Modding Appendix

[DreamorCZ]

Okie-dokie people, here are some things I have been able to find during my modding years. Some of these things are new and some are old but not everyone knows about them. I hope,  you will find anything useful or interesting in it.

1   SOLAR SYSTEM EDITOR
←,↑,→,↓ Changing X and Y coordinates of selected star system
Num 4,8,6,2 Changing X and Y coordinates of selected star system
Ctrl + Shift + Num 2 and 8 Changing Z coordinates of selected star system
Ctrl + Shift + F4 Restarts time and positions of all objects
Ctrl + Shift + Y Unknown command (makes program work slow)
Ctrl + W Summons Watch window
Ctrl + Plus (+) Starts time and jumps forward in time (planets are rotating, comets are moving etc.)
Ctrl + Minus (-) Starts time and jumps backward in time (planets are rotating, comets are moving etc.)
Holding Ctrl + Plus (+) Time flows faster
Holding Ctrl + Minus (-)Time flows faster (reverse)
Ctrl + Shift + F8 Shows stats (fps, poly, line, prts, wrld, box, free)

2   TACTICAL TABLE
      Travel
The travelling parameters of the shot:
 <param1>:   5: makes a ship equipped with this device to ram to enemy ship (animation is not working properly)      

3   MISSION SCENE EDITOR
Ctrl + W Summons Watch window
Ctrl + Shift + J Selection and camera jumps on the first created ship and delets bounds
Ctrl + Shift + Y Creates error – Assertion Failed File:tmovie.cpp Line: 118 Expression: SndTrk.OpenOut(sfn, 0, false)
Ctrl + Shift + Num Delet (,) Delets selected ship
Ctrl + Shift + F8 Shows stats (fps, poly, line, prts, wrld, box, free)
During running mission
Ctrl + Shift + T Opens dialog window
Ctrl + Shift + 1 Hides control GUI
Ctrl + Shift + Del Loosing mission
Ctrl + ↑,↓  Ship stats

4   MODEL VIEWER
+,-   Zoom in/out
Ctrl + Q Closing program
S Rising/Dropping shield
0 (Zero) Increasing size of engine flares
Ctrl + 0 (Zero) Decreasing size of engine flares
Ctrl + Right mouse button Rotating ship model

5 Works Everywhere
Ctrl + H Makes screenshot

6 Scripts
GuiSelect(1) - Pre-mission GUI
GuiSelect(2) - Star map GUI
GuiSelect(5) - Options
GuiSelect(6) - Nothing
GuiSelect(7) - Main Menu
GuiSelect(8) - Assertion fail - File: gi.cpp Line:30
GuiSelect(9) - Nothing
GuiSelect(10) - Start Server
GuiSelect(11) to (13) - Unknown Error

[Arparso]

Cool stuff, only knew about some of those. We should get a "Keyboard Shortcuts" section on the Wiki

CTRL + SHIFT + Y seems to be some sort of movie recording feature, probably having been used for the campaign cutscenes. You wrote the editor would crash, but it seemed to work alright for me... sort of. CTRL + SHIFT + Y created a new "movies" subfolder in my mod, containing individual subfolders for each press of the button combination, named like this: "nexus seq 0917 144540". There's no movie file inside, though... only a "_soundtrack.ems" with some binary content.
Not that such a feature is actually needed with alternatives like Fraps...

What seems more interesting to me is the Watch window (CTRL+W), where you can track the state of variables during gameplay. I didn't find a way to enter new variables in the dialog window itself, but you can load custom .wch files instead. These are just plain text files with each line containing an expression to be tracked in the Watch window. E.g.:

Code: [Select]

IsValid(GetSceneObj("Ship.07"))
IsValid(GetSceneObj("Ship.02"))

If you'd load such a .wch files, the current value of these expressions will be shown. In my case, both expressions were 1, until I destroyed one of the ships. A window where you can track variable values or any other expressions in real-time seems highly valuable to me - up until now I've been using the Console window and the Debug() command for that...

[Arparso]

Btw, here are some command-line arguments for Nexus (to be used on "nexus_dx8.exe", "nexus_dx9.exe" or the mission editor:

dedicated - opens the dedicated server window
starmapedit - (only works for "mission_editor_XXX.exe") opens the solar system editor
starmap - opens the starmap, looks just like the campaign interface
intro - opens the game, but plays the game's intro movie first
guitest - don't know what it does, immediately closes the window

Don't know if there are more out there.

Note, that there's no command-line argument for directly starting a specific mod. The game retrieves the currently selected mod from the registry ("Misc_GameName"), which is being set either by the game's launcher "nexus.exe" or the mod tools launcher "mod_tools.exe".

[GeoModder]

That starmap command is VERY useful for my little relabeling project. I don't need to run an adjusted campaign rules and briefing file with it. Wish I knew it already last week. Would have saved me a lot of time.

Have you discovered a command that let the game run without the intro movies playing first?

[Mularac]

wow... this is interesting. Makes me wonder what we'll find tomorrow....
oh, and hi GeoModder. How's it coming with that project of yours? I'm actually looking forward to it.

[GeoModder]

Coming along nicely I think.
I'm more or less settled on the planet descriptions (instead of changing them all I made new ones on top of the existing ones, a switch from how I started the project), added some extra inf_[sol system planet] descriptions to give an idea in the campaign of how far humanity has expanded, corrected some grammar/date/caption errors in several files and adjusted 2 system maps to the new descriptions already, working on the Noah system now.
I'd like to finish the Noah system and add German translations for the planet descriptions before presenting a package. Testing should go quicker now with use of Arparso's discovery and the Nexus crack combined (hate to use up my disc with testing).

French, Hungarian, and Italian is out of my league for translating.

[DreamorCZ]

I had no idea about those command-line arguments. According to what I know 'Guitest' argument should be able to open ship configuration screen for campaign, when there is no campaign for mod it makes game crash.

Is there any way how to decrypt nexus' executable files?

Edit: Added one shortcut to the list Ctrl + H Makes screenshot

[Mularac]

You mean decompile? no, unless you have access to the compiler they used, and even then....

Hell, we don't even know in which language it's been written....

[The Old Dragon]

Hi folks,

As per Arparso's suggestion, I've now added a section in the Nexus Wiki containing what I know of the viewer.
You can find it here...

http://nexusthegame.net/wiki/The_Model_Viewer

[GeoModder]

There's one more thing you can add: using 0/cntrl 0 repeatedly increases/decreases the intensity of the drive flares.

[The Old Dragon]

Hi Geo,

Thanks, didn't know about that one. Now added.

[DreamorCZ]

Added Ctrl + Right mouse button (rotating ship model) and Ctrl + 0 (thanks GeoModder) under 4 MODEL VIEWER


Also, Nexus has been written in C++ lanquage. This can be easily found in error messages where you can see lines like this 'File: dspace.cpp'.

[DreamorCZ]

Today, I was shocked by what I found (but it's possible I was only one who did not know about it). SAMPLE 02  Everything Change contains some of the original Nexus models with .lwo and .lws.

Most interesting things about that are:
1/ there is #angle 25# and #angle 26# on Destroyer, so it might be possible to add devices 25 and 26 somehow
2/ different boosters and blinks do not need to be numbered between sharps but can be denoted by letters and numbers after sharps
3/ we can see how creators handled animations
4/ those files can be used for quick learning about hard points and animations for newcomers

[DreamorCZ]

Another little appendix:

GuiSelect(1) - Pre-mission GUI
GuiSelect(2) - Star map GUI
GuiSelect(5) - Options
GuiSelect(6) - Nothing
GuiSelect(7) - Main Menu
GuiSelect(8) - Assertion fail - File: gi.cpp Line:30
GuiSelect(9) - Nothing
GuiSelect(10) - Start Server
GuiSelect(11) to (13) - Unknown Error