[Nuke]

can we get a flag for eighter a beam cannon or a ship (preferibly both) to force beam turrets to be unlocked by default. this is good because i just made one of those masive overkill bombers with beam cannons, and i have to go through the trouble of unlocking the beams in fred (which breaks the ability to select ships). also this would be good for weak anti beams. im sure you all can find a dozen or so reasons to have this.

[Bobboau]

you mean a weapon flag?
I don't think we can add any more flags as there are 32 of them now, and I tryed adding one a while back and it didn't take hold

[Grey Wolf]

I think he means a tag in FRED, just like the Kamikaze or Invisible to Sensors tag.

[Bobboau]

like inital status, that would be good, havn't looked into it though

[Kitsune]

Umm, why not just have it default to having them unlocked from teh get-go instead of having to change things to turn them on?
If a ships powered, it would naturally try to use their beams in a fight.

[Solatar]

The beam-Free needs to go. I even played fs2 for months, only because there were no beams.

[Nuke]

i mean as a table tag. unless i say otherwise its always a table flag that i am talking about.

i just started lerning how to use fred. after tweaking many a mission to test mods, i have picked up some of the skills required to use fred. and i made a working test mission, so im picking it up.

back to topic.
i just put together a massive bomber with beam cannons, and i would like it to be able to use its beams without a beam free all. if you use the ship you have to free the beams for every member of alpha wing, whch kinda clutters up the events list.

also id like a beam type that works like a type 0, but will turn relative to the ship. the only beam that does is the type 4, but those dont home unless they are on a rotating turret (forward turrets cant rotate). or fire control for a type 4 on a turret would also be good, so the beam fires when you want it to.

[Pegasus V]

Originally posted by Hades
The beam-Free needs to go. I even played fs2 for months, only because there were no beams.

We need the beam-free, to unlock a locked beam, if it is locked in a game. But we need to reverse the default as being locked.

[Galemp]

Originally posted by Grey Wolf 2009
I think he means a tag in FRED, just like the Kamikaze or Invisible to Sensors tag.

Right! Just a little checkbox in the Initial Status screen. That way we can still have it off by default but make it a heluva lot easier to beam-free, without sexps. Just make sure it's set to has-arrived-delay-0, not true.

[Solatar]

Originally posted by Pegasus V


We need the beam-free, to unlock a locked beam, if it is locked in a game. But we need to reverse the default as being locked.

So sorry, I meant to type in fs1. Not fs2. I realized my mistake, but you had already posted, so I couldn't edit.

I agree. Though it shouldn't be that hard to have the beams enabled by default.

[WMCoolmon]

So...should beams be enabled by default, or should they be disabled by default? IMO, they should stay disabled by default, so as to not break backwards compatibility (and it's likely you'll need to open the dialog anyway...)
I'll look into adding "Beam-free-all" to the ship info dialog box this weekend

[Pegasus V]

IMO enabled.

[Fury]

Beams should be disabled by default. This is for compatibility for missions where beams are enabled only in specific times. The very first FS2 main campaign mission is a good example.

[vyper]

Originally posted by Mr. Fury
Beams should be disabled by default. This is for compatibility for missions where beams are enabled only in specific times. The very first FS2 main campaign mission is a good example.

Yeah, it'd just be good to be able to beam-free a ship using the "misc" tab as well as through sexp.

[Solatar]

I have a little rebuttle on that subject. Most missions with capital ships have the beams on and working. very few have them off. If you want something like the first fs2 mission, disable the beams, then fire them with a sexp. That way only a few people have to suffer, not the whole community:D

[Nuke]

my idea is not to change the whole system of how beams are triggered in fred, it is simply to allow for small beam cannons (such as aaa) to be ommited from the hassle of beam freeing. this is a fighterbeam thing!

[Bobboau]

no it isn't, fighter beams are free by default, in fact there realy isn't any way to lock them the way they are set up,
if you could make it an inital status thing it wouldn't require breaking backwards compatabiliy, but it would make it very easy to unlock the beams for any ship you want

[aldo_14]

Maybe....if you write up a small sub-program or something that allows you to pick all the names of the ships you want to beam free, and then it updates the events list with the appropriate details.... and some logic like (horrbily rough pseudo)

 if 'not_in_mission_at_start" //check arrival cue I guess
       sexp_trigger = when_arrived
else
       sexp_trigger = when_time_elapsed

In fact, this could probably be a seperate program altogether that parses the *.fs2 file.... I dunno.  the question is that whether a checkbox would be quicker, as you'd have to still go through every ship and activate it in the 'misc' section.... I'm not sure that's faster than cutting and pasting the appropriate events.

[YodaSean]

thats a good idea.

Maybe you could have a flag in the table file to specify whether or not the beams are free by default

[Fury]

Think a little, there's a ****load of missions and campaigns built for original FS2. If you go and enable beams as default, you can be pretty darn sure that something goes awfully wrong in those missions.

fs2_open should, no... MUST be backwards compatible. Otherwise it will cause a lot of headaches and then you can't enjoy new stuff in good, old campaigns and missions.

You can have beam-free tickbox in Misc section of ships settings. That should be enough for upcoming missions and campaigns that uses fs2_open.