Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => FS2 Open Coding - The Source Code Project (SCP) => Topic started by: starfox on June 17, 2005, 08:05:36 am
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Hey there !
This may a shot in the dark, but is it possible to implement a feature/system that gives you control of some other fighter after your original one has been blown to bitts.
In example. You are controlling Alpha 1 and your fighter is destroyed, after this, controls of Alpha 2 are given to you. This cycle would continue until your wing has been completely destroyed.
I know Freespace 2 was meant to be about Alpha 1 only. But because the game lets you decide the fighters/weapons your wingmates are using, I figured why not continue playing until your entire wing is destroyed.
I personally would find this very interesting, yet very hard concept.
Any suggestions/feedpack is welcome.
PS. If the following has feature has already been asked/gunned down.
Then I will apologise.
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That works already, but I can't tell more...
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It already works, strange I never have stumled upon it. Thanks for the bit of info DaBrain, perhaps somebody else can fill me in ?
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Um.... AFAIK there are some SEXPs for taking away control from the player and then giving it back. I don't know what they are, or how they work, but maybe look there.
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You'd have to wait a while until MindGames is released to stumble into it ;7
For once though I'm not explaining how I did it :)
*Wonders if he should just delete the topic and hope no one spots it*
*Has a word with DaBrain about keeping quiet*
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Secrets we have here ? Well, my apologies for bringing the subject up.
*Sneaks away quietly*
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Originally posted by karajorma
*Has a word with DaBrain about keeping quiet*
I know that kind of 'word'.
*avoids karajorma's super-ninja-kick-of-death*
;7
Well, afair it was revealed some time ago, so I think I could just...
*avoids karajorma's super-ninja-punch-of-death*
:shaking:
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Actually I'm not too woried about it. It's only a small secret.
@DaBrain. If you play the proof of concept mission I made you'll notice that Starfox's Idea is what happens in the second half of the mission when the Donar class fighters are launched. What we've done in the first half is the secret I don't want being revealed :)
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Ah, ok. I think I know what you mean.
:)
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Some secrets are kinda silly to keep.
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im not a big fan of "secret features" requested for a particular mod, and details of how they work kept super secret from the community. modders are supposed to help eachother, it makes better mods. so as a matter of etiquit i put instructions on how to use new features i requested in the wiki (assuming someone doesnt beat me to it). you dont have to say your using a feature, and that keeps it somewhat of a supprise.
[/rant]
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There's nothing secret involved. I didn't use a single SEXP or feature that isn't over a year old. Everything I used is sitting there in FRED waiting for someone to figure out how to use it (reasonably well documented too in most cases I might add).
I take exception to people acting as if I'm keeping features secret. I go out of my way to explain new features and how they work in a great deal of depth and I make myself available to answer any further questions people may have. Almost every single new trick I have thought up or discovered goes up on the FAQ.
What I'm not going to do is tell everyone exactly how to do something that I have spent a significant amount of time sweating over. I thought up the idea for a mission in MG and I'd like to see it in my campaign first. MG has very little in it that will make peoples jaw's drop. We're mostly using models already in the community so what's going to set us apart is the quailty of the missions and story.
If you want to know how to do it give MG a hand. We're crying out for a decent modeller and it's not like we need more than 4-5 specific models. and I'd already decided a long time ago that after MG was released I'd disect this particular mission for an advanced FREDding tutorial like Cetanu's.
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Originally posted by Nuke
im not a big fan of "secret features" requested for a particular mod, and details of how they work kept super secret from the community. modders are supposed to help eachother, it makes better mods. so as a matter of etiquit i put instructions on how to use new features i requested in the wiki (assuming someone doesnt beat me to it). you dont have to say your using a feature, and that keeps it somewhat of a supprise.
[/rant]
Still have to keep a 'competitive advantage', though; how many models have you seen from MT, for example? What's different between what Styxx is doing and what Kara just did?
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It would really be an honor to help you out, but my "Tour of Duty" in Finnish Military begins in July 11' Besides that my modelling skills are not (yet) that good, but I'm getting better. I have vastly more time by the end of the year, when I (hopefully) get back to Civil.
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Originally posted by aldo_14
Still have to keep a 'competitive advantage', though; how many models have you seen from MT, for example? What's different between what Styxx is doing and what Kara just did?
that was not what my argument wahs focused on. my point was about people keeping secret knoledge about the capabilities of the engine which should be made public domain. i have nothing against makeing a mod full of suprises, use all the tricks and skills you have to try an suprise who plays your mod. that is the moder -> player relationship and its better that way. but when it comes to modder -> modder relations, its better for the community when modders share their ideas. leading new modders around in circiles when you can just tell them somethings possible, its not very polite. if your on the cutting edge, your always gonna have new tricks up your sleave, so its no harm to your mod to tell another how to do something, by the time they figure it out you will find a new trick.and you will have a reputation as they guy who always helps out with things. its all about mentoring the next generation man.
[/hippie]
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How does doing something like this not qualify as using a trick to surprise the player? If I give away how I did it I'm likely to see other missions based on it before MG is finished and there is no surprise involved.
It's actually annoying me that I'm getting singled out for this since I've gone out of my way NOT to keep FREDding knowledge to myself. I've set up the FRED Academy and spent hours adding explainations of how variables and the new SEXPs work to the FAQ. Isn't it enough that I spend that much time trying to teach any FREDder who asks the skills that I have?
Why should I have to give away every single trick I can think of as well?
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If Kara's spent ages doing this SEXP then it's up to him whether or not he releases it. It's not like its going to have an effect on whether a campaign's released or not.
Perhaps you will change your mind when you see The Feature®.
P.S. I hope that didn't come across as me knowing what The Feature® is.
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Bastard. Now you've gone and intrigued me.
My first, extrememly basic attempt ended in a CTD. Lemme see what else I can come up with...
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What were you doing to get a CTD just out of interest. :)
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Originally posted by karajorma
What were you doing to get a CTD just out of interest. :)
I thought it might have to do with setting the mission to multiplay, upping the number of players, then playing about with the player-use-ai, player-not-use-AI. FS2 wasn't happy.
In hindsight, it was a pretty silly idea really, but it was my first :)
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In some circumstances you could use set-ship-position and get-ship-position to simulate it.
Edit: Sample SEXP code.
when
<
hits-left
Alpha 1
2
modify-variable
"Target ship"
"Alpha 2"
if
is-ship-class
"Available ship A"
Target ship
change-ship-class
"Available Ship A"
"Alpha 1"
if
is-ship-class
"Available ship B"
Target ship
change-ship-class
"Available Ship B"
"Alpha 1"
etc.
set-subsystem-strength
"Alpha 1"
"Weapons"
hits-left-subsystem
Target ship
"Weapons"
set-subsystem-strength
"Alpha 1"
"Sensors"
hits-left-subsystem
Target ship
"Sensors"
set-subsystem-strength
"Alpha 1"
"Engines"
hits-left-subsystem
Target ship
"Engines"
set-subsystem-strength
"Alpha 1"
"Navigation"
hits-left-subsystem
Target ship
"Navigation"
set-subsystem-strength
"Alpha 1"
"Hull"
hits-left
Target ship
set-object-position
"Alpha 1"
get-object-x(Target ship)
get-object-y(Target ship)
get-object-z(Target ship)
set-object-position
Target ship
99999999
99999999
99999999
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Well, after several fives of minutes of poking about I declare it impossible and Kara far too clever with sexps for his own good. ;)
Unless he's doing what WMCoolmon suggested, which is pretty hackish really, and doesn't alter the fact that you're still Alpha 1, just in a different place (for example, your dot on the wing indicator would still be in Alpha 1's spot, etc.)
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You can fix the wingman gauge for the target ship pretty easily.
every-time
true
set-subsystem-strength
Target ship
"Hull"
hits-left
"Alpha 1"
Of course Alpha 1 will still show up as not-dead.
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Told you it wasn't that hard :)
Theres a bit more I've added to it than that to make it less hackish but that's the basic core of the idea :)
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Originally posted by starfox
Hey there !
This may a shot in the dark, but is it possible to implement a feature/system that gives you control of some other fighter after your original one has been blown to bitts.
In example. You are controlling Alpha 1 and your fighter is destroyed, after this, controls of Alpha 2 are given to you. This cycle would continue until your wing has been completely destroyed.
I know Freespace 2 was meant to be about Alpha 1 only. But because the game lets you decide the fighters/weapons your wingmates are using, I figured why not continue playing until your entire wing is destroyed.
I personally would find this very interesting, yet very hard concept.
Any suggestions/feedpack is welcome.
PS. If the following has feature has already been asked/gunned down.
Then I will apologise.
This sounds like XvT.
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Originally posted by karajorma
How does doing something like this not qualify as using a trick to surprise the player? If I give away how I did it I'm likely to see other missions based on it before MG is finished and there is no surprise involved.
It's actually annoying me that I'm getting singled out for this since I've gone out of my way NOT to keep FREDding knowledge to myself. I've set up the FRED Academy and spent hours adding explainations of how variables and the new SEXPs work to the FAQ. Isn't it enough that I spend that much time trying to teach any FREDder who asks the skills that I have?
Why should I have to give away every single trick I can think of as well?
im not trying to single anyone out here. my point was simply that i dont like the true capabilities of the engine being hidden. fancy fred programming aside. if your making an effor to pass on at least some of your knoledge you are doing the community good.
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Originally posted by Nuke
im not trying to single anyone out here. my point was simply that i dont like the true capabilities of the engine being hidden. fancy fred programming aside. if your making an effor to pass on at least some of your knoledge you are doing the community good.
It's not hidden, though. Not any more than, say, the descriptions of the tbl format for ballistic primaries. Karas said it's more than possible, there's SEXPs there, now you can go find a way. What could be wrong with that?
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ok so this was a bad example. im not a freder so i kinda misinterpreted the whole thing. but there have been many an ocasion where i heard about a feature i was waiting on that was poorly documented. working without it for some time and then in casual discussion find out its been around for months.just sorta anoying.
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I agree that when someone does that it is very annoying. With FRED it's a lot harder to conceal features as everything is laid out in front of you.
Whenever a new build comes out I always take a minute or two to see what was added and ask questions if I can't figure out what it does.
With modding you can't do this so I can understand your faustration with people keeping quiet but when it comes to FRED the problem is not people being unaware of the new features, it's people not playing about with them enough to see what you can do with them.
Simulating what Starfox suggested in this thread is something that most people would simply have written off as impossible without code changes. What a lot of people don't realise is that things like this are merely tricky to do without code changes. They are most definately possible and can be very surprising when done correctly.
The other thing is that few other FREDders consider it worth the hassle of implementing hacks I suggest so I pretty much gave up suggesting them with a view to seeing them used. Now I just answer posts so that I remember it's possible :)