Hard Light Productions Forums

Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The FRED Workshop => Topic started by: LordPomposity on July 18, 2011, 03:15:59 pm

Title: Advice Dog's Essential FRED Tutorial
Post by: LordPomposity on July 18, 2011, 03:15:59 pm
Inspired by an old thread that I didn't feel like necrothreadageing.

(http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/5205/ad1g.jpg)

(http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/4038/ad2ou.jpg)

(http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/6748/ad3s.jpg)

(http://img846.imageshack.us/img846/9568/ad4.jpg)

(http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/4153/ad5z.jpg)

(http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/3372/ad6s.jpg)

:p
Title: Re: Advice Dog's Essential FRED Tutorial
Post by: Moonfall-Wolf on July 18, 2011, 04:05:04 pm
=D

Mind.
Blown.
Title: Re: Advice Dog's Essential FRED Tutorial
Post by: NGTM-1R on July 18, 2011, 04:06:59 pm
I remember being so happy I could copypasta AWOL debriefings for Operation Savior.
Title: Re: Advice Dog's Essential FRED Tutorial
Post by: Lester on July 18, 2011, 04:08:51 pm
I think this is an excellent tutorial. Great for newbie fredders aspiring to create a 30-mission FS3.  :yes:


If this forum had karma, I'd definitely give you some.
Title: Re: Advice Dog's Essential FRED Tutorial
Post by: bigchunk1 on July 18, 2011, 04:44:32 pm
I was laughing all the way down the list.
Title: Re: Advice Dog's Essential FRED Tutorial
Post by: Spoon on July 18, 2011, 08:36:05 pm
Quote from: LordPomposity on July 18, 2011, 03:15:59 pm
(http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/6748/ad3s.jpg)
  :nervous:
Title: Re: Advice Dog's Essential FRED Tutorial
Post by: Axem on July 18, 2011, 08:41:42 pm
(http://static.images.memegenerator.net/Instances400/8/8710/8919597.jpg)
Title: Re: Advice Dog's Essential FRED Tutorial
Post by: Qent on July 18, 2011, 09:32:18 pm
Serious question: why would one not use is-event-true-delay?
Title: Re: Advice Dog's Essential FRED Tutorial
Post by: LordPomposity on July 18, 2011, 09:47:21 pm
It takes longer to FRED, it's harder to keep track of what's going on when you look at the mission file, and there are some poorly-understood circumstances in which re-ordering events can cause is-event-true-delay to reference the wrong event. It certainly has its uses (and is necessary if you want multiple possibilities to branch from the same event, or one event that can be triggered by multiple events), but I find that chaining is usually more convenient.
Title: Re: Advice Dog's Essential FRED Tutorial
Post by: Droid803 on July 18, 2011, 10:01:36 pm
->implying you want others to be able to understand the logic of your missions.
Title: Re: Advice Dog's Essential FRED Tutorial
Post by: LordPomposity on July 18, 2011, 10:09:52 pm
More that I want to be able to understand their logic when I go back to revise them after letting them sit. :p
Title: Re: Advice Dog's Essential FRED Tutorial
Post by: StargateSpankyHam on July 20, 2011, 04:03:45 pm
Advice dog is wrong, cute and cuddly though he may be. It may be an event, and it may need a name...but 'event name' is not the right name.
Title: Re: Advice Dog's Essential FRED Tutorial
Post by: Snail on July 20, 2011, 04:13:14 pm
Quote from: StargateSpankyHam on July 20, 2011, 04:03:45 pm
Advice dog is wrong, cute and cuddly though he may be. It may be an event, and it may need a name...but 'event name' is not the right name.
not sure if srs
Title: Re: Advice Dog's Essential FRED Tutorial
Post by: LordPomposity on July 20, 2011, 04:50:36 pm
(http://img580.imageshack.us/img580/1958/invulnerable.jpg)
Title: Re: Advice Dog's Essential FRED Tutorial
Post by: Droid803 on July 20, 2011, 04:53:49 pm
Quote from: LordPomposity on July 20, 2011, 04:50:36 pm
*snip*

I actually do this for a very specific reason when protecting story-critical wingmen.
If you just ship-guardian-threshold them, they eventually get disabled and just sit there and get pounded, and it makes it horrendously obvious that they're guardianed.

Making them go invulnerable prevents that as they always hit the damage threshold before actually getting disabled. That way they keep moving and its al ot hard er to tell if they are actually invulnerable or not since they're actually avoiding some fire.

Of course, you could also ship-susbsys-guardian-threshold their engines too...and all their other subsystems just in case... but by that point its just easier to make them go invulnerable.
Title: Re: Advice Dog's Essential FRED Tutorial
Post by: LordPomposity on July 20, 2011, 05:16:57 pm
Quote from: Droid803 on July 20, 2011, 04:53:49 pm
Of course, you could also ship-susbsys-guardian-threshold their engines too...and all their other subsystems just in case... but by that point its just easier to make them go invulnerable.

That's how I do it, for two reasons:

1. If a wingman with ship-invulnerable triggered by hits-left flies in front of a warship beam (or otherwise takes a couple hundred hull damage in one go), they'll get vaporized before the SEXP triggers. Not a problem with ship-guardian afaik.

2. I tend to guardian only the engines, not the other subsystems. If their weapons can get shot off, the player can't reliably accomplish otherwise-difficult objectives by giving suicidal orders to invulnerable wingmen.
Title: Re: Advice Dog's Essential FRED Tutorial
Post by: Scourge of Ages on July 22, 2011, 01:00:41 am
Could you do both guardian and hits-left invul? That way you get the effect without worrying about beams.

Also, I've been very nervous about re-ordering events since I lost some stuff a while ago. Is re-ordering them for chaining OK now?
Title: Re: Advice Dog's Essential FRED Tutorial
Post by: mjn.mixael on July 22, 2011, 01:12:49 am
reordering always causes me problems...

When I need to reorder, I switch to notepad.
Title: Re: Advice Dog's Essential FRED Tutorial
Post by: karajorma on July 22, 2011, 04:29:57 am
I do love the one about Trigger Count. It's nice to see all my hard work adding that feature is appreciated. :p
Title: Re: Advice Dog's Essential FRED Tutorial
Post by: bigchunk1 on July 22, 2011, 10:33:35 am
Oh so you made trigger count? I have got to say that is my favorite and most used bit of functionality that SCP has brought to FRED bar none. It opens doors for many many possibilities which were previously impossible, allowing a mission which can dynamically adapt to changing conditions like an environment should. It has been used in nearly every mission I have ever FREDed* and I use it and variables as my bread and butter to get things done. I have been contemplating posting a new thread in SCP just to praise the coder that saw this through, without which my interest in FREDing would have been severely reduced.

Here's to you Karajorma, you are automatically now one of my favorite people on HLP.

*Dogfight missions don't count!
Title: Re: Advice Dog's Essential FRED Tutorial
Post by: karajorma on July 22, 2011, 04:21:51 pm
You're welcome Bigchunk. Most people never notice the difference between the two options anyway since they are the same in many cases. It was just a case of something that annoyed coder getting fixed as soon as a coder affected notice the bad behaviour. The fact that it made FRED much more powerful was just a side benefit. :D
Title: Re: Advice Dog's Essential FRED Tutorial
Post by: LordPomposity on July 22, 2011, 04:42:21 pm
Quote from: Scourge of Ages on July 22, 2011, 01:00:41 am
Could you do both guardian and hits-left invul? That way you get the effect without worrying about beams.

Yes, you could, and that may in fact be the best way to do it. There's still something to be said for making the weapons subsystem destructible, though. Consider the WiH mission "Aristeia", where the default strategy should you lose the
Spoiler:
AWACS is to order Beta wing, consisting of two interceptors, to charge through a substantial fighter screen to stage a frontal assault on a Hecate. Since Beta wing is invulnerable, this works much better than you might expect.