[Ziame]

Hi there!

I am back after a long pause (yeah I know you don't remember).


Anyway. I am playing a bit with FRED, making some campaigns and what not (mostly what not). I wouldn't dare to show these things to you. They are nowhere near the quality of BP or VD. (They are nowhere near quality even).

BUT! I find FRED a good algorithm exercise. In the meantime, I found a couple things that might stir the little FRED bugs in your minds and help me out (and/or community if anyone with actual skills find these and finds them interesting).


First issue: the persistent reinforcements ship

One of the first ideas I have stumbled upon and fell face down in the mud of skilllack was the persistent reinforcement ship(tm).
To explain. Let's say that our pilot is a member of the Squadron 666th Ziames. The squadron is based on the GTD Ziame. Background: whole taskforce is deep within enemy space, so no logistics are available.

Alpha 1 can call in the GTD Ziame in desparate situations.

Alpha 1 calls it in on mission 1, GTD Ziame HPs get 100->70
Calls it on mission 2, how to have it get 70HP at the start? Let's say it loses another 20HP
Call it on mission 3, it should have 50HP.

Question is, how to do it without resorting to red-alerting whole campaign?
Bonus points for keeping the subsystems/turrets the same way it ended the previous mission with.


Second stuff: elongating missions

This one is probably more of a mission-design question/appeal than a FRED specific thing.
I am making some missions, trying my best etc etc.

Let's say. The mission background is:
Battlegroup is in unknown territory. Emergency broadcast has been received. Alpha and Demeter have been sent to investigate.
So Alpha wing with its mini-carrier (Demeter) jumps in. There's a drifting freighter there, heavily damaged; cargo crate floating around.
Alpha is asked to scan the freighter. The Freighter is scanned; there's some banter going around back and forth between Alpha 2 and Demeter.

It turns out that not only our Battlegroup has received the distress signal. An unknown capital ship jumps in, accuses us of piracy, demands surrender. Some banter going back and forth again. Fighters start from capital ship and begin circling near our ships. There's some banter again. Alpha and crew of Demeter agree to land on the capital ship. Shuttle starts from our freighter and everyone is going towards the capital ship. In the meantime a transport ship jumps in and docks with the freighter.

It all sums up to 5 minutes. And there's a bit of stuff going on, I think. I could probably use some tips on how to fill the time in. (Maybe asteroids hitting the target freighter + longer scan time etc). Or perhaps a certain rule of thumb to be applied which I am not aware of? Battles are easy made longer, waypoints, circling and stuff, but they still sum up to 8 minutes at most (ships rip each other apart too fast with beam-free; probably should use beam-fire sexp?)

Third thingie: DRIFTING
This is a big one. In space, everything is relative yadda yadda. Short question, can I make an object "drift", either through a flag, or a combination of sexps? In short, have the ship move along *any* of its axes?

Woah! Thanks for any answers/advice you might have for me. Gratefulness all round

[X3N0-Life-Form]

1st issue: There's a ship save/load script somewhere on the forum and/or on the wiki that is very useful for that kind of stuff. People tend to use that rather than red alert missions these days. It's also pretty cool when you want to make checkpoints.

3rd thingie: I don't remember whether there is a SEXP that allows you to manipulate a ship's momentum, but I'm pretty sure it can be done through scripting. Someone else is probably gonna give a better answer for that one

[The E]

Alpha 1 can call in the GTD Ziame in desparate situations.

Alpha 1 calls it in on mission 1, GTD Ziame HPs get 100->70
Calls it on mission 2, how to have it get 70HP at the start? Let's say it loses another 20HP
Call it on mission 3, it should have 50HP.

Question is, how to do it without resorting to red-alerting whole campaign?
Bonus points for keeping the subsystems/turrets the same way it ended the previous mission with.

Campaign persistant variables. Alternatively, use the ship save/load script.

It all sums up to 5 minutes. And there's a bit of stuff going on, I think. I could probably use some tips on how to fill the time in. (Maybe asteroids hitting the target freighter + longer scan time etc). Or perhaps a certain rule of thumb to be applied which I am not aware of? Battles are easy made longer, waypoints, circling and stuff, but they still sum up to 8 minutes at most (ships rip each other apart too fast with beam-free; probably should use beam-fire sexp?)

You can use armor.tbl settings to adjust the vulnerability of ships. Want your battles to go longer? Use an armor class that gives additional resistance to weapons fire. Want it shorter? Use one that makes ships more vulnerable.

This is a big one. In space, everything is relative yadda yadda. Short question, can I make an object "drift", either through a flag, or a combination of sexps? In short, have the ship move along *any* of its axes?

Define drifting. Pseudo-newtonian motion has been in the engine for a very long time; look at Diaspora for example.

[Ziame]

This is a big one. In space, everything is relative yadda yadda. Short question, can I make an object "drift", either through a flag, or a combination of sexps? In short, have the ship move along *any* of its axes?

Define drifting. Pseudo-newtonian motion has been in the engine for a very long time; look at Diaspora for example.

Let's say that I would want the ship to be moving sideways from the beginning of the mission till the end of it. (Not player's ship). Like Asteroids, I guess?