Cave unit layout file

In Pikmin 2, each cave unit has a layout.txt file, which controls the spawn coordinates for objects and a few other special things. These can be found in /user/Mukki/mapunits/arc/*/arc.szs/tmp/layout.txt.

Format

Header

The first value in the file specifies the number of spawn coordinate entries this cave unit has. In the canon files, it is commented with num gens ("number of generators"), and is on the second line, since the first line has the comment, BaseGen file.

After the header follows the list of entries.

Entry

Each entry in the list is inside its own block, delimited with { and }.

The first line in the block is the "type of coordinate". Only objects that match this type can spawn here. For a list of type IDs and what they're normally used for (although this is not a hard rule), see here.

The second line is the coordinates themselves, in the format X Y Z. The coordinates are based on the cave unit, not the world coordinates.

The third line is the angle spawned objects will face, given in degrees.

The fourth line is the maximum radius in which the objects can randomly spread out from the initial point. Whenever an object chooses to spawn here, it randomly spreads out from the exact coordinates, using this information.

The fifth and sixth lines are the lower and upper limits of the random amount, respectively. Every time the game picks a spawn coordinate to use, it generates a number between these two limits, inclusive. Then, it spawns that number of objects in this spot (until it spawns more than it intended to, at least).