How to tweak OXZ's

Tweaking OXZs

OXZ's live in your ManagedAddOns folder.

• To tweak an OXZ, you expand it, rewrite part of the code (following the instructions), and then repackage it as an OXP.

• You then put the tweaked OXP in your AddOns folder.

• You then restart the game holding down the shift button.

When you next dive into the entrails of the in-game Expansions Manager you will notice that that Expansion is now listed in red!

• Note that you can directly download the OXZ in expanded state into your AddOns folder by pressing x when the Expansion is highlighted. The expanded expansion will have an .off extension superadded to the folder.

• Note that the old OXZ if you have already downloaded one remains in your Managed Expansions folder.
• Note also that the OXPs in your AddOns folder trump the OXZs in your Managed Expansions folder.

• Note also that an OXZ is just a zipped OXP - there is essentially no difference between the two... Reval recommends adding a simple step to the tweaking process: create a folder in AddOns with an .oxp extension, and unzip the contents of the oxz to it (after renaming it .zip). Presto! - an OXP.
• An OXZ, to be accepted, must also contain a manifest.plist, (it is basically a zipped version of the entire OXP with an added manifest.plist) whereas a pure OXP needs only a requires.plist. Reval's belt'n'braces approach is to include both.

Tweaking OXPs

• These are easier - they do not need unzipping/rezipping.
• Just edit the file name to replace the .oxp ending with .txt - it will transmogrify into a folder. Do your deeds of derring do (see the rest of this page). To return your folder to being an .oxp, just edit the folder name and put .oxp at the end! Pop it into your AddOns folder, and restart the game with the shift button held down.

Warning!

Some text editors (eg Windows) add extra lines of invisible text, turning your finely hand-crafted .oxp into gibberish! See Links below for other text editors.

And if you are copying code from the BB, you might find you've included somebody else's invisible text!

When copying code from the BB it's always better to hit the "quote" button and copy from the typing window. (Just don't press the "Submit" button after you're finished!) See the discussion here.

Links

• OXP for details on finding the ManagedAddOns & AddOns Folders for AppleMAc, Windows & Linux.
• BB Thread with more detail and long list of tweaks.

• Suggestions for change to the system of doing this.
• Aegidian's views on tweaking (and on OXZ's generally!): here. Tweaking an OXP is easier than doing the same to an OXZ.

Other tweaks

• Tweaking background stars, space dust, sun distance, etc. for 1.81+

• Adding extra rows for new commodities to the F8 Market Screen

• Tweaking galaxy seeds: Interactive Maps - and see the linked discussion

Other advice pages

• How do I ... dock / succeed in trading / win a fight / configure my controller/joystick etc