[MartyrOfKharak]

Hey everyone, I'm pretty new around here.

I'm getting along pretty well in FREDding.  I started last night and I've already got SEXPs down and I understand how to use most of the functions in the editor.  However, I'm having a few problems.

1.  When I start the mission, non of my fighters have primary weapons on them.  I checked in the ship editor and the team loadout editor to make sure the weapons were set on and there were plenty of extras aboard the launch ship.  However, once I start the mission the loadout screen is empty and all the weapons I had assigned to the ships are gone.  When I start the mission the weapons bank on the right of the screen reads "none".

2.  The Command Briefing keeps erasing itself.  I write it and hit "ok", open the window again, and sometimes it's there and sometimes it's gone.  It happens to no apparent reason, and I don't know how to fix it.

Any help on these problems would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

For the first one try creating a new pilot and see if it still does it.  The command briefing sounds like it may be corrupted somewhere.  Did you use a ; anywhere.  I found out regular briefings don't like that at all so the same is probably true for command briefings.

If you want to post the mission or send me a PM with a link I'll take a quick look at it. 

Almost forgot is this in retail FRED or FRED2_Open?  If it's in retail any reason your not using open?

[MartyrOfKharak]

Ah, yeah.  I put a semi-colon in the text.  But even after removing it nothing changed.  FS2 crashes when I try to load the mission and FRED crashes when I try to open the command briefing editor.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Open the mission in notepad and either try to correct it or remove the stuff between the following:

#Command Briefing

#Briefing


Then save the file and try opening it in FRED again.  You can back it up first so you can just copy and paste your command briefing stuff minus the ; of course. 

[karajorma]

You're not the only one to make that mistake with the colon's BTW.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Yes but if you do it now ever time you save the mission it corrupts the file further.  I ended up with about a dozen little boxes (don't know what that character is called) at the end of the line with the ; Probably one for each time I saved it after going into the briefing editor.  It started crashing like crazy in FRED only after a bunch of new saves. 

[MartyrOfKharak]

Alright, so that fixes my briefing problem (I guess it arises from the ; being used to indicate comments?).  But I still can't get my weapons to work...or even show up on the ship.  I'm using an unedited weapons table.

And while I'm here I might as well ask how I get the objectives to show up on the left hand side of the screen, that's not working either.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Check Kara's FAQ in his sig a couple of replies up.

[Snail]

Semicolons are used like REMs... So are quotation marks IIRC.

[karajorma]

Alright, so that fixes my briefing problem (I guess it arises from the ; being used to indicate comments?).  But I still can't get my weapons to work...or even show up on the ship.  I'm using an unedited weapons table.

And while I'm here I might as well ask how I get the objectives to show up on the left hand side of the screen, that's not working either.

The left hand of the screen shows you the Directives. Objectives are the mission goals that appear at the end of the briefing. The walkthrough does actually show how to do those so just have a good read through of it (or better yet do it).

As for the weapons. My bet is that you've made a campaign file and forgotten to set the team loadout in that too. In that case you'd end up with no weapons and only the ships specified in the mission file showing up regardless of whatever you set in the mission's loadout editor.

[MartyrOfKharak]

I've set everything to be available in both the mission and campaign loadout editors.

[karajorma]

Post the mission or send me a PM with the details. I'll take a look for you.

[MartyrOfKharak]

http://www.seventhseagull.org/user/mazer/Velateria.vp

You can download my VP from that link, it's got the missions and my modified table for ships.  I'm working on importing some of my lightwave models into this also, and a lot of the mission elements are still missing.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

You still have the corrupted command briefing line in there.  Open the mission in notepad and get rid of the line that starts with:  ; you all know
It may not be causing problems now but it will eventually.  Actually that is in there several times so look down through the mission and remove them all. 

I don't know what your setup is or much about moding but I see you are using your own ships and weapons tables.  The ship you are using is referencing weapons that have an @ in front of them in the weapons table.  I have no idea what that will do but it probably can't be good.

[karajorma]

It would be an absolute disaster using any build that had my loadout code in it. The game will simply assume that it's a variable. That said there aren't that many builds around that have it and it only applies if the @ symbol is used in the mission file not the table.

[MartyrOfKharak]

So I've determined there's nothing wrong with the mission editor or the loadout code.  I tried running the missions with the normal freespace 2 Open client and the weapons worked fine.  Is there something I'm missing that is causing the weapons to not work?