DIST

The DIST code appears in the (item).ini files of items.

• DIST determines on what types of planets a given item can spawn, and thus be found.

• DIST is always followed by one or more of the following words:
  • dead
  • cold
  • warm
  • hot
  • toxic
  • none

• Most tech items, such as weapons, have five of the possible words. A typical DIST line in a weapon will look like this:

DIST dead cold warm hot toxic

• Lifeforms typically have fewer DIST tags, to restrict them to the logical habitats for such species. For example, the DIST line of the dangerfish is just:

DIST cold warm

• The none tag should probably not be used in combination with any other tags, as it probably over-rides them. This has not been tested, as far as I know.
• The one to five words that follow DIST correspond to the PLANETITEMS section of distribution.ini. It links those five words to the different planet classes.
  • dead - the item can be found at dead and frozen worlds¹
  • cold - the item can be found at barren worlds²
  • warm - the item can be found at forest, grassland and ocean worlds
  • hot - the item can be found at jungle and desert worlds
  • toxic - the item can be found at volcanic and toxic worlds
  • none - the item cannot be found at random planets at all, but can still appear on ships, be placed by quests, etc.

• By default, no items are randomly distributed to gas giant or homeworld planets.
  • Homeworlds get three items in a different step of galaxy creation.
  • Gas giants are only generated by specific quests (such as Damocles), and have FLAG noitems in their (planet).ini files].

• An item with all 5 (everything but "none") of the DIST tags can show up at nearly any planet.
• An item with only one or two DIST tags can only show up at a few planet types.
  • Presumably, this makes the item somewhat rarer, since there's fewer planets for it to have a chance of spawning at. Again, this really hasn't been tested, and none of the official documents clearly spell out how the star map is generated and populated.

• Additional Planet Classes can be created, by adding them to the game.ini and distribution.ini files, and making (planet).ini files for them. Presumably, this means you can invent new words to follow the DIST code, and have it correspond to the new planets you create, but again, this has not been tested.
  • According to the Modmaker's Guide To The Galaxy, you could have up to 16 such Item Distribution Flags, the limit set by "GD_MAX_IDISTFLAGS 16". So, on top of the 6 in the main game, you could add 10 more if you were feeling really ambitious.

• DIST does not appear to have a direct connection to what can be found in the Klakar Trade Emporium.
  • The Klakar do not appear to duplicate any items found elsewhere in the game, so it may be that items with few DIST tags have a slightly higher chance of showing up with the Klakar, due to process of elimination.³
  • If an item has "DIST none" but lacks "FLAG nogen" it may only be able to spawn with the Klakar or at a homeworld. This too is untested, and it may just not spawn. We don't know for certain.
    • Quests would, of course, still be able to override this behavior.

• If you remove the nogen FLAG from an item that's hidden in the main game (such as the nova cannon) you'll need to change it's DIST tags in order to get it to spawn. Most have "DIST none".

Footnotes

1. !item_files.txt suggests that items with the dead tag only appear at planets of the dead class, but a peek at distribution.ini suggests that they also appear at frozen planets.

2. !item_files.txt suggests that items with the cold tag appear at planets of the frozen and barren classes, but a peek at distribution.ini suggests that cold items only appear at barren planets. Not sure if this is a typo, a bug, or an intentional change.

3. It probably depends on what order the game generates things in. Is the Trade Emporium stocked before or after the planets are populated?