[EAD_Agamemnon]

Okay...this sorta follows an early post of mine about fighter beams...sort of.
By using the Nial's Neutron Gun TBP3.0 and following other tbl 's as a basis, I made a fighter beam cannon "Fighter Lance" until I can think of a better name.
I got it all set up, I put it in place up there with the primary sidearm weapons, open FS2_open and instantly as it tries to load it bumps me back to desktop.

[StratComm]

When does it crash?  When you load a mission, or before?  If it's during mission load, are you sure that fighter beams are supposed to go there?  Is this a new build?  There are a myriad of problems that could be causing a crash.  Try cutting your beam out (commenting with ; can be useful here) and see if the game still crashes out.  If it doesn't, post the weapon up and someone will have a look at it.

[EAD_Agamemnon]

Neither.
Yes this is a new build. I would like a fighter beam that I can place on all fighters and bombers just to spice up the game more.
After I have put the weapon into the tbl. I double-click on FS2_Open, the screen goes black for a split second like it always does when its about to load, but it just spits me back out in the same second.

About your second bit...saying adding some comments on each part can help?

[EAD_Agamemnon]

TBP has fighter beams and such, and all it is, is a mod with lots more detailing, so I dont see why my beam weapon cant go in...

[StratComm]

The weapons table may be specific as to where player weapons and/or beam weapons go, is why I ask.  A weapons error should not cause a crash before the game trys to load it, which would be either when you enter the weapons section of the techroom or when you try to load a mission.  If it's crashing before the game loads, then something else is wrong since you're not getting to weapons table parsing.  Have you made sure that you're not suffering from the mv_music.vp problems of recent releases?  The zpack can do it too.

[EAD_Agamemnon]

zpack? mv_music.vp? I have no other modifications done to the game, other than what I did earlier was make all ships faster with added impact effects for all weapons...this change caused no problems what so ever.

Ill try putting the Fighter Lance down with the other beam weapons. Just so you can check and see if I have a flaw in the weapon data, I'll post it:

 ; Sidearm
;
$Name:            @Lance Beam
+Title:            XSTR("Lance Beam", -1)
+Tech Anim:         Tech_Subach_HL-7
+Tech Description:
XSTR(
"Fighter-Based Photon Beam Cannon.
Level 5 Hull Damage
Level 3 Shield Damage", -1)
XSTR(
"Lance Beam cannons were in development just three months after the NTF rebellion, which subsequently put a halt to development. However, with the reappearance of the Shivans, the GTVA needed a weapon for their squadrons that was capable of high damage per shot, and with medium rate of fire that is highly effective verse small craft, and a signicant threat to all vessels of Cruisers and below. The Lance Beam functions much the same as the larger AAA beam weapons.", -1)
$end_multi_text
$Model File:
@Laser Bitmap:          laserglow01
@Laser Color:             0, 255, 54
@Laser Length:          0.0
@Laser Head Radius:          0.0
@Laser Tail Raidue:          0.0
$Mass:             10.0
$Velocity:          1000
$Fire Wait:          0.5
$Damage:          50
$Armor Factor:          1.0
$Shield Factor:          0.5
$Subsystem Factor:       1.2
$Lifetime:          0.5
$Energy Consumed:       5.0
$Cargo Size:          0.0
$Homing:          NO
$Launch Sound:       125
$Impact Sound:          88
+Weapon Range:       1000
$Flags:             ( "beam" "player allowed" "beam" "EMP" "in tech database" )
$Icon:                icongun05
$Anim:                LoadGun07
$Impact Explosion:          exp05
$Impact Explosion Radius:       10.0
$BeamInfo:
   +Type:             3
   +Life:             0.5
   +Warmup:          10
   +Warmdown:          10
   +Radius:          2.5
   +PCount:          0
   +PRadius:          0.0
   +PAngle:          0.0
   +PAni:             particleexp01
   +Miss Factor:       0.5 0.7 0.9 1.1 1.3
   +Beamsound:       121
   +WarmupSound:       122
   +WarmdownSound:       123
   +Muzzleglow:       WarpGlow02
   +Shots: 3
   +ShrinkFactor:       0.0
   +ShrinkPct:       0.0
   $Section:
      +Width:      1.4
      +Texture:      beam-red2
      +RGBA Inner:   255 0 0 255
      +RGBA Outter:   150 0 0 10
      +Flicker:      0.0
      +Zadd:      3.0
   $Section:
      +Width:      0.7
      +Texture:      beam-saph2
      +RGBA Inner:   0 255 0 255
      +RGBA Outer:   0 150 0 10
      +Flicker:      0.5
      +Zadd:      1.5

[WMCoolmon]

Do you have more than 200 weapons in the table? (Start counting )

Try removing a couple and load FS2 again. Make sure you use the default TBP build to, the new builds can cause problems with pilot files and so forth.

[EAD_Agamemnon]

I'm not using this in TBP...am attempting to use it in regular FS2 campaign. I'd like to try to change the primary weapons for strike craft.
This will be the only other one to added other than those that were in the tbl to begin with.

EDIT: just noticed one problem... for  Model File  I dont have NONE next to it....maybe thats it...any other suggestions will be appreciated.

[WMCoolmon]

Ahh.

You should probably try an official (3.6, 3.6.5) build to make sure it isn't just build-specific. Also, try a debug build of the same, that might tell you the problem right off teh bat.

[Trivial Psychic]

You have the "Beam" flag in there twice, beam-saph2 may not be an FS2 texture, so you may have to extract it from the TBP VP, and you don't have any loadout icons selected... which could be your biggest problem.   Grab the $icon and $anim entries from the Kayser or something.  You may also want to reduce the "+shots" entry to 1.  Also, make sure you have "Lance Beam" in the Allowed PBanks for the fighters you want to be able to mount it.

[EAD_Agamemnon]

I'm using 3.6.5

[EAD_Agamemnon]

Wasn't aware of "beam" flagged twice...I sometimes got habit of double typing a word...

beam-saph2 can be found in sparky_hi_fs2.vp in EFFECTS, thats where I got it from.

shots is 3 because this is set as same type as an anti-fighter beam

EDIT: I can put in the fighters after I can get the game to load when this is put in the weapons tbl

[Trivial Psychic]

Originally posted by EAD_Agamemnon
beam-saph2 can be found in sparky_hi_fs2.vp in EFFECTS, thats where I got it from.

Cool... I wasn't sure about that one, that's why I said "may not", not "is not".  Anyway, you'll definitely need to make your loadout icon changes I mentioned above.

Originally posted by EAD_Agamemnon
shots is 3 because this is set as same type as an anti-fighter beam

That may be, but if you're trying to use this as a fighter primary (as opposed to turret mounted), you're gonna want it to have one shot per discharge.  I personally reccomend switching the beam type from 3 to either 0 or 2, then switching the shots to either 1 or 0.

[StratComm]

Do you have any files in your FS2 root directory with the name mv_*.vp by any chance?  Also check your weapons table as was previously said for the limit 200 entries, though I don't think you're getting far enough in to be having problems there.

[EAD_Agamemnon]

Dont those 2 have to match for it to work (i.e. both being 0 or 1 , etc)

I'll try what your recommended though (If I can get my damned computer to stop running out of virtual memory all the time). I used the D word because its appropriate for the occasion.

Note: Looked in TBP for the Nial Neutron Gun, the beam type is 3 and shots 1 so you can probably scratch that first bit....I would assume thats why it works then and that the Nial fires 1 beam a time from its 3 hardpoints hull, in a cyclical matter...

[EAD_Agamemnon]

I have no file in FS2 root with    mv   in it.

[StratComm]

Not mv_core?  I think that one's required, though it should still load without it there.  Are you using the launcher?

[EAD_Agamemnon]

this isnt a vp mod I'm trying, if thats what you mean, its a .tbl change I'm trying and that only at the moment. The launcher I dont think is causing the problem, as I have no other mods installed in the main FS2 directory. The ones I did have I access through CAMPAIGNS.

EDIT: If the mv_core is a requirement (in some way that I do not know of) where would I get it?

[StratComm]

It's part of the media vp's, available from the thread titled "Media VP 3.6.5 in the SCP forum.  The reason I keep coming back to this subject instead of your table mod is that the game isn't loading at all, which means either an internal check is being done on weapons.tbl as the game loads, or you've got something else wrong.  If it's a check on weapons (which I doubt), then renaming weapons.tbl to weapons.txt should allow the game to start up.  I should have suggested this first come to think of it, but it's still worth trying.  If it still crashes after doing that, then you almost certainly are missing something important; I'd recommend checking the SCP forum for details there.

EDIT: mv_core.vp isn't a mod, but rather a set of files that restores functionality to the game that was lost with the stock files due to format or procedural changes.  Offhand, I know that it contains the subspace.pof, subspacenode.pof, and some miscelaneous interface-related data, as well as anything else that re-enables an existing feature.

[EAD_Agamemnon]

I'll try the mv_core
Any missing effects I can just dump in the tables/effects folder...