Freelancer Empty DLL.

For Freelancer ship and system builders. 

Introduction. 

A lot of would be mod makers seem to have big problems making their own DLL's to hold their id names and id info numbers. I get a lot of emails about this and to be honest the problem is complex and is a pain to explain. It is much easier to supply an empty dll in the first place.

This dll will help you get started, all you need to do after downloading this is lookup how to add id entries to a DLL using tools like FLEd-ids. I recommend this tool because it takes the pain out of making DLL entries and has so far not corrupted any of my own DLL's for Hostile Universe. Reshack on the other hand caused me lots of problems so I recommend you use it only to view your own DLL's and not edit them with it. 

Almost everything you need to know can be found at The Lancers Reactor. 

http://www.lancersreactor.com/t/

About the Freelancer Empty DLL.

The dll supplied has 2 entries, one for id names and one for id info. Both entries contain the words "Start Here". Using FLed_id do a search in both id name and id info for those words to get the starting id number for both of those. Then just add your own entries to that increasing the number by +1 for each new entry. 

You can rename the dll if you wish. 

To get the dll working in freelancer you must add it to the freelancer.ini which can be found in the exe folder of your freelancer install.

Look for this section.

[Resources]
DLL = InfoCards.dll ; Contains all infocard text resources
DLL = MiscText.dll  ; Contains other bulk text resource: rumor, offer, and mission text
DLL = NameResources.dll  ; Contains names of things, primarily.
DLL = EquipResources.dll  ;Contains names of equipment (in string table) and infocards for equipment (in HTML resources)
DLL = OfferBribeResources.dll ; Contains random mission offers and bribes
DLL = MiscTextInfo2.dll ;Contains MP UI elements as well as other misc. text

Below MiscTextinfo2.dll add this. Change the name if you renamed the dll. 

DLL = freelancerempty.dll ; Custom Dll

Once added fled_id will find the dll and start using it. So will Freelancer. 

Still Confused ?

If your a new mod maker that has read the Lancer Reactors tutorials and mod maker posts and are still confused you can write to me and I will explain the parts your confused about. See the email addy at the end of this document. If you have not read any tutorials or posts and want me to help please do not bother. I do not have time to waste on people who will not do any research them selves. Your mod will never be completed, I know it, You know it so why bother. 

Final Words. 

The id names are just text entries and easy to figure out but the id infos change according the what is using that info. Ship infos tend to be XML entries so you may have to look up the entry for an existing ship to get the xml file. System entries are different from ships so you may have to look those up too. 

Im going to including some xml docs by Zen,who supplied these to support his excellent dll tutorial. Whilst his excellent tutorial is long gone now these xml docs are still kicking around. 

See the archive for the infocard folder. I do not support them directly but they should help you. You just cut and past xml entries into fled id and save the entries you make. Easy stuff. Experiementing will teach you how it all works. These XML docs are for ships. 

Giskard
email giskard2@respawn.co.uk