Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: ryuune75 on December 19, 2003, 03:16:45 am
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Ok, i'm trying to made a mission with a very large space battle going on, but i found out that there is a hard coded limit for how many ships i can put it, simply because any ship with a reference number above 99 is invalid...
Is there a way to overcome this problem? Was this limit changed in FSO?
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99 Ships seems just fine for me....
Use them wisely!
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Stop trying to remake the Battle of Endor! :D
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So 99 is the max?
Pity. I would have liked to recreate the DS9 battles of Favour The Bold and Sacrifice Of The Angles and What You Leave Behind...
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I'm not asking you if it's fine to have 300 ships in a mission, i just want to know if it's possible... :hopping:
And beside, what's wrong in the battle of Endor?? :wtf:
And of course, i can use 99 capships wisely, putting them in wing and making them respawn 10 times, so a grand total of 999 ships can be blown up in a single mission :lol:
As i've already told in another thread, my goall is to recreate the feeling of a battlefield with 4 million ships (it's not my idea, it's how the show i'm basing on was made)... of course that single mission will cover only a small part of the battlefield, but still if i can put several hundred ships in it will give a sense of wonder, with tens of capship exploding every few seconds around the player.
Of course if it's impossible, well, i'll live with it....
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The problem with Battle of Endor Syndrome is that there is very little point in playing a mission with that many ships in it.
Either the player has no effect on the mission out come at all or there are so many ships around that the player is left simply picking a target and then watching something else blow it up before he can reach it. Either way it's suprisingly hard to make a large battle of this type fun to play.
Giving the player a specific objective (blow up the death stars core) may help that a little but it is a very hard thing to pull off successfully.
The second major problem is that more often than not an Endorian mission will slow the computer down to a crawl and won't be fun to play cause of that.
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talking about BOE:
http://www.bruneras.com/
http://www.theforce.net/games/apps/boendor/index.shtml
:)
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Originally posted by karajorma
The problem with Battle of Endor Syndrome is that there is very little point in playing a mission with that many ships in it.
Either the player has no effect on the mission out come at all or there are so many ships around that the player is left simply picking a target and then watching something else blow it up before he can reach it. Either way it's suprisingly hard to make a large battle of this type fun to play.
Of course i know it's no easy task to make this kind of mission, but i also don't think it's too hard too, there are so many things that can be assigned to the player to that i don't really see problems. Of course some other will blow your target up sometimes, but that's how battles work, but of course the goal of the mission is not destroy everything, the player will have a lot of specific objective that will directly influence the outcome of the battle.
And beside that, it's only one mission of this kind in the entire campaing, it's not all the maps i design are like that (mostly involve 2-3 capships)
Originally posted by karajorma
The second major problem is that more often than not an Endorian mission will slow the computer down to a crawl and won't be fun to play cause of that.
This could b a problem, but with 99 ships i have no visible slowdown (with 1000-1200 poly average ships), c'mon we are talking about a 4 years old game, right?
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I limit myself to a maximum of only 55 ships. I've found that if you go over that limit you start having trouble....and generally on different peoples computers (some run it fine, others crash out to desktop). That was with vanilla FS2 - not sure if there is greater limits on FS Open.
As already stated, making a mission with many ships in it is hard, very hard, you have to be really good at making a big mission and having it retain some level of fun. All the power to you if you can pull it off!
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BTW fo a SW conversion this could be a problem, since you obviously need to have waves and waves of ties...
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Originally posted by KARMA
BTW fo a SW conversion this could be a problem, since you obviously need to have waves and waves of ties...
That is NOT the problem, you can have wave of Ties, even unlimited ones, but not all at once, the limit is 99 ships at once in a mission.
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doh' I understood it was a total limit.
well ok then, 99 at once isn't that bad btw
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FRED2 goes a bit funky when more than 99 ships are put in a mission. Stuff starts disappearing or... doesn't it put a random insult in to the names of cargo containers or did I imagine that one? The U R A MORON one... can't remember what you have to do to get that one now.
Perhaps the SCP coders could change this, but they don;t like touching FRED if they can help it...
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Originally posted by diamondgeezer
Perhaps the SCP coders could change this, but they don;t like touching FRED if they can help it...
Oh well, it's not that you need Fred to edit a mission, you can just use Notepad and put all the stuff Fred don't like... if FS2 could handle it of course :doubt:
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isn't the point of space fighter games that big ships battle it out, with little ships trying to change the outcome?
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Well V's philosophy is that capital ship fights ought to be balanced so that the sides are equally matched - the fighters, and the player's fighter in particular should tip the scales in favour of his side. The more capitals you have fighting, the less influence the player have. He can only be defending so many warships, or bombing so many enemies. With a smaller battle, the player can have a decisive role in the outcome.
Course that's not to say that no-one should attempt to make big cap ship fights. But now you know the reason it's not done in every single mission :)
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Read this (http://www.volitionwatch.com/articles/ArticleDisp.php?ID=26).
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It's a trap!
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o_O
I cant help big cap ship fights!! Those beams look so COOL!! I Swea- Wha? Ok, no matter.
*goes off, realizing its not his mission*
:p
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Bah...I still belive one can make a good massive battle mission.
And in real life, a single pilot CAN'T have a decisive role in EVERY mission!
Alltough in the "Battle of Endor" missin the pilot can still have great effect.
Imagine 12 GTVA capships vs. 10 Shivan capships. If you manage to take out the engine/beam cannons/something on at least 2 Shivan ships (and even a mediocre pilot can do that) you have increased the chances of yozur fleets survival drasticly!
Alltough one is more than enough in a campaign. Turning all your missions into a capship slaughterfest is not good.
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One thing about FreeSpace is that space does not seem all that vast. A *real* battle of 4 million(!) ships would be so spread out that any one pilot would see hardly any of it. Just mesh together one sector of the fighting, perhaps after that battle has been resolved the player can hot jump to another sector.
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Originally posted by MLeoDaalder
Pity. I would have liked to recreate the DS9 battles of Favour The Bold and Sacrifice Of The Angles and What You Leave Behind...
HELL YEA!!!!
thousands of Dominnion ships against a few hundred federation ships now THAT KICKED ASS!
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a mission with massive battle?
i got 2 of them.
the first one is scheduled about ten minutes before the last mission of the campaign starts. You are on the other side of the jump node waiting for the GTD Nereid to jump in and blow the node. You fly an Erinyes.
four squadrons , two cruisers and two destroyers are gurding the node.
Then suddenly the shivans kick in: two bomber squads and three fighter squads come through the node
next thing that happens is the real bad boys jumping in:
1 Luzifer
1 Demon
1 Ravanna
1 Cain
1 Lilith
1 Rakshasa
1 Moloch
and 1 Sathanas
(each one appears about 30 seconds after the previous one.
your task is to scan the Luzifers weapons bay and the Sathanas
fighter bay. (sorry, I do only have the german version so i dont know the english name of these things.)
The second one is even bigger with all all Military capships the game has. two shivan fighter and a bomber squadron face the GTVA with 4 squadrons.
You are piloting a Boanerges with the task to take out the main beam turrets on the Sathanas.
Your following task is to protect your cruisers.
Since I don't have webspace, send me a Private Message with your E-Mail in it, if you're interested to play it.
P.S.: I got killed 6 times before I had the first mission done.
BTW, what is the exact number of what ships, that fred2 can take.
The only thing I know already is that it kicks out with more than 2 supercaps.
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first off welcome, some one will give the greating and the standarded beam and what not.
Secondoff, the Luicfer .... not exactly cannon is it?
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Maybe you can have capital ships jump through the node one at a time, while you try to pick them off.
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:welcome:
The exits are on the rear and left. Flamethrowers are located under the seats. If you see a big 5 legged monster in the vents it's just Me. Just give me your lunch and i'll leave you alone.
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Thanks for the welcome.
Why is the Lucifer out of cannon?
Just give it 2 BFReds, 4 Shivan AAA-Lasers and the same in Flak and its a nightmare again.
OK, now for the topic - related (since I'm a little bit screwed at the moment):
How many ships can be handled by Freespace 2 and/or Fred2 at the same time?
If you put in different classes of ships, how much does this affect the total number?
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Indeed, welcome to HLP, Earthpilot. Nice to hear you're well on your way and into FRED already. Keep at it and you will mature in your mission design. :)
:welcome:
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99 ships at one time. But don't oveddo it!
Welecome ->*missing welecome beam link*
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So far I found the exe up to 400 ships. Very useful for the "blind Game" Mission in Robotech where I have to cover the Zentreadi mothership behind like 300 asteroids I Fredded last year ;7 ops! no nohting is behind them nevermind!
Let me know if you want them emailed.. called tablelimitexe
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Trashman: 99Ships, ok.
But what sort of ships?
99 Fighters?
99 Cruisers?
99 Sathanas class Juggernauts?
THAT is my problem.
I have a mission that fields one sort of cruisers , destroyers and supercaps for each side ( that is all military craft freespace2 has including the hades destroyer)
that must be about 36 cruisers, cap- and supercap-ships.
then I have 1 shivan bomber wing and 3 shivan fighter wings with
3 craft per wing
3 GTVA wings with 2 fighter (3craft each) and 1 bomber wing (4 bombers) + the resupply craft and me in my boanerges.
36 + 12 + 6 + 4 + 1 + 1 = 60;
when I try to add just one more fighter, Fred2 goes byebye.
So u see that there must be some sort of modifier to that limit.
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If you're using vanilla FS2, the limit is 60 ships, and you can't change it. Check into the SCP for a solution.
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yah, those missions sound cool.
keep up the good work.
Ephili
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I made that mission in standard Fred2 a year ago.
I haven't heard of any vanilla fs2 yet.
BTW, anyone interested in my missions?
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Vanilla FS2 is stock FS2.
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Vanilla being the most basic form of ice cream
(er.......)
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There is also a subsystem limit. Big ships having more subsystems (if you include turrets as a subsystem) chew through that limit much faster than fighters do.
As I said before though it's generally poor mission design that has you butting up against that kind of limit. Reduce the battle down to the caps that you really need to be there.
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I prefer chocolate syrup on my VANILLA fs2 thank you very much! ;)
PS: Charismatic, instead of just PM 'ing me to "send it" I would rather have had it phrased as a request and have you provide an email addy... to send it to before making me reply or worse search around to see if you provided one :)Which you could have done here, there are much more important things my box is waiting for then simple demands...
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Originally posted by Star Dragon
So far I found the exe up to 400 ships. Very useful for the "blind Game" Mission in Robotech where I have to cover the Zentreadi mothership behind like 300 asteroids I Fredded last year ;7 ops! no nohting is behind them nevermind!
Let me know if you want them emailed.. called tablelimitexe
Yes, in the meantime i also found out that in SCP the limit was upped to 400 individual ships, and 2100 subsistems total (opposed to 99/800), so i can make my big Zentraedj Bodolza fleet battle. However i found out that using too many ships will result in some weird bugs, like missiles not firing (but using ammo) and weapons pass trought other ships without effects... Oh well, i think that with 130-140 ships you can still create a very huge battle, wich, as most of you said, it's very very difficlt to handle.
p.s. to star dragon: i know i said that i would have send you the pofs i converted, but i have very little time as now, as i gohome only in the weekend. I hope in the cristmas holidays i'll find the time to do it. Also, i like to mod fs2, but i don't like very much making missions, what about you? If you instead like it i can make the pofs, tables, etc.. and you could work on missions (as you already did as i can see) and of course, share ideas.
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Originally posted by Unknown Target
If you're using vanilla FS2, the limit is 60 ships, and you can't change it. Check into the SCP for a solution.
Wrong. The limit is 99 ships, BUT as others have already pointed out, there is also a subsistem limit, wich I estimate around 800, so if you put ships with an average of 7-8 subsistems each you can add 99, is you have more susbsystem you'll reach the 800 limit and fred will crash. And supercap have a lot of subsystems.
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hmmm so it depends on the subsystem count.
OK thanks for the help so far.
How many subsystems do fighters and bombers have?
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I think most (if not all) fighters have 5 subsystems.
Bombers can have more depending on how many turrets they have. So, maybe 7 for bombers.
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That's VERY generous Ryuune, but in actuality I know little about pure macross itself... However I like the approach that you are making it the same way the Robotech did. They baiscly left fredding up to the users and made all the ships/weapons available that they could. I would be interested in trying out some missions, but I'd have to watch my copy of DYRL again, as I haven't seen it in a decade. I only watched it once and that was the dubbed version.
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Originally posted by Star Dragon
That's VERY generous Ryuune, but in actuality I know little about pure macross itself... However I like the approach that you are making it the same way the Robotech did. They baiscly left fredding up to the users and made all the ships/weapons available that they could. I would be interested in trying out some missions, but I'd have to watch my copy of DYRL again, as I haven't seen it in a decade. I only watched it once and that was the dubbed version.
Oh well, Macross is simply the fist Robotech serie, the dubbing didn't change too much of the story (except protoculture is NOT an energy source...geez how did they come out with this dumb idea?)
Currently i'm trying to put the "robot" mode Macross in game, but stupid cob2fs2 don't convert it, dunno what's the problem...
Oh, and also ripping the bmg soundrtack from a ps2 macross game i got a few days ago (wish i could rip the models).
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It's more of an art than I skill methinks :) eheh these are the main things to look for when making a .pof
1.) total polly limit under 5000 (the lower the better especially for a model that will be used a lot in the game like a common unit/fighter recommend under 1000), cap ship 2000+
2.) Now no object having more than 850 pollygons, so main model might need to be broken down into 2 or more pieces...
3.) polygon points have to be under 20
4.) no or few intersecting polygons as this upsets FS2 greatly!
5.) A light needs to be gruoped to the model as sibling but no big dead I can do taht and orient it in Truespace as a cob.
If I've forgotten anything you guru's out there jump in and give a yell! ;)
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Some of those limits are for the non-HT&L build SD. Things have improved in the HT&L build.
You can have over 850 polys in a single subobject for a start and you can also have a lot more polys in a ship in total.
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I'm comming fom the view point of a noob who just wants to DL the mod and play with vanilla FS2 with no muss/fuss and dealing with FS_open even though the new stuff is awesome. I never got the it to work with mods. However including the two .exe's for the upped table limits is part of the plan to take advantage of additiobnal ships in game and in the table.
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POW mission 1 (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,19771.0.html)
A mission i made with as many ships as possible. As i have been told, its pretty good aswell.
Also it was the first mission i ever made.
EDIT: How do you know that BOE cant be pulled off if you dont give anyone a chance. And another is the fact that FSO at its newest release wont run on an old computer anyways, So why not try it?