Wyrdysm Games

Well, went to the uploaded ship database, so how can i edit other peoples ships? Just to see how they made them, ofcourse. Because i've already downloaded a few and they don't appear when i click open in ship maker

Well heres the thing. You got the .shp file. In order to edit ships or even view them in shipmaker, you need the .sb4 file. Sometimes it is released, such as in the case of beauty pagent or metagame ships, but often the builders don't choose to. Might have better luck picking which ships you want and pming the owners...

yeah i was thinking that, where is the beauty pagent?

For clarification:

sb4 = Blue Print file v4, this is the file that is used in the Shipmaker to create and edit ships, and is required to generate an shp file for playing in the game.

shp = Ship file, the game file that is used in Battleships Forever to insert a ship during custom games. These files are created as is and cannot be altered or viewed in Shipmaker.


As Raul said, you will need the sb4 of the ship in question to see how that design works.

Also, you may find outdated .sb1, .sb2, .sb3 which are incompatible with the current version. Just a heads up not to bother with them.

Kiltric wrote:Also, you may find outdated .sb1, .sb2, .sb3 which are incompatible with the current version. Just a heads up not to bother with them.

If you ask nicely, older members will give you older copies of the shipbuilder so you can edit them if you want.

okay, so what about custom sprites, how do i download those? i tried and i failed =/

Well ideally builders release all the sprites used with their ship in a download, but sometimes not...You go to the custom sprites section. There you can either go to each topic and download the sprites if their released, or find Squishy's thread and get the .ini file. This will import many of the newer and good quality sprites into the shipmaker menu. Somewhere theres also a release of Arcalane's entire sprite folder, but theres a fair amount of junk in that one. Recommend getting the .ini

Download, stick in your custom sprites folder.
to use either edit the smsprites.ini, just follow the template in there.
or
drag and drop the sprite from the folder into the game, on either the right side bar for easy access, or onto the build area to have it added onto the ship as a section.

if its Gif and you drag it onto the build area then it will ask if you want it as a doodad or section.

Silverware wrote:to use either edit the smsprites.ini, just follow the template in there.

Or

Stop being a dunky blonk and use group arrange and sprite ini saving.

Yes, im on a crusade to stop people from intentionally complicating their already miserable lives. Next!

Good builders who release their ships will have a "sprite dump" of the sprites they used in their released ships (this can be done through the ShipMaker, Tools > Export Custom Sprites). The sprites and ship files are compressed into a .zip/.rar/.tar or w/e and uploaded for others to download. Once you extract them to your BSF folder, ideally the sprite dump the builder will be labeled "Custom sprites", so upon extraction, the files are automatically added to your "Custom sprites" folder (if it prompts you with duplicate files, just click "Skip All" for them.).

On the matter of ship files, I limit my packs to .shp files because i'd rather not have people muck around with my ships too much .