So, you've been playing for a while and want to take your first step into the world of Machinima(the art of using a game/game engine for creating cinematic production like a short film) using Phantom Brigade? You already know how to enable dev mode, and made yourself familiar with how to best shoot scenes, but now you have a particular Shot in mind, and need a specific combination of weapon, armor and livery, that isn't provided in one of the existing presets? Maybe you want an Erebus Chest with Asgard arms and Blackbird legs in your own custom purple and gold Livery? Maybe you just want to test around with way to many units at once?Lucky adding simple presets to the game is not that hard.
To start, you'll need to locate the game's install directory. From there, open the Configs folder, then DataDecomposed, then UnitPreset. You could edit an existing one, but we will be using a generic blank template for this, and we will make an Erebus chest and leg mech with Asgard arms an AR and an Heavy handgun
textName:
unitBlueprint: unit_mech
customizationKey: unit_generated_01
livery:
tags:
- type_mech
subsystemTagPreferences:
partTagPreferences:
parts:
core:
liveryOverride: false
livery:
partPresetOverride: true
partPresetTagsUsed: false
partPresetTagPreferences:
partPresetKeys:
- #Chest here
subsystemsOverride: false
subsystems: {}
secondary:
liveryOverride: false
livery:
partPresetOverride: true
partPresetTagsUsed: false
partPresetTagPreferences:
partPresetKeys:
- #Legs here
subsystemsOverride: false
subsystems: {}
optional_left:
liveryOverride: false
livery:
partPresetOverride: true
partPresetTagsUsed: false
partPresetTagPreferences:
partPresetKeys:
- #Arm left here
subsystemsOverride: false
subsystems: {}
optional_right:
liveryOverride: false
livery:
partPresetOverride: true
partPresetTagsUsed: false
partPresetTagPreferences:
partPresetKeys:
- #arm right here
subsystemsOverride: false
subsystems: {}
equipment_left:
liveryOverride: false
livery:
partPresetOverride: true
partPresetTagsUsed: false
partPresetTagPreferences:
partPresetKeys:
- #left weapon here
subsystemsOverride: false
subsystems: {}
equipment_right:
liveryOverride: false
livery:
partPresetOverride: true
partPresetTagsUsed: false
partPresetTagPreferences:
partPresetKeys:
- #right weapon here
subsystemsOverride: false
subsystems: {}
Be cautious to not change the formatting and indents or the file may very well break.
The Name can be ignored for now, the name that shows up in the dev spawn tool is the filename. In this case we will name it “ATest_AR"
The first thing that may be of some use is the “livery” option in line 4 as that determines the livery for all parts that do not have “liveryOveride" set to true, very useful if you want all parts to have the exact same livery, or most of them and enable a different for specific parts, the name you insert in livery is the filename without the .yaml.
The first part we must change is under the “Core” section the Core reefers to the chest armor here, under partPresetKeys:
replace the “#chest here” with the internal name of the armor you want to equip, important is that you use the internal name, the easiest way to find the internal names is by creating the mech you want to make a preset off, saving, and locating the savefile under My documents, My Games, Phantom brigade, Saves, name of the save, units, the name of the file does not correspond with the name you gave the unit in game so a little bit of opening files till you find the correct one is needed. The internal name of a specific component is under “preset” beneath the components type(like core), in this case the internal name for the Erebus Medium Chest is “body_top_set_elbrus_medium_r0”
We will repeat this for every armor and Weapon part, the Terms “optional_left" and “optional_right” reefer to the arms, "secondary" Refeers to the Legs, "equipment_right" refers to the right weapon and "equipment_left” to the left weapon.
For this example they are "body_bottom_set_elbrus_medium_r0" for the legs, "body_arm_set_asgard_heavy_r0" for booth arms, “wpn_rifle_assault_v01_set02_r3” for the Assault Rifle, and “wpn_handgun_heavy_v02_set03_r1” for the handgun
Save the file in the Preset folder under your chosen name ("ATest_AR" in this case) and launch the game, in game after entering a combat scenario, press Numpad 7 to open up the dev spawn menu(dev mode enabled) and near the top should be your new unit, the list is sorted alphabetically, so i recommend making use of that in filenames