Custom Buildings and pinching props from alien base missions..

Hopefully I can explain myself adequately.

I am currently creating some new buildings and have used some existing buildings as templates which have some nice props.

It seems that I can reference any prop than is in the xenonaut base folder.

E.g.

<cell layer0="xenonautbase/ground/labNW/labNW-02-00" layer1="xenonautbase/hospital/sidetable_1" />

In this example I have dropped a bed from the hospital into a lab building which works fine.

However if I wanted to add an alien prop from an alien base.

<cell layer0="xenonautbase/ground/labNW/labNW-02-00" layer1="alienbase/props/alien_chair_se" />

I thought the above line would work, however the prop will not appear in ground missions.

Any ideas?

You can't use assets between tilesets so you need to make copies and put them in the tileset you want to use them in. In doing so, you will also need to edit the copied spectres so that they path to the image in the new tileset rather than the image in the old tileset (honestly, it might still work if you don't do that as it might just be the spectres you need to copy. But copying both the image and the spectre and re-pathing will definitely work).

You can't use assets between tilesets so you need to make copies and put them in the tileset you want to use them in. In doing so, you will also need to edit the copied spectres so that they path to the image in the new tileset rather than the image in the old tileset (honestly, it might still work if you don't do that as it might just be the spectres you need to copy. But copying both the image and the spectre and re-pathing will definitely work).

Thanks Kabill,

I could not find the original spectres that I need to copy so had a go at making my own spectre and pinching the picture from the atlas files.

My building tile now looks like this:

<cell layer0="xenonautbase/ground/labNW/labNW-05-05" layer1="xenonautbase/props/HosBed_1x1_NESW" />

I made a spectre file at this location...tiles\xenonautbase\props

Which now looks like this

<?xml version="1.0" ?>

<spectre id="xenonautbase/props/HosBed_1x1_NESW" width="1" height="1" version="1">

<state id="damaged" name="" pivotX="47" pivotY="106" pathScore="1" objectTypePreset="3" visibilityScore="1.000" bulletScore="0.250" orientation="0" sortPoint="0.500" hp="100" isCover="1" coverAnimName="lean" wallType="crushing" destructionSound="Metal Prop">

<image src="tiles/xenonautbase/props/HosBed_1x1_NESW_damaged.png" />

</state>

<state id="default" name="" pivotX="47" pivotY="106" pathScore="1" objectTypePreset="3" visibilityScore="1.000" bulletScore="0.250" orientation="0" sortPoint="0.500" hp="100" isCover="1" coverAnimName="lean" wallType="crushing" destructionSound="Metal Prop">

<image src="tiles/xenonautbase/props/props/HosBed_1x1_NESW.png" />

</state>

<state id="destroyed" name="" pivotX="47" pivotY="106" pathScore="1" objectTypePreset="0" visibilityScore="1.000" bulletScore="1.000" orientation="0" sortPoint="0.500" hp="0" wallType="none">

<image src="tiles/xenonautbase/props/HosBed_1x1_NESW_destroyed.png" />

</state>

</spectre>

The picture files are with the spectre file however this still does not show up.

Am I doing something silly.

Ah, have you downloaded the mapping tiles from the mapping subforum? I assumed you had done this but I'm guessing actually you haven't. If you do this, you will have all the individual prop images as well as the spectres for each.

Ah, have you downloaded the mapping tiles from the mapping subforum? I assumed you had done this but I'm guessing actually you haven't. If you do this, you will have all the individual prop images as well as the spectres for each.

OOhh no I did not do that.

I am just venturing into this area... I have not done anything with the maps before as I just use the mods you have created but creating buildings is something I want to do.

Thanks for the help I will go and get those...

One last question, I have been creating an Alien Items mod, and I actually wanted to be able to capture an alien scout and use it as a drop ship.... This would need an entry in every ground mission right. however I thought with the modding system I could possible just mod it into the vanilla ground mission maps and any modded maps.

Do you know if anybody has done this...

Adding a new spawn point is impossible at the moment because the set of spawn areas (both UFOs and dropships) is hardcoded. As such, you can't add new ones as neither the game nor the map editor can recognise them. So it's something that would need support from XCE to work.

(On top of that, yes, you'd need to add the new spawn points on to all of the maps. I don't think there's a good way to do that with unofficial maps as I don't think you could include an adjustment to a map without the game trying to read the adjustment as a full map which obviously wouldn't be good. In other words, I think it would be up to map creators to add support for new spawn point types. A while ago I had the idea of setting up a number of new generic spawn point submaps that could be included as standard in unofficial maps and then other mods could exploit them as desired. Don't know how likely that would be to happen now, though, given that most of the unofficial maps were made by Skitso and me and neither of us are active currently. Although, for what it's worth, I'd be happy for someone else to sort that out for my random map packs.)

Adding a new spawn point is impossible at the moment because the set of spawn areas (both UFOs and dropships) is hardcoded. As such, you can't add new ones as neither the game nor the map editor can recognise them. So it's something that would need support from XCE to work.

(On top of that, yes, you'd need to add the new spawn points on to all of the maps. I don't think there's a good way to do that with unofficial maps as I don't think you could include an adjustment to a map without the game trying to read the adjustment as a full map which obviously wouldn't be good. In other words, I think it would be up to map creators to add support for new spawn point types. A while ago I had the idea of setting up a number of new generic spawn point submaps that could be included as standard in unofficial maps and then other mods could exploit them as desired. Don't know how likely that would be to happen now, though, given that most of the unofficial maps were made by Skitso and me and neither of us are active currently. Although, for what it's worth, I'd be happy for someone else to sort that out for my random map packs.)

Thanks for that.

I will wait and see what XCE come up with in the new versions.

The Generic spawn point submaps sounds great if support get added later.

At least you have prevented me from hours of pointless experimenting that would not lead anywhere.