How To: Deactivate collsion bodies permanently for an object
Modding Category: Text file editing
Difficulty: Medium
Some days ago I finally found a way to shut off the collision body of an object entirely. And it was frustratingly easy for the time I have searched after it. 
Well, first I may have to answer the question "What the hell is a collision body?".
It's pretty easy. If you ram into a station you bounce off and / or die. But if you fly through a nebula-crowded sector, you're technically flying through planes with the nebula-texture on them. Yet you don't crash into them or take damage. That is because their collision bodies have been deactivated.
Up until now this was in fact possible by using scripts. But - and that's a big but - this was very limited as collision damage only exists in sector and thus, as soon as the player leaves the sector, the object becomes "normal" again. And when the player now enters the previous sector again, the script has to be "cast" anew (which may not be possible in time).
So let's get down to the technical side of things.
Deactivating the collision body of an object is as simple as adding a line in the BodyData.txt which is to be found in the types-folder.
As can be read in the header of the file, there is a value controlling the collision body of an object. Set that value to "-1" for your entry and link your body correctly - and of course don't forget to update the entry counter at the top of the file - and it's done.
I'm not sure whether it is necessary to fill in the first value if you're adding the path to your body at the end of the line, though. I simply entered a number pointing to a non-existant file. (Remember that this number points at a file with the same number in the file name in the objects\v\-folder!)
That is pretty much it. I'm not sure yet what exactly the other values do. I'll post when I find out more.
Greetings,
enenra
