I have been trying to get into mapping for xenonauts, however, It seems I can`t even use the editor, whenever I try to open the Level Viewer, I get this, does anyone know what is causing this or how I can fix it?

Thanks.

I'll try to help you the best I can and I'm sure kabill and other decorated mapers will be here too, so you'll be in good hands. So go mapping. It's fun and easy!

http://xenowiki.goldhawkinteractive.com/index.php?title=Mapping:_Creating_new_in-game_battlefields

However, to use them properly you will need to unpack your tiles folder

EDIT (Chris) - this can now be done more easily by following the instructions in this thread: http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/9670-Unpacked-Game-Tiles-Required-for-Mapping%21

Instructions

1) Use QuickBMS - click name at top of page found HERE

2) Download the play first PFPK Script (I have hosted it on dropbox to make easier) Also on thesame page. HERE

3) Once both have been downloaded, unpack and run quickbms.exe

4) Point quick BMS to where you saved the PFPK script.

5) Point it to tiles archive GC.tiles.pfp

default= progam files (x86)\steam\steamapps\common\xenonauts\assets

Extract files to xenonauts\assets\tiles

(type in 'tiles' when it asks for location and it creates a folder called tiles in your assets directory.)

Leave it for a few minutes to unpack the tiles archive.

Now run GCLevelEditor or GCSubmapEditor- both in Xenonuats folder- and start developing those custom maps. I suggest you read the instructions now

(Credit to Lt Parson for the original instructions and discovery)

What do i have to do to properly increase the civilian count ?

My latest update on map modding was that they need to get integrated into the base game and dont work as a mod. Do they work now ? Does the map overwriting work ? Meaning that the highest priority map gets taken if multiple mods change the same map ? Does map modding work in general with the modloader now and what do i have to do to get it working ?

I would like to add 2 Transporters to the game and need to know what i have to do in order to achieve this. Step by step pls .

Anything else i might have missed to ask to get the aforementioned tasks done ?

I don't know there is any map maker left as modder (Max and Kabill i know you but you can't help assume). But if you are there and alive, we need a little help for X-Division new building DLC.

I plan to add different sizes of buildings for research, manufacture, hangar, defenses, maybe radar and other kind of buildings.. i just want to have 2x2, 2x1, 1x1 and even if game allows, 2x4 or 3x1 versions too.

I know that it's not so hard for a existed map maker but time consuming progress. Please help us if u got some spare times.. thx

So, I thought I'd have a go with producing some randomised maps. You can download the results here:

Farm Maps:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/dlrk7opf2c7m6d9/RMP%20-%20Farm%20Edition%20%28v1.3%29.zip

- v1.3 (CURRENT): Fixed missing prop images on many submaps.

- v1.2: Further prop density reduction and some more minor bugfixes.

- v1.1: Cover/building density reduced a little, plus some minor bugfixes.

- v1.0: First release

Desert Maps

https://www.dropbox.com/s/k1nan46z0lgsayz/RMP%20-%20Desert%20Style%20%28v0.2%29.zip

- WORK IN PROGRESS: 1.0: Add military base maps to desert map pack.

- CURRENT VERSION: 0.2: Full basic map pack for all UFO sizes; fixed maps to (hopefully) ensure there shouldn't be any issues with spawn points being blocked.

- v0.1: Light Scout maps only

Installation

Extract the files into your Xenonauts folder. All the files should go to the right place. For the Farm map pack, you will be prompted to replace a single file ("StoneWallSE_spectre") which you should allow (I can only assume that file isn't used in the vanilla maps as its broken; all I've done is fix it).

FAQ

"Can this map pack be used with other map packs?"

Yes, these maps will work fine with other people's map packs as well. However, the large volume of maps in this pack has an unfortunate side-effect of drowning out other maps from the pool, so you'll tend to see a lot of these maps and only occasionally see vanilla maps or maps from other packs.

Details

This pack contains a large number (hundreds) of different maps which rely on submap randomisation to populate them with props and buildings. Strictly speaking, they're not entirely random: I have hand crafted a number of basic layouts and iterated them with a number of submap zones to ensure the maps are coherent and to include contiguous elements like roads and hedges. Nevertheless, the variety of different layouts and random submaps means that there should be plenty of variety.

At the moment, this pack contains a full set of Farm and Desert maps. The Desert map pack needs to be finished with military base versions of the maps (for far there's just wilderness desert maps), but there's maps for all classes of UFO. In the long run, enthusiasm and energy permitting, I'm hoping to make a map pack for all of the different tilesets.

Please note that I've not tested the maps thoroughly. As such, there will be some issues which need addressing. I know that there's some cosmetic things which need changing at some point; no doubt as well I'll have fluffed the spawn-locations and blocked them in some instances or something stupid. If you encounter any problems, then, I'd appreciate it if you could post in this thread or PM me details.

Also, bear in mind that these maps are not going to be perfect. There are inevitably going to be rough edges (quite literally, in some cases!) and the design will not possess the same level of finesse as hand-crafted maps. What I hope I've done, though, is produce maps which are varied and random enough to not feel samey and which are also reasonable to play.

What You Can Do:

Making these map packs takes a lot of time. I'd be more than happy, therefore, to take contributions from others to include in the pack.

In particular, I'm looking for building submaps for the Desert, Industrial and Town tilesets. Other kinds of contribution are of course welcome, but these are the things I know are going to take the most work.

Submaps should be plotted in either a 10x10 or 20x20 area, and should *never* have any spectres on the outermost squares of each submap (to avoid clashing/overlap issues and to minimise risk of blocking spawn points). For the Industrial and Town tilesets, I'm thinking about doing some maps with some 30x30 set-pieces as well, so if anyone wants to have a go at something like that, it would almost certainly fit.

If you do make something to go in the map pack, send me a PM with a link or post it in this thread. If you have an idea, or would like some more information before doing something, feel free to contact me by whatever means. All contributors will, obviously, be credited for their work.

Acknowledgements

Quick mention to Skitso for use of the building submaps he made which are now bundled with the game. Saved me a good few hours of work!

So is there a way to make that cannon icons as same size as missiles so we can fit 4 weapon to aircombat UI..

Thanks!

I'm run Xenonauts\assets\mods\xce\GCSubmapEditor.exe

and tried to open, for example

Xenonauts\assets\mods\xce\maps\ufos\Landed\lightscout\lightscout_layout.xml

or

Xenonauts\assets\mods\xce\maps\ufos\shared\lightscout\layout\lightscout_layout.xml

But there is not happens.

Unpacked Game Tiles I placed to Xenonauts\assets\tiles

What I did wrong? How I can load layouts?

Thank you

I am making a new dropship and giving it the same tiles as the Valkyrie. Which works fine however that just gives a little landing zone with 4 flares...

What I would like to do is mod the maps and tiles a little to that I can get my dropship look like its hovering 3 levels up above the flares.

To make it even more tricky I did want to have the propellers on my dropship rotate.

The dropship body....

So far I can make this appear above the landing zone but for some reason its at least 10 squares down and to the right.

so I want a little help positioning it where I want it.

Secondly the rotating blades.

I have a png file with 4 set of blades, I made the spectres by copying the existing flares as these are also animated, however my rotors do not appear at all.

can anybody assist?

I've made 2 maps for each ufo size (lightscout, small, medium, large). That might not sound like a lot, but they are forest themed (which a few people have been requesting on the forums in the past ), which allowed me to construct them out of loads of random variants of submaps, so no map should be the same twice. I also created some variants of wooden cabins, but I've not had much time to expand on it yet. As the maps are random forests and are quite cramped, they probably wont be suited for vehicles, and saving for reaction fire is highly recommended against ambushing enemies. There is quite a lot of cover in the maps, but they disintegrated very quickly after a few shots, so vision blocking props (e.g. trees) are your safest bet. Maps have been made with Goldhawk standards in mind. I am not the best mapmaker, this is only to give you an idea of potential.

In the long term, I plan on:

- "Tundra-fying" more props

- "Tundra-fy" more ground tiles, I've only got snowy soviet grass at the moment (this takes a lot of time, it'll be a while before I have roads included)

- Create more diverse maps, such as military bases or rural villages

Some images:

Of course, anyone can use the assets in the mod to create their own maps, there a lot of better and more experienced map makers out there, but please use the current tiles in the tundra folder, don't mix and match props from other tilesets, or if its really necessary, copy the tile images and spectre into the "copies" folder in the tundra tileset, and edit the spectre accordingly(make sure the spectre paths to the images in the tundra/copies/ folder, and not the previous path). It just makes it easier if a compilation of maps is done further down the line.

Versions:

Enjoy

Download link (V1.1):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fb91wkio5t65fks/Khall%27s%20Tundra%20Tileset.rar

I am trying to make cars passable by heavy units like simple ground props at ground combat. I made them passable after destoyed but my vehicles can't pass them just with pressing on them.

Any coding advise what should i do? I want to make maps much more passable for vehicles. For now, you need to fire half of the ammo just to open their way. Even you cant pass the vehicle's destroyed props at default and this limits the vehicles so badly.

Thx.

[ATTACH]6690[/ATTACH]

Maxmaps.zip

Maxmaps.zip

EDIT: I was looking in the tiles section, when I should have been looking in the MAPS section, right? I am an idiot.

Would like to try my hand again at a few maps, and the level viewer is useless. Back in the days of yore, there was a quickbattle function. Is that still working? Would it be xenonauts_gc_editor.exe ?

I've still got a lot of work to do editing the rest of the tiles, adding some new ones, plus creating damaged and destroyed variants for them all.

In terms of map design, I'm planning to have the maps quite dense in general, with quite a few LOS breakers. Naturally foliage (which most cover will be) will have weak health, with trees and rocks being better cover. I've been thinking and I'm going to add larger vegetation clusters (LOS breakers) directly using individual tiles in the level editor, while the rest of the map (cover) uses random submaps. In my view that would give the best balance between quality and variation.

I've only got 1 map right now for testing purposes, and it'll be a while before I have all the tiles needed to start producing "proper" maps.

The advantages of this are:

• Saved work by having common objects available as submaps and using those in submaps, instead of repeatedly creating the objects manually.
  
• Avoided/reduced duplication. Instead of creating several submaps that differ only in some details, use one submap for the shared parts, use other submaps for the differences, and link the submaps together as appropriate.
  
• More variation. Since the game always selects a random submap variant if there is more than one, making a submap use another submap results in more randomization than directly adding objects to the submap.
  

How to link submaps together:

• Have 2 submaps that should be used (create them from scratch as per the mapping howto, or use existing ones). In this example, we will create a new arctic submap that will contain a random mesa (provided by the arctic/props/mesa_large1 submap) and a random tree cluster (provided by the arctic/props/tree_cluster_3x3 submap).
  
• Start the submap editor and create a new 10x10 submap (click 'New Sub-Map', name it, set size 10x10 and confirm). If necessary, refer to section "3) Your first submap." in the mapping howto.
  
• Submaps are placed similarly to how other objects are placed. Specifically:
  
• Click 'Link Submap', that will open a file dialog for selecting which submap. Select the appropriate submap, in this case 'arctic/props/mesa_large1' (select one of the .xml files in the directory, it doesn't matter which one).
  
• Unlike the map layout editor, there is no distinction between different submap types (such as ground, building, etc.), they are all treated the same. However the submap must be in the same tileset.
  
• The 'Link Submap' button will stay pressed. Now clicking on any tile in the shown submap will link the selected submap to that tile.
  
• The linked submap itself is not shown, but the tile is marked by green, and the list of objects on the tile shows 'Submap: props/mesa_large1'.
  
• Click on another tile to link the submap to another tile, or click the 'Link Submap' button to turn it off again.
  
• The same way link arctic/props/tree_cluster_3x3 submap to another tile.
  
• A submap link is deleted from a tile by selecting the tile, selecting the submap ('Submap: props/mesa_large1') in the object list and clicking 'Remove Layers/Submaps').
  
• Work with the submap as usual (save it, add other objects, etc. ; again, see the mapping howto if necessary).
  
• In order to actually see the linked submap used, it is necessary to load it either in the map layout editor or in the game.
  

If you want to see linked submaps used, all UFO submaps now use them, in a non-trivial way:

• Both crashed (maps/ufos/Crashed/ufotype/ufotype_layout.xml) and landed UFO (maps/ufos/Landed/ufotype/ufotype_layout.xml) now only link 3 submaps:
  
  • The base submap (maps/ufos/shared/ufotype/base/ufotype_layout.xml), which provides the base UFO structure, without hull image, and without room contents. There is only one base submap for each UFO type, so there is no duplication.
    
  • The hull submap, either undamaged (maps/ufo/shared/ufotype/hull/ufotype_layout.xml) for landed UFOs or damaged (maps/ufo/shared/ufotype/hull_damaged/ufotype_layout.xml) for crashed UFOs. They provide only the hull picture. It is possible to have variation in hull pictures by having more submap variants (e.g. maps/ufo/shared/ufotype/hull_damaged/ufotype_layout2.xml , etc.).
    
  • The inside submap, which provides room contents, and variation for them. Since landed and crashed UFO use the same inside layout with the exception of the UFO's datacore being either intact or damaged, the inside submap (maps/ufos/shared/ufotype/inside/ufotype_layout.xml) only links the actual layout submap (maps/ufos/shared/ufotype/layout/ufotype_layout.xml) and add the datacore prop. Similarly there's an alternate inside submap, and damaged inside submaps do the same.
    

  [*]The actual inside layout of the UFOs is provided by the primary and alternate layout submaps (maps/ufos/shared/ufotype/layout/ufotype_layout.xml and maps/ufos/shared/ufotype/layout_alt/ufotype_layout_alt.xml). These do not provide anything provided by other submaps (i.e. no hull, no datacores).

Now I modified the container images to be hollow and without roof and added a new, separare 2x8 tile container roof spectre. Everything works flawlessly and looks great, until I put something on top of it (like my container walkways or another container). In such cases the roof spectre isn't visible, and the illusion is broken.

Any ideas to get this to work? Why is a spectre that is on floor 2, layer 0, removed if there's another spectre on floor 2, layer 1?

When I was doing my weapon tests I saw that every car or busses got 3 situations. An unharmed, damaged and destroyed. Some cars (busses mostly) destroyed without explosion and goes totally flat. But most of the cars explodes but they still stay. So if there is many cars in the way, vehicles stuck badly.

Can we do something about this?

This map pack contains a wide range of custom maps and submaps for use in Xenonauts

I have been out of the loop for 6 months due to family issues so I have combined all the maps into the community map pack 3. It now includes Stinky's asset fix for version 20. Hopefully nothing else is broken. Report if it is and will try to fix.

Download Community Map Pack 3 HERE (This is out of date and currently not compatible with Xenonauts V1.0 onwards!)

Current authors Flashman, Moxar and Ol' Stinky

To install

Extract to your xenonauts\assets folder

or steam\steamapps\common\xenonauts\assets

Click merge with any folders already present and overwrite files (including previous map packs)

There is at least 1 map for every tileset. Primarily light scout / scout, Corvette / landing ship/cruiser versions.

This project is being hosted and compiled on dropbox. Please PM if you are creating maps for the CMP and need access to the dropbox folder.

____________________________________________________________________________

To join this map pack, please follow these rules.

The rules

1) Naming - All files will need a standard naming scheme.

Maps

Tileset_MapName_ufoType_modder

E.g. Town_UberTown_Corvette_scout_flash

Submaps

Tileset_submapName_Width&Height_modder

E.g. Farm_Crumblingbarn_8x10_flash

2) Custom Submaps should be placed in a folder that says

Tileset_submaptype_modder

E.g. Soviet_KGB_flash

3) Size and spawns must follow Aarons map guidelines

Read here

*edited by Gauddlike, changed link to the new mapping guidelines by Aaron, hope you don't mind flash*

4) All maps must be tested in game or in quick battle before submission.

5) All maps must include all custom submaps in the correct folder structure. This also includes fixed spectres.

6) If your map is put into the game it will be removed from the map pack.

7) If you create a submap based on an in game version, ensure it is in the matching submap folder.

If it is a new submap type see above

8) The map must allow for troops and vehicles to get around.

9) Maps should be of a good standard.

10) By joining this map pack you give permission for other Xenonauts to use your submaps.

Map pack 2 contains:

17 farm maps (12 60x60s: 6 for Lightscout, 6 for Scout/Corvette; 5 70x70s, Cruiser/Landingship)

15 arctic maps (10 60x60s: 5 for Lightscout, 5 for Scout/Corvette; 5 70x70s, Cruiser/Landingship)

5 town maps (60x60, Corvette/Landingship)

4 industrial maps (1 40x50 and 1 40x80, Lightscout; 1 85x40 and 1 60x75, Scout/Corvette)

30 desert maps (6 Lightscout, 6 Scout/Corvette, 6 Landingship/Cruiser, 6 Carrier, 6 Battleship)

(Original post follows.)

-----

I'm having a go at making maps. Today's the first time I've even looked at the level editor. I'm not very good at it. But if you want more maps, you might as well give these a try. Note that I haven't extensively tested them.

What I'm doing is making one map, then altering it rather than completely redoing it. As a result, the area around the dropship is the same on all maps. However, the alien's ship moves around (it's always at the top, though), and buildings/scenery changes. Alien spawn points are also different on each map. This is to try and make encounters feel a bit more random than they are at the moment, even if the not-random-placement bug is a major factor in that. It's also to try and prevent the "learning" of levels. It's certainly not because I'm a lazy git.

If you see any muckups, please post about it here. A screenshot would be great!

Also, the ground is boring, yes. I'm naff at making it look good. Sorry about that.