I tried to fiddle with the .player files and just replace my already made character with a new character with a better look that I wanted, but because I was just using notepad a lot of things seemed to go wrong. There's also just a LOT of ambiguous data in that folder, and I don't understand most of it. I know I should either deal with it or make a new character, but I really want to change the appearance/stance/colors/hair/etc. of my main character.
What kind of file reader should I use to open .player files? I'm using notepad++ and I'm seeing a lot of weird symbols like NUL and BEL
Here is a tutorial on making .player files readable http://community.playstarbound.com/threads/opening-player-files.122343/
Same here, Starcheat is outdated (or was a few days ago, when I checked) and I am this kind of person that would recostumize its character once every few hours.
You don't need Starcheat. Just create a new character with the appearance that you want your old one to have, use the method in the tutorial to make them readable and copy the chunk of data from the screenshot i posted above from your new character to the old one. Then use the same method from the tutorial to make your new .player file but replace "dump_versioned_json.exe" with "make_versioned_json.exe".
What do you mean by "Then use the same method from the tutorial to make your new .player file but replace "dump_versioned_json.exe" with "make_versioned_json.exe" - sorry I'm such a noob.
Hello ! The idea is that player files are "packed" in a (binary) format for easier use by the game. It's great for programs, but more difficult for people who want to edit the files. That's why there are two utilities in Starbound folder to help unpacking (dump_versioned_json) and re-pack (make_versioned_json) once you're done with editing. You can think of that as taking papers out of a box, writing stuff on them and putting them in the box again. The tutorial that zeleni3 linked tells you how to "unpack", so that you can change the values you want as human-readable text, in Notepad or Notepad++ or whatever you feel comfortable with. The command works as follows (if you're on Windows) : dump_versioned_json.exe yourplayerfile.player thefileintextformat.player Then you can edit "thefileintextformat.player". To "repack" to make the game understand your player file again, you can follow the tutorial again, with 2 changes in the command (the program name is different and the input/output file names are switched). The command you'll enter will be : make_versioned_json.exe thefileintextformat.player yourplayerfile.player