Download the X-tools XR/X4 catalogue extraction tool from either steam (it’s available in ‘tools’) or the egosoft website
Have a text editor on hand, my personal favourites are notepad++ and vscode
Get familiar with the file structure of the base game, particularly everything within libraries and maps.
With all the necessary files it is now prudent to setup a file structure which should be as follows
your_highway_mod
libraries
maps
extensions
content.xml
highwayconfigurations.xml
xu_ep2_universe
<mod/dlc_file_name>
material_library.xml
zonehighways.xml
maps
sectors.xml
Sectors.xml
Note: extensions is only required if modifying the sectors of a DLC or mod, be sure to follow the way sectors.xml is named in the original. For example for cradle of humanity its actually named dlc_terran_sectors.xml
The inclusion of the libraries directory and its contents is optional and only relevant if the appearance of the highway is to be changed.
Getting Started
To get started open up zonehighways.xml with your editor and add the following:
For those unfamiliar with the usage of <diff/> and <add/> it is well worth looking at the X4 xml guides but in this guide most operations should be fairly self explanatory.
We now want to add a highway macro, to do that we need the following information:
Highway name, I recommend keeping it consistent with the vanilla naming scheme
Highwayxx_Clusteryyy_Sectorzzz_macro
Entry and exit points
Intermediate points with optional (but recommended) tangents
Configuration is optional and is for aesthetic purposes
All other nodes can remain empty
This information is to be added to the following template to the double quotes, e.g. <position x="" y="" z="" /> may be <position x="7000" y="-500" z="36.57" />