Making a Langston Field

    In Mote in GOd's EYe, sheilds are called Langston Fields. They are not like Freelancer ones.


    4 things to do: 1: Make the sheild glow dull/look like smoke when active
    2: When damaged, the smoke turns first red, yellow, green, ect to blue and then purple just before going down.
    3: When it gets hot enough, have the sheild, and also the hitzone, expand, and the rate of recharge go up
    4: Have the sheild bar be backwards- sheilds down is full bar and up is no bar


    Can this be done?

    I should be able to do the fourth one easy enough, but not a clue about the others. Probably be easiest to reverse all the bars, which would probably be better visually, too.

    in the books and the empire of man series by pournelle also -- the shields absorb energy somehow and radiate it as heat energy the brighter they glow the more they absorb vs radiate they are dull black ( lack of energy ) at rest and when they become to bright they collaspe and let all the stored energy in frying the ship

    Cotidie damnatur qui semper timet - The man who is constantly in fear is every day condemned. (Syrus)

    What he said...


    A normal field acts like a blob of thermally conducting honey. That protects against anything.


    If it gets too hot, it reaches a point where the generator melts and BOOOM goes the ship. Big flash, nothing but vapor.



    An alien upgraded version expands when hot, making it cool down faster due to more surface area, but also absorb more heat from attacks. It also does not destroy the ship when it gets too hot.


    The field is strong enought that a warship can fly inside a star for at least many minutes.

    Problem of all this is that we can't make functions [am I right?]
    Then we can't make any other then static changes or modding those already in-game but those too only in some range.
    So, you can't make glow changing, because I don't know about any item that do so...


    Expanding shield is again same thing, but far more complicated. There we are talking about .sur files which can be made as alone or already whit .cmp . You come to point when you want get those larger.
    If it would be even possible to change their size ingame you would have next problem:
    -take point from total up, left and front of shield. You want larger shield so you have to move upper more up, left more left etc. but what about the point between those 3? I think that FL isn't so advanced game [well with a look on his age we can't swear about it], that it would count shield sufrace from the diameters of it, because back in times those countings would lag game. So he has points provided in .sur files and in game he just connects them and make grid of surface.


    The only way to do so is dynamic change of memory while you playing or using source code of game. Both are beyond my abilities and I think anyones' here. Source code we just haven't and memory change would result in qvantums of errors that would windows provide about that you are manipulating memory etc, etc in first and then we don't know what in memorry would correspond to what neither isolating 1 shield of 1 ship and changing it...


    This is just a long version of what Drake said... FL engine wasn't build on that and so on, we can't make your shields..


    P.S: There is coming out new MMORPG: Jumpgate Evolution.
    I had a look on it and it looks more familliar to FL then I could ever imagine :D
    I just hate that monthly payings so we can just wait and look how it will end up.

    I've added a "Reverse status" option to FL Hack, in the Gauges group. With this option active, the bars start out empty and increase to full. i.e. Power will show how much energy is being used and shield & hull will show how much damage has been taken. I hope that's what you wanted for 4.