Seth's system tutorial

[Seth Karlo]

Right, several of these have been started, but none have really been finished, so this is my attempt.

To start, you will need the following:

-Freelancer Explorer
-Notepad/Notepad ++
-A fresh copy of Freelancer with the latest version of Discovery installed.
-Freelancer Mod manager.

To start, I'll describe what Freelancer Explorer does. It basically can edit and make new systems for you in Freelancer, but due to it being a program, of course it has various bugs in it, so understanding what it does is always a good thing.

Now, go to C:/Program Files/Freelancer Mod Manager/mods

Here you will see a bunch of folders that contain your mods. Open the latest Discovery mod and COPY the folders called DATA and DLLS. Ignore EXE and ioncross and any other random files in there.

Now, return to /mods and make a new folder called "EditDiscovery". Open this new folder, and paste DATA and DLLS.

The reason for this is that Discovery has a bunch of stuff added onto it that confuses FLE (Freelancer Explorer), so it will crash if you try and edit it.

Open FLE, and select "Yes" to edit an existing mod question. Next, select your folder called Edit Discovery and voila, it's open.

We're going to follow a system I edited, step by step. First, find the system called "Illinois", and then right click it and select "edit".

In this system are a variety of different things that I added, I'll summarise them below:

-Liberty Dreadnought near the Jump Hole
-Massive Station near the planet
-Minefield to the left of the system.

Right, to place a base, you select the base button, place where you want it and hit ok. The base is now placed and exists. Which files does this edit? Well:

-The system file (See below)
-Universe.ini
-mBases.ini
-The base file (See below)
-The room files (See below)

Now, illinois has a code, along with every system, base and object in Freelancer. Illinois's code is LI15. The LI stands for Liberty, and Illinois is the 15th system made in Liberty. (LI01 is New York). Now, in your mod folder you had a folder called DATA, remember? Go to that now, and go to UNIVERSE.

/EditDiscovery
--/DLLS
--/DATA
----/AI
----/AUDIO
----/BASES
----/CHARACTERS
----/COCKPITS
----/EQUIPMENT
----/FONTS
----/FX
----/INTERFACE
----/MISSIONS
----/MOVIES
----/RANDOMMISSIONS
----/SCREENS
----/SCRIPTS
----/SHIPS
----/SOLAR
----/UNIVERSE

Now, select the folder called SYSTEMS, and voila, you have all the codes for every system in Discovery. Scroll down to LI15 and open it. Inside you will find the following:

-/LI15
---/Bases
---/autodeletefolder.flmmbak
---/LI15.ini

Li15.ini is the systems main system file. Anything that exists in the system will have an entry in this file, every base, object, field, sun etc. Everything. Any base in the file will also have a file in the Bases folder (Go have a look around.) More on this later.

Next, we can look back in the UNIVERSE folder, and open Universe.ini

(Note: All Ini's can be opened using notepad)

Inside universe.ini there are two types of entries:

[Base] What it is, a base or a system.
nickname = Li01_01_Base This bases code.
system = Li01 The system this base is in.
strid_name = 196766 A link to the name of the base, each name, info or description has a number that is found in the .dll's, more on this later.
file = Universe\Systems\Li01\Bases\Li01_01_Base.ini Oh look, it's that system ini again.
BGCS_base_run_by = W02bF35 Faction code.

And

[system]
nickname = EW17 System code.
file = systems\EW17\EW17.ini There's that pesky system ini again.
pos = 5, -1 Position on the minimap
visit = 0 I think this is whether it appears on a new characters sheet, not sure though.
strid_name = 502192 Link to the name of the system
ids_info = 502193 Link to the info of the system
NavMapScale = 2 Size of the system
msg_id_prefix = ignore Can't remember what this is.

I've added red comments to explain what each bit is.

Right, so universe.ini links everything together. Earlier, I mentioned another file aswell: mBases.ini

mBases.ini is the insides of the base, the people, the bar, the ship dealer, all that jazz.

Paused for the night, to be continued tomorrow, poke me to remind me please or I'll forget.

-Seth

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Signature by Sleipnir.