I need some help. I hope this is the right place to ask.

[Talmor]

How do I copy the Mk 3-9 Command Pod (Near Future Spacecraft), Mark1-2Pod (Squad) and mk1pod (Squad) so i can change there config files. I have already changed the files in the original folders but when i start the game and mouse over the the pod i want its says: Mark1-2 Command Pod (M). I have tried to copy the folders and rename them but they dont show up in game.

[Snark]

5 hours ago, Talmor said:

I have tried to copy the folders and rename them but they dont show up in game.

Depending on how they're implemented, that may or may not work.  Some mods care about what path they're in under GameData.

Editing the original config files ought to work-- if you change a name or a description or a mass or whatever there, then that ought to change their behavior in-game.  Note, however, that all the config files are read only once, at game load time.  So if you're already running KSP and then you edit the files, you won't see any change to the in-game behavior at all-- you'd have to exit KSP and then re-start it in order to see the changes applied.

Note that although editing the original files works, it isn't necessarily the best way to do this.  There are some risks with doing that.  First, you may accidentally munge the file to the point that it's not readable, in which case you've screwed up your game unless you kept a backup copy.  Second, it's "brittle"-- any time you download an update (e.g. you get an updated version of the mod, or you update to a new version of KSP), then your changes will get wiped out and overwritten with a fresh copy of the original file, which means you'd have to do all the work all over again.

Generally speaking, the "best" way (i.e. safest, most robust, can't-break-you, will keep your changes even if you update stuff) is to use ModuleManager config.  ModuleManager is a mod whose purpose in life is to make it easy to tweak things using config files.  It's a really, really common mod-- lots and lots of other mods bundle it and use it to do what they need.

(If you have many mods installed, there's a pretty good chance that you have ModuleManager already.  Look in your GameData folder, do you see a ModuleManager DLL?  If you do, you've got it.  If you don't, you can go install it.)

If you have ModuleManager installed, then what you do is to leave all the original files alone.  Instead, you make your own config file, which is written in ModuleManager config language (there are a lot of examples out there, or you can look at the ModuleManager documentation).  That is basically patch instructions:  "for such-and-such part, change <parameter> to <new value>", you get the idea.

Learning and authoring ModuleManager config isn't hard-- it's fairly straightforward, and pretty well documented.  However, it is moderately technical and requires you to be comfortable with tinkering with specific config syntax.  That's not necessarily everyone's cup of tea-- not everyone is "technical".  The good news, though, is that you've come to a very friendly and helpful community of technical people.    So if you're having trouble figuring out how to do it yourself, you could probably just post here with specific questions (like "I would like to change <property> of <part> to <new value>"), and I bet some helpful person would be happy to write the needed ModuleManager config for you and post it right here.

Does that help?

[Vanamonde]

Modding question moved to the modding subforum. 

[Nightside]

On 12/5/2017 at 6:24 AM, Talmor said:

How do I copy the Mk 3-9 Command Pod (Near Future Spacecraft), Mark1-2Pod (Squad) and mk1pod (Squad) so i can change there config files. I have already changed the files in the original folders but when i start the game and mouse over the the pod i want its says: Mark1-2 Command Pod (M). I have tried to copy the folders and rename them but they dont show up in game.

@Talmor, do you want to change the stats of the existing parts or make a new part with new stats but the same model?

Something to be careful with in the cfgs.

name =  name is used by the game to sort parts but is not visible to the player. It must be unique, if multiple parts share the same name there will be a problem.

title =  title is what shows in the game, these don't have to be unique.

 

As Snark mentioned Module Manager is a very powerful tool for messing with configs. Once you look at a few parts and get comfortable with how parts and modules work, it is much easier to use Module Manager instead.

[Talmor]

Thanks Snark and Nightside. I am running about 110 mods so i do have MM. The new MM is giving me 294 errors at start up. I am not "technical". Now i just have to find a way to scale the AeroRTG and the stock RTG so when i right click on it i can make it smaller or bigger.