Messages

1

Game Assets /

« on: November 30, 2010, 01:33:12 »

For the muzzle flash of multi-barreled turrets, you could think along the lines of energy weapons in high-tech anime shows. In these, the weapons often charge up, and then form one big ball of energy that the shot fires out of, instead of one ball for each barrel. It isn't ideal from a realism stand point, and it does work within the limits of Nexus' engine.

2

Help / Technical Support /

« on: November 01, 2010, 04:33:14 »

Or perhaps mistakenly selecting the 'Cinematic' mission type?

3

Scripting /

« on: August 24, 2010, 06:40:04 »

Playing on the idea I suggested recently in the thread about extra weapon slots, perhaps you could have 'batteries' of weapons, with each weapon in the battery having a slightly different firing time and using a machine to make the invisible ones fire on the same target as the 'parent' system? Though that would mean each parent weapon system on a given ship would have to have a unique devicetype...

4

Mod Development / Released Mods /

« on: August 22, 2010, 02:15:13 »

Could one not create a machine that links weapon systems of a specific name to invisible weapon systems, so that activating Railgun A also activates Hidden Railgun 1 and 2? Perhaps not the prettiest solution, and it would allow you to tuck some weapon systems out of sight and still have them (pseudo) manually controlled.

5

Mod Development / Released Mods /

« on: August 09, 2010, 07:50:48 »

Giving length to the shot's trail:

If you're using a Flare for the ball of energy at the head of the blast, and a Snake for the trailing laser, giving it the length you want is as simple as determining the maximum distance at which the weapon can fire (say, 20000 meters), the rate at which it travels (2000 meters/second), and making the NodeAtt, NodeSus, and NodeDec values of the Snake total the length of time it would take the blast to travel it's maximum distance (in this case, 10 seconds). I would probably go with a NodeAtt of 0, NodeSus of 8, and NodeDec of 2. This way, the Snake is at its full width directly behind the ball, and the last 20% of it slowly tapers to a point.

Below is an example set from my mod_efx.ini file, assuming a travel time of 4 seconds at maximum range.

Code: [Select]

EFX 327 // Prototype Beam Cannon

FLARE
Type 12
Size 500
Color 0.5 1 0.5
Color 0 0.5 0
Attack 1
Decay 3
FLARE

STRIP
Texture 12
Length 750
Radius 200
Color 0.5 1 0.5
Color 0 0.5 0
Attack 1
Decay 3
STRIP
EFX

EFX 328

FLARE
Type 4
Size 5000
Color 0.5 1 0.5
ColorB 0 0.5 0
Attack 0.1
Multiply 5 1 0 0
FLARE

SNAKE
Texture 11
TexScale 2000
SRadius 200
ERadius 200
Color 0.5 1 0.5
ColorB 0 0.5 0
NodeSus 3.2
NodeDec 0.8
SNAKE

EFX

EFX 329

FLARE
Type 4
Size 1000
Color 0.5 1 0.5
Color 0 0.5 0
Attack 1
Sustain 1
Decay 2
FLARE

EFX
Note that the 'Multiply 5 1 0 0' line in the Flare is to make it appear brighter by concentrating 5 flare effects into the same small area. It applies 5 flares in a radius of 1 meter with 0 size variation and 0 random delay between each appearing. It may just be my graphic settings, and I find that without this, the flare appears a little feeble.

6

Mod Development / Released Mods /

« on: August 03, 2010, 05:38:14 »

Greetings! I think I may be able to offer some help, if only with the animation part. First, how much experience do you have with designing your own weapon animations?

7

Mod Development / Released Mods /

« on: May 23, 2010, 20:38:12 »

I think your CountDec is too high. It tries to subtract four every time a single fighter is launched, if I'm not mistaken. I'm no expert, but if you change the CountDec on the fighter itself to 1, I think it will fix the problem of them not launching.

Edit: Alright, that doesn't seem to stop them from launching in my mod. The other thing I can see is that my fighters are in sets 20, 22, and 140, but dropping it down to a single set didn't make a difference in the AI launching (yet my memory seems to suggest that I had an issue with that in Cinema mode. Oh well.)

Edit2: It seems every idea I have doesn't pan out when I test it with my mod. I was going to suggest the possibility that the AI isn't launching the fighters because the launcher has no Civilization line, but no dice there. I even tried combining all three of the things I mentioned, and nothing.

Edit3: Is it that they won't launch period, or just that they won't send the fighters to attack? If they'll launch the fighters, but only keep them defending their own ships, then the Purpose line is probably at fault. I just ran a quick test with the Purpose line of my fighters commented out, and the AI wouldn't send them to attack like it normally does.

8

Scripting /

« on: May 21, 2010, 02:26:03 »

Thanks for that, Arparso! I'll have to look up all the commands you used so that I can properly understand what you did there.

Would it not also be possible to select any fatally damaged ships and convert them to Behavior 4 to clear sufficient space for additional ships to arrive?

9

Scripting /

« on: May 20, 2010, 21:14:16 »

So if I'm not assigning a race to the waiting ships at the start, what would be the best way to figure out which one is the closest to the player's main ship and change its behavior?

10

Scripting /

« on: May 20, 2010, 02:24:17 »

I agree on both points, Mularac. I was picturing something along the lines of starting centered on the nav point, having three or four AI ships drop in right in front of the camera, and then have a dramatic sweep down the corridor of waiting ships to the point where the player's ships are moving from.

11

Scripting /

« on: May 20, 2010, 00:40:01 »

If you'll pardon the language, I'm going for an "Oh shit, I'm up against all THAT?" response from the player - something to impress upon them just why they should care that particular forces in my mod are allying with one another. While in the first scenario I intend for this to occur in, the player's objective will be to flee, I do intend to use it in an epic 'wave after wave' battle towards the end of the narrative.

Obviously, it would also have its uses in having ships hiding in wreck yards, only to activate when the player passes, too. The player approaches a cluster of wrecks to see if any are salvageable, and is surprised to find that some of them aren't wrecks at all, but are in fact pirates waiting to spring an ambush.

12

Scripting / Behavior 4 as a 'holding pattern'

« on: May 19, 2010, 05:34:04 »

I've read of using Behavior 4 to create wreck yards, which set me to wondering - how viable is using Behavior 4 to create hordes of ships that 'wait in the wings' until a condition is met (say, the AI fleet falling below a certain number of ships) before becoming active and entering the fray?

13

Scripting /

« on: May 16, 2010, 04:36:22 »

It figures - I tried changing the condition to almost exactly what you suggested, Arparso, but made the mistake of using E.Shield= instead of E.Shield:. Thank you for the help - it now works precisely as intended.  

14

Scripting /

« on: May 16, 2010, 01:08:36 »

Sure thing, Arparso. Topic title changed to reflect that.  

Anyway, here's what I came up with for my machine. It works - except that it applies itself to every ship that has shields, rather than just ships with the shld_fulldef device.

Code: [Select]

MACHINE "fdevshld"
STATE watch
RULE event ShieldUp
Condition e.shield:=#shld_fulldef
:action
Weapons:=GetFreeSel();
SelectDevices(Weapons,e.ship,InSet(s.this,31)|InSet(s.this,32)|InSet(s.this,39));
Execlist(Weapons,enabledevice(s.this,0));
:end
END

RULE event ShieldDown
Condition e.shield:=#shld_fulldef
:action
Weapons:=GetFreeSel();
SelectDevices(Weapons,e.ship,Inset(s.this,31)|InSet(s.this,32)|InSet(s.this,39));
Execlist(Weapons,enabledevice(s.this,1));
:end
END
END // STATE watch
END // MACHINE fdevshld

15

Scripting /

« on: May 15, 2010, 08:36:41 »

I had figured that would be what was necessary to make it work. I'll try to get it on my own first, and if I can't figure it out by this time tomorrow, I'll come back and ask for help.  

16

General Discussion /

« on: May 15, 2010, 07:43:00 »

Thanks for the reply, Mularac!

In regards to the damage capacity of ships in my mod, suffice to say that it will be generally unreasonable to expect to finish a mission with all your ships intact - especially against the default skirmisher AI, which focuses all its firepower on a single target. There are exceptions, of course - if your only ship is a Fleet Carrier, the strongest in the mod thanks to its Level 2 Screens (reduce incoming damage by 66%), 980 HP, two medium range beam batteries, and six wings of fighters, and your opponents are all Courier class vessels, with no anti-fighter defenses, 20HP, and only a single short range weapon of their own, then odds are you'd have to play really poorly to see your Fleet Carrier be taken down. Most scenarios, however, will see you fighting against an equal or greater number of opposing ships with around the same degree of fire power as your own.

As an example, the scenario I just finished creating pits you against seven enemy vessels (in order of increasing potency, two destroyers, two light cruisers, two escort cruisers, and one heavy cruiser) while granting you five expendable combat vessels (three heavy cruisers and two needle cruisers - specialized ships using the heavy cruiser chassis, equipped with level 2 screens and armed solely with anti-device weaponry) and one unarmed but highly agile drone that you must escort to a nav point on the far side of the map. Selecting the drone allows you to summon reinforcement ships - needle cruisers or heavy cruisers, both of which take 30 seconds to arrive. Though it is possible to complete the scenario while losing only a single ship, I've played the mission at least two dozen times over yesterday and today and found that it's more likely that two or three casualties will occur, despite the technically superior armament the player is given.

17

Scripting / Shields that prevent their parent ship from firing

« on: May 15, 2010, 07:19:53 »

Would it be possible to create, and if so how would I go about implementing, a set of shields that prevent their parent ship from firing when active?

As some background for the question, in my mod, shields typically take the form of energy screens that cause incoming laser weapons to "bloom" just before impact and in so doing vastly reduce the damage they deal. In the case of a "full defense mode" shield, however, it would actually fully stop and absorb incoming fire, at the expense of also absorbing outgoing shots within its area of effect. Thus, as long as they're up, they prevent their parent ship from being damaged, while also preventing it from attacking - perfect as a "decoy ship" thrown into the AI fleet to draw their fire while the rest of the fleet moves into place, for example. Of course, such would work against the default AI, but would only work against the AI I intend to create for the mod if you keep all other ships out of sight, but that's a matter for a different thread.

Edit: Instead of asking one specific question per thread, and thus likely overwhelming this area with my learning process, I'll limit it to a single thread and post a new question here whenever a new issue comes up.

18

General Discussion / The Ingredients of Challenging Scenarios

« on: May 07, 2010, 04:48:43 »

A fairly simple question, here: In your opinion, what makes a scenario challenging, yet fun?

Once you've answered that question, to make it more complicated, assume your ships are significantly more fragile than traditional Nexus ships and that you can request one reinforcement at a time (the stronger the reinforcing ship, the longer it takes to arrive). What changes would you make to your initial answer in light of these alterations?

If at all possible, please answer both questions. ^_^

19

Help / Technical Support /

« on: May 05, 2010, 06:43:24 »

Nice! When forcefully windowed in such a manner, does the game window capture the mouse cursor, or can it freely move in and out?

20

Mod Development / Released Mods /

« on: April 15, 2010, 21:24:36 »

Sorry for the delay - I had thought I'd posted a response, and I guess I decided not to for some unintelligible reason. That's what I get for browsing at 2 am.  

The first thing I'd suggest doing is double checking the first digit in the Travel line. If it's a 1, you won't get any travel animation because it's trying to mimic a Beam weapon. If it's a 2, It should be okay, as 2 denotes a projectile of some sort. 3 denotes a ship class, if I'm not mistaken (used for missiles), and 4 escapes me at the moment.

What I did to create my pulse laser effect (pictured elsewhere) was create a custom animation for the Travel effect (I'd recommend reading through the documentation that comes with the game, dry though it is, and focusing on the section concerning Effects - with some experimentation, I was able to learn a lot from it). In particular, what I did was start with a Flare effect set to Decay rapidly (that is, it vanishes 0.1 seconds after being fired) and applied a Snake effect immediately afterward. The Snake created a tail, and by adjusting its thickness (SRadius being its full thickness, and ERadius being how thick it is at the end) and setting its NodeAtt (how long it takes for it to widen from nothing to its preset thickness, creating a pointed tip), NodeSus (how long it sustains its preset thickness, creating a solid beam-like effect), and NodeDec (how long it takes to decay from its full thickness of SRadius to its end thickness of ERadius), I was able to create a pulse-like beam that traveled through space. The Flare component is actually essential, as without it the Snake won't appear.

So, now that I've possibly confused you, hopefully you'll find everything I referred to and it will all make sense.  

21

Mod Development / Released Mods /

« on: March 16, 2010, 22:19:45 »

My knowledge on this matter is extremely limited, and I'll throw out the only thing I really noticed from reading your example: When you rotated the points to get the turret facing forward, did you not effectively reverse the direction of point 2 from left to right? And if so, could flipping that one point possibly be the reason for the turrets targeting in the wrong direction?

22

Mod Development / Released Mods /

« on: February 18, 2010, 22:50:28 »

Thanks, Murlac! Unfortunately, though, my attempts to download it have each ended in failure - my computer claims that it's not a valid file, so I can't open it. >_>

Edit: Got a more "useful" error message. Apparently the folder is empty?

Edit2: Nevermind; Winrar worked where Winzip didn't.

23

Mod Development / Released Mods / Beginner's Guide to Mission Editing

« on: February 16, 2010, 02:44:15 »

The Beginner's Guide section on the Nexus Wiki is decidedly lacking (lacking to the point of not existing, actually), so I thought I'd request a little help. I've got the basics down, and I haven't the foggiest idea how to handle mission objectives and the like. If I may, I'd like to ask that someone create and break down an example mission, in which a Noah Cruiser is tasked with investigating an asteroid, then destroying a combat drone (Frigate?) that was hiding there. As a secondary objective, I'd ask that there be a "repair" Platform some distance from the asteroid, and upon moving to the Platform, a previously disabled Torpedo system be reactivated and another one installed.

Hopefully, this request is both simple and meager enough that someone would be willing to help me, and anyone else who reads it, out. Please?

24

Mod Development / Released Mods /

« on: February 13, 2010, 07:11:46 »

Are you trying to mod the ships used in the game's campaign? Or ships used in a specific mission in a mod you're creating?

25

Game Assets /

« on: February 02, 2010, 01:10:56 »

Sorry for the double post, but I just had to say - Holy nuggets of cheese, that Free Trader model is massive. To prove my point, I took two screenshots.

The first is of two battleships approximately 20,000 meters apart:



And the second is of two Free Traders approximately 20,000 meters apart:



Massive, eh?