Hard Light Productions Forums

Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: Ostron on July 21, 2012, 11:24:23 am

Title: Mod ships error ridden?
Post by: Ostron on July 21, 2012, 11:24:23 am
Hello,

I just recently became interested in trying to build FS2 missions again (the last time I did it was years ago before Open existed). So I'm not new to the process in general, but I am new to doing it through Open.

I managed to get the -mod launch and the .tbm file set up right so FRED will recognize and let me select the new ships I downloaded, however whenever I try to place one it throws error after error apparently enumerating problems with the ships' table definitions and model files. Half of them have "null inertia" issues and many of the others have mismatched subsystem names according to the error messages.

Is this something people have encountered before and have had to correct (I know a couple of the ones I'm using, the GVI Cairo and the GTI Acheron, are 10-12 year old models that were designed when the only way to get the new ships in was to modify the core .tbl file), am I the first person to try using these models since then, or is there some significant step I missed in adding these ships?

Note that I was checking and there was no one error that appeared for all of the ships, which is why I'm hoping it wasn't something I did.

Thanks in advance.
Title: Re: Mod ships error ridden?
Post by: The_Force on July 21, 2012, 11:40:08 am
Your running a debug build run the build with the r not the d.
Title: Re: Mod ships error ridden?
Post by: MatthTheGeek on July 21, 2012, 12:04:24 pm
Null moment of inertia is a common warning. It is not an error, in that it won't crash the game. To fix it, just open the pof in PCS2, and in Header, on the right, under the moment of inertia values, click Recalculate. Disregard PCS2's b*tching and save. Mismatched subsystem names are due to faulty tables, just open the pof in PCS2 and make sure the subsystems listed in the tables match the names in PCS2 (it's often about a 's' missing or silly typos like that).

Many old ships remain old ships, having bugs or oversights that new versions of FSO will sometimes pick up. It is good practice to fix those when you encounter them.

Your running a debug build run the build with the r not the d.
Dude, he's modding, not playing a random campaign. Of course he's going to use a debug build. In fact, I would lynch him if he wasn't doing so.


Also, welcome (back), and have fun modding !
Title: Re: Mod ships error ridden?
Post by: headdie on July 21, 2012, 12:13:23 pm
The situation is that many ships have been created and posted to the community and never updated/fixed by the creator so any issues that there were in the original upload dont get fixed.  Then when a model is used in a mod and (in a few cases) gets fixed they are rarely posted as separate downloads from the mod pack unfortunately.

Null MoI is a common issue and fortunately a simple fix with the right tools.  The actual issue is that the model has 0.0 for all it's Moment of Inertial values.  download a copy of PCS2 (Pof Construction Suite 2).  go into your models directory and open up the offending .pof file with PCS2.  When it loads with the header selected on the left scroll the properties on the right down to the bottom and hit the button to calculate the Moment of Inertia.  The program will complain that it is not good at it but it works well enough, when it's finished save over the original file and you are good to go
Title: Re: Mod ships error ridden?
Post by: MatthTheGeek on July 21, 2012, 12:17:25 pm
Also, in case you don't already have it, PCS2 build (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=77292.0).
Title: Re: Mod ships error ridden?
Post by: IronBeer on July 21, 2012, 04:31:06 pm
The situation is that many ships have been created and posted to the community and never updated/fixed by the creator so any issues that there were in the original upload dont get fixed.  Then when a model is used in a mod and (in a few cases) gets fixed they are rarely posted as separate downloads from the mod pack unfortunately.
To be glib about it, yes, many user-made ships have things wrong with them. Fortunately, many of the fixes are fairly simple.

....not always, though.....