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Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: butter_pat_head on September 18, 2005, 03:17:57 pm

Title: Newb ship won't fire...
Post by: butter_pat_head on September 18, 2005, 03:17:57 pm
Hi.  After lurking around for a while I decided to try this modeling business for myself, but I am having some trouble.

Firstly I have followed the tutorials that have been mentioned the most here, so I'm building a small capship with one turret.

I built the model ok, UV and textured it (don't laugh at it, I'm already working on something better) and ran it through modelview to get the pof and setup all the info in it, in accordance with the tutorials.

The next I built a modular table for my ship using the colossus as a base example.

I then built a mission to test my masterpiece.  I had my ship warp in after 10 seconds and then a ravana after 15 more and instructed them to attack each other, using sexps to enable their beams.

The ravana works perfectly (It is my first mission ^_^) but my ship just gives up after a few seconds, not firing a shot and just sits there.  So I order it to attack and it does, kinda.  It circles the ravana, getting pummeled in the process, but dosent fire but at this point it couldent even if it wanted to as the turret is facing away from the ravana.

So I add a sexp to instruct my ship to fire its beam thats timed for when my ship is facing the ravana.  When the time arrives I get dumped to the desktop with no explination.  When I try the mission in the debug exe I get this just after my ship warps in:
Code: [Select]

Warning: Ship 'GTA First' has turrets with no guns!
Probably a model problem, so get an artist!


I just can't see what I have done wrong....

Heres all the files:firstship.zip (30 odd K in size) (http://www.jcomcp.plus.com/firstship.zip)

Quick edit:  In TS 3.2, what kind of scale is the grid (not been altered since installation) in relation to freespace?
Title: Newb ship won't fire...
Post by: ShadowWolf_IH on September 18, 2005, 03:29:10 pm
It really doesn't matter.  If you get PCS (see kazan's signature) you can reset the scale there to whatever you want during the creation of the pof.  I know that when styxx is modelling he builds everything the exact same size.....and then uses his pof constructor to scale it.  I would recommend going this route if i were you.
Title: Newb ship won't fire...
Post by: butter_pat_head on September 18, 2005, 03:39:01 pm
Thanks, il try that.  Now all I have to do is get my blasted ship to fire and I can work on some better ships...
Title: Newb ship won't fire...
Post by: karajorma on September 18, 2005, 04:56:36 pm
Remove the turret entry from subsystems on the pof and try it again.

Turrets and guns are never entered as subsystems there, Adding them to the turrets section is enough.

Can't be certain that it's the cause of your problem but it's definately wrong.
Title: Newb ship won't fire...
Post by: butter_pat_head on September 18, 2005, 05:17:34 pm
The mission no longer crashes but my ship still does not fire.  Also no the beam turret can not be sellected in the hud, nor can it be destroed.

and I forgot that it was a moloch rather than a ravana that warps in, I just can't keep track of those shivan names...^_^
Title: Newb ship won't fire...
Post by: StratComm on September 18, 2005, 05:40:22 pm
Did you include "$special=subsystem" in the subobject properties of the turret?
Title: Newb ship won't fire...
Post by: karajorma on September 18, 2005, 05:40:53 pm
Remove the orders from your ship and make sure it's rotated to allow it to point at the shivan ship.

Just beam-free-all it and see what happens. And use when>>True instead of when>>has-arrived-delay. I've never tried using that on a ship that is present at the start of the mission but it might cause you problems.

Incidentally is the moloch firing back at your ship? If not that indicates your error was in the SEXPs not just the ship.
Title: Newb ship won't fire...
Post by: StratComm on September 18, 2005, 05:45:48 pm
If he can't select the turret it isn't there.  That's a classic game-not-recognizing-a-subsystem error, which is almost always due to ship or table entry.

You may make sure that the name of your turret and what it's called in your table are the same.  That's been known to cause exactly this problem - many times - in the past.
Title: Newb ship won't fire...
Post by: butter_pat_head on September 18, 2005, 05:46:31 pm
To StratComm:  Yes $special=subsystem is there.

To karajorma:  The moloch behaves like a good little shivan.  It stops when it warps in and then shoots at anything close to it, beams, lasers and flack all a shootin.

It seems cause of the "Warning: Ship 'GTA First' has turrets with no guns!" my ship wont fire on its own anf crashes the game when forced to fire.
Title: Newb ship won't fire...
Post by: StratComm on September 18, 2005, 05:48:47 pm
It might be worth actually looking at the ship then huh :)  Watch this space, I'll have your answer in a few moments.

EDIT: I honestly have no idea.  Besides the errant Turret01 subsystem, I can find absolutely nothing wrong with the model.  It may not fire without a weapons subsystem, but that doesn't explain not being able to select the turret at all.
Title: Newb ship won't fire...
Post by: karajorma on September 18, 2005, 05:59:02 pm
Quote
Originally posted by butter_pat_head
It seems cause of the "Warning: Ship 'GTA First' has turrets with no guns!" my ship wont fire on its own anf crashes the game when forced to fire.


It's not cause of that. The ship has no weapons available in FRED. The only entry is for pilot. Now I know that means you've missed something somewhere but it's been so long since I made the same mistake that I can't remember exatly what it is you've missed.
Title: Newb ship won't fire...
Post by: butter_pat_head on September 18, 2005, 06:08:45 pm
Quote
Originally posted by karajorma


It's not cause of that. The ship has no weapons available in FRED. The only entry is for pilot. Now I know that means you've missed something somewhere but it's been so long since I made the same mistake that I can't remember exatly what it is you've missed.


Strange you are seeing that, I have FRED open now and my ship has a pilot and turret01 entries.  turret01 being a BGreen.
Title: Newb ship won't fire...
Post by: Kazan on September 18, 2005, 06:26:50 pm
i bet the turret define doesn't have any firepoints
Title: Newb ship won't fire...
Post by: StratComm on September 18, 2005, 07:05:41 pm
But it does.  The reason that error came up was because the turret was doubly defined as a turret object and a subsystem, and the subsystem (which obviously had no firepoints) was taking precidence.  Right now, the turret is properly defined and in tables, but isn't showing up anywhere else.
butter_pat_head, if you got FRED to acknowledge the turret then re-make the mission using that new ship.  FS2 may be getting confused with ship info that isn't really accurate anymore.
Title: Newb ship won't fire...
Post by: Wanderer on September 19, 2005, 01:55:55 am
Could there be some sort of troubles with old files in cache directory? Sometimes i managed to get rid of odd problems by emptying the folder.
Title: Newb ship won't fire...
Post by: StratComm on September 19, 2005, 01:58:35 am
Nah, I tried that.  This one's quite confounding.  Worth a try though if you haven't already.
Title: Newb ship won't fire...
Post by: butter_pat_head on September 19, 2005, 02:26:12 pm
Success!

And all I did was:

Open the model in TS again and renamed the cylinder (that was also called turret01) to something else.  I also gave the hull a proper name.

Then I opened the cob in modelview and entered in all the info again, exept the turret's subsystem entry which I now know was incorrect.

I made sure everything I typed was in lower case.

Then I saved the new pof and opened it in PCS (just installed).  I wend thrugh all the tabs, not changing anything.  I then saved the pof.

I loaded up my test mission on FRED and the GTA First now has a weapon, so I ran the mission and this is what I got:

(http://www.jcomcp.plus.com/firstfire.jpg)

The only thing is that any hit against the Fisrt damages the turret.  I guess that the First is just too small for a beam, my next creation will have to be bigger!
Title: Newb ship won't fire...
Post by: karajorma on September 19, 2005, 03:25:46 pm
Glad to see you've gotten it working. There is a turretting tutorial for truespace in my FAQ which you may find useful when you try making multipart turrets.

In fact you may want to take a look if you haven't already at the whole modding section (Although it is quite refreshing to see someone using .tbm on their first model ever so you obviously have been reading around the subject already). :D
Title: Newb ship won't fire...
Post by: Nuclear1 on September 19, 2005, 05:46:49 pm
Quote
SD Crapnheimer


:lol: Brilliant! :D