Hard Light Productions Forums

Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: Zarax on August 21, 2015, 01:55:43 am

Title: Beams and shields
Post by: Zarax on August 21, 2015, 01:55:43 am
Hi,

I know it's possible to set a beam to be able to bypass shields or not via weapons.tbl, but is the opposite possible?
I'd like to make a single ship use a shield capable of absorbing standard beam fire, is there a way to do it?
Title: Re: Beams and shields
Post by: AdmiralRalwood on August 21, 2015, 02:30:14 am
You can use the armor/damage type (http://hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Armor.tbl) system to allow a weapon to pierce some shields but not others (http://hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Armor.tbl#.2BShield_Piercing_Percentage:). If you're concerned by the phrasing of "This has the effect of damaging both the shield and hull for a single impact", that actually only matters if the piercing percentage isn't 0 or 100% (or 1.0, rather); with a 100% piercing percentage, no damage will be done to the shields at all.
Title: Re: Beams and shields
Post by: Zarax on August 21, 2015, 02:40:46 am
I was hoping there was a simpler way than having to mod every single beam in game...
Title: Re: Beams and shields
Post by: AdmiralRalwood on August 21, 2015, 02:46:03 am
I was hoping there was a simpler way than having to mod every single beam in game...
Modding every single beam in the game is actually not all that complicated, thanks to the joy of modular tables. All you have to do is make a -wep.tbm file that contains a series of entries for each beam, which needs to consist only of its name and the line "$Damage Type: <blah>".
Title: Re: Beams and shields
Post by: Zarax on August 21, 2015, 02:53:12 am
Ok, let's see if I got it right:

1) I have to create a new shield armor type in armor.tbl
2) I have to create a specific damage type to match in weapons.tbl
3) I have to make all beam weapons of that damage type in weapons.tbl
4) I have to give the shield armor type to the ship in ships.tbl

Did I miss any step?
Title: Re: Beams and shields
Post by: procdrone on August 21, 2015, 04:53:39 am
AdmiralRalwood... hmmm, this is kinda more complicated then I did, but there again, im not as skilled as you.

If you want to give capital ship (this is what I have understood from your post), I just went up to pof file, imported shield model (and made it match the actual model), there, add shield hitpoints to the ships.tbl and make the weapon no-pierce-shield.

Never did that armor thing but I guess this "some pierce, some not" goes strange here.

I know there is something like "surface shields" as well, but I'm clueless how would they work in practice.

I can upload you an example of shielded capital ships and weapons that do not pierce through right away, later.
Title: Re: Beams and shields
Post by: Zarax on August 21, 2015, 04:56:13 am
I actually use the surface shield flag to make capital ships shielded but in one case I'd like the shield to be able to absorb beam fire.