Posts by {GrimAxe}Achilles

Are you trying to make PC ships drop their loot, NPC ships or both? If both then no, just add the fuse line to all the ship entries in the shiparch file. If you are after an either or idea (not a good one to do just to NPC´s in my mind) then yes you will need duplicate entries, one with the drop cargo fuse and one without. Make sure to give them different names, but you already knew that.

[Tractor nickname = ge_s_tractor_01 ids_name = 460466 ids_info = 461469 volume = 0.000000 mass = 10 max_length = 1500 reach_speed = 1000 color = 178.5, 178.5, 255.0 operating_effect = tractor_beam tractor_complete_snd = tractor_complete lootable = true HP_child = HPConnect [Tractor nickname = ge_s_tractor_02 ids_name = 460467 ids_info = 461470 volume = 0.000000 mass = 10 max_length = 3000 reach_speed = 1000 color = 128, 255, 128 operating_effect = tractor_beam tractor_complete_snd = tractor_complete lootable = true HP_child = HPConnect [Tractor nickname = ge_s_tractor_03 ids_name = 460468 ids_info = 461471 volume = 0.000000 mass = 10 max_length = 1000 reach_speed = 5000 color = 100, 100, 255 operating_effect = tractor_beam tractor_complete_snd = tractor_complete lootable = true HP_child = HPConnect [Tractor nickname = ge_s_tractor_04 ids_name = 460469 ids_info = 461472 volume = 0.000000 mass = 10 max_length = 2000 reach_speed = 5000 color = 115, 235, 100 operating_effect = tractor_beam tractor_complete_snd = tractor_complete lootable = true HP_child = HPConnect All of them have the same 1k range. Right now 3 of them even have the same color beam and you can see that I gave each of them a different color so I would know which tractor beam was being used.

Ohhhh inquiring minds do want to know… I have been working on this myself and have not managed to get any alteration in range or speed from tractor beams. Is this hard coded in the exe meaning we ask Alcander very nicely if he can go in and look for it or something we have just missed so far?

Cold Void Only with a MOD that adds custom engines is this going to have any effect on any thing. Game stock engines all have the exact same thrust values and L_Drag vaules. Most of the shipwrights use a stock engine when making out ship packages so 98% of the servers out there this will have no effect on. BTW stock capital ship engines do require cargo space to mount, more then any stock freighter has so that is not an issue either. Those changes are exactly what I am trying to do in the Hunters MK II mod; what I HAVE DONE with the MOD. I was specifically after the ability to alter speed and other engine details and then let the players decide for themselves which worked best for them and what was more important to them. And you must not have looked at it as all the engines have volume (so they take up cargo space) and use energy. While it is possible for a VHF to mount a BB engine they are not getting off the ground with it because they won’t have the space left to mount a power plant.

alfa_astrix I would change hp_type = hp_thruster, HpThruster01 hp_type = hp_thruster, HpThruster02 to hp_type = hp_thruster, HpThruster01, HpThruster02 I am not sure that is the fix but I think it will work

Nightlith: By playing with the LD of the ship and the thrust on the engine (I would set the LD on all engines to 1) you should have no problem with setting things so that mounting a light fighter in a light ship will give you a very fast ship, but mounting that same engine in a VHF will give you a very slow ship. Engine has no effect on turning rate so your handling is not going to be effected unless you go like I did and introduce “Drift” or Inertia by mucking with the mass settings. I have 3 levels of Engines; Light, Heavy and Very Heavy. I then broke each of those into 3 types, Cruise, Standard, and Magnum with the level of thrust being increased through each type and through each level to counter the LD of the larger “heavier” ships. This gives me a speed range of 23 through 110 (not counting any help from thrusters) depending on what engine you mount in what ship. If your willing to have a VHF that moves like a snail you can mount a LF engine in it and the way I have it set up give yourself a LOT more cargo room for power or cargo, my weapons don’t require volume. Ship balance is going to take you a while, I wanted the ability for a single LF to take out a VHF as long as the LF pilot was willing to really work at it and could avoid the VHF’s guns for long enough to do so. I put capital ship for sale in my MOD and I do expect teamwork on taking out those with fighters, but not between fighters. I also had problems with some light fighters going to fast to be targeted and so you could not hit them. One thing you are going to have to work out with your heavy reliance on power plant size is missiles, they take no power to fire. One of my bright enterprising pilots got one of those uber-fast LF’s I was just talking about and loaded it up with missile launchers, He was able to kill my HF, and VHF 3 or 4 times without me being able to even SEE his ship much less shoot at it. As for your problem with freighters and you not wanting them to mount the best of everything and turning into battleships; let them mount the best but give them very thin skins. Let the player decide if they think they can kill the other player before getting hit themselves. You’ll just have eggshells running around armed with sledgehammers, a few hits and boom goes the freighter but you don’t want to get hit by one either. Mace; Mass seems to only effect acceleration; how fast you get to top speed and how fast you slow down. I was thinking it also effected how badly you “bounced” off asteroids and the like but Chips corrected me on that. So that means the Saber is one of the quickest accelerating ships in the game.

Night: I have done a lot of the groundwork for a MOD like you are talking about. I wanted more ships and and the Co-writer was adding new systems and bases so its not going to fit you wishes exact, but you can use it for reference if you wish. http://www.sccommand.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1876 for the MOD files. http://www.sccommand.com/phpBB2/index.php?c=69 if you want to post questions about what/how/why I did some of the things the way I did. I check there much more often then I do here.

My first reaction to Cold Voids questioning post was "but all stock engines have the same thrust value so why would it matter!!??!!" Now that he cleared it up that in his mod he has custom ships that required custom engines to work right I can see that he has a valid point. However my mod removes the stock engines and all players get their choice of 9 fighter engines to mount and use. I really want the ability to let the players swap engines after they buy it. I all ready use the engines in the MOD and just accepted that to change engines you had to buy your ship over again, this will fix that for me. So not every use is going to be for cheating. I do agree that the exe editing has potential for a lot of problems, but nowhere near the amount that the cloaking device did. I also see a lot of work going in already to limit the amount of cheating problems these changes could cause. Like anything it can be abused by the sufficiently determined, but we should not ignore the good it can bring because of that.

I must be odd or something but my MOD requires the client as well as the server to be running the 1.1 patch... This has caused a few players problems as most other mods dont run well if at all with the 1.1 patch, and a lot of ppl here tell all the clients to run with the 1.0 version and even before the Hunters Mk II MOD all the Hunters Association servers requested the clients be patched to 1.1 as it caused the server less lag. I cant speek for what it did for clients, but the servers were happier with most or all connected clients running the 1.1 patch.

Alcander: I know I would kill (at least in game <img src=smilies/icon_smile_tongue.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> ) to be able to buy and SELL engines in my MOD. I went ahead and made them buysable and was just living with the inablity to transfer them or sell them to upgrade. The money cap removal would be nice as well. Does this create a new cap or do we endup with limitless growth on bank accounts? I also agree with most everybody here in that some of this knowledge need to be handled with great care, especially things like the fire while in cruise mode. Now can you make another piece of equipment trigger that cruise mode weapons shutdown? Now I dont want to cause a flood of requests because then we will never get anymore new stuff but I would love to have you or somebody make the needed changes for credits and engines as I dont feel I could do it without screwing something up.

This can be done, but (very big BUT here) unmodded engines all give you the same performance no matter what ship you put them in so why bother. If you create your own engines for pilots to buy then you run into another little problem, you cant sell or transfer an engine once you bought it. You can eject it out into space using the jettison cargo ability I have found.

It’s interesting to see how others have tackled the balance issue that DA did such a very poor job with. What I have done with the Hunters Mk II mod is to take out the weapon and shield class level limits. I then based most ships into a size category based on how big the model is and how many weapons it could mount. Because I was also revamping engines and power as player buyable options that take up cargo space I had to increase cargo size. From there I based armor on agility of the ship and how many weapons it could mount, the more agile or HP mounts a ship had the less armor, cargo room and botts/batts. Light fighters have between 1 and 10K armor, Heavies 10K-20K and VHF 20K-30K. The smaller the cargo hold the smaller the engine the slower you would fly and the smaller the power plant the less often you could fire your weapons. I did much the same thing Mace did with his shields for capacity and recharge, but mine were at plus or minus 20% to his 10%. Shields and engines now also draw power and so you must not over tax your power plant by just assuming you can mount the biggest shields and weapons in your light fighter and the smallest power plant and still fight. The power drain off a class 10 Grav LF shield is higher then the power output of a class 3 power plant. Sure you can mount 4 coded weapons on a Drake now, but don’t expect to be able to fire them very often. The power recharge rate (depending on the type of power plant you buy; 3 different types 3 different max capacity and recharge rates) can be about the same and the shield recharge rate, so you have to make every hit really count or go with a slightly lower grade weapon that you can fire more often. I don’t think my system here is as precise as what Argh is working out and I don’t have the beta testers I need to really combat test it, but I think it ends up being a lot better balanced then DA’s attempt at it. What I have now is the ability for a light fighter to go head to head with a VHF and have chance if it is handled right. The light has speed and agility on its side; the VHF has power and armor on its side. If the LF is used right and stays out of the guns of the bigger ship long enough it can take out the VHF, if the VHF get a piece of the LF it is going to leave the LF really hurting very quickly.

Kr_Kill, this character you want to move is on a server you host? If so then you are getting the right file location but to much. (I will explane later in this post) If your not the one hosting the server your character is on then you have to get that servers Admin to aggree to send you your save game files. Once you get your save game file, either from your computer or the admin of the server you play on then you need to have the .fl file placed into the directory that corasponds to the account you already created on your friends server. you can do this by just making a new character with any ole name. He should then be able to find which directory in his multiplayer dictory is yours and put your .fl file, and only the .fl file not the directory from the old server, into that directory. after a server restart you should then be able to access your character.

While playing the game there is pretty much nothing that can be administrated. All admin work is done with 3rd party software from the server console, IFSO (downoadable here at TLR) is one of the most popular software options.

Besideds the fighting of the missions which you have already found there is the also trading of commodities. But what the biggist draw is and I believe always has been is the contact between the human players. They are the ones who create the groups you join and fight other groups of players. Some server allow for territory control and so fights can be over base control, or trading rights in an area, or passage rights into / thru and area, or bragging rights that one side was able to beat the other side. Also some just want to be the richist tycoon on that server, and compeat with others for that bragging right. Its all about the interaction between the players, the computer controled stuff is just background and filler to give you a framework to play in.

With IFSO make sure you add all your new systems and bases to the GAMEDATA_ files (one for bases and one for systems) then IFSO should list them. Anything you add to the game you will need to add to the IFSO GAMEDATE files. Some people have had trouble with IFSO 5, but upgrading to V4 might not be a bad idea. just how are these systems locked? In game you go to the jumphole/gate and it wont let you dock with an &quot;access denied&quot; message or what? And which ones are you having trouble with, single player jumps or ones you added with the MOD?

The Hunters Mk II MOD has capital ships and uses moors for docking, but I still have bays for launching. I have not had a problem with that arrangement yet. The only problems I have had is not all the moor points on all stations have been modified to allow docking and the docking control AI sometime sends a player to a stock point. The player just has to F1 out and move so that the AI will select another moor point. Repeat until they get the right one. If I changed it all the AI Trains and Transports would vanish when they docked with a station.

Anton: I was afraid you were going to say something like that. I tried to find any difference between the INI settings for St01 and the other 4 St0?? systems and could not. As this is a MP only MOD does anybody know what would happen if I just remaned the systems from St0?? to something else? Is the coding specific to those 4 names or is there something else used as the Ident for those systems?

DIfferent NavMap question I was able to make the SP Nomad systems (St01-St03<img src=smilies/icon_smile_blackeye.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> show up on the Multiplayer main NavMap screen, but I have not been able to get a system view of them. Can it be done and has the answer been posted before? I could not find it.

My suggestion would be to download and play some of the other MODs out there right now and see what, and how much, they changed. After that you can start picking them apart to see how they made those changes. After everything is said and done there is not a lot you can´t find a way to change in FL, some things just take more imagination and effort then others.