Creating .SHP ship files

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Creating .SHP ship files

aceazzameen87
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Post by aceazzameen87 » Thu Mar 25, 2021 10:50 pm

I'm dipping my toe into learning OPTing and the art of adding ships, and wanted to know if there was an explination somewhere available on how to create SHP files. I've I've been learning the tools, some ship files I've seen--like those within XWAUP don't have .SHP files stored in the FlightModels folder, while individual ships from DTM or Vince's sites, do. Near as I understand it, these are used for importing ships into XWA via MXVTED.

I've been curious about learning how to generate these myself to import OPT files, but have yet to find instructions on how to do so. Has the community moved on to other forms of direct import? Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

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Vince T
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Post by Vince T » Fri Mar 26, 2021 10:50 am

Hello there,
SHP files are required to manually install an OPT into the game, you load them with MXvTEd to read the stats and information contained within and then hit WRITE to install them into the game. After that they are no longer required. The XWAU Patch and other installer-based packages don't use SHP files because the installation is done automatically.

The process of creating a SHP file itself is somewhat simple if a bit tedious. The tricky bit is entering all the required information :)
I have updated the Article on MXvTEd in the Modding Wiki.
Your ship, Captain. I need a drink. - Vince Trageton
Vince T's X-Wing HQ - where the bad guys get their gear

aceazzameen87
Cadet 3rd Class
Posts: 33
Joined: Sat Jun 27, 2020 12:12 am

Post by aceazzameen87 » Fri Mar 26, 2021 3:07 pm

Vince--Thanks for this. I did stumble upon a rather brute force but efficient way of generating SHP files for opts. Install a craft pack on a backup copy of XWA, and then use MxvTED to access the already-generated shiplist created by the installer to view installed ops, and then save their configuration as new .SHP files. I stumbled upon this idea last night, and was very surprised and pleased to discover that it worked. Thought I'd pass it along.

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