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- Aug 25, 2015
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So, I've been thinking of coding my own external blueprint editor. I think I have a pretty good concept for the program's design. It's basically a multi-layer paint program with every pixel representing a block. There's also a 3D view so you can preview your ship before it's built, a speed/weapon strength/power/shield calculator, and a ship-segment copy/paste and any-angle rotator. There's a lot of other concepts I have that are still in the planning phase, these are just the things I'm sure I can do. Sounds great, right? Well, there is just one problem.
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I have NO idea how to export blueprints. I've looked at the official wiki documentation and even tried to dissect blueprint files myself, but no dice. If someone could help me make heads or tails of the blueprint file format, I would be eternally grateful and reward them richly with advanced, easy-to-use blueprint editors... And also my eternal love.
UPDATE 2 - 2/14/2016
Good news! Apparently all of the extra data in the header I was worried about... doesn't actually do anything. I was just able to copy the extra data from another blueprint and have my program append it to the end of the files it creates. So far, it works. I've been able to inject an "artificial" header [one generated entirely by my program] into a variety of blueprints and so far they've worked a dream. My editor has also been able to log into the header the appropriate blocks and their numbers. So far, everything is looking up! Let's hope it stays this way. Right now, the next most important thing to do is make my program write the SMD2 files. This involves adding in a basic image converter and ship editor. This will by no means be ready for public release, but it's a start. If this works... that's pretty much all the hard stuff out of the way. The rest is just GUI, adding editor features, etc. So far, everything is looking pretty optimistic!
...
I have NO idea how to export blueprints. I've looked at the official wiki documentation and even tried to dissect blueprint files myself, but no dice. If someone could help me make heads or tails of the blueprint file format, I would be eternally grateful and reward them richly with advanced, easy-to-use blueprint editors... And also my eternal love.
UPDATE 2 - 2/14/2016
Good news! Apparently all of the extra data in the header I was worried about... doesn't actually do anything. I was just able to copy the extra data from another blueprint and have my program append it to the end of the files it creates. So far, it works. I've been able to inject an "artificial" header [one generated entirely by my program] into a variety of blueprints and so far they've worked a dream. My editor has also been able to log into the header the appropriate blocks and their numbers. So far, everything is looking up! Let's hope it stays this way. Right now, the next most important thing to do is make my program write the SMD2 files. This involves adding in a basic image converter and ship editor. This will by no means be ready for public release, but it's a start. If this works... that's pretty much all the hard stuff out of the way. The rest is just GUI, adding editor features, etc. So far, everything is looking pretty optimistic!
Hello! I'm just going to get right to the point here and say that this project is in a bit of a pickle. Where we stand right now, I have the basic import/export functions of the editor finished. I can, basically, manipulate .SMEDIT and blueprint file. This for the foreseeable future is the hardest part. However, there is a snag. For reasons I don't know, the StarMade blueprint files are WAY bigger than they're supposed to be. More than twice as large. A blueprint with just it's core should be 42 bytes big. My test file I got from StarMade for study, however, is upwards of 100 bytes large. By and large this means there's over 50 bytes of unknown data I can't understand or account for. Now, I'm not sure if I'm just being an idiot or this is a simple problem, but as it stands I can't continue the project without understanding what that data is. Does anyone have any suggestions or insights?
[PS, for file sizes I'm going off File format - StarMade Wiki and SMTools/Blueprint at master · StarMade/SMTools · GitHub . The latter of which is three years out of date.Obviously, things have PROBABLY changed. I'll try to contact the guy who added those files and see if he can help me out.]
[PS, for file sizes I'm going off File format - StarMade Wiki and SMTools/Blueprint at master · StarMade/SMTools · GitHub . The latter of which is three years out of date.Obviously, things have PROBABLY changed. I'll try to contact the guy who added those files and see if he can help me out.]
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