Some Ship Setup Questions

StarTrader wrote:

In small ships it is not a real problem - but in big ships it can be a spinning nightmare!

:lol: I guess that is something I have to grow into.

Btw I when you give satellite (child archetypes to station) a spin value, and then in-game hit them with your playership, they sometimes tumble (fall over, that is). Kinda weird. I guess this is based on the same / a similar issue?

Too bad we can’t make a-game-within-the-game out of it: earn reputation by knocking straight the towers on base such-and-such.

Your tutorial is really straightforward, ST! Last time I delved into this was when Argh relased his toolkit. He did great things, but imho he had rather radical ideas about ship handling and how it should all be very different, while I wanted to stay as close to ‘vanilla FL’ as possible.

New Question!

These oddly named hardpoints, like HP_Turret_B2_01, HP_Turret_B3_01, HP_Turret_B3_02 etc. in the Bretonia gunboat, are they a different category than normally named hardpoints (like HP_Turret_01) in fighters and freighters? Are these hardpoints unfit for normal guns?

Or is it just a nickname that could be practically any string? Meaning I could just set them up like every other weapon hp.

I’m inclined to think it’s the second option; just want to be sure.

StarTrader wrote:
Second, they are just unique faction warship hardpoint naming that wasn’t taken further.

Look in the loadouts_special.ini file to confirm.

Of course those hardpoints must exist in the model .cmp

Of course. But those existing HPs can be setup as any weapon HP, which is fine.

Thanks for the reply!

A shield question:

Does a shield work in a certain sphere around its HP? Or does it simply work for the entire ship it is attached too?

Thanks folks, very informative!

StarTrader wrote:

I have put multiple shield hardpoints in very big models, trying to keep the ship covered in any case.

Yeah I noticed people doin that years ago already… But if I understand it properly this isn’t really necessary. Unless one or more shields are being destroyed.

Quarks wrote:

Moonhead wrote:
These oddly named hardpoints, like HP_Turret_B2_01, HP_Turret_B3_01, HP_Turret_B3_02 etc.[…]

These HPs are named to fit the size if the turret mounts on the model, e.g. a turret using the br_turret03.cmp is meant to fit onto the HpTurret_B3_01. Other turret models might look too big or small. But is has no effect on the HP itself.

Hmm… That might imply it would be best to make it a separate class… I want to make all guns buyable, but was planning to get rid of the level restrictions anyway, in order to give the cap ship guns a separate class. Maybe I should reserve more than one class for the cap ship guns.

I never studied the cap ship guns before. Now I did, I noticed they’re a bit of a mess… The model names I mean - they do not correspond very well to the archetype names in the equipment files.

Anyway, what I wanna do is, to get rid of the level-based weapon classes, and instead design a system more or less like:

hp_gun_special_1 = fighters, freighters (so, the vanilla playable ships)

hp_gun_special_2 = the largest fighters (and maybe the largest freighters too)

hp_gun_special_3 = armored transport, repair ships, lifters etc.

hp_gun_special_4 = trains, transports

hp_gun_special_5 = gunboats, destroyers

hp_gun_special_6 = cruisers and cap ships

And four more classes left for special cases. Of couse these could vary per ship, some ships being hybrids etc.

Of course, I can do whatever I want, but does the above outline make any sense? Or would it be more sensible to split the cap ship classes (or any other category) into more classes?

StarTrader wrote:
Yes this is fine.

I did a similar thing myself, but using 2 classes for each ship type (i.e. fighter can take class 1 and class 2), but your idea is better I think - then it makes sense to spread the weapon power and price within each class.

Make each more powerful weapon much more expensive than the lower one.

Thanks for the feedback and for the advice. Yes I had that (the pricing) in mind.

I once decided that I should ‘find’ a formula for FL’s weapons, considering damage (both hull and shield) refire rate, velocity, range etc. which would render a price for a given gun (progressively, so that a heavier shot would cost relatively more than a lighter - the price for having a heavier gun). I came up with something, but it implied I would have to redesign the entire FL armory! Still, I’d think that would be ideal. But limited time and laziness will probably have me ending up with some inspired guesses for the guns’ prices.

Ok next issue (I’m thinking ahead - haven’t done the gun classes yet)

From StarTrader’s excellent tutorial:

always ensure that your ship’s type parameter is type = FIGHTER or type = FREIGHTER. Anything else (type = CAPITAL / CAPITOL / GUNSHIP / GUNBOAT / CRUISER) will make it roll in the opposite direction

I would say that this might cause some problems for cap ship encounters / formations, in which, if my memory serves me right, it is necessary to distinguish between the types of ships - if you wanna use them, that is. Like when you want to have a Bretonian battleship escorted by gunboats, you can’t have them all be fighter types.

So, how to overcome this? Should I simply make both a playable and a NPC copy separately of each cap ship archetype? Or is there a way to modify (or hack) the game
so that it uses the handling behavior of FIGHTERS or FREIGHTERS for all the ship types, so that I could still use e.g. type = GUNBOAT without making it unhandabke?

Thanks again for an excellent tutorial!

I guess I must have confused the type = line in ShipArch.ini with the state_graph = line in NPCShips.ini

I happily found the relevant files in a 2004/2005 mod project, in which I did have some succesful cap ship encounters. More luck than knowledge I guess, and possible copied from forum tutorials.

I see that, in the NPCShips.ini, I have classified the Liberty Dreadnought as a CRUISER… I also remember I did this because it wouldn’t work otherwise (CAPSHIP or whatever default there is). Weird, because I had it in a formation with some (real) cruisers, escorting it on both sides… And the only distinction I can see is the level. But we can’t have ships of differing levels in one encounter, can we? So, I must work it thru to see how I did it back then… Or try my luck again and copy the whole thing into my present mod and hunt down errors afterwards, but that migth be the road to disaster.

Anyway, your reply is saved to my INFO folder so I can take it to work, where internet is thin and distant, like sunlight on Sedna. I hope everything is quiet, so I can look into all this while being paid