Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The FRED Workshop => Topic started by: FUBAR-BDHR on February 01, 2007, 10:40:10 am
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Anyone know an easy way to align a wing of cap ships? I've got a Moloch and 2 Rakshasas in a wing with the Moloch as the lead ship. The 2 Rakshasas do a look to get into position and it just looks stupid. Trying the hit and miss approach just isn't cutting it.
Thought of another wing question so I'll just add it here. Has anything been added to allow different wing patterns other than the standard 2D V formation?
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I would not recommend putting capships in wings. Whatever it is you're trying to achieve probably has another solution that will give you a lot less grief.
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It's just 3 caps that head to a waypoint and leave. I've done several wings of cap ships before. Mostly the smaller ships like transports but have done Rakshasas, Cains and Liliths. I think there used to be a formula for placement on the old VBB.
The reason I wan't to use a wing is one of the objectives is to stop all 3 from leaving. Taking the ships out of a wing would add a lot more events and sexps to the mission. Not to mention things like directives and who knows what else.
Starting to wonder if the problem is with the use of 2 different classes of caps in the wing (corvette and cruisers). Don't think I have tried that anywhere else.
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to me it sometimes happen when the waypoint is too close.
in this case a possible solution is:
put the waypoint far far away
order the wing to reach it
create an event
when distance wing-waypoint < x
add goal: depart
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The reason I wan't to use a wing is one of the objectives is to stop all 3 from leaving. Taking the ships out of a wing would add a lot more events and sexps to the mission.
Um... the following isn't sufficient?
Objective: Destroy All Three Ships
--is-destroyed-delay
----Ship 1
----Ship 2
----Ship 3
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Yes that would work for the directive but doesn't solve the event problem. I would have to add jump points, check to see which ships make it to the jump points, check the status of the other ships (nav, engines, position) in the wing to see if they can jump also. That is all taken care of automatically if they are part of a wing.
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Having ships in a wing also makes it easier to give orders to attacking bombers. For example, if you've got a wing of 6 transports, and you want enemy fighters to attack them, you only have to give them the initial order (or ingame orders) to attack the wing, rather than having to give 5 separate orders to attack each of the transports in the group, then another follow-up to target the 6th when one is destroyed, if the transports are individual and not in a wing.
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The reason I wan't to use a wing is one of the objectives is to stop all 3 from leaving. Taking the ships out of a wing would add a lot more events and sexps to the mission. Not to mention things like directives and who knows what else.
Well, is it necessary that all ships depart at the same moment (which can be done by a has-time-elapsed departure cue anyway)? Cause if not I don't see the reason for making them a wing.
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For the sake of, what, 9 extra sexps (probably less actually - I'm sure you could simplify this with variables - just have an go/no-go variable defined for each ship and flick it to no-go if anythng happens) you get to name your ships individually and take them out of a wing (something that, AFAIK, [V] never did with ships above transport size (Except maybe in Silent Threat - it has been ages since I ran through that, and really, if you're using Silent Threat as an example of good FREDding, well...).
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There's a wishlist thread by me. Post there ;)
It may work with enemy ships: place the waypoint about 20 clicks away so the formation will be the same. I don't recommend to use it with friendly ships since "time to:99 mins" looks odd.
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Well I kept playing and got it close enough. It's not perfect but at least no loops. Problem wasn't the waypoint it's far enough away. It's just the ships trying to get to the position they need to be in. I just moved them back and to the side more. Now they just speed up to get into the formation. Apparently the cap ship AI is just not smart enough to slow down to get into position.
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Yes that would work for the directive but doesn't solve the event problem. I would have to add jump points, check to see which ships make it to the jump points, check the status of the other ships (nav, engines, position) in the wing to see if they can jump also. That is all taken care of automatically if they are part of a wing.
What are you babbling about? If they're destroyed, they can't depart; and if they depart, they can't be destroyed. I don't get what you're finding so hard about this.
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There is nothing hard about it. It's just I want wing behavior out of the caps that's all. I have wings of caps in several missions so I know it can be done. It just seems the easy way to manually allign wings has been lost to time. :(
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(something that, AFAIK, [V] never did with ships above transport size (Except maybe in Silent Threat - it has been ages since I ran through that, and really, if you're using Silent Threat as an example of good FREDding, well...).
There are several in FS1. The ones that attack the Hope come to mind.
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Well they may work in case of pincer attacks.
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For the wings-following-waypoints problem, there was a request some time ago for a sexp to restrict this. Either a new goal, or perhaps a modification of the current waypoint ai goals, or perhaps a wing-parallel sexp, which would fit under the "special" category, the way cap-waypoint-speed fits. I'd prefer the alteration of waypoints(-once) to something like
ai-waypoints-once
-<path name>
-priority (0 to 89)
-optional - force outer ships in wing to fly parallel to wing leader, rather than fly directly at the waypoint. 1 to enable, 0 to disable. Off by default.
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I'd actually like to see it go a little farther. Options like V, inverse V, 3D arrow, 2 by 2, box (horizontal or vertical) straight line (across or follow the leader), or my favorite leave them the way I put them!!!!
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For the wings-following-waypoints problem, there was a request some time ago for a sexp to restrict this. Either a new goal, or perhaps a modification of the current waypoint ai goals, or perhaps a wing-parallel sexp, which would fit under the "special" category, the way cap-waypoint-speed fits. I'd prefer the alteration of waypoints(-once) to something like
ai-waypoints-once
-<path name>
-priority (0 to 89)
-optional - force outer ships in wing to fly parallel to wing leader, rather than fly directly at the waypoint. 1 to enable, 0 to disable. Off by default.
I like the idea.
I'm wondering....how your missions are? Ships grouped in wings...
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I've tried both options. Having them as separate ships helps for following waypoints properly, results in fewer problems with the time-to-completion thing (with single ships, I use a 75m distance check for departure cues, not are-waypoints-done-delay), and allows all the ships to travel at top speed, but poses problems when you want a fighter wing to attack or defend the transport/freighter/cruiser/whatever wing. You have to give multiple orders to guard or attack various ships in the formation, rather than simply telling them to attack or guard Omega wing. When you wing them together, they stick to their own formation, limit speeds, and have the waypoints problem, but the later can be solved by the final-waypoint-1000m-after-departure-cue-fires method. I use the later for the most part, though some changes such as those suggested would be welcome.
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In addition if you stick capships in a wing you can't name them. And while that doesn't look so bad on transports or freighters, facing 3 cruisers called cancer 1,2 and 3 just looks bad to me.
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In addition if you stick capships in a wing you can't name them. And while that doesn't look so bad on transports or freighters, facing 3 cruisers called cancer 1,2 and 3 just looks bad to me.
OK I might not be as an experienced FREDER but in missions I have played and done I must say that if you could put Cap ships in wings it would be easier to give orders and such but as karajorma says you cannot give them individual names and that I think is the most important argument for not having them in wings.
/Dice
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Can't give them names??? You mean you never used the alt-name field? Works like a charm. Wing name appears at the top and ship name appears right under it. Only drawback is you don't get to see the ship class.
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Can't give them names??? You mean you never used the alt-name field? Works like a charm. Wing name appears at the top and ship name appears right under it. Only drawback is you don't get to see the ship class.
Hmm ok never used that always wonder what alt name was have never had a need to use it thoug.....
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Can't give them names??? You mean you never used the alt-name field? Works like a charm. Wing name appears at the top and ship name appears right under it. Only drawback is you don't get to see the ship class.
1) That's a pretty obvious reversal of the way round it should be.
2) You can't put the correct name on the escort list that way (And capships should always be on the escort list as far as I'm concerned).
3) The event log will refer to the ship by the wrong name
4) Any messages will have to be sent by #name instead of the real name or they'll appear with the wrong name. Even if you do this you won't get the targeting bracket around ship when it sends a message
5) If you are killed by that capship the wrong name will appear in the "You have been killed by..." message.
Now I know those are mostly nitpicks but for me I'd consider a mission sloppy if it had any of those errors in it unless they were unavoidable. Admittedly I've very picky about my FREDding and you might not care about any of those problems so it's completely up to you how you FRED your own mission.
I am after all the sort of person who gets really pissed off that the Belissarius shows up as Self Destructed in the mission log rather than Killed By Psamtik. :D
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Well I would disagree on number 1. I tend to like the wing name / ship name order. Of course wing name / ship name / class would be nice but you can't do that. You're probably right on the second one but I've never looked to see what appears. If every capship should be in the list then what do you do when there are more than 5 caps? Off to number 3 I rarely if ever look at the event log and I doubt most players do. I totally agree with number 4. I normally only use wings for enemy caps. You don't get too many messages in shivan. I don't think I would ever put a ship sending messages in a wing unless it's a fighter or bomber. Of course in multi things like <any-wingman> don't work for messages where player ships are involved anyway so you are forced to use #name. Lastly there's a "You have been killed by..." message? If so must only be a single player thing because I haven't seen it since I started playing again.
Out of all the missions I am working on I think there is only one that has a wing of 2 caps that are escort ships or are important to friendly goals. It was the first mission I wrote and putting the ships in a wing was the only way to keep them from running into each other or dancing while still doing waypoints and attacking. Pretty much all the cap wings are shivan and consist of cains, rakashakas, and liliths. I also use "fake" wings to cut down on ship naming. I don't think it's necessary for every small enemy cap or transport to have a name. If it's important or a lone ship it gets named. If not then in gets a wing designation even if it's not in a wing in FRED2. All friendly caps get named.
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Can't give them names??? You mean you never used the alt-name field? Works like a charm. Wing name appears at the top and ship name appears right under it. Only drawback is you don't get to see the ship class.
Um... alt-name changes the class name of the ship, not the actual ship name.
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Yes it does but it does not say that anywhere on the hud. If all you see is 2 names what is the difference? I fyou have wing Viper with a ship that has alt-name Rattler it shows up like this
Viper 1
Rattler
If it's not in a Wing it shows up like this:
Rattler
GTD Orion
If it's in a "fake" wing it shows up like this.
Viper 1
GTD Orion
I actually like the first one. If you read the reason for alt-name it is rather lame. It's so you can't tell the class when you target a ship. Like you can't see the picture of the target right below it.
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I actually like the first one. If you read the reason for alt-name it is rather lame. It's so you can't tell the class when you target a ship. Like you can't see the picture of the target right below it.
That's hardly the only reason. At least once in the Main Campaign it was used to change the designations to distingush NTF ships. (GTC to NTC, etc). There are any number of other things you can do with it.
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Well I broke down and gave breaking up a 2 ship wing a try last night. Took over 2 hours to change everything and add new orders and waypoints. Thats without debugging it yet. Now I see why I used wings.
It would be nice if there was a way to create a wing without changing the name of the ships. This would only be an option if there was one wave.