dskzz

Well it's up. Enjoy! And thanks for everyone else's great work on the CE and all the awesome mods out there,

Ahh I just had to stick UnlockManufacture( "ManTech.Saracen" ); in my _BaseBuilt.lua thanks for your help, it works now and I'm gonna push it right on up to Steam!

By the way I'm using the Saracen Reborn for my model.

Can I make a manufacture that starts without research? I added the ManTech.AWACs to manufactures.xml and I added the ManTech.AWACs string to Strings, it's not showing up. I have the UnlockKnowledge and I can see the AWACs in the infopedia. Log says Missing string for label 'WorkshopView.Produces'

Hi yes, sorry I want to be able to buy the plane at startup. That doesn't seem to work, although it did work back when I first built the mod a few years ago. Any way to make that happen? Thanks

Hi all, you may remember a few years back I did an AWACs mod which let you put in an AWAC recon flier at the game start. I playtested it and I loved it, thought it added a whole new level of strategy to the game. Well, I'd love to update it to the CE version and be able to upload it to Steam. The problem is I just can't get the damn thing to work. I wonder if anyone could help? I also can't seem to get the modding log to show up, I can get the thing to show up in the Xenopedia. I can get the Condor purchase box to move, so it registers something there, but just no. It's not working. AWACFuel3.zip

Thanks darkray! I will do Foehammer.

darkray, glad to hear it all worked out! By the way Max Caine sent me a message that all of the Lore++ special characters are now escaped so I think things will go a lot easier from here on out. Lore is a great package and that escaping problem is one of those insanely minor PITA details that even the best of coders forget to address sometimes. Add in the fact that XML is, IMHO, a messy "language" and, well, there you have it! Speaking of which I think that my next project will be a mod installer for xenonauts. Maybe in the next few days I'll post something to that effect (but in the meantime, I'll just bump my AWACS post by talking about it here:) ). Shouldn't be too hard, I think just a diff comparison of the xml files should do the trick, don't know if I'll even need to parse the files first or not. If anyone out there has done any work to that effect or has any thoughts please let me know (and thereby also keep the AWACS post on the front page)! PS Notepad++ is awesome. I do all my coding in it. And the plugins are terrific. A handy tool for anyone doing any mods is the XML Tools Plugin for Notepad++. It's finicky (but so is XML) and takes some massaging to find errors it raises, but it sure is helpful to have!

Max, Honestly don't think darkray described the problem correctly. As he said he's new to modding xenonauts. For some reason, occasionally Excel won't read the xml files' schema correctly and excel reports it as "corrupt." OK I just opened a random xml file. Some of them in the /assets directory get the excel icon and open automatically into excel some get the xml web page icon and open w/ IE. MAnually opening one w/ excel (in this case, armours) get the message "The specified XML source does not refer to a schema. Excel will create a schema based on the XML source data." (Darkray, do you get that message) Although it does load the file ok once I do that. OK. So Lore+ does have some problems. I downloaded Lore+ (been meaning to install it anyways) and tried opening the xenopedia file in excel. I get "The file cannot be opened because of errors." It spits out a log file. Long one - here it is https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/28665072/mods/lore_errors.txt Once I click through the OK it fails to open. For the record opened it in notepad++. Ran my XML chcker - "Parsing error at line 311:EntityReft: expecting ; Just doing some minor debugging, I delete that entry and it find an error in the prior entry. Looks like failure to escape some special character somewhere. It may not be a big enough deal to mess up Xenonauts but it makes it impossible to load into Excel, which makes life a bit difficult for those who want to add stuff to it via excel. HOW TO FIX IT Huh boy I can't help myself when I find a problem I have to debug it. Researches.ScoutingMission - The data string where it says " Meaning no disrespect to R&D" the & needs to be escaped, removed or encoded and that should make everything work just find.

I'm glad to hear that it worked for you darkray. I can't speak for Lore+, I haven't gotten around to installing it yet, however, you should be able to mod the actual XML code if you can't open the files in excel. I have seen a few XML files that I couldn't open because the schema (basically the layout that tells the XML reader what the values for each "column" are) is somehow corrupted. That might be what you are experiencing. The xenopedia is probably tough to add to in xml, but the strings file shouldn't be to tough. That's the more important file anyway because without it instead of seeing "AWACS" all you see is ###### which for me spoils it! First BACKUP strings.xml! I can't promise you this will work correctly! Next, open strings.xml in notepad or a better editor (I use notepad++), scroll down somewhere to the middle of the file. If you want, search for Chinook, and add in after that entry. Find a line around there that says </row> then copy and paste this on the line right after that: <Row ss:AutoFitHeight="0"> <Cell><Data ss:Type="String">airplane.human.awacs</Data><NamedCell ss:Name="_FilterDatabase"/></Cell> <Cell><Data ss:Type="String">AWACS</Data><NamedCell ss:Name="_FilterDatabase"/></Cell> </Row> <Row ss:AutoFitHeight="0"> <Cell><Data ss:Type="String">E-3 AWACS</Data><NamedCell ss:Name="_FilterDatabase"/></Cell> <Cell ss:StyleID="s68"><Data ss:Type="String">E-3 AWACS</Data><NamedCell ss:Name="_FilterDatabase"/></Cell> </Row> Good luck! Let me know if you have problems.

Love this idea!

Darkray - absolutely. I have Office 2010. Execl lets me load any of the xml files in the /assets folder. That makes modding easy. All you do is open any of the files you want to mod in excel and you can modify the values like they were laid out in a spreadsheet - no need to add any messy XML code to the files. If the xml files don't open up in excel automatically you can right click on the file, select open with, and then pick excel. (Assuming you have a PC and Excel) So the "_readme_what_to_add.xlsx" file lists each file that I modified along with the line i added in excel. So what you do is go to your xenonauts assets folder. If you are using xenonauts off steam you need to right click on the game, click properties, click view local files or something like that. If youve gotten one mod installed already you prolly know how to do this anyway. When you got the file open, go through each file I listed in the _what_to_add sheet, copy that line, and insert the line into open file. For example, modding aircrafts.xml you open that file in /assets, copy the line from _what_to_add - airplane.human.awacs, 200, 0, 4800, 800... take that whole line, copy it and paste it into the aircrafts.xml file in xenonauts. save file, then do the same for the other files I listed - items, strings, and xenopedia. NOTE - in _what_to_add each entry (mostly) has a grey line with the column names. DONT ADD THAT LINE! The final entry, scripts_basebuilt.lua is not an xml file so its a special case. But the process is the same. Open that file w/ a text editor from xenonautes (/assets/scripts/_basebuilt.lua) and copy the line UnlockKnowledge to the open file. Save file. Copy all the image files included in the zip as well - those are the two folders aircrafts and xenopediaimages. You can more or less just copy those directories onto the directories in the game folder. I hope that all was clear! I'm not much of a tech writer. lol. If you have any more questions, my email is in the readme or feel free to post more on this thread. Good hunting! d Now if you can't get these open in excel let me know I'll see about hutning down the actual XML code.

Thanks for the kind words and please def check it out. If you think it fits the role and would be an asset I'd love to get it considered for inclusion in your remake...that would rock! I've used a lot of Into Darkness' mods to get my game to play the way I like.

Thanks you and everyone else for you enthusiasm! Good call on the Xenopedia entry. I've sort of wanted to rewrite that any, it's just stock from off of Wikipedia. I can do better. And yeah, the USAF markings do stick out. Wanted to see if it all worked before I spent the extra time removing that. Plus it occured to me sometime that the Xenonauts organization doesn't really have a logo - or does it? Like X-Com was also the name of the group. Technically, Xenonauts isn't XCom. Is there an emblem? I guess I can make it blank but that's sort of boring. Maybe a UN logo? Your troops are all in blue afterall, lol. 2 - This was def a concern. Are you referring to the equip screen or the base screen? RE - the base screen, If you saw the last version of the mod, the wings extended the entire width of the hanger. I wound up shrinking the image slightly to make it fit in the hanger better. So you propose squaring off the wings maybe like a quarter of the way in from the ends, and making them flush with the hanger walls? The base screen, that's actually a good idea I can expand the pic considerably you are right it is a huge bird, with wingspan almost as big as the fuselage length.

& also cyph stupid mistake fixed. I renamed the items file. could you give it another try please? i will still test on a virtual box. Please let me know if it fails again.

OK sorry all, items-backup should be renamed to items.xml and installed. cant do from here i willfix asap

Oh no. it works under v1. i am away i will check it tomorrow morning first thing on a fresh install on a virtual box. Apologies!

My fault, I copied and pasted the pre-shortened links. Fixed it all by hand

Kevin, you might notice I added in a file _FuelIncreased-aircrafts.xml (I just added it now, so you may need to re download) That file increases the fuel values for all planes (assuming 1 mid-flight refuel available to each craft) which plays well with the AWACS strategies. You need to overwrite aircrafts.xml in your assets folder, or delete aircrafts.xlm in the zip file and rename _FuelIncreased-aircrafts.xml to aircrafts.xml in the zip file, then install it as you normally would.

Fixed all links! Thanks a lot gents; heck I should put you'r name as an honorary contributor!

Thanks for everyone who helped me iron out some of the issues on this. I wanted to get this up again for any weekend warriors. I'll keep this shorter than my v0.9 post: http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/10752-E-3-AWACS-mod-v0-9-released%21 The AWACS is an unarmed, slow, long range radar plane that is great for covering areas getting hit by a wave, continents underserved by your bases, and seeking alien bases. Unarmed means it needs an escort & more radar means more targets, forcing you to reevaluate your fighter assignments, which may be stretched even thinner by giving over hangar space to the recon bird. This lets you get at those waves esp early game when they keep seeming to hit everywhere but where your base is. Let's you cover lower priority areas from a single base (North America Base, launching AWACS in S. America to cover both and keep funding up. This gives you a whole layer of strategy in the air game. ALL LINKS FIXED Screenshots: http://db.orangedox.com/yvGOfSaHUlsGqI2Mzr/2014-06-19_00001.jpg - AWACS Xenopedia (Thanks again Sandyxx!) http://db.orangedox.com/QkUHtUn9rDzajtTzni/2014-06-19_00002.jpg - AWACS Equip Screen (Pretty but useless). Maybe future expansion will allow for equipping radar units. That would be neat! Lol I guess I'm "a sucker for surveillance" http://db.orangedox.com/Hzh34nfzVSbkdUYyp7/2014-06-19_00003.jpg - Base w/ AWACS in hangar http://db.orangedox.com/W6SkOUPrt7Dy6iv6mj/2014-06-19_00004.jpg - AWACS patrolling on the other side of the globe. This shows the radar range. It can stick around there for a good 6 hours or so, if I calculated correctly! Download: http://db.orangedox.com/UmJ1U0gGo3xg79ahgA/xenonauts-airplane-awacs.zip /TLDR NOTE - I also included a file _readme_what_to_add.xlsx which has the lines and which files they were added to, so you can manually add the stuff in yourself. Which is helpful if you have like the Lore Mod, you can go in and add all the acas stuff easily. I hope that this becomes the norm for mods, because installing one mod that overwrites all your changes sucks! This lets you see what to add and where. Please feel free to contact me with any questions or comments! My email is in the readme. Enjoy fellow Xenonauts! PS Sorry if its bad form to repost this. I figured it would be OK.

I do get what you are saying. And frankly you are right, in a way, the advances in alien tech actually do wind u giving you a ship capable of sticking with the AWACS and protecting it almost throughout its flight. And technically you could just put in some weaker engines into an existing ship to make it fly slower -that's really what would need to be done. That's an easy mod; basically just take the existing F-17, copy the lines in aircrafts, items, and give it a new name - F17a EMW Escort maybe - keeping the pics the same. I could do that, if you want. However, I think beyond the physical issue of designing a strictly AWACs escort is the doctrinaire question. Perhaps some air powers would, indeed, find their AWACS - or other planes - to be valuable enough to design a specific plane to guard it. I think though that - at least in my air force- we are always facing the problem of too little hanger space as it is. With the new AWACS, we have even less space yet have doubled the targets we can intercept! We need every fighter we can get to fill an offensive role, and that means fast fighters who can chase down enemy and that can swarm the aliens! In a perfect world it would be nice to have a passive defender ship. However, we have to consider: the limitations on the number of available hangers, the fact that a downed AWACS will eventually be replaced for free, the cost sunk into a new craft, the increasing difficulty of enemy swarms, and our doctrine has evolved thusly - we need to pack every single available hanger with interceptors or air-superiority fighters. Don't think i'm party poopin your idea! Like I said if you want I'd be happy to mod up a F17 copy to spec. Or to give you a copy of my actual aircrafts file which features the extended range for all craft that works best with the AWACS.

Two other thoughts - it's sort of a pain in the ass to make the damage images for new aircraft. And also Unless we're talking about WWII era technology, it's almost impossible to make a jet fighter - the size of a jet fighter! - as slow as the AWAC which is essentially a jumbo jet. Maybe a C-130, but the realty is that the AWACS is, IRL escorted by regular fighters who get extra flight time from tankers. And until and unless the XN team implements tankers, we have to just abstract the logistics layer here and mod the fighter ranges.

Here's the thing with that - I also modded up all my aircrafts' ranges under the assumption that each could hit a mid-flight refuel tanker once on a sortie. This gives all your interceptors the range to keep up with the AWACS (well for the most part, I didn't fully playtest that part yet, I've been too busy to play more than a few hours w/ AWACS + extended fuel range). If you want me to post that xml mod file I'd be happy to! The craft w/ extended range still won't be able to stay on station for as long as the AWACS - although if you say have your AWACS based in Europe, and an interceptor base in North America, you can send the AWACS to S. America and an escort launched from N America would be able to stay on station just about as long. I also think that the increased range generally makes the air-game more strategically interesting. And as soon as I figure out how, I'm going to give the Mig 2 sidewinders or a cannon, letting it stay in the fight longer. I remember in Top Gun those Migs had cannons! ALSO in the near future I am considering making an SR-71 Blackbird, which you can research, to provide you with a FAST recon ship - thus you would avoid some of the downsides of the AWACS. It's not exactly accurate - the SR71 was designed for quick flyover recon photos, really an entirely different operation. Hmm, thinking that wouldn't really work and the game already has a Fury ... maybe I'll mod in a reusable satellite; along the lines of XCOM:EU has. Some sort of Orbital Recon & Re-entry Vehicle. That would be cool! Launching a high altitude satellite from your base. Or maybe do up that nifty new drone-space-shuttle that the military has been flying on the qt. Set it at an insanely high altitude, give it high radar value, and make it fast. Ah yes right on. To be honest I didn't really put too much effort in figuring out exactly what the AWACS radar picks up. But since it can do C&C for a battlefield I assumed it could look down as well as using it for air tracking. Regardless, getting down to the nitty gritty details isn't really XN's forte. But yah 100% it's a combined capabilities craft!

Basically a JStar, but the Boeing JStar doesn't have the big ol' radar dish that makes the E-3 immediatly recognizable. A JStar in XN might as well be a 737. It's that dome that makes it look super cool in the pics, imho.