Adding Ships (Intermediate)

This is the next level for adding ships, which involves a bit more work. We're still replacing an existing craft, but this let's you assign your own ship type and stats. So if you never use a Container Type "Y", you can stick in a new ship in its place. We'll also make it so that the opt file keeps it's name (which makes it easier to know what's what). You'll need a copy of BinHexEdit to do this method.

In this example, we'll replace the Authority IRD fighter with the Hound's Tooth.

  1. First, add the Houndstooth.opt file to the FLIGHTMODELS folder. We'll leave it with that name.
  2. Next, we need to open the Spacecraft0.lst file in FLIGHTMODELS. Making sure that the box "Always use this program to open this file" is UNCHECKED, open it with Wordpad.
  3. Find the name of the opt we're replacing. In this case it's "IrdFighter.opt". Replace that with "Houndstooth.opt". Save it.
  4. Open Shiplist.txt, and find the IRD Fighter in there (they call it Authority IRD, species #10). Replace "Authority IRD" with "Hound's Tooth". Change it from Fighter to Shuttle/Light Transport. We do this because the Hound's Tooth uses a laser turret, and fighters don't have turrets. Save it.
  5. Open Strings.txt, and do a search for "IRD". The reference for this is "!KSPECIRD!m". Change the search to look for that reference and change all instances of "IRD Fighter" to "Hound's Tooth", and change "IRD" to "H/T". Save it.
  6. If you want to have your Tech Library show the Hound's Tooth stats instead of the IRD, open Specdesc.txt and rewrite the listing for the Authority IRD and save.
  7. Next, we want to open up BinHexEdit. I'm not going to go into how to use that program other than as it concerns us here. Load it up for xwingalliance.exe like normal.
  8. Go to the section for "Ship Type" and go to the Authority IRD line. Change the setting to "1". This tells the program this is now a shuttle, not a fighter, so the laser turrets work. Write to file.
  9. Then go to the section for "Authority IRD" and set up the proper stats. I include these with my opts to make it easier for you. Write to file.

That's it!

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