(EM) modding limitations

skarb · Post by **skarb** » Thu Jan 26, 2012 4:18 am

I wasn't able to find any info on this (trust me, I searched)...

Is there any way to extract the vanilla game models and textures out of the game files? I'd like to have a more complete "kit" to work with. The current kit for the game only has a few example models, and they are all ship related.

I'd like to get my hands on the planetary, space station, and asteroid meshes as well as their texture files. Unless I can see how the UVs are set up (for asteroids at least), there is no good way to put together new textures. Also, there doesn't seem to be any info in the kit for the modding actual stations and planets. I'd really like to rework the stations.

I'm sure I'm wishing for too much, but I would also like to get into the terrains and planet textures.

The other problem I have is that there seems to be no means of adding new objects. At this point all I can do is replace vanilla ships and ship parts. Is there a way to append in-game objects, rather than being limited to just modifying existing objects? Also, there are only two ship components (not counting frames) that use different meshes for the different tiers. Is there any way to change this?

Accountant · Post by **Accountant** » Thu Jan 26, 2012 12:44 pm

Let's see if I can answer a few of your questions.

Extracting vanilla game models - No, I do not believe this is possible.

Planetary, Space Station, Asteroid meshes - I do not believe these meshes are editable. Planetary meshes in particular are generated systematically, IIRC, so standard meshes would not event exist.

Adding new objects - Again, I do not believe this is possible. Adding objects would require the modder to be able to assign values such as agility, assembly resources, etc. This has been intentionally limited to prevent someone from creating a "super" ship.

-Accountant

Maarschalk · Post by **Maarschalk** » Thu Jan 26, 2012 2:44 pm

As Accountant mentioned most of the editing and adding mods is limited to prevent exploits and cheats and also to limit the problems players will have with game crashes. Adding Planets for example would Change the Universe and for a Player to join MultiPlay the on line Server Universe has to match the Players Universe at least that was the case in Legends and I believe it is also the case in Mercenary but I'm not completely sure!...

skarb · Post by **skarb** » Thu Jan 26, 2012 6:12 pm

That's interesting, I guess I assumed that the online portion of the game ran off a separate client, at least thats how most games these days seem to run. This brings up a whole different question then...

Lets say I actually went through the long process of rebuilding all the in game meshes and texturing them by hand (rebuilding the in game meshes is the only way to get proper uv mapping it seems), would they even show up for other players in multiplayer mode?

Capt_Caveman · Post by **Capt_Caveman** » Thu Jan 26, 2012 8:10 pm

the items u want to mod/edit are hard coded in the game and encrypted.
so u cannot change them or extract them for editing.

mods only appear on your machine. other players would have to install the mods also to see them.

Post by **Marvin** » Thu Jan 26, 2012 8:14 pm

From post: 126670, Topic: tid=8597, author=capt_cronic wrote:mods only appear on your machine. other players would have to install the mods also to see them.

That includes the universe too. If you wanted to mod the galaxy and run it on a server, all players would need to install the same mod.

skarb · Post by **skarb** » Fri Jan 27, 2012 10:16 pm

Well I've managed to extract the games textures, uv layouts and models. The uv coords are really messy, but having the actual texture files and models will probably help alot of folks out so I'm going to start a new thread for these things.

Viper · Post by **Viper** » Fri Jan 27, 2012 11:29 pm

If you ever get bored (lol) you could have a go at uv mapping each model / component individually. This would make it even easier for people to re-texture the vanilla models.