Post by: karajorma on April 16, 2002, 02:29:16 am
I`ve got a shortened ships.tbl on my FAQ page.  It's under 300k in size but works perfectly with FS2.

You can get it here (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/karajorma/freespace/freespace2.html)

 WMCoolmon
 
 Here's a cut and paste from my FAQ with an even better trick for cutting down the ships table

Quote
   
"Firstly you must not exceed a ships.tbl size of 380k. If you do freespace tends to become unstable. The simplest solution is to use the replace function in wordpad. Tell it to look for a double space " " and replace it with a single space " ". Keep repeating this until the file doesn`t get any smaller."


This trick came up on the VBB a while back but I don`t know if it ever made it over here.
 
Title: Help me PLZ!
Post by: Silver_Scythe on April 16, 2002, 09:39:23 am
Thanks alot! :D:D
Title: Help me PLZ!
Post by: WMCoolmon on April 16, 2002, 05:40:36 pm
Quote
"Firstly you must not exceed a ships.tbl size of 380k. If you do freespace tends to become unstable. The simplest solution is to use the replace function in wordpad. Tell it to look for a double space " " and replace it with a single space " ". Keep repeating this until the file doesn`t get any smaller."

...or until your processor(or in my case, processors) burn out, whichever comes first...
Title: Help me PLZ!
Post by: vadar_1 on April 16, 2002, 05:55:26 pm
Quote
"Firstly you must not exceed a ships.tbl size of 380k. If you do freespace tends to become unstable. The simplest solution is to use the replace function in wordpad. Tell it to look for a double space " " and replace it with a single space " ". Keep repeating this until the file doesn`t get any smaller."


Its actually 384.5 ... or maybe thats 382.5

Either way...
Title: Help me PLZ!
Post by: karajorma on April 16, 2002, 06:08:48 pm
I`ve never heard a definative value you can`t break for the ships.tbl. Sticking to 380 is fairly safe especially if you do the double space thing (that can knock 100k off your table fairly easily).
Title: Help me PLZ!
Post by: WMCoolmon on April 16, 2002, 06:50:28 pm
Quote
Originally posted by karajorma
I`ve never heard a definative value you can`t break for the ships.tbl. Sticking to 380 is fairly safe especially if you do the double space thing (that can knock 100k off your table fairly easily).

:nod: took off 40kb so far, though it took a while especially considering a 1.4Ghz total of processing power :p
Title: Help me PLZ!
Post by: Silver_Scythe on April 16, 2002, 10:03:47 pm
Quote
...or until your processor(or in my case, processors) burn out, whichever comes first...


Not likely to happen, i'm running on an AMD Athlon most probably THE best gaming processor there is. :D:yes: :nod:nod:
Title: Help me PLZ!
Post by: WMCoolmon on April 16, 2002, 10:07:05 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Silver_Scythe


Not likely to happen, i'm running on an AMD Athlon most probably THE best gaming processor there is. :D:yes: :nod:nod:

Also the hottest running...:p
Title: Help me PLZ!
Post by: Silver_Scythe on April 16, 2002, 10:29:09 pm
Yes.. it is hot!
but in the serious sense... thats what fans are for, your just jealous or you are anal retentive, it IS the best :p :nod:
Title: RE: Short Tbl file
Post by: Silver_Scythe on April 17, 2002, 12:13:10 am
Karajorma, could you please tell me how you made your table file so small so I can do it to the Velocity mod :D:yes: table? (oh yeah!) :nod:
Title: Help me PLZ!
Post by: CP5670 on April 17, 2002, 12:27:10 am
Quote

Also the hottest running...:p


Mine is currently running at 52°C; sort of hot, but it works well. ;)
Title: Help me PLZ!
Post by: WMCoolmon on April 17, 2002, 12:55:30 am
Quote
Originally posted by Silver_Scythe
Yes.. it is hot!
but in the serious sense... thats what fans are for, your just jealous or you are anal retentive, it IS the best :p :nod:

I didn't say that...look more carefully:
Quote
Me:...or until your processor(or in my case, processors) burn out, whichever comes first...
Scythe:Not likely to happen, i'm running on an AMD Athlon most probably THE best gaming processor there is.
Me:Also the hottest running...
ScytheYes.. it is hot!
but in the serious sense... thats what fans are for, your just jealous or you are anal retentive, it IS the best

You'll see that you basically incriminated yourself. :p AMDs are notorious for their heat, and you said it was indeed hot. :ha:
Now, maybe you could explain what being the best gaming processor has to do with it...does it have pretty logos or something? I actually think the AMD site is sort of ugly... :p

;)
Title: Help me PLZ!
Post by: karajorma on April 17, 2002, 03:59:35 am
I did actually post the method above. It's a simple search and replace trick.

Sometimes [V] used tabs and sometimes they just held down the space key.

Spaces take up a lot more memory than tabs so if you simply do a search and replace for two spaces next to each other and replace them with a single space you`ll half the number of those spaces on the table.

The quickest way is to search for 8 or so spaces in a row and replace them with a single space. That will get rid of most of the spaces. Then do repeated search and replaces for a pair of spaces next to each other until either your text editor reports that it can't find any spaces next to each other.

When you save you`ll notice the table file is a LOT smaller.
Title: Help me PLZ!
Post by: Silver_Scythe on April 17, 2002, 12:42:51 pm
Ahhhh, I would use your version that I downloaded but I like Velocity :D anyway thanks alot!
P.S Spaces? What about enters? exp.
1


2


3
Thanks again though :D:yes:  :nod:
Title: Help me PLZ!
Post by: karajorma on April 17, 2002, 03:59:18 pm
I don`t know if editing out paragraphs would save you a lot of space but it would make your table VERY hard to read.

Be warned that putting too many ships in your tables can make the barracks crash if you later swap to a table with less ships in it.
Title: Help me PLZ!
Post by: Silver_Scythe on April 17, 2002, 04:15:21 pm
:D I got my ships table down to 269kb WITH 3 new ships! :nod:
Title: heeeeelp
Post by: TrashMan on April 18, 2002, 04:38:55 am
I've seacrched for PCS high and low, but I couldn't find him.
If anyone can send it to me, please do.
My e-mail is [email protected]!
Title: Help me PLZ!
Post by: karajorma on April 18, 2002, 07:32:59 am
http://alliance.sourceforge.net/FS2Kit.shtml

Its part of The Alliance Productions FreeSpace 2 Kit (which is probably why you found it so hard to find)