The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

I posted this in another thread (cheat codes) but decided I was too far off topic, so new thread it is.


It would be nice with some quick and dirty support for ship editing, just something for people to toy with until the real resource system gets done (which could be a while).

Where does the ship values end up? In the .exe or in the .shp files? The .shp files in UQM are smaller than in the old PC version right?




One thing that hinders editing hungry people is having to draw angles*sizes (16*3 ?) images for each ship.
It could of course be automated by an external program. I could write one. Maybe I will... right now. Or maybe not, cuz I'm incredibly lazy.


I made some rotation tests anyways. It seems 3x gives best symetry (because of the center pixel). It depends on where you put the handle/hotspot though. On most I didn't put it anywhere special, but the one's marked (A) had the same handles aligned to the pixels.

The 2x ship didn't end up symetrical because different source pixels were selected on respective sides of the ship.

These are all nearest neighbour scaling/rotation. No aliasing.
(http://web.telia.com/~u48508900/temp/rot_test.gif)
(firefox mouse gesture users can scale up with diagonal down-right)

Here's the 3x version rotated with photoshop (seem to sharpen it a bit), then scaled down with bilinear. I'm not a huge fan of blur. For my project I'm using 5 x originals and then I sample just a couple of the 25 pixels per source block (maybe 3 in a triangle).
(Scaled up 3x for clarity)
(http://web.telia.com/~u48508900/temp/rot_test2.jpg)


Edit: Here's the 2x ship scale-rotated in PS with aliasing (I think it sharpens too), then pasted onto a canvas using the SC2 palette. (No doubt using some illegal colors).
Not sure how hot it looks without the light angles that the original SC ships have.
(http://web.telia.com/~u48508900/temp/rot_test3.gif)

In any way it would be nice not having to draw all those frames, even if it doesn't look as good. It would probably be affordable to have the game (pre?)generate the frames.

Ladies and Gentlemen it is done!
By downloading this neat little package:
Just the exec and content files (http://www.fabrix.waw.pl/a/jasiek/uqmESP.zip) (if you already downloaded all the dll's and just want the newest version of the mod)
Just the the dll's (http://www.fabrix.waw.pl/a/jasiek/uqmESPlib.zip) (if you have the mod but forgot the dll's)
The exec, content files and the dll's (http://www.fabrix.waw.pl/a/jasiek/uqmESPall.zip) (to install the mod from scratch)

and unzipping it in your UQM directory, you will now be able to edit all the ships (excluding the Sa-Matra and Vindicator).
The properties are stored in the text files, in the content direcotry.
Have fun!

EDIT:
By the way, Arne, I think your idea is too much work with too little payback. If anyone is able to make one frame of a ship, he will be able to do as many of them as he needs.
Most, if not all graphics programs have the option of rotating an image, so I don't see a problem here.

"Ladies and Gentlemen it is done!
By downloading this neat little package and unzipping it in your UQM directory, you will now be able to edit all the ships (excluding the Sa-Matra and Vindicator).
The properties are stored in the text files, in the content direcotry."

Hmm, I keep getting the message "This application has falied to start because SDL.dll was not found. Re-installing the application may fix this problem."

I put the unzipped "uqmESP" folder in the "Ur-Quan Masters" folder, did I do something wrong?


"By the way, Arne, I think your idea is too much work with too little payback. If anyone is able to make one frame of a ship, he will be able to do as meny of them as he needs.  
Most, if not all graphics programs have the option of rotating an image, so I don't see a problem here."

Yea, especially if the ships are rendered off a 3D program.

Nope, it was me.
Right now I have no idea of any solution to the problem aside from supplying you with the proper file(s).

Ok, download the zip once again, it has alll the dll's I have, just to be sure.
If/When it asks you wheter you want to overwrite... well it doesn't matter what you do, the files you have should be the same as I have.

"Ok, download the zip once again, it has alll the dll's I have, just to be sure."

I replaced them, but I still get the same message. Weird.

Just to make sure, you're supposed to unzip uqmESP, then put the unzipped folder uqmESP directly in the main Ur-quan Masters directory (no sub-directories). Then you open the uqmESP main executable file inside the uqmESP folder, right?

Nonono!
There should be no uqmESP folder. The executable goes straight to the main ur-quan masters folder and the text files go to the content folder

Yea, I had tried doing that too, with the same result. One thing has changed, though. It now says it's missing "MSVCRTD.dll". It has SDL.dll now, it came on the updated zip you uploaded. But now it thinks it needs this MSVCRTD.dll, as well.

Wow, this one I didn't expect.
If I could ask you something Deus.
Finding a download of these files is as easy as typing their name in google. If you'd be so kind, could you download all the missing files one by one, and make a list of them so I can put them in the zip?

EDIT:
Still, it is strange that the regular Ur-Quan Masters work fine and my little mod needs additional libraries...
More experienced programming comrades, if you could tell me what the hell is going on, I'd really appreciate it.

Ok, I downloaded it and the game runs now. Let's see how tough those fat maggots are when my cruiser has 50 crew, hardy, har, har. Anyway, I needed SDL.dll and MSVCRTD.dll to make it run.

Something interesting happened. I edited the cruiser fire rate so that it could fire off large salvos very quickly. The funny thing is that now all weapons on all ships have a very fast fire rate. Hehe, I drove my super cruiser up to an urquan thinking he'd chewed his last leaf. Instead I found he could fire off a beam of fusion that ripped through my hull in .1 seconds. The kohrah is even better. His f.r.i.e.d. unfolds like a blue rose. . .that obliterates a dreadnaught with one pass.

Ok, fixed it.
They were stupid copy-pasting mistakes. The Ur-Quan ship read the Chmmr file, that's why its main weapon was so quick, and the Kohr-Ah's FRIED energy cost was accidently set to... 1 :)
I also corrected some other minor things, though I'm not sure if they even will be visible gameplay-wise.

Anyway, thanks for the help with testing Deus.

Here are the new files:
Just the exec and content files (http://www.fabrix.waw.pl/a/jasiek/uqmESP.zip)
Just the the dll's (http://www.fabrix.waw.pl/a/jasiek/uqmESPlib.zip)
The exec, content files and the dll's (http://www.fabrix.waw.pl/a/jasiek/uqmESPall.zip)

As for interesting things... try changing the ship's mass to, say, 1000, and start ramming your enemies...

"Anyway, thanks for the help with testing Deus."

No problem, thanks for giving us the power to defeat dreadnaughts without having to run away like little cowards all the time. It was beginning to affect my self esteem, but now I can proudly fly my souped up cruiser directly into the face of those behemoth slugs, as a true warrior should. 8)


"As for interesting things... try changing the ship's mass to, say, 1000, and start ramming your enemies..."

Hehe, that's like a whole new weapon on its own. Maybe one of the weakest ships should be given this ability, like the umgah drone.

The drone coudn't kill anyone that way unless you tweaked it's speed, because somehow the AI takes into account your ship's mass, and if it is so bloody heavy, it won't fight, won't even fire anything at you.
The AI will try to run away, occasionally trying to fend of your projectiles if you fire any.
Funny stuff.

Curious ... any way to plug this in to the Mac version? I remember hexedit-hacking the SHP files on the PC version of SC2 and having some CRAZY high-powered battles with my room-mate, it would be fun to do that again.

Alright, I know im new, but I have no ability whatsoever at fighting in this game. I dont know why, or how, but I have never won one battle...except the very first one and barely at that. So Using this to set the earth cruiser to shoot super fast with low energy I find for my first time I beat somebody!! Only to find out after I win it just sits there zoomed in on my ship and does nothing...this is a bug I dont like at all.

so i dont know did i do this right but i put all files what wos in "uqmESPall" to the my "the Ur-Quan masters directory and press the "uqmesp.exe" and it did go to straight to game... so... i dont get it... how you can edit and change graphics by that??

It's not a GUI editor or anything, just edit the text files to modify the ships.

I cannot seem to get these files, could I ask for a repost.

(you know what my luck seems worse than usual today... and thats saying something) sorry if I seem to be a pain.

I click the d link and it jumps to a new page says contacting server and the times out. is it me or are they missing?

Sorry Comrades, I have moved  for three months to the USA, so I don't have the files on me, and I have very little acces to the internet... so I'm afraid I'll be very little help...

I get a Zlib1.dll not found error O_o

After i installed the new music pack hmm

Nevermind had an impartial of 0.4.0 :p oops

Even though it's old I'm going to bump this JUST BECAUSE it is so freakin' great :D

Jazzing up the Cruiser produces ENDLESS amounts of hilarity.  You don't even have to enhance your PSV.

I don't Think this Ship Editor really works. Cuz, As I look through how it Runs, It displayed out Ur-quan Master 0.4.0 instead of Ur-quan Masters 0.5.0 :o

I thnk that is the real problem right now. :(

When can we know about the latests Ship  Editor? (Which is REALLY Working) We are alll Dying to know about it. ::)

Thank you.

Errr... You claim it's not working because it says it's based on an older version?
If you wish I can recompile it so it will say it's version 2.0 just for you.

As for the newer version, the core team is succesfully scaring away people from doing any source-code based modifications, by claiming that everything is about to be drastically restructured, which will force dramatic restructuring of any mods.
Until I'm sure it's safe to make a mod (meaning I won't need to start over when the next version is published), I'm not going to put much effort into any mods.

I dont know why but whenever I stry to start up uqmESP it begins to start but then it crashes and it wont open long enough for me to tell what the error/errors was/were. I have tried re-extracting it and my reg uqm works fine but the uqmESP wont. Is it helps Im on Windows XP and have vertsion .50 for UQM

Dear me, sorry about that :/
I'm somewhat busy right now, and it's been quite a while (*ahem* quite a while = 1 year) since I had a look at the editor, so it's hard to tell what might be wrong.
I can tell you that your version of UQM is irrelevant since uqmESP is an independent exec.

I'll try to take a look at it this weekend.

something is wrong with renaming cfg (renaming keys.cfg to keys.old) files

For which uqm version editor was made?

It's based on 0.4

Hmm, could it be that some files have changed, and the exec has trouble accesing/reading them?
If that's it, I'll just recompile it with 0.5.

Thank you Ivan, for understanding us. ;D

I remember the last ship editor was pretty fun. Nothing like flying a cruiser that could fire four nukes at a time, and swat entire fusion blasts with lasers.

Where do I put the .txt files? Do they go in the main UQM directory or in the content folder?

~Lt. Bridge

The content direcotry. If you extract the zip directly into your UQM directory everything will be in its place.

errrr.... i hope im not bugging you Ivan, but is there a chance you will get a working ship editor for the 0.5.0 version or is that just wishful thinking on my part?

I probably will making an editor for 0.5 but it can take while as I'm afraid I deleted the source to the old editor...
I would have done it sooner but I thought people aren't so interested.
I'll try to do it by the end of next week.

much obliged... ;)

Is creating a system that allows for new art to be added to UQM easily a priority for UQM 0.6, or is that not yet on the operating table, and for a later version (like 0.7 or .8, etc.?)

Such a thing will require modifications to several independant aspects of the code. These improvements will be (and have been) done one at a time.

A new version of UQM is released when there have been improvements that are significant enough to warrant the work required to make a release.

In all likelyhood, the big improvement of 0.6 won't be to the content management.

Oh, I thought the game was feature complete at this point and all that was left to do was the graphical moding support (and maybe a ship editor/creator as this topic's title suggests.)

So what would the big improvement of 0.6 be then, if you don't mind me asking?

Well, look at the bug list (http://uqm.stack.nl/cgi-bin/bugs/buglist.cgi?short_desc_type=allwordssubstr&short_desc=&long_desc_type=allwordssubstr&long_desc=&bug_file_loc_type=allwordssubstr&bug_file_loc=&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&emailassigned_to1=1&emailtype1=substring&email1=&emailassigned_to2=1&emailreporter2=1&emailcc2=1&emailtype2=substring&email2=&bugidtype=include&bug_id=&votes=&changedin=&chfieldfrom=&chfieldto=Now&chfieldvalue=&cmdtype=doit&order=Bug+Number&field0-0-0=noop&type0-0-0=noop&value0-0-0=). There's still plenty to do.

So I'm guessing the ship editing thing has gone off since 0.6.2 then...?

Ship editing thing?

This might not be related to the ongoing topic directly, but this has something to do with ship editing.

Back in the 90s, I recall having some sort of an editor on SC2, which gave access to some basic functions of the ships (namely the crew, battery, recharge rate, speed, rate of fire, damage per hit, etc.). I made minor changes to see whether their functionality  would be grossly greater. One was reducing the Orz Nemesis' main weapon's  power consumption to 4 (instead of 6) and increasing the speed of the Earthling Cruiser to the same level of an Ur-Quan Dreadnought. Especially with the latter modification, frankly said, the humans would have won the war. Without question. Even against the Kohr-Ah. (Also, a Chmmr Avatar with a much greater turning rate was hilarious to play with, but not against.)

However, I'm intrigued whether anyone else here has encountered this little piece of old software. Since it was so long ago, I can't remember any name given to the program (if it even had any).

You mean StarEd 2 (http://files.chatnfiles.com/Giga%20Games%203%201995-10/DOS/UTILITY/STARED2.ZIP)?