[skwasjer]

Originally Posted by Bedsdriver

I opened the Bergen.dat file using the excellent program Silent 3ditor, remapped the ids and then saved it as Stevenage.dat I then altered the locations.cfg file to use the new stevenage file in the same location but it did not appear in the game.

Any clues as to why?

Remap also affects the id in the 'Object to place' panel (in the placement chunk) which is really an error on my part. Remap should only affect the ID of the chunk itself. Therefor, remapping a location-DAT will give you an unusable DAT-file because you now end up with object ID's that don't exist. I can only advise to use 'Assign new random ID' on each node/placement chunk manually, but this obviously is quite tedious. Expect this fixed though in the next release.

Originally Posted by Bedsdriver

Whilst I have your attention and using Bergen as an example. Silent 3ditor shows several TGA files (embeded?) within the Bergen.dat file. CIV_A.TGA is listed five times, FCN_FACT.TGA three times, DEP_A.TGA twice etc etc etc. Why are these TGA files embeded/listed more than once?

When materials use the same texture, usually the material parameters are different (indicating a different type of surface), like how bright it is, how shiny it is, etc. For instance, steel reflects more light, while wood should look dull.

Originally Posted by Bedsdriver

I had thought that two files should not contain the same Ids but maybe that is just for cloned ships.

So either Bergen and Stevenage are so far away the identical ids are not a problem or it was never a problem in the first place.

You thought right, id's should be unique, except for a handfull cases (not this). You may just be lucky that you didn't get a crash. However, as stated above, remap won't do you any good either.

Originally Posted by Bedsdriver

Edit: I have a suspicion that harbours are merely blueprints rather than actual objects and that maybe by remapping the ids what i actually did was wipe out the markers pointing the way to the actual objects which are in the harborkit file.

Yes, the panel 'Object to place' contains a field with an ID that in most cases points to an object in Harbor_Kit.dat. This DAT contains the actual object that should be placed/rendered.


In short, new location-DAT's must contain all new ID's for chunk id/parent id fields, except for the 'Object to place' id's, which should point to ID's in the Harbor_kit.dat. To add objects to harbors add more/new placement chunks.

A visual representation of harbors is unfortunately not possibly right now with S3D.

Hope this helps.