Missions… Missions...

[FuryFreelancer]

Any mission experts on here? (ok stupid question….).

I have done missions fine in a couple of existing systems with existing factions. However, I have decided to liven up some of the ‘out-world’ systems that don’t really have much going on. I have created a new unlawful faction… and have set other existing factions such as the order to attack them.

I have followed tutorials, forum postings, the works… so I don’t want referring any more My base and npc entries all seem spot on. The mvendor is set to offer missions and are certain base factions. The offers missions line is present and set to true. The new faction i made has proper loadouts, ships etc (I tested them seperate), and they have been added to the vignetteparams.ini file to be included in mission types.

Every time I visit the mission dealer or any character in the bar that is supposed to give missions, nothing shows up. It always says nothing is available. There are ambient pop zones in my system, so it should pick from something there with no problems.

I’m wondering if it has anything to do with the fact that my missions will be for unlawfuls against unlawfuls. I have tried every damn vignette type too. Open, field and exclusion, with ‘unlawful, lawful’, ‘lawful, unlawful’, ‘unlawful’, and ‘unlawful, unlawful’, the latter of which seemed the right choice. I’m not sure what half of them are actually for, and there is NO info anywhere.

Help

[DwnUndr]

For tutorials, go here:

http://freelancercommunity.net/viewtopic.php?t=346

This is what you would want for unlawful vs unlawful:

[Zone]
nickname = Zone_SD01_destroy_vignette_01 <–------rename SD to your system name
shape = SPHERE
pos = 16362, 0, -12607
size = 10000
sort = 99.500000
mission_type = unlawful
vignette_type = open

There is only one exception to this in vanilla; ‘unlawful, unlawful’ at vig 16, Br01

Note that both have to be designated as unlawful in faction_prop, not just your desire for them to be bad, heh. They both must also possess ships in faction_prop.

First thing for you to check, perhaps you have done everything correctly, but failed to make yourself friendly first? If you beam to a hostile base and are hostile to them, they will not show you missions even if they work.

[FuryFreelancer]

Ty for reply DwnUndr. Yeah, I followed your guide along with Lancer’s similar one. I have it exactly like that currently. I am indeed friendly with the base faction, there are indeed pop encounters in the system for the target faction, and they all have npc ships and working loadouts etc. I have rebuilt it all from scratch and it just doesn’t want to do it. I’ll attempt it again tomorrow

[khayman]

I found that if the factions (the one that own the base and the one you want to be killed) hate eachother in the initialworld.ini theres no problems…

[FuryFreelancer]

Well yeah man…. that’s a given.

[FuryFreelancer]

No luck. I don’t know wtf is going on at all. So i’ll stick my system file and mbase entry onto pastebin so one of you lot can have a better browse…

FYI, I have made the order lawful, and they have NPC ships just the same as the nomads do. I made sure my char was rep edited to be enemies to the nomads and into the green with the order.

Bugger all shows up at the mission dealer still, after all this crap. This is an entirely fresh system to yesterday too… stupidly annoying… wasted hours on this getting nowhere…

The full system ini: http://pastebin.com/m468842dd
The mBases entry: http://pastebin.com/m34e67fbc

Whoever can sort me out with this most annoying thing I’ve ever come across… well… I’ll be extremely grateful…

EDIT

Also, is with the 3 vignette types? “Open”, “Field” & “Exclusion”. A quick skim through vanilla system files tells me that “Open” is used most frequently, but they all get utilized at some stage. When are they to be used and for what purpose? Is it something DA left out again like I suspect… or is it actually critical…? Thanks ;D

[mknote]

For the three zone types:

Open - All mission types are available.
Field - All mission types are available except Destroy Base.
Exclusion - All mission types are available in a set radius from the center of the zone; beyond that, it acts as a field type.

Also, have you set the Order faction to allow missions? Normally, they can’t give missions, so you have to fiddle with some settings to allow them to. Also, you can’t normally fly missions against Nomads, again requiring you to change some settings.

MK

[DwnUndr]

@FuryFreelancer:

Also, is with the 3 vignette types? “Open”, “Field” & “Exclusion”.

Open can be used anywhere.  Field means the mission will tell you to go to the ‘Pittsburgh Debris Field’ instead of ‘Sector 4B’.  You have to define this in a few places before it will work in new systems.  Exclusion is a clearing in a field of course.  See vanilla Ew02 for a good example.

For the problem (since you didn’t give faction_prop), try a quick substitution of some other know factions rather than nomads and order.  Throw in known vanilla good and bad guys into your pop zones and test again.  That will narrow it considerably.

edit, we replied almost at the same time, heh. I like your explanations of the field, looks sound.

[FuryFreelancer]

Thanks both Mk, what ‘settings’ do you mean?

[mknote]

I’m not quite certain, but I believe that it is somewhere in Common.dll. It is also possible to make a psuedo-Order and psuedo-Nomad faction, that is, direct copies of the respective factions, just with different nicknames. It is the names “fc_or_grp” and “fc_n_grp” that are coded not to a.) give out missions and b.) appear on the rep list, if I recall correctly. So, either hack the Common.dll (there are tutorials on it) or create two new factions. I personally chose the latter option, but whichever works best for you.

MK

[FuryFreelancer]

Already done the common.dll hack to allow them to show up their. And that is ‘only’ what it does. It has nothing to do with missions. It’s purely an aesthetic patch. I thought you meant something more… something in some .ini’s… factionprop maybe. I don’t know what but…yeh… that’s what I though

I guess I could create a new order faction though and test that way. Or do what DwnUndr said and use alternate vanilla factions to eliminate the order as a problem. Something hardcoded could be preventing them from showing with the order…

[FuryFreelancer]

Some more clarification needed on some info found in tuts guys…

DwnUndr, in your tutorial you give this:

[Zone]
nickname = Zone_RA01_destroy_vignette_01
shape = SPHERE
pos = -49703, 0, 70216
size = 10000
sort = 99.500000
vignette_type = open

You don’t give a mission type in there… no ‘mission_type’ line. I assume it’s not necessary for the typical lawful missions against unlawful. Either that, or it will be used for all types. Not sure. In other tutorials, and looking at destroy vignettes in existing systems, they all have a ‘mission_type’ line, be it “unlawful, lawful”, “lawful, unlawful” etc etc. You go on to say it is only needed when it’s missions ‘for’ unlawfuls (against lawfuls).

Then another oddity, is that in Lancer Solarus’ tutorial, he designates all zones to be included in the mission, by placing a mission eligible true statement in the appropriate zone. He did this in an ambient pop zone. I have never seen this done before, and you didn’t put it in your tutorial here, so is that not necessary? As I understand it, the missions will be chosen from a pool of ‘unlawfuls’ currently in the system so this makes that entry pointless, no?

I went through vanilla files and the only places I found “mission_eligible = true” was on patrol paths, and not pop/field zones. This is the excerpt from Lancer’s tut I am talking about:

In the zone where your factions are listed, add the following commands above the faction and encounter entries, this will enable the faction(s) to participate in the missions

mission_type = unlawful, lawful
vignette_type = open
mission_eligible = True 

I don’t see that ‘eligible’ requirement anywhere else, except for patrol paths, which I try to avoid anyway.

On the plus side, I learnt a few things from this, including what ‘Open’, ‘Field’, and ‘Exclusion’ are for (kinda self-explanatory really :P), and learnt about how factions are ‘pooled’ and various things about placement of vignettes etc, so it’s all good, if a little annoying

[mknote]

So, wait. Is the problem solved, or not?

MK

[FuryFreelancer]

Nope.

[DwnUndr]

All of you assumptions are correct. For a standard lawful base, there is no need for the mission_type line if against unlawfuls.

Have you substituted known factions in your system ini yet? Very easy to test and will tell you if the problem is with the two factions (nomads and order) or mission coding.

[FuryFreelancer]

Edit - Let me start again, lol

Came back to doing missions again today after a little break… and here is the deal.

I substituted the new factions for existing ones as per your suggestion Dwn. I made my base belong to liberty police and did the necessary in mbases to allow them to offer missions. I made a fresh lawful pool in the form of a new ambient pop (background) zone, full of a ton of vanilla criminals (corsairs, outcasts, mollys etc). I confirmed these first by flying around and noitcing they were indeed spawning in space as they should.

Then I went to the mission vendor in game and a couple of NPCs and they offered missions like they should. It seems to be pretty much only outcasts and corsairs though for some reason… I’m guessing this is because of the level of missions i’ve actually specified in mbases?!.. anyway that’s not critical. The point is this approach works… lawful missions against unlawful with vanilla factions.

Now I switched back to my original idea. My new order faction (lawful) as the base owners and only base faction, offering missions., and setting up an ambient pop zone that only contains my new nomad faction (unlawful). Nothing ever appears this way either at the mvendor or the bar NPCs. I decided to try it the other way… ie. Nomad owned base offering missions against my new order factions with their pimped out Anubis ships… and… this actually worked!!! Yes, I am indeed editing my char to be friendly and hostile accordingly with this. I’ve tried my characters each time too, to eliminate possible corruptions/conflicts and the like.

So that’s where I am at. I initially thought it was maybe a ship architecture or loadouts issue, but they all fly around and work properly outside of missions. Therefore, i’m asking again What would cause new factions (just my new nomad one now) to not show up for missions, but work every other way. I am truly at a loss… please help… I will upload ini’s if I have to… that will be tomorrow now. The only thing my new nomad group has that is different to all other factions is they have the wierd “nomad= true” line in their ships entry (which I’ve never understood, but tried with and without with no noticeable difference… perhaps this is story/script-related?!), and they don’t speak… they have no voice etc… could this be why? Help.

Cheers

[mknote]

No, that isn’t the problem, as my Nomad faction also has Nomad = true and no voices. Could you post the code for your Nomads?

MK

[FuryFreelancer]

I suspected so

Yes, here are the appropriate elements:

System .ini (Ew05) - Zone & Vignettes (yes I declared the encounter at the top):

[Zone]
nickname = Zone_Ew05_pop_ambient_01
pos = -178, 0, 178
rotate = 0, 0, 0
shape = SPHERE
size = 44707
comment = Ambient Pop
sort = 51
toughness = 4
density = 15
repop_time = 25
max_battle_size = 8
pop_type = Background
relief_time = 35
population_additive = false
faction_weight = new_n_grp, 20
encounter = area_nomads, 19, 1.000000
faction = new_n_grp, 1.000000

[Zone]
nickname = Zone_Ew05_destroy_vignette_01
pos = 23425, 0, -7867
shape = SPHERE
size = 10000
sort = 99.500000
vignette_type = open

[Zone]
nickname = Zone_Ew05_destroy_vignette_02
pos = 23425, 0, 19492
shape = SPHERE
size = 10000
sort = 99.500000
vignette_type = open

[Zone]
nickname = Zone_Ew05_destroy_vignette_03
pos = 15020, 0, -22173
shape = SPHERE
size = 10000
sort = 99.500000
vignette_type = open

[Zone]
nickname = Zone_Ew05_destroy_vignette_04
pos = 1073, 0, 19492
shape = SPHERE
size = 10000
sort = 99.500000
vignette_type = open

[Zone]
nickname = Zone_Ew05_destroy_vignette_05
pos = 178, 0, -17703
shape = SPHERE
size = 10000
sort = 99.500000
vignette_type = open

mBases.ini (for base giving the missions):

[MBase]
nickname = Ew05_01_Base
local_faction = nm_or_grp
diff = 17
msg_id_prefix = ignore

[MVendor]
num_offers = 3, 5

[BaseFaction]
faction = nm_or_grp
weight = 100
offers_missions = true
mission_type = DestroyMission, 38.983860, 73.051361, 100
npc = ew0501_001_m
npc = ew0501_006_m

[GF_NPC]
nickname = ew0501_006_m
body = pi_orillion_body
head = pi_pirate2_head
lefthand = benchmark_male_hand_left
righthand = benchmark_male_hand_right
individual_name = 524299
affiliation = nm_or_grp
voice = rvp131
misn = DestroyMission, 38.983860, 73.051361
room = bar

[GF_NPC]
nickname = ew0501_fix_bartender
body = pl_male1_peasant_body
head = pi_pirate1_head
lefthand = benchmark_male_hand_left
righthand = benchmark_male_hand_right
individual_name = 524298
affiliation = nm_or_grp
voice = rvp101

[GF_NPC]
nickname = ew0501_fix_ship
body = pl_male1_peasant_body
head = li_rockford_head
lefthand = benchmark_male_hand_left
righthand = benchmark_male_hand_right
individual_name = 524297
affiliation = nm_or_grp
voice = rvp101

[GF_NPC]
nickname = ew0501_fix_trader
body = pl_male1_peasant_body
head = br_brighton_head
lefthand = benchmark_male_hand_left
righthand = benchmark_male_hand_right
individual_name = 524296
affiliation = nm_or_grp
voice = rvp106

[GF_NPC]
nickname = ew0501_fix_weaponsdealer
body = pl_male1_peasant_body
head = ge_male3_head
lefthand = benchmark_male_hand_left
righthand = benchmark_male_hand_right
individual_name = 524295
affiliation = nm_or_grp
voice = rvp101

[GF_NPC]
nickname = ew0501_001_m
body = pi_orillion_body
head = ge_male1_head
lefthand = benchmark_male_hand_left
righthand = benchmark_male_hand_right
individual_name = 524294
affiliation = nm_or_grp
voice = rvp106
misn = DestroyMission, 38.983860, 73.051361
room = bar

[MRoom]
nickname = bar
character_density = 4
fixture = ew0501_fix_bartender, Zs/NPC/Bartender/01/A/Stand, scripts\vendors\li_host_fidget.thn, bartender

[MRoom]
nickname = Deck
character_density = 2
fixture = ew0501_fix_trader, Zs/NPC/Trader/01/A/Stand, scripts\vendors\li_commtrader_fidget.thn, trader
fixture = ew0501_fix_weaponsdealer, Zs/NPC/Equipment/01/A/Stand, scripts\vendors\li_equipdealer_fidget.thn, Equipment

[MRoom]
nickname = ShipDealer
character_density = 2
fixture = ew0501_fix_ship, Zs/NPC/Shipdealer/01/A/Stand, scripts\vendors\li_shipdealer_fidget.thn, ShipDealer

``` _**area_nomads.ini**_

[EncounterFormation]
ship_by_class = 1, 1, fighters ;spawn 1 ship for leader
pilot_job = nomad_leader_job ;this is present and ok
make_class = wanderer
ship_by_class = 3, 5, fighters, -2 ;and 3-5 for fighters at 2 levels under leader
pilot_job = nomad_fighter_job ;this is present and ok
make_class = wanderer
formation_by_class = fighters
behavior = wander
arrival = all
allow_simultaneous_creation = yes
zone_creation_distance = 0
times_to_create = infinite

[Creation]
permutation = 0, 7

_**faction_prop.ini:**_

[FactionProps] ;new nomad faction
affiliation = new_n_grp
legality = unlawful
nickname_plurality = plural
msg_id_prefix = ignore
jump_preference = any
npc_ship = Nomad_Gunboat ;all these npc ships are present
npc_ship = no_fighter_new_d19 ;narrowed ships to 1 for testing purposes
npc_ship = Nomad_Battleship
mc_costume = mc_fc
firstname_male = 458827, 458827
firstname_female = 458827, 458827
lastname = 458828, 458828
rank_desig = 459097, 459097, 459097, 10, 15
large_ship_desig = 459097
large_ship_names = 459097, 459097
formation_desig = 197808, 197820
formation = fighters, fighter_guild
formation = gunboats, gunboat_wall
formation = battleships, battleship_wall

_**Pilots_Population.ini:**_

[Pilot]
nickname = nomad_fighter_ace
gun_id = gun_fighter_ace_style_a
missile_id = missile_fighter_ace
evade_dodge_id = evade_dodge_fighter_chaos_hard
evade_break_id = evade_break_fighter_style_e
buzz_head_toward_id = buzz_head_toward_fighter_chaos
buzz_pass_by_id = buzz_pass_by_fighter_style_c
trail_id = trail_fighter_style_a
strafe_id = strafe_fighter_style_a
engine_kill_id = engine_kill_fighter_style_a
mine_id = mine_light_fighter_a
countermeasure_id = countermeasure_handicap_1
damage_reaction_id = damage_reaction_fighter_style_a
missile_reaction_id = missile_reaction_fighter_style_a
formation_id = formation_fighter_style_d
repair_id = repair_fighter_ace
job_id = defend_leader_job

_**npcships.ini:**_

[NPCShipArch]
nickname = no_fighter_new_d19
loadout = no_fighter_new ;this loadout is below (present)
level = d19 ;level 19 in encounters unless overridden by mission parameter
ship_archetype = no_fighter ;default game archetype
pilot = nomad_fighter_ace ;this is present and ok
state_graph = FIGHTER
npc_class = unlawful, FIGHTER, d13, d14, d15, d16, d17, d18, d19 ;I’ve tried these different ways… no luck

_**loadouts.ini (ship loadout):**_

[Loadout]
nickname = no_fighter_new
archetype = no_fighter ;standard vanilla ship
equip = nomad_engine ;all these equipment pieces are present and ok
equip = nomad_power
equip = nomad_scanner
equip = nomad_tractor
equip = nomad_thruster, HpThruster01
equip = new_nomad_laser01, HpWeapon01
equip = new_nomad_laser02, HpWeapon02
equip = new_nomad_laser03, HpWeapon03
equip = nomad_cmd_1, HpCM01
equip = nomad_mine_1, HpMine01
equip = nomad_cd_1, HpTorpedo01
equip = LargeWhiteSpecial, HpHeadlight01
equip = nomad_armour
cargo = ge_s_repair_01, 25

My weaponry is all present and correct in my weapon equip & good files for the above. I tested them all years ago :P Besides they appear ok in encounter zones outside of missions, so that must all be ok no?!

I think that's all the necessary files… but shout up if you need any more. All factions work... just not my nomad one, so I can't get lawful order missions against nomads working...grrr! ;D

[Bejaymac]

ROFLMFAO ::)

Your faction (new_n_grp) is trying to give missions against themselves ::), you need to add a faction thier hostile with to the zone.

EDIT

Just spotted this as well -

[BaseFaction]
faction = nm_or_grp
weight = 100
offers_missions = true
mission_type = DestroyMission, 38.983860, 73.051361, 100
npc = ew0501_001_m
npc = ew0501_006_m

[GF_NPC]
nickname = ew0501_006_m
body = pi_orillion_body
head = pi_pirate2_head
lefthand = benchmark_male_hand_left
righthand = benchmark_male_hand_right
individual_name = 524299
affiliation = new_n_grp
voice = rvp131
misn = DestroyMission, 38.983860, 73.051361
room = bar

Those 2 green bits need to match.

[FuryFreelancer]

Yeh, that ISN’T the problem. That’s just a typo I made this morning. The problem still stands with that how it should be.

So ROFLMAO somewhere else unless you’re going to be helpful.