[Ace]

The idea is quite simple, when you pick a squadron logo the game searches for an alternate skin file and if present uses that for a fighter.

For example you pick the blue lions logo "bluelions.pcx" the game also then searches for "bluelionsterfight1a.pcx" and "bluelionsbomber1a.pcx" etc.

Basically it'd allow for complex custom skins in multiplayer associated with certain squadrons and would allow for players to make their own alternate skins tied to a squadron.

For instance if someone wanted to make a "blueangels" squadron, all they have to do is make new skins with that as the prefix infront of the current texture names and it'd display with the alternate squad texture.

[Goober5000]

So essentially you want texture replacement on a per-squadron basis in addition to a per-ship basis?

It's pretty straightforward to copy texture replacement from one ship to another in Notepad; it's only three lines of text after all.  Admittedly it would be rather tedious for an entire squadron over an entire campaign.

Unfortunately, now that I think of it, this opens up a rather large can of worms.  Since the player can change his loadout, the code would have to account for every possible texture on every possible ship the player could choose.  That would get very ugly.

[Ace]

The idea behind this system is that by selecting a squadron logo in the player screen the game automatically checks for map files with that name and uses those files unless overridden in FRED by a selected per-ship skin in the mission file.

This enables players to easily make custom ship "squadron skins" that are tied to a squadron logo. The trick would be writing a parser to look for a prefix on the default skins, so when people make new skins all they have to do is add that prefix in the filename and it will use the alternate skin. If one isn't present, it uses the default.

For for instance in TBP if you had "Tiger squadron" and the logo file was named 'tiger.pcx' skins for 3 starfuries the parser would scan for 'tiger' infront of the current texture names. If those files are present, then those alternate skins are made.

[Goober5000]

Yeah, I understood what you were getting at in your first post.  The problem here is not the parser; that's quite easy.  The problem is keeping track of all those separate textures for all those separate ships within the game.

[Stormkeeper]

You have at least a dozen playable craft, including both Terran and Vasudan. Its fine for one or two squadrons, but it'll begin to pile up quickly. The program will need to search through all the textures in game, and then pick out the relevant ones from the squadron and then the relevant ones from those textures.

[Ace]

Overall, what is trying to be done is allowing for players to have a higher degree of customization on their ships.

The other approach would be if the squadron code could be modified so that it wasn't limited to 4 vertices. Instead custom geometry and UV map could be applied to the .pof file which would be recognized as the "squadron logo."

The idea behind this would be that then elements such as the logo, stripes, pilot name, face, etc. could be easily edited and selected as part of the 'squadron logo' without editing the main texture in this case.

For the pilot screen, a section of the UV map could then be selected as the part shown there.