Nexus's Hidden Files

[The Old Dragon]

Hi folks,

It appears that Nexus still has some files that we generally don't see. Tucked away in the Universe/texts/systexts folder there's a .ini file named 'gstac_tooltips.ini', one of the things that I'd lke to know is where in the nine levels of hell are the files that it references? They all start with 'tactt_' but I can't find where these files are defined... and it's irritating me because it looks like I need to modify/write them to do things how I'd like.

It does appear that you can access them as the author of the Solar Bandits mod has changed the IP drive command a bit (and it's icon!).

Anyone have any ideas?

Oh, and I've tried contacting the author, but the address appears to be deceased.

[Arparso]

Nah, those aren't hidden files. These are just text items the game displays in certain circumstances. For example "tactt_own_shiplist_sort" is the internal name of the sort button next to your shiplist ingame and "Change ship sort order" is the corresponding tooltip getting displayed when you hover over that button. So "gstacs_tooltips.ini" just contains the proper tooltip texts for various GUI elements in the game and doesn't refer to any hidden files.

You can change these tooltips, of course... just as you can change the button graphics. For changing the texts you have to find the right TEXT entry in one of those inis and for changing the button graphics you'll need to replace the right texture with a suitable file of your choice.

[The Old Dragon]

So which file connects a buttons graphic to it's coresponding command?  So far I've found nothing, there's no mention of the graphics name in either the relevant .command file or in the mod_commands.ini.

Just realised what you meant by changing the graphic (sorry, senior moment), however the author of Solar Bandits replaced the 'command_longrange_***' texture file with the 'cmd00.tex' file without simply renaming it. So there must be someway of editing the gui.

Edit:

Well, the simple change works quite well. So things are happy again, but it would be nice to know how to edit the command properly though.

[Arparso]

however the author of Solar Bandits replaced the 'command_longrange_***' texture file with the 'cmd00.tex' file without simply renaming it. So there must be someway of editing the gui.

No, he didn't replace anything. He simply created a new command named "SpecialMenu" for command slot 12 in universetacticsmod_commands.ini. Nexus doesn't know this command - so it doesn't know, which button texture to use for that. If that's the case, the game loads a placeholder texture named - you've probably guessed it - "cmd00.tex".

Try it for yourself and add something like Single 5 "MyCrazyCommand"; to that file... you'll see the same "cmd00.tex" button texture ingame.

/edit:
Forgot to mention: to include your own graphics for your own custom commands, you'll need two texture files:
command__on.tex
command__off.tex
(in texturesiconscommands folder)

Of course, replace with the actual name of your command in mod_commands.ini (for the solar bandits mod it would be "command_specialmenu_on.tex", for example)

[The Old Dragon]

Ahh...

Thanks Arparso  :thumbup: , I think we can put this mis-comprehension of mine to bed now. Time to dig out those two .tex files that I created earlier and make it look proper.  

I'm glad we've still got a place to come and ask these things. Once again, thank you... now it's time to focus on another issue.

Remember me asking about batch files? Well I still can't get the second part to work but I was speaking to Starfleet the other night when I had the idea of creating a new .dat file instead (save messing around with folders completely). Creating the .dat was easy enough but when I tried to run it, the game spat it's dummy out complaining that shiptypes in the 'episode_1.sobj' file weren't defined. Which is odd because the unpacked version works fine.  Still, something to play with later once I figure out how to make these blasted mines explode  :cursing: