Shipwrecks Made By Players

[ibol]

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[ibol]

ok, I think I can finally post here...

When you can tear yourself away from actually playing, sometime next week perhaps, you might want to look at the Shipwreck Editor.

You can create shipwreck levels and then encounter them in the game. Design the overall shape (or generate it randomly), then populate it with monsters, items, scenery, and obstacles.

Full instructions for adding them are in the modding guide.

Here's one I made:

[Cyberis]

Hmm,
That looks vaguely familiar :-)

[Fennrick]

Hmmm, wouldn't using the editor spoil all of the first time discovery you could experience when playing the game?

I for my part don't want to know what all the genrated shipwrecks have in store for me...

[ibol]

I understand what you mean, but here's how it works:
There is about a 10% chance of encountering a "pre-designed" shipwreck, which means that 90% of them are never-before-and-never-again seen things.

If it does choose a predesigned, it will make changes to the contents.
It might add monsters, items, traps, forcefield/treasure rooms, etc.

Some of the pre-des are intentionally empty, so that even if you recognize the layout, the contents will be 100% new.

They're really more like a playable easter egg, just another fun thing that is rare enough to be surprising and enjoyable (IMHO).

Bob

[Cyberis]

Great mechanic! You seem to have thought about all the little details.:cool:

[Fennrick]

I understand what you mean, but here's how it works:
There is about a 10% chance of encountering a "pre-designed" shipwreck, which means that 90% of them are never-before-and-never-again seen things.

If it does choose a predesigned, it will make changes to the contents.
It might add monsters, items, traps, forcefield/treasure rooms, etc.

Some of the pre-des are intentionally empty, so that even if you recognize the layout, the contents will be 100% new.

They're really more like a playable easter egg, just another fun thing that is rare enough to be surprising and enjoyable (IMHO).

Bob

My reasoning is more in the line of: "Oh hey look at all the stuff i can put into those shipwrecks, now i totally know everything there is to find in those ships."

Which of course is only true if the editor lets you put EVERYTHING in those ships that you can see by regular playing.

But hey, this is a great feature, one of many.

[Tim Brooks]

I wanted to check out the Shipwreck Editor so I created a shipwreck. I hope I see it in the game I am playing!

[PvK]

My first shipwreck...

[PvK]

Another ship...

[PvK]

Ships 3 & 4...

[dari]

Thanks for all the new shipfiles!
i guess they will work without the editor installed just by putting into \media\PDSWL\ ?

[PvK]

Thanks for all the new shipfiles!
i guess they will work without the editor installed just by putting into \media\PDSWL\ ?

You don't need to install the shipwreck editor. But in addition to placing them in PDSWL, you also need to add them to the list of shipwrecks in play. As the modding manual explains:

PDSWs.txt
This stands for 'Pre-Designed Ship Wrecks' and is used to list the names of user-created shipwreck levels, which are occasionally loaded into the game. These are created using the shipwreck level editor, which can be found on the official product page here:
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/Ibology/AI/AI_page.html
The actual files need to be stored in the folder 'PDSWL'.
The first number in the file is how many levels there are in total. The rest of the lines are the names of those files, with no extension. Capitalization should match the actual file name. The files themselves have the .AIS extension.

[Dubious]

It should also be mentioned that the 'PDSWs.txt' file listing the names of shipwrecks in play is found under the game 'media\TEXT' folder.

Apparently the assumption is only one level to a ship. The AIS file itself doesn't seem to have an obvious indicator for more than one level.

-Dubious-