Modding Help Custom Ship Troubles (please help me)

Discussion in 'Starbound Modding' started by Stongduke, Sep 10, 2017.

  1. Stongduke

    Stongduke Big Damn Hero

    Okay, so I've been really into Mass Effect basically since the first game came out. I've recently gotten into ship modding for Starbound, and I've been wanting to make the Normandy. I found someone else's Normandy design that they tried to make for this game, but they abandoned the project and simply put what they had on the internet. I used this design as a base for my mod and I've turned this into a (semi) working ship.

    The reason i've put the (semi) prefix on the working ship is that it works, you can walk around in it and there is proper collision, but I can't seem to figure out why my ship furniture/machines/whatever. I've got all of my machines placed (a bit sloppily as I've been at this problem for some time, and i'm just trying to get them to work and show up in game) but whenever I go into game and try to see them, they aren't there. A single background block is there, yes, but not the machine itself. The tech station and 1 door are placed just a little bit from the teleporter (the only successfully placed machine) that I did not place in the blocks.png image. These, no matter what I do, won't go away. If anyone can help me with this, I would be very thankful.

    Here are my files:
    edit:
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited: Sep 10, 2017
  2. Stongduke

    Stongduke Big Damn Hero

    please can someone reply? I really need help with this.
     
  3. bk3k

    bk3k Oxygen Tank

    .txt files? Those are supposed to be .structure files and anyhow that isn't everything. For example the blockKey is needed to interpret what colors match what tiles/objects. It uses numbers from 0-255 for [red, green, blue, alpha] that match the colors found in the blockImage.

    If you're going to post files, best to just put the whole project in a .zip or .7z file and post that. I won't really have time to look at them right way though.

    As for why the objects aren't there - assuming your blockKey file is good - it is probably an issue with the object's offset. Look at your .object files to see what sort of offset it has. Consider where you put the color(representing where the object is placed) is supposed to represent the bottom left of the object. If that object has an offset of [-3, -3] then the bottom left corner would really be 3 tiles down, and 3 to the left of where you are trying to place it.

    So you might accidentally be trying to place where it would collide with a foreground tile(the collisions are actually metamaterial tiles), or collide with another object. The object will then not be placed at all, just as if you tried to place an object with your mouse where it can't be placed.
     
  4. Stongduke

    Stongduke Big Damn Hero

    the reason that the structure files are txt files is because the site wont accept .structure files. I will check the offsets of the things. Thank you!
     
  5. Stongduke

    Stongduke Big Damn Hero

    as of trying this, I cannot seem to get the objects placed. I'm not using my own tile/block config for this. I am using the vanilla config. Here is a zip file of the ship:

    edit: I have added the .pak version of the mod to the zip file.
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited: Sep 10, 2017
  6. Stongduke

    Stongduke Big Damn Hero

    hey could somebody please help me with this?
     
  7. slowcold

    slowcold Pangalactic Porcupine

    I was having the same problem (been updating an old ship mod and it should be going up today sometime - testing it now).

    Found two reasons that objects were not being placed for me - either the colour code in blockkey.config was wrong - seriously, triple check it! - or the objects were too close together, so they wouldn't load.
    Check your blocks.png - make sure each object has it's unique colour and the RGB values MATCH those in blockkey.config. Space the object pixels out a bit - test. If they all load fine, you can move them slightly closer together and test again (new character each time).
     
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  8. Stongduke

    Stongduke Big Damn Hero

    wait doesn't just deleting the .shipworld file work to reset the ship? I do that every time I reset the ship and simply use the same character.
     
  9. slowcold

    slowcold Pangalactic Porcupine

    Didn't seem to when I was testing the Hakuri Starfighter Mk2 (It's up, BTW, so shameless plug). Found new character always worked, deleting shipworld only sometimes worked.
     
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  10. bk3k

    bk3k Oxygen Tank

    Depends on what you're testing exactly. Your upgrade level is stored in character data rather than the shipworld file. Starbound will first regenerate your shipworld, and apply all your upgrades sequentially before it loads your character. That's nice for users who want to migrate old characters to new ships, but it means if you want to test a tier your character upgraded past, you need a new character.

    I'll also note for OP that not only you check the blockKey, but use a color picker in your image editor to double-check you have EXACTLY the right color for your objects. Many default settings in different programs might have it color blending etc. It needs to be EXACTLY that color profile.
     
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  11. slowcold

    slowcold Pangalactic Porcupine

    Ah! Thank you for the explanation. :) I did wonder why (I use the optional erchius mod which lets me basically test from T0 to T3 just by rebooting the SAIL). That gives some unintentionally hilarious results when you've forgotten to alter T1 or T2 and your character falls through space eternally (until you kill the game using task manager).
     
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  12. Stongduke

    Stongduke Big Damn Hero

    okay well I delete my shipworld every time and the ship does update, but let me see if making a new character works. Also, I have spaced the objects out but they still either don't appear or they have an apex wall block where they should be. Here are some screenshots:
    20170923181213_1.jpg 20170923181208_1.jpg 20170923181204_1.jpg 20170923181200_1.jpg 20170923181152_1.jpg (also included below)
    and my blocks: humanT3blocks.png
    also, the captain's chair shows up for some reason?
     
  13. Stongduke

    Stongduke Big Damn Hero

    does simply using microsoft paint work? I found that using paint.net tends to mess up the colors.
     
  14. slowcold

    slowcold Pangalactic Porcupine

    I use GIMP. Just like the colour picker better - it's easier to read for me.

    If you have a universe config patch ready, if you zip up the folder and tell me where to download it, I'll have a look. Wasn't doing much tonight anyways.
     
  15. Stongduke

    Stongduke Big Damn Hero

    universe config patch?
     
  16. Stongduke

    Stongduke Big Damn Hero

    I have the mod here. If you could test it and figure out what is wrong that would be very nice.
     

    Attached Files:

  17. Stongduke

    Stongduke Big Damn Hero

    um, so I decided to test creating a new character. I started up the game and my ship was the default ship and I was confused. So I went over to the SAIL and rebooted it and my ship magically turned to the normandy? 20170923183455_1.jpg 20170923183458_1.jpg 20170923183500_1.jpg 20170923183506_1.jpg
    Do I have to change Tier 0 also?
     
  18. slowcold

    slowcold Pangalactic Porcupine

    Got it. Give me an hour or so to finish off some home stuff. Where are the T0 and T2 levels? There's only T1 and T3 in the zip.

    One suggestion straight off though - change the name blockkey.config to normandyblockkey.config and change the relevent lines in the structure files.

    Universe config patch lets you patch it in as the species ship for any vanilla species.

    Edit to add - yes, you do need T0 and T2 as well. They are stages that the game looks for specifically (pre-reboot, post reboot, interplanetary capable, warp capable)
     
  19. Stongduke

    Stongduke Big Damn Hero

    okay I've also added Tier 0 and Tier 2 structure files (they use the tier 3 images) and the door plus the SAIL (that weren't supposed to be there) is gone, but the other things like the locker and such are still not there
     
  20. bk3k

    bk3k Oxygen Tank

    Regular paint(besides being a little too plain) doesn't support transparencies BTW, so I can't recommend that.

    I use paint.net but IIRC I had to change some stupid defaults. I think I changed... tools/rasterization to be "overwrite". Maybe other things. But that's the program I prefer for ships myself.
     

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