Dissection of an ODF Starship File: Overview and Troubleshooting Tips

This is a point-by-point dissection of the *.odf files used in the game Star Trek: Legacy by Bethesda Softworks. Feel free to distribute/quote this at your leisure. 

AcidFluxxBase included a brief introduction to odf files in his walkthrough, but as it was an introduction only, it left out a great deal of detail. This is intended to be a run-down of everything i've picked up about "*.odf" files, both by trial and error and by asking questions on the forums. 

It consists of a *.html file, a *.jpg and a *.bmp. Open up the *.html file to see everything. The *.bmp is the dissection itself.

It contains basic information on what (almost!) every working line of the *.odf file seems to do, along with trouble-shooting tips as-you-go, explaining the causes of common issues in skirmish mode (including crashes on the ship selection menu, missing warp drives, bizarre problems encountered while making playable space stations, and other assorted bits and pieces).

My goal in writing this was to provide myself with a single reference while editing odf files. I thought i would make it widely available in case other n00bs also find it useful. It's a convenient thing to have opened beside your *.odf files while you're editing them.

- dissembly