Making new ship, some questions:

[DryEagle]

To begin with, is it possible to create a ship that starts with something in cargohold? I want to include a drone but not have the ship start with a drone system; registering it as a regular drone makes it not show up at all. Any ideas?

[Kieve]

Tested out all the ideas I had, none of them worked. Only thing I can think of now (and I know it'll work) is an event that rewards a player with <item_modify>, and gives out the drone(s) you specify. Modding events makes it more likely to conflict with something else though, so I can only suggest it as a last resort.

[DryEagle]

ok thanks.
next question, in the <shipname>.txt, for what do the 5 numbers under room/door mean? the first one under room i can see is room number that matches the blueprint file, but beyond that... (i want to manually tweak a couple of the doors)
also, do you have to have 6 gibs on a player ship or will it be ok with just 4?

[alextfish]

ok thanks.
next question, in the <shipname>.txt, for what do the 5 numbers under room/door mean? the first one under room i can see is room number that matches the blueprint file, but beyond that... (i want to manually tweak a couple of the doors)
also, do you have to have 6 gibs on a player ship or will it be ok with just 4?

ROOM
room-id-number
x
y
width
height

DOOR
x
y
smaller-numbered-room
larger-numbered-room
0-for-horizontal-or-1-for-vertical

[DryEagle]

great, that's really useful.
here's a pic of the new ship I'm starting now,

any idea why when I send someone to the engine room, even though they stand in front of the console and face it, they don't type on it? and in the power bar it shows the station as unmanned, and the evade bonus doesn't count them? it's as if the room is empty...
blueprints file:

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<engines power="1" room="7" start="true" img="room_engines" />

txt file:

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ROOM
7
7
8
2
1

don't see any reason it shouldn't work...

[DryEagle]

It looks like I'm going to have to either remake the ship from scratch or abandon it entirely; I can't seem to get the room-console-positions (weapons, piloting) on it working the way I want them. Using the slot code as in step 9 of alex's tutorial just causes the game to crash after clicking 'new game' from the main menu, so something really bizarre is going on here, what with the misbehaving engine room too... maybe someone can provide some insight here...

[alextfish]

I had this kind of issue (uncrewable rooms) a few times. You do indeed need to specify a <slot>, with <number> and <direction>. Try copypasting an <engines> section from one of the built-in ships, and then just change the room number to 7 to match your ship. The game is pretty sensitive to typos: be very sure that every <tag> either ends with /> or has a corresponding </tag>, but not both.

[Kieve]

That's a clever take on the slug cruiser! And I like the texture, very nifty! Well done, sir.

any idea why when I send someone to the engine room, even though they stand in front of the console and face it, they don't type on it? and in the power bar it shows the station as unmanned, and the evade bonus doesn't count them? it's as if the room is empty...

Manning stations is specified in the Blueprints, not the ship.txt.

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<engines power="1" room="7" start="true" img="room_engines" >
<slot>
<direction>down</direction>
<number>0</number>
</slot>
</engines>

For a medbay, the "slot" function specifies which is unuseable, if any.

[DryEagle]

I guess there must have been some typo in what I was doing since I've got all the room console alignments working now.

note to self: make sure all graphics are saved as 32-bit images. the game won't show 8-bit.

[DryEagle]

ok, next question -
doing some custom weapon graphics,
got everything working except for the actual projectiles after the weapon fires.

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<animSheet name="laser_venom" w="200" h="20" fw="50" fh="20">weapons/venom_strip4.png</animSheet>
<anim name="laser_venom">
	<sheet>laser_venom</sheet>
	<desc length="4" x="0" y="0"/>
	<time>0.5</time>
</anim>

venom_strip4.png

Apart from the name, the rest is copied directly from the stock heavy so I really have no idea why it won't work... any input?