How to Make Tiny Ship Cores & Upgrade Your Ships Materials.

[Kane Hart]

Made a quick Video guide on how to make a small ship core + How to upgrade your ship materials from say Iron to Titanium.

 

 

 

EDIT: I found out if you turn safe mode off that you can delete the core block haha so the first half the tutorial was a waste :)

[Thundercraft]

First, I just want to say that I enjoy your videos. And I appreciated this info, particularly the part about how to upgrading our ship's material with Notepad.

 

Anyway: I followed your video and I created several tiny cores to choose from, including 0.2 cubed, 0.4 cubed, 0.5 cubed, 0.8 cubed, and 1.6 cubed. (The default core size is 2 x 2 x 2.)

 

Unfortunately, I discovered that using a non-typical size for the ship core can lead to a very frustrating 'block overlap' issue.

 

Essentially, blocks will frequently try to overlap by 0.025, preventing us from placing them due to "too much overlap". Since the Grid Size can only be reduced to 0.05, we can't adjust the grid to fix this. (I started a Grid Size = 0.025... Please topic to suggest that they add a 0.025 Grid Size.)

 

I know this is a problem with a core size of 1.6 cubed (or -0.8 to 0.8) and I suspect I would have the same issue with 0.8 cubed. I'm not sure about other size. They might work okay or they might have the same issue.

 

Bottom line: I would recommend just turning safe mode off and deleting the core block as a way to get a different core size. That should be safer than use the Notepad method as this should probably avoid the overlap issue.

 

That said, if all a player wants is to build cube-shaped ships, the "Match Block" option will ensure that blocks match up. That much is no problem. But placing blocks without "Match Block" or trying to copy and paste arrays will cause issues.

[Tholis]

Thanks for the Video, it was very helpful! A number of my early designs weren't built to be easily upgrade able, so it was very helpful to update components buried at the core of my ships. I was wondering if you or the developer had a list of all of the block types that could be provided, I.E. Hanger XXX, engines are XXY. Doing a full replacement based solely on materiel type would be very counter productive for me. I'm sure I could work out the all of the block IDs Thought I'd save some time though.

 

Thanks again.           

[cy414]

to shrink the core, order a small ship from the shipyard. they come with smaller cores.

[Scrollen]

This is amazing when you make a fleet of tiny mining ships!

[Maxavian]

Does doing it this way change anything regarding the ship performance and black stats? I imagine this is the same as just adding a block that size and then turning off safe-mode, deleting the original block. Found the material change useful, for sure!

[Antibak]

Here is an easy way I discovered to change the material type of specific parts on your ship using any XML editor. This saves you the pain of tearing down and into your ship hull to upgrade internal parts when you acquire better materials.  Also, you can select specific parts to upgrade one type at a time as you slowly acquire the materials needed from mining or salvaging, etc, etc.

 

Please refer to Kane Heart's video on XML editing.

 

Here is what to do=  Anyone that has seen the XML details on the ships that we build and have watched Kane Heart's video knows that there is a line of info for each block you use to build a ship. Turns out the [index "x"] right before the [Material "x"] is the designation/type for the actual block.  Here is a short list of some of the block types. (I was only interested in upgrading certain parts so I did not bother listing all the part designators below just yet.  (Anyone else interested in completing the list?)

 

Index "X"

 

x= 1  Hull with windows and the first core block.

x= 2  Hull with no windows

x= 3  Engine

X= 5  Cargo

x= 6  Crew

x= 7  Thrusters

x=8 Armor Block

x= 104, 105, 106, 107  Edge and corner armor

x= 100, 101, 102, 103 Edge and corner Hull

x= 150, 151, 152, 153, 154  Glow Pieces

X= 50  Shield

X= 51  Energy Container

X= 52  Generator

X= 53  Integrity Field

X= 54 Computer Core

X= 55 Hyperspace Core

 

Using the "replace all" command in an XML editor you can do this as an example:  To change all generator components from Naonite to Trinium=

Enter=    Index "52" Material "2"  replace with=  Index "52" Material "3"

save the file with a new name so you know what parts you upgraded.  Go back into the game and in the ship editor select the file name then then select "apply plan". Easy Peazy:)

 

For me, each time I acquire more material, I go back into the editor and upgrade the next component

[Fox]

...

Here is what to do=  Anyone that has seen the XML details on the ships that we build and have watched Kane Heart's video knows that there is a line of info for each block you use to build a ship. Turns out the [index "x"] right before the [Material "x"] is the designation/type for the actual block.  Here is a short list of some of the block types. (I was only interested in upgrading certain parts so I did not bother listing all the part designators below just yet.  (Anyone else interested in completing the list?)

 

Index "X"

 

x= 1  Hull with windows and the first core block.

x= 2  Hull with no windows

x= 3  Engine

X= 5  Cargo

x= 6  Crew

x= 7  Thrusters

x=8 Armor Block

x= 104, 105, 106, 107  Edge and corner armor

x= 100, 101, 102, 103 Edge and corner Hull

x= 150, 151, 152, 153, 154  Glow Pieces

X= 50  Shield

X= 51  Energy Container

X= 52  Generator

X= 53  Integrity Field

X= 54 Computer Core

X= 55 Hyperspace Core

 

Using the "replace all" command in an XML editor you can do this as an example:  To change all generator components from Naonite to Trinium=

Enter=    Index "52" Material "2"  replace with=  Index "52" Material "3"

save the file with a new name so you know what parts you upgraded.  Go back into the game and in the ship editor select the file name then then select "apply plan". Easy Peazy:)

 

Hey, thats exactly what i asked myself earlier when i messed with .xml editing trying to find that one Hyperspacedrive i havent upgraded to Xanion yet... very appreciated!

 

 

For me, each time I acquire more material, I go back into the editor and upgrade the next component

 

i made myself upgradeable versions of the same ship as blueprints, so you can easily upgrade them ingame, and it even shows how much materials are missing before you can upgrade!

[Thundercraft]

Index "X"

 

x= 1  Hull with windows and the first core block.

x= 2  Hull with no windows

x= 3  Engine

X= 5  Cargo

x= 6  Crew

x= 7  Thrusters

x=8 Armor Block

x= 104, 105, 106, 107  Edge and corner armor

x= 100, 101, 102, 103 Edge and corner Hull

x= 150, 151, 152, 153, 154  Glow Pieces

X= 50  Shield

X= 51  Energy Container

X= 52  Generator

X= 53  Integrity Field

X= 54 Computer Core

X= 55 Hyperspace Core

 

Thanks for that! Very handy. I did have a third to a half of these written down, but nowhere near all of them.

 

BTW: Here are two more:

 

X= 9 Framework

 

X= 13 Directional thruster

(NOTE: Use look="5" for forward-facing or look="1" for left/right facing. Not sure what the look is for up/down facing...)

[wm46]

"Look" and "Up" are actually the game's way of describing rotation. Every block has two vectors associated with it, Up being the main vector that describes what direction the top of the block faces with respect to the coordinate planes. The Look vector is perpendicular to the Up vector, and thus the only legal values for Look are values that are not the same axis as Up. So if I make the Up vector +Y (vertically up), I can only make the Look vector +/-X, +/-Z.

 

The coordinate system for Avorion is a bit weird if you're used to graph paper. Positive X is to the left (if you look at the XY plane from the engine side), Positive Y is up (same viewing angle), Positive Z is the side opposite the engine surface (or into the page if you keep the graph paper analogy). The numbers in the XML file correspond to the coordinate directions as follows:

• 0: Negative X
  
• 1: Positive X
   
  
• 2: Negative Y
  
• 3: Positive Y
   
  
• 4: Negative Z
  
• 5: Positive Z
  

---

So what does that mean for your directional thruster question? Since it sounds like the Look vector describes which direction the thruster pushes; in order to make a thruster that faces upwards you need to set the Up vector to 0/1/4/5, and then set Look to 2/3.