Create / Mod files / Ships for mods

Ships for mods

A Ship is a whole HULL, authored once and spawned by id. It owns the section layout, whether the hull is clad, and how far it must be dismantled before it collapses. A Spaceship spawn names it and adds everything that differs per spawn: where it sits, who flies it, which side it is on.

Ships are content like sections, scenarios and styles. Create a new id to add a hull, or reuse a base id to rebuild every scenario's corvette at once.

This page is the field-by-field ship reference. For general RON spelling rules such as double parentheses, Some(...), and asset schemes, see RON spelling rules.

Why a ship is content

A full loadout runs to hundreds of lines. Inlining one in every scenario that spawns it means editing a corvette in eleven places and getting eleven slightly different corvettes. A ship id is the fix: one definition, one edit, and a mod can replace it for every scenario that names it.

The Ship item

[
    Ship((
        id: "my_corvette",
        name: "My Corvette",
        hull: (
            sections: [
                (
                    id: "fuselage",
                    position: (0.0, 0.0, 0.0),
                    rotation: (0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0),
                    source: Prototype("cargoa_fuselage"),
                ),
                // ... hull, thruster, and weapon sections ...
            ],
        ),
    )),
]

The hull

Section entries are the same records a hull carried when it was inlined - see section prototypes for the ids the base game ships.

Spawning one

SpawnScenarioObject((
    base: (
        id: "raider_1",
        name: "Raider",
        position: (0.0, 0.0, -300.0),
        rotation: (0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0),
    ),
    kind: Spaceship((
        controller: AI((engage_delay: Some(8.0))),
        hull: Prototype("my_corvette"),
    )),
)),

Changing one hull for one spawn

A scenario that wants a harder flight computer or a fixed magazine does NOT need its own ship. modifications on the spawn aims the same data-only deltas a section carries at a section of the resolved hull, and they are applied after the hull's own, so the spawn wins:

kind: Spaceship((
    controller: AI(()),
    hull: Prototype("my_corvette"),
    modifications: [
        (section: "fuselage", modifications: [SetHealth(500.0)]),
        (section: "turret_port", modifications: [SetAmmo(900)]),
    ],
)),

A section id the hull does not carry does nothing at runtime, so the content lint reports it as an error.

Reach for a second ship id instead when the difference is what the hull IS - the base game ships cargoa and cargoa_raider as separate hulls because thinner plating and scavenger-grade guns are a different ship to fight, not a tweak. It ships cargob and cargob_lance for the same reason: which torpedo TYPE the pods load decides whether a defender's point defense can answer the salvo at all, and that is the ship, not a tweak to it.

One-off hulls

A hull nothing else will ever spawn can stay on the spawn:

kind: Spaceship((
    controller: None,
    hull: Inline((
        sections: [
            (
                id: "bay",
                position: (0.0, 0.0, 0.0),
                rotation: (0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0),
                source: Prototype("torpedo_section"),
            ),
        ],
    )),
)),

Inline((..)) takes the same fields as a ship's hull. Use it for a scripted battery that is a single tube or a derelict that is five plates; anything a second scenario would spawn belongs in the catalog.

Overlay and lint

• A mod ship with a base id REPLACES the base hull, so every scenario naming it flies the mod's - the same last-wins overlay sections and styles follow.
• The same id twice in ONE bundle is a conflict: the first wins and the duplicate is skipped.
• A hull is linted where it is AUTHORED, not where it is spawned: its section prototypes must resolve, its sections must not interpenetrate, and its link-point graph must be connected.
• A spawn naming a ship no bundle provides is a lint error, and at runtime it spawns an empty root and logs rather than crashing.

Base ships