Add a new ship logo to Starpoint Gemini 3 tutorial

Adding a logo into the game to paint through the ship customization screen is reaaaaaally simple, but it is a great overview of some essential concepts on how modding works in Starpoint Gemini 3.

Create a new logo

You'll need a new logo... literally the visuals. How you'll go about doing that, well that's up to you. The things important in this tutorial come right afterwards.

Create a new texture in your favorite image editing software (we use Photoshop, but the free Gimp will do just fine.

The specific texture specs are as follows:

• .dds format - this is a MUST. The game only uses .dds textures
• 8.8.8.8. ARGB - so, alpha channel is also a must-have as it is used as opacity mask
• 256x256 px texture size will do just fine

Import your logo into the game

Every mod mimics the actual game folder structure. So, for example, the base game has this folder: Data\Textures\Logos. Since we want to add a new logo, we'll mimic this in the mod folder.

1. In the GameRoot\Mods create the LogoTemplate folder.
2. Inside the LogoTemplate folder create the Data folder.
3. Inside the Data folder create the Base folder (we will need this soon) and the Textures folder.
4. Inside the Textures folder create the Logos folder.

Notice we now have the full mimicked path GameRoot\Mods\LogoTemplate\Data\Textures\Logos.

To continue, copy your logo texture, the one you created into the above noted mod folder (Logos). You can name your texture anything you want, but keep in mind that if your texture is named the same as a logo texture in the base game, in that same mimicked folder, your new texture will override the original! I’m guessing you don’t want that, so name it something else.

Once you added the texture in the folder, your mod will need a database for the added logo. If done correctly, the path for the database for your logo should look like this: GameRoot\Mods\LogoTemplate\Data\Base.

Here, you will need to create the Logo.wdt file. *.wdt files are simple text files with this specific .wdt extension. You’ll need a text editor to open and edit wdt files. Any editor will do, even Notepad that comes with Windows, but we suggest downloading the free Notepad++.

Open the newly created Logo.wdt and add the following content:

Colum:	4
Id	KeyName	File	Sort
0	MyLogo_0	Data\Textures\Logos\YourTextureName.dds   0

Notice the third column, called File, more specifically the value in that entry. We omitted the Mods\LogoTemplate\ part. This is important. This is the only proper way for mods to work as intended. You’re basically treating your mod folder as the root folder of the base game and all filepaths are relative! The game handles all interlinking and overriding for you. Instead of YourTextureName, type in the name of the texture you've chosen for your logo and save.

Let’s pause here for a moment to clear a few things up. You might be wondering Hey! Isn’t this .wdt file going to override the same file in the base game? The answer is No. And now you’re probably thinking But you just said… Yep, I did, but here’s the thing. We had to make some exceptions to make the game as mod-friendly as possible. Database files (.wdt extension) are one of these. When the game starts, it checks all active mods. If an active mod has a database corresponding to a database in the base game (which would only make sense…), the game won’t override the original file, but add the mod values to it. Be careful though! If an entry in your mod database file has the same keyname (Keyname column) as an entry in the base game, THIS WILL BE OVERRIDDEN!

This approach makes two things possible:

1. When your mod includes a database file, which it frequently will, you only need to add your new entries and not first copy/paste the original.
2. Someone else’s mod can easily work with yours. Because although you could both be adding new logos to ship customization, the game will first load the original database, then add your entries and then finally add the entries from the other mod. And both mods will work together seamlessly.

Once all these steps are completed, you can start the game. Mods can only work if they are activated in the game launcher. Open the Mods section in the game launcher and activate your new mod. Then simply start the game and your fresh new logo will be available for selection in the Ship Customization panel.

Hey! My mod isn’t showing up in the list! What’s with that?

Indeed it isn’t. Because we forgot to create the mod definition file. The game requires this file to know about the mod.

Navigate to the GameRoot\Mods\ folder. So the main mods folder, not into your LogoTemplate folder, but one level up. Once here, create a new text file, name it the same way your mod folder is named (LogoTemplate) and instead of .txt, give it the extension .sgwm .

Open the file with the text editor of your choice, in the same way you opened the .wdt file. You’ll need to have this block of content in the .sgwm file:

txt
Version: 1000
Mod:
{
 Name: LogoTemplate
 Author: MyFabulousName
 Description: My_masterfully_crafted_ship_logo.
 Picture: Mods\LogoTemplate\ModPicture.jpg
}

Let’s skim over the above content. Almost everything should be obvious, but a key thing to remember is that you CANNOT HAVE EMPTY SPACES in the values portion. If you want to separate words in the description, add the _ character.

And perhaps you’re wondering what’s with the picture? Well, I’m sure you want to have an image representing your mod on the Workshop, no? The same applies for the game launcher. This image is used for both. Primarily for our launcher, but it is best to use the same picture for both purposes.

A few important notes to remember

Something to keep in mind for the sake of mod-compatibility is that it's good to have your textures named specifically, something that would make it highly unlikely that other modders could name their logo textures the same. Although your mod has its own folder, remember that we noted you shouldn’t name your logo texture the same as a texture in the folder of the base game. The same applies for multiple mods.

And the other thing is the logo color. Black & white (greyscale) images work the best if you plan on colorizing them in-game.

Final thoughts

We hope that this tutorial cleared a few things up on how modding works in SG3. Perhaps one of the thing worth reminding from this is the override<->appending mechanics and what they do. A lot of potential problems with proper mod working stems from this, so please make sure you understand it.

Thank you for your time, for reading this, and if you get around to creating a mod for Starpoint Gemini 3, give us a shout please. We'd love to check it out!

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