[Unknown Target]

I was wondering if someone could add a couple tags, either to the tables or FRED, where the support ship doesn't slow down the ship when it's attached (support-no-slowdown),the support ship stay's attached to the fighter for the rest of the mission (support-stay-attached), and that you can only call in the support ship once.

The reason I want this is because I want to use the seupport ship as a pseudo-ammo pod, where when you're low on ammo, it'll come in and refill you once and just stay stuck to you.

[karajorma]

Change the support ship's mass. Doesn't that have the effect you want?

[Black Wolf]

But it'll still break away if you try to fly off with it. Might it not be better to wait until Phreak does tertiary weapons for this? It's the kind of feature it'd be tailor made for.

[Unknown Target]

True, but is phreak going to make those tertiary weapons also able to negatively affect your performance?

[SadisticSid]

Sorry to say it but these sound like features with very niche appeal, with perhaps the exception of a num-support-calls tag so you can limit the number of support ship calls per mission to 1 (or any number).

[karajorma]

Originally posted by SadisticSid
Sorry to say it but these sound like features with very niche appeal, with perhaps the exception of a num-support-calls tag so you can limit the number of support ship calls per mission to 1 (or any number).

You can do that already. Check out the Set-Support-Ship SEXP.

[Trivial Psychic]

I'd like to see the set-support-ship sexp altered to specify which species it is for.  For example, in the Port, you'd want the Terrans to be able to call in the Centaur, while you want the Vasudans (when they're your allies) to call in the Scarab.  Right now, if you use this sexp, you can only use one per mission... anymore and they will overwrite each other.

Later!

[karajorma]

You can set the SEXP to allow both ships to be called in by either side. Makes for a compromise

[Trivial Psychic]

But AFAIK, right now if you use (same Port scenario) the sexp to say use the Centaur for Terran fighters, Vasudan ships will call in the Centaur too.  Vasudan ships should call in the Scarab.  Right now there's no way to do that, hence my statement that the sexp needs to be amended.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Trivial Psychic
But AFAIK, right now if you use (same Port scenario) the sexp to say use the Centaur for Terran fighters, Vasudan ships will call in the Centaur too.  Vasudan ships should call in the Scarab.  Right now there's no way to do that, hence my statement that the sexp needs to be amended.

And that's exactly how it should work. If you set the support ship to centaur you should NEVER get anything except centaurs. Anything else would make the SEXP completely worthless.

For example suppose I've set the support ship to be launched from a destroyer which is supposedly the only one left in the system. A vasudan ship could call for support and then either a vasudan support ship would leap in from a non existant vasudan destroyer or we'd see a terran destroyer launch a vasudan support ship. Both options are ridiculous and completely devalue the entire SEXP.
 
Nope. If you've set the support ship to one class that's all you should ever see.

However if you've set the support ship to I can see that the SEXP might need some alterations.  I've never played about with that setting but I assume that whether you get a centaur or scarab in that case depends on whether a vasudan or a terran makes the first call for support.
In that case the SEXP does need some amending becase as it is you can have terran ships launching vasudan support and there is no way to have both a terran and a vasudan capship in the mission and have each of them launch the correct kind of support ship.

However what you're asking for goes deeper than even that. Your asking for vasudan ships to only be supplied by vasudan support ships.  That's a lot more work than just amending a single SEXP. Even if the SEXP was amended what happens once there is a centaur and scarab in the mission already? Next time someone calls for support they'd get fixed by whatever ship was closer regardless of species.

 You'd need to add code to make docking species specific. You'd need to make this occur only if a ship or mission flag was set or you'd break campaigns like Homesick where a vasudan transport is used to service terran ships.

Personally something like this is something I'd like to see but it's a lot of work for something that won't be seen in action unless you're willing to go through all the missions in the port (and the main campaign for that matter) and fix them to use species specific docking.

[Trivial Psychic]

Originally posted by karajorma

However if you've set the support ship to I can see that the SEXP might need some alterations.  I've never played about with that setting but I assume that whether you get a centaur or scarab in that case depends on whether a vasudan or a terran makes the first call for support.
In that case the SEXP does need some amending becase as it is you can have terran ships launching vasudan support and there is no way to have both a terran and a vasudan capship in the mission and have each of them launch the correct kind of support ship.

That's the situation I'm more concerned with.  For example, with default FS2 data (that is, FS2 tables, not Port, and no set-support-ship sexp), if you're playing say "Surrender, Bellassarius" (sp?), if you or your Terran wingman call for support first, then a Hygeia will jump in and service both Terran and Vasudan fighters that ask for rearm/repair, until said support ship is either destroyed or departs.  If a Vasudan pilot is the next pilot to call for support, then a Nephthys will arrive and also service both Terran and Vasudan fighters until it is destroyed or departs.  Now, lets take the same basic mission idea, and place it in FS1 era, using the Port.  For the sake of argument, its the HoL attacking, in place of the NTF.  Now, unless a set-support-ship sexp is used, the Hygeia and Nephthys will continue to arrive, which are incorrect for the period.  So I want to have the Centaur called in if a support ship is not in the game field, and a Terran calls for support, and I want a Scarab to be called in if a Vasudan calls for support under the same conditions.  The set-support-ship sexp cannot do this right now.  You can specify the Centaur OR the Scarab, but not both.  In fact, the only way to get this effect right now, is to gut the FS2 support ships from the tables and run without the sexp.  Without resorting to this, the solution is either to include a species line in the sexp and allow for this sexp to be used as many times in mission as required for the number of friendly species, or make the sexp scaleable, like the send-message-list sexp, which can be extended for as many messages as are required for a mission, except for species-specific support ship entries.   A third option would be to bypass sexps all together, and have a section in the mission specs so you can select which species have which support ships, how many, where they come from, etc.

I hope this clears up the question of where I see a failing in the current sexp, and how I think it should be handled.

Later!

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Trivial Psychic

That's the situation I'm more concerned with.  For example, with default FS2 data (that is, FS2 tables, not Port, and no set-support-ship sexp), if you're playing say "Surrender, Bellassarius" (sp?), if you or your Terran wingman call for support first, then a Hygeia will jump in and service both Terran and Vasudan fighters that ask for rearm/repair, until said support ship is either destroyed or departs.  If a Vasudan pilot is the next pilot to call for support, then a Nephthys will arrive and also service both Terran and Vasudan fighters until it is destroyed or departs.  Now, lets take the same basic mission idea, and place it in FS1 era, using the Port.  For the sake of argument, its the HoL attacking, in place of the NTF.  Now, unless a set-support-ship sexp is used, the Hygeia and Nephthys will continue to arrive, which are incorrect for the period.  So I want to have the Centaur called in if a support ship is not in the game field, and a Terran calls for support, and I want a Scarab to be called in if a Vasudan calls for support under the same conditions.  The set-support-ship sexp cannot do this right now.  You can specify the Centaur OR the Scarab, but not both.  In fact, the only way to get this effect right now, is to gut the FS2 support ships from the tables and run without the sexp.  Without resorting to this, the solution is either to include a species line in the sexp and allow for this sexp to be used as many times in mission as required for the number of friendly species, or make the sexp scaleable, like the send-message-list sexp, which can be extended for as many messages as are required for a mission, except for species-specific support ship entries.   A third option would be to bypass sexps all together, and have a section in the mission specs so you can select which species have which support ships, how many, where they come from, etc.

I hope this clears up the question of where I see a failing in the current sexp, and how I think it should be handled.

Later!

I wouldn't agree with the third option. The ability to change what support ships are available in mid mission is very useful. Adding a species line isn't a bad idea. It would allow both species to have support ships set independantly from each other.

I think there are two problems with things at the moment.

1) I don't know how tricky this would be to implement.

2) It might break missions using the current set-support-ship SEXP as you'd have to alter the SEXP quite significantly. Admittedly I don't think anything using it has been released but I know that I've used it a couple of times and I'm probably not alone in that.


To be honest though I think trimming the Hygeia and the Nephthys  out of the tables is a fair enough thing to do. The port doesn't need them and now that we have the -mod switch there is no real reason for playing anything except FS1 era missions on the port anyway.

[Goober5000]

But we bugfixed a lot of the FS2 main campaign missions in the Port release.

The species thing might be doable.  I'll have to check.

[karajorma]

You did? I wasn't aware of that.

Since the port is a mod I only ever play it with the -mod switch and always revert to standard FS2 to play the main campaign so I'd never noticed.

That really should be in a seperate download