[JarC]

Tryin to create a 'showroom' mission so as I can easily take a relaxed look at what the artists are creating, I found it frustratingly, next to impossible, difficult to align ships in straight line (aligned on the front most point)....if I could attach files I'd attach the showroom mission so you could see what I mean (in Fred the lineup looks more like an ECG )...

(edit: treat following as humoristic sidenote, not pertaining to actual problem
it does look funny how they can fly in perfect formation...

Follow that Ulysses!

[Fineus]

Looks neat, but you could always tell them not to fly anywhere - specifically not to do anything at all. Then look at them at your leasure in the external camera mode.

[aldo_14]

try killing all their engine subsystems / capping speed to 0 maybe?  Or no-AI setting - then ythey shouldn't move.

[JarC]

sorry for putting you guys on the wrong foot it isn't a problem to tell them to 'play dead' and have the shivans posing as 'Friendly'...the problem is as I described, lining them up noses in a straight line...*if you could see the initial positions I have to set in FRED to have them appear on a straight line in FS, you'd think you were looking at an ECG (hartbeat scan?) as for their initial position, they stay nice in line untill I tell the whole pack to 'form on my wing' and I was quite surprised to see them take on such a nice formation


*what am I saying? here's a screenie...  
note: the desired line forms a U...
(edit: And This is how I have to do it in FRED to get a straight lined U in FS)

[Jiggyhound]

umm
edit their positions manually? tell them to face in said direction to make them face the right way?

[JarC]

*BUMP*

so, no one any idea why ship positions in FRED do not line up with their positions when the mission is loaded?

[Star Dragon]

As you can see I made a "line up" last year to show off the models as they would look in game. They cme out exaclty as I lined them up no problem BUT you got to realise that the scaling is NOT exact!!! You will have to try this a LOT to get a feel for where they will actually end up at in game distance wise from each other... It's far from perfect But at least it does work.

http://f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/getter_robo_g_2004/detail?.dir=/a628&.dnm=3fb2.jpg

[Fineus]

You could place them in a circular formation looking at one central point (say, a nav bouy). Presumably no matter what direction you face them in with FRED, if you force them to face a certain object they'll keep facing it.

Or perhaps if you were to have them fly towards a waypoint 40k meters (or some other large distance) away, and edited their position on a Y-axis so they were 1000 above one another in a straight line, then you could browse through them at your leasure as they flew.

[JarC]

Ok I give up, you folks obviously are talking some other English dialect than me, coz no one seems to have any clue what I mean...and AAR giving suggestions I can't do anything with...and certainly not explaining why...

[IceFire]

Give them the AI order "play dead".  Otherwise they are going to wander around in circles.  Thats normal.

[JarC]

errr....? see added emphasis...

@Aldo_14: and me eating crow...gawd what a taste...you were on the right track but dense /me had no idea that was what you were referring to...coz in my inexperienced FREDder mind, playing dead is 'not moving' so it never dawned on me to check the starting speed...

[Gregster2k]

YOU IDIOTS! At least I can understand what hes saying!!!

HE WANTS ADJACENT SHIPS TO ALL BE PARALLEL TO EACH OTHER

However JarC keep in mind that ingame you will see some "distortion" with respect to ship orientation because ingame the ships have lots of field-of-view applied to them, perspective and all that good stuff. You will never be able to get them to look PERFECTLY straight, but if you want them to be facing the same direction parallel to each other...well I have no idea, but at least I figured out what you're talking about.

EDIT: Discovered the other thread...nevermind.