I heard there are ID limits for items. How many available IDs are there?

Discussion in 'Scenarios' started by Joij, Nov 21, 2020.

  1. Joij

    Joij Lieutenant

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    I've been thinking about making a food mod with extra types of meats and foods to go with them. However I'm not sure how many IDs that are available there are. Can someone explain how many are available?
     
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  2. Kassonnade

    Kassonnade Rear Admiral

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    I saw one of @Vermillion 's post mentioning not more than 4 IDs left (unused items/blocks) so that's not much. And we don't have any "extra" icons so we have to re-use the same ones for new items/blocks. And we are also limited in our capacity to choose new names to be displayed in game (tooltips, templates, etc), meaning that even if we change the name in some instances, the old name will still appear in some tooltips or templates.
     
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  3. Joij

    Joij Lieutenant

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    Then what did he use for the scrambled egg texture? Was it the old textured plant protein item?

    Also is it 4 Ids left over after he added all that new stuff? Cause I would find it hard to believe vanilla has that amount considering the large amount of new items he added.
     
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  4. Vermillion

    Vermillion Rear Admiral

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    There are about 1200 item IDs free.
    There are about 100 block IDs free and 25-40 or so old blocks that are no longer used that can be overwritten with new content.
    The problem with using the free 100 block IDs is that Eleon will likely fill them later, so is best avoided.
     
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  5. Kassonnade

    Kassonnade Rear Admiral

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    To be more specific :

    There are 5 items which can be used to make brand new blocks :

    In ItemsConfig.ecf :

    line 796
    { Item Id: 12, Name: Fillertool
    line 855
    { Item Id: 13, Name: ChangeTool
    line 1453
    { +Item Id: 21, Name: ColorTool
    line 1495
    { +Item Id: 22, Name: TextureTool
    line 6291
    { Item Id: 240, Name: EnergyCellHydrogen, Ref: ComponentsTemplate

    In BlocksConfig.ecf :

    line 7644
    { Block Id: 568, Name: SentryGun04

    ----------------------------

    Then in both ItemsConfig.ecf and BlocksConfig.ecf, there are a great number of items/ blocks with the following comments :

    # double. delete when save game break
    # Obsolete - do not delete
    # obsolete but dont delete
    # Obsolete but do not delete
    # obsolete - do not remove
    # Obsolete - but do not remove
    # obsolete but do not remove
    # Obsolete - old building blocks
    # Still needed?
    # not yet used
    # DELETE
    # delete
    # not used anymore - (various comments)
    # not needed anymore

    -------------------------------

    So for all these items, blocks, players can try changing/ using them, subject to testing the results, and most probably these may get removed/ replaced in future patches.

    Now I'm happy to see that since the last time someone asked if it was possible to have a specific item made on one of his threads, @Vermillion 's answer was that there were only 4 or 5 IDs left. What a relief to see now we have hundreds of IDs to play with !
    .
     
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  6. Joij

    Joij Lieutenant

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    What about art for items? Can you just use an image from off the internet or is item art restricted to old art already in the game?

    Now since this mod is about adding more meat types and modifying current mob drops, it's quite a relief to see 1200 items free. Mob drops can be modified to drop new items, right?
     
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  7. Vermillion

    Vermillion Rear Admiral

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    You're restricted to any existing asset in the game.

    Also, You cannot use an Item ID for a Block. Item, Entity and Block IDs are separate number sets and are not interchangeable. You can make any new item between ID 1000 and 2000, blocks are limited to 135 to 255 which are currently unused but will likely be used in future.
    Don't remove anything that says it's obsolete without a LOT of checking to make sure it's not used by something else.
    The configs, especially the blocksconfig are a horrible mess where obsolete blocks are referenced by in-use blocks instead of simply having the stats transferred to the new iteration. Constructors are a prime example, whereas there are around 15 constructors but there's only 7 in the game, but half of them reference the old, no longer used constructors and removing or repurposing the old ones will break your game unless they've been disconnected from the in-use constructors.

    Look for the interiorkitchen blocks, alien slime blocks and CV Artificial Mass blocks for things that are numerous and easy to remove, and not used anywhere in the game anymore.

    Do NOT overwrite existing items or any of the blocks Kassonade just recommended.
    The SentryGun04 is still in use in many older POIs.
    Removing the EnergyCellHydrogen will break your game as the icon is referenced by other ammunitions, this is also why you never remove an existing item when there's no need to. Those old items have unseen icons and models that can be re-used but require the original to remain in place to be called.
    There's even a turretrobot weapon that's labelled "obsolete" and it most definitely is NOT. It's used by the turret robots, which just goes to show what a mess the configs are.
     
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  8. Kassonnade

    Kassonnade Rear Admiral

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    I did not recommend to overwrite anything.

    Here is just an example of usage for the free ID ''EnergyCellHydrogen'' ( item #240) :

    NewGame_9_2020-11-21_21-45-21.png


    NewGame_9_2020-11-21_21-45-27.png




    Changing an item has no bearing on the contents of the game's packages, so if an icon is referenced in there it will be found, even if the item is deleted from the config file. Try it !

    Now to be more precise once again : making new objects has to follow certain rules, but with proper testing we can avoid problems. And strictly speaking, there is no such thing as "creating new objects" since all we do is shuffle content around, but always the same, definite content.

    If an obsolete block is still present in some old blueprint, it will simply be changed to the new version, but may cause an error if size is not the same, and that's about it. Blocks and items all have a name, and that can't be changed. All "new blocks" and "new items" and "new recipes" are just rehash of things already present in the game, and they just show different information. Some characteristics can be changed, and some can't, being tied to each object's class/ category.

    And with scenarios, since we can control duration and triggering of "chapters" in many ways, it's even possible now to "give properties to items" that items classes do not allow.

    .
     
    #8
    Last edited: Nov 22, 2020
  9. Joij

    Joij Lieutenant

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    Yes but I'm trying to make food items. Foods items are just items not blocks no?
     
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  10. Joij

    Joij Lieutenant

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    Yes but food isn't an object in the game, is it not?
     
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  11. Kassonnade

    Kassonnade Rear Admiral

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    "Food" is a category of items that have specific attributes, and specific information showed to the player. To some extent, it is not important what is the "object" that the game uses in the background if it is not to have a physical representation in the game world (ex. building blocks).

    The main difficulty is tied to the icons, because that's the only "visible" representation of "food" in the game world : everything else is just written text/ data, and invisible characteristics (effects, buffs, etc). The player sees the results, but in fact he never "sees" the food : it's always icons.

    .
     
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  12. Joij

    Joij Lieutenant

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    So food isn't an object therefore I shouldn't worry about the IDs as there are 1200 available?

    However what's the problem with the icons?
     
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  13. ravien_ff

    ravien_ff Rear Admiral

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    If you add new items, you can't add your own icons. You have to use an icon from the game. Depending on how many new items you are planning to add, most of your new food will have to have the same icon as some other food.

    You're still bound by the item id limit. Food is an item.
     
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  14. Joij

    Joij Lieutenant

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    Why can't we add our own icons? Something with the code?
     
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  15. Kassonnade

    Kassonnade Rear Admiral

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    All game content (apart from prefabs, ships and bases) is "packed" in archives. These are the big files in Empyrion - Galactic Survival\Content\Bundles and we can't change anything in there. These are all the models, sounds, music, textures, icons, etc.

    And even some old icons may be unusable now (may be a bug). Last time I tried to use the FrenchFries icon, it had no texture...

    One thing that would be very cool would be to have a "CustomContent" folder in there (or in the "mod" folder) where we could put our own models, sounds or textures, so we could refer to them in the configs. But for a starter, I would be happy just being able to put custom icons in there, as this is enough to allow making lots of new objects (medical stuff, food, components) that don't require a "real" game object to be shown in the game world.
     
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    Last edited: Nov 22, 2020
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  16. Joij

    Joij Lieutenant

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    Do you know how many unused icons there are? Is there a way I can see what they look like?
     
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  17. Kassonnade

    Kassonnade Rear Admiral

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    No, but maybe you can download the Empyrion Playfield Designer and check in the data\images folder, as it contains all icons from the game, and some that are not used anymore. Just unzip the file somewhere and check its folders (download version 2.06.0) :

    https://empyriontools.org/download/
    .
     
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  18. Joij

    Joij Lieutenant

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    Ok I just checked it out. There does seem to be a lot of old icons however it seems some don't exist anymore. I recall there being older meat and salami icons but now they're gone. Some like the french fries and hotdogs still exist though.
     
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  19. Kassonnade

    Kassonnade Rear Admiral

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    They may have been removed from the Playfield Editor's folders, but still in the game. At least you have a starting point for visuals, and you can try the older names as "customicon" in the config file to see if the icon is still in the game's "bundles". If not then you'll either get an error, or the game will fetch the "vanilla" item.

    You can also download an older version of the Playfield editor and maybe the old icons are still in there, so you will have names to test in the config files.
     
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  20. Joij

    Joij Lieutenant

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    Hmm, just looked at the oldest one you can download. Definitely has a lot of icons in it that aren't in later versions. This is the 2018 version mind you.

    What's strange is I'm pretty sure french fries were a thing back then however the icon for it doesn't exist in that version. So basically the icon only became visible by the time it became removed from the game, very strange.

    It seems the current meat icon was used back then as well which suggests that Eleon must have deleted and totally replaced meat with the new icon.

    What's even stranger though is that they left all the older icons for other items in. It seems like they are haphazardly replacing some outdated icons but leaving others in.

    Regardless it seems like I'll put off from making this mod until Eleon makes proper mod support. There simply arn't enough icons for what I'm looking for. I was mainly trying to separate meat into red meat, and space pork/other white meat respectively. White meat/poultry was also a new meat category I was trying to make, but unfortunately there is no old icon that resembles poultry or poultry related meals.

    Though it does seem like there is a lot of gross looking icons I could use to make xeno flesh as a food. Unfortunately just not many food options for what it could be made into.
     
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