Posts by Argh

...back from yet MORE experimentation... Sigh. It´s not the FREIGHTER designation, after all. I went back through everything, cleared all bad entries, and then opened up a clean npcships.ini file, and then edited the behavior of all the freighters, so that they used a &quot;fighter ace&quot; profile. Now my freighters will fight back. But transports won´t. I suspect that, like wasabe was saying earlier, now I´ve gotta go back to the pilots_population and fix those pesky Transport pilots so that they, too will be... uh... violent... instead of engaging in Ghandi-like non-violence when confronted by my death-dealing aircraft. BTW, in case anybody cares, I´m having a blast playing this mod. As soon as I get a proper model/skin/loadout/blah figured out for the Liberty Rogues, I´m going to release a Beta. Oh, and btw... I have figured out how to remove all the jumpholes and gates, after all, so I´m keeping Li01 as the start. Which... pretty obviously hoses any attempt to use this mod single-player, but do I care? Nah. I´m having too much fun blowing things away with my machineguns <img src=smilies/icon_smile_big.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>

...back from experimentation... Something is special about FREIGHTER, LIFTER, ARMORED, and TRANSPORT designations. The ship AI <i>definately </i> does not engage in combat agressively when these designations are used. Try to duplicate my results at home: set Cruise_Speed to something ridiculously low, like 30. Then attack a transport or freighter with escorts (gently enough that it´s not dead, hehe). You´ll watch it &quot;fire up&quot; the Cruise Engines, and then it won´t fight back. You can sit off it bow right in front of its turrets, and it still won´t fight back. Bummer... too bad they´re so stupid <img src=smilies/icon_smile_tongue.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> Its Escorts, on the other hand, will break off and attack. Now, maybe something´s wrong with my setup, but changing Pilots_Story and other settings has had zero effect on this behavior whatsoever. After replacing just about everything from the defaults in the SDK and messing with this again, I am really quite certain that certain ship designations are used as AI shorthand for their behavior. Switching FREIGHTERS to CRUISER means that I´ll have to have duplicate entries in ship_hull, etc., just for players to buy, or I can change their designation to FIGHTER, which means that they´ll show up in Encounters more often than usually is the case, unless I go back through npcships and the systems´ ini files and tweak. You´ve gotta understand... I´m not building yer typical &quot;more stuff in Space&quot; mod here. I´m going to have to rebuild a lot of things to get what I want, anyhow. So long as the !*!*@! freighters, Heavy Transports and other things engage in combat (even after they think they´ve &quot;entered Cruise countdown&quot;, which is the problem), I´m happy. I think I´m just going to make them Fighters, because switching them to Cruisers and having duplicate entries everywhere is quite an annoying prospect...

Hmm. You´re certainly right about the Freighter steering. Lemme test it a bit, and make sure that they won´t sit in Cruise and just get pounded... that´s the main issue here... I can´t have ships that just sit there getting mauled. I´m not even averse to making all of the Freighters into Fighters if it fixes that problem... so if this relatively simple change does it, great, I was getting tired of re-writing Encounters anyway <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>

Ok, so now I´ve hacked things in a bit more... suitable way... and I have cracked the problem entirely. First off, the designation &quot;sc_freighter&quot; is referring to the line type = FREIGHTER in Shiparch.ini. Any time an Encounter refers to freighters, it´s going to: 1. Look at the available Loadouts, which are called by the Group assignment. 2. Look for any ships in the Loadouts that refer to FREIGHTER, such as Pi_Freighter (the Mule, which started this whole mess). 3. Assign one of those ships, based upon the Encounter difficulty and type. This requires the engine to search through the local Encounters, which are set up for each Zone in a system, then to refer to faction_prop.ini, which in turn refers to npcships.ini, which ... finally... refers to a given ship hull and a Loadout, which is specified in Loadouts.ini. This is an incredibly cumbersome and over-complicated way of doing things, imho, but it´s the way that the game engine finally figures out how to randomly select a FREIGHTER. Then the <i>behavior </i> ... and this is what I was trying to solve, so this was the important part... is controlled by the TYPE. So, as a less-kludgy, functional solution, I have changed all FREIGHTER entries in my shiparch.ini to CRUISER. This makes them plenty violent... they will NOT try to escape via Cruise, which is basically what I needed to have happen here. Now, they didn´t show up in Encounters until I started changing lines in them from sc_freighter to CRUISER. Be aware: this <i>will </i> cause Factions with CRUISERS listed in Shiparch.ini to start fielding... you guessed it... CRUISERS. Which is actually kinda fun, if you like watching cruisers kick some boo-tay <img src=smilies/icon_smile_wink.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> In my case, it means that I´ll have to change all of the CRUISERS to use the Battleship or Gunboat type, eventually, since I do want to preserve some available hierarchies of powerful warships, and I do want to be able to write Encounters for various Factions that allow them to field warships. Now, for the (hopefully) last major icky technical challenge: how to get ships to ALWAYS spawn at a given height level. This ought to be... tricky. I´m looking forward to it <img src=smilies/icon_smile_wink.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>

Yay! I have found the solution... Chips, ya might want to store this in the Great Halls of Knowledge somewhere... Here´s what´s going on, and how to fix it: In the Encounters folder, you will see lines like these: ship_by_class = 1, 1, sc_freighters This is what <i>finally </i> helped me figure this out. After doing lots of searches through FL´s INIs, I tracked the path here... basically sc_freighters is just another name for class_freighters... which in turn seems to be a very broad class that covers any situation where the engine needs to pick out a freighter. How it does this is still confusing me- I very purposefully changed all of the TYPE = FREIGHTER entries earlier, in an attempt to fix my problems (boy o boy, am I glad I backed the mod up first). Basically, I don´t know <i>why </i> class_freighter points to freighters yet, because it and sc_freighter are only used in a couple of very specific situations in the MISSIONS folder, and aren´t referred to elsewhere.. nor do they seem to specifically refer to a Loadout. Obviously, I´m missing something that´s buried here. Oh well, I´ll explain it if I ever bother to figure it out <img src=smilies/icon_smile_wink.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> Basically, to get rid of the &quot;I´m in Cruise and won´t defend myself&quot; problem, I had to change the behaviors of these silly freighters, by telling the engine that they´re not in a &quot;run away and don´t shoot back&quot; category. This was accomplished by one single replacement: I changed all instances of class_freighter to class_fighter. I think, in retrospect, that it´d have been smarter to call them gunships instead, so I´m going to my last backup of this file and doing it that way. This has an annoying side-effect: it means that in encounters that are mainly fighters and a freighter or two, that you´ll often end up with more freighters than fighters... but at least they´ll defend themselves now. In my mod, this is actually a good thing... I want lots of lumbering ships to show up in certain Encounters, and I´m perfectly willing to hack up different loadouts so that I can get Formations that work for this, as well as other ones that are strictly fighters (by doing it through the loadouts, so that random chance isn´t a factor). In the short term, since I wanna get back to making new aircraft, I´ll just leave in any of the things that will be ships and leave them alone for now.

Nope, that didn´t do a darn thing. What´s more, I´ve been able to make an observation: <i>any </i> ... and I repeat... ANY ship that´s in Cruise is unable, apparantly, to realize that it´s taking damage and then take countermeasures... like dropping out of Cruise and defending itself. I think what I´m going to do is go in and put the -cruise tag into all of the Encounters, and then set the cruise times for the engines to something... huge. I´m afraid that´ll just result in ships sitting around for ages, though, waiting for their cruise engines to cut in. I don´t suppose that you can put a Max_Force line into a ship´s file, getting rid of the ability to Cruise altogether... hmmm. There HAS to be a way to do this, surely. If not, I´m going to have to get really clever to avoid it being an utter pain in the neck. I can´t have ships being helpless targets, no matter whether they hate yer guts and are at 10% health... it´s ridiculous! I´ve observed this same behavior with the Liberty Rogues´ fighters, the CSV, and I presume that if I keep trying to pick fights with things in cruise... with them as well. I tried making the Munition of my standard &quot;machinegun&quot; be a cruise disruptor, but that didn´t work- I´m guessing that Cruise Disruptors need to be a missile with an explosion (?) I´ll search around here for a clue as to why putting the line cruise_disruptor = true doesn´t seem to do anything to ships in cruise.

I´ve already tried this... here´s a section from my npcships.ini: [NPCShipArch nickname = fc_lr_pi_freighter_d1 loadout = fc_lr_pi_freighter_loadout01 level = d19 ship_archetype = pi_freighter pilot = pilot_pirate_ace state_graph = FIGHTER npc_class = unlawful, class_fighter, d19 This was what I´d tried changing the NPCShipArch for Liberty Rogue Mule pilots to. As you can see, he´s using a very &quot;non-scared&quot; pilot, and I did a Find-And-Replace, changing all pilot entries with &quot;freighter&quot; in them to &quot;pilot_pirate_ace&quot;, which you´d think would´ve worked. However... when engaged in combat, their escorts will break and attack, whereas the !*@*!! freighters will continue to use Cruise (which is nerfed to 70 in my mod, for reasons that will become clear when I release the first Beta). Their refusal to A: quit using Cruise and B: Start dodging and firing back is quite irritating. If you´ve got free time, you can change the Cruise speed to something low and then attack any freighter convoy using Cruise... the behavior is the same. I have a sneaking suspicion that it has something to do with the Encounters parameter &quot;sc_freighters&quot;, and the resulting behavior if a ship is classed as a &quot;freighter&quot; or &quot;transport&quot; in its ship file. I´m going to try altering several freighters to be listed as fighters and see whether this changes anything... thanks for taking a moment to look at this, guys <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> Edited by - Argh on 11/5/2004 4:19:31 PM Edited by - Argh on 11/5/2004 4:20:24 PM

You could also set the &quot;lootable&quot; properties of weapons, thrusters, etc., to &quot;false&quot; <img src=smilies/icon_smile_wink.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> That´d take care of those error messages right away. I think the main problem here is having &quot;wrecks&quot; that aren´t proper Solars in the first place. That´s an entirely different problem, of course, but it´s related to what you´re talking about, to some degree.

The answer to both your questions, as of right now... is no. There isn´t any way to own more than one ship, period- even in multiplayer, you can´t trade ships. Lame, but true. As for the second thing... there´s no way to get an NPC to pay you anything directly. All payouts are part of mission structures, and are really paid by whatever part of the code watches for certain booleans to be set (&quot;mission accomplished&quot;, etc.). It would´ve been awesome if DA had finished ripping off Escape Velocity (which is very clearly what the game´s design is based on, if you´ve ever played it), where you can help people in distress and get rewarded, run escort missions, and eventually build fleets with which you can conquer worlds... and make money from taxes, whilst avoiding assasination by the Bounty Hunters <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> But no, DA ran out of money and MS ran out of patience, and Freelancer was shoved out the door with many features incomplete. It´s still a great game, with an awesome engine, but no... you can´t do what you want. In my mod I´m working on... one of the big deals in multiplayer will be that making serious money will require cooperation between players, not just playing lone wolf. So in my game, you should see a lot of &quot;escort my freighter, and I´ll cut you in for 50%&quot; stuff going on. That´ll help people really get into the game, I hope, and create that &quot;Privateer feeling&quot; that the original game never quite reached... Edited by - Argh on 11/4/2004 5:33:12 AM

The biggest question that I haven´t seen an answer to yet is... why hasn´t anybody written an escort mission yet? I´ve seen missions that force the player to a given location (pretty much teleportation) and other manipulations, but no random escort missions. Heck, I don´t even care if the escort missions have a common starting place and ending places (in fact, that makes things more realistic, you wouldn´t escort trade goods to nowhere). When I get done working on the stuff I´m doing now (among other things, I´m working with Fuses to see whether I can get a propeller to spin), I´m going to take a good long look at this. Right now, I´m so new to modding this game that I´m going to be lucky to get Factions, Encounters and Rumors set up for my TC... but by the time I´m done, I intend to tackle the escort-mission-less nature of FL.

Two new screens, showing my new ship (a Starflier replacement) both in and out of combat: <img src=´http://www.wolfegames.com/Freelancer/HanginWithDaBoyz.jpg ´> <img src=´http://www.wolfegames.com/Freelancer/OnSaleNow.jpg ´> Basically, now I´ve just gotta figure out how to get !*@*!*!! custom cockpits working right... I´ve been spending waaaaaay too long looking at UTF edit screens, and then seeing nothing when I get done. I´m going to sleep on it and then come back with a clue But hey, I have a custom ship built... from ground zero, know-nothing to working... in a night´s work. And a whole bunch of other things, too, including getting my &quot;sandbox&quot; as empty as possible (oh, DA, couldn´t you have made fewer things dependent on your frickin´ DLLs?). I have a new system built, that sits all by itself, has an ocean, and will eventually get populated with everything in the mod. Once I figure out how to assign &quot;ships&quot; to Factions, build working Missions, Rumors and Patrols, of course.... <img src=smilies/icon_smile_wink.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> Oh yeah, and I found that my, uh... &quot;experience&quot; with making the visible... invisible... has a unique use in the mod: I built invisible guns for the fixed-forward weapons, so that I can have machineguns sticking out of the aircraft´s wings instead of having these silly Rube Goldberg-type guns attached with bubble gum. It looks very cool, and it makes ship-building easier. Besides the custom cockpit and the missions and factions and patrols (anybody wanna help, there´s tons to do here...), I´ve been sloooowly working on the overall game balance. I´ll talk about that later... I´m going to take a nap and then go to work, and then to class <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> Edited by - Argh on 11/4/2004 5:00:14 AM

See Mod Announcements.

NP Chips, no harm meant, no offense taken <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> Now, as I said before... this is an Alpha and nobody should expect the final version to look anything like this... but here are some shots of the current version: Here´s a shot, showing the scale of the Ocean... it goes off the map: <img src=´http://www.wolfegames.com/Freelancer/screen3.jpg ´> And here´s a combat shot, although it would´ve been nice if I could´ve gotten a shot of me shooting... oh well, I´ll leave that as a pleasant surprise for players <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> <img src=´http://www.wolfegames.com/Freelancer/screen2.jpg ´> Edited by - Argh on 11/3/2004 12:30:19 PM

Thanks Fjord, I think I´m off to a good start, but there is an incredible amount left to do <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> Now I´m going to try to eat something and sleep for awhile- I have class in 7 hours... Ciao <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>

Hmm. Now it´ll draw all the way to 11K, but no further. 11K is just about the size of the thing from edge to edge. There must be a lesson here, somewhere...

Hmm. Tried FLRadius and the FL Model Tool. No dice. Two things are happening here: 1. It quits drawing the object when I fly more than 5000 units away. The LODs are set at 0, 15000, 1000000, so this shouldn´t be happening... at least, that´s what I thought. I noticed that PLANETs do not have LODs... is that the only way to make things more than 5K away show up in the game engine, or am I missing something simple here? 2. FLRadius and FL Model tool set the Bounding Box properties... just fine. But it´s still not drawing if the center is off the screen! As this thing is BIG (and I´d like to make it even bigger, if the engine will cooperate), this is a problem. For those of you who are going, &quot;yeah, sure it´s big&quot;... here´s a screenie: <img src=´http://www.wolfegames.com/Freelancer/HowBigIsIt.jpg ´>

OMG omg OMG... I got it to work, kind of!!! I FINALLY GOT SOMETHING TO RENDER IN THE FL ENGINE!!! WOOT! Uh, but now I have a different problem... If I´m not looking at the center of the object, it won´t render. Yes, I know that´s mentioned somewhere around here... I´ll go look now.

I´ll try that <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> I´m also re-reading Kasdian´s texture guide... hopefully I can get this silly thing to quit mis-behaving. It´s terribly frustrating when I´m good at modeling and skinning, but can´t get the game to display things because of its weird format needs <img src=smilies/icon_smile_tongue.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>

Oh yeah, and if an experienced shipwright could PLEEEEEEEASE go over to the Modeling/Skinning Forum and help me out... I might get the Alpha done sometime before Hell freezes over. I am SO SICK of not being able to figure out why my skinned objects aren´t showing up in the game. I´ve read the tutorials over and over again, and nothing seems to work like they say they should........ GRRRRrrrrrrrrrrr.

Hmmmmm.... It appears that it´s not DockMountA´s fault, after all. It´s just something special about planetary docking rings, probably hard-coded (which would explain why changing the parameters much at all causes the game to crash). I´m now ready to try to put the next item into the game, and then ... we´ll see.