[Stardust]

ive been looking in to making a new flag type for capital ships, so that you can issue similar orders to, say, a corvette or destroyer, only not have the game think the big ship is a fighter. I tried changing the hecate's flag from "destroyer" or whatever it is to "fighter". It worked fine for a few minutes, then as the ship took more damage, the game crashed, and exited to windows.

My best guess is that because the hecate also has the flag "big ship" (so that it can use its beam cannons) and i changed it to a "fighter", that made the game crash, cuz it was going to say "taking damage, request cover!"(you know, when a fighter starts taking heavy fire, the pilot sends a distress signal)

Anyways, i was wondering if there is a way to make a new flag. So, hypothetically, if you were captain of a cruiser and could fly fighters in defense of your ship, you could tell your ship to stop attacking a certain target and fire on another target, or escort a capital ship, or form on your wing(move to designated location) in order to give an added RTS feel to the game - kinda like a combination action-strategy game, like Urban Assault and the Uprising series.

Does anyone see what im getting at by any chance?

[StratComm]

What you'd want to do is currently constrained by the engine; capital ships can't be ordered around by a fighter pilot since their purpose in missions is almost always scripted.  If a mission is poorly designed, you can actually command anything corvette and below to attack a target, but that's the only valid way it'd work.  You could probably change the Hecate into a Corvette and do what you're wanting to do, but it's not how Freespace is typically used as its strengths do not lie in any kind of RTS environment.

Oh, and a Hecate crashes the game if it's a fighter because it has too many turrets; fighters can have 7-8 subsystems get damaged, beyond which the game will crash.

[Stardust]

i can see clearly now, the brain is gone.....

I see, but it would be cool if you could command ships from your fighter. I mean, all (arguably) you need to do is create an event, change the do-nothing method to change/beam-free-all and then enter the name of the ship in question. That will activate the ship's beam cannons, without specifying what it should attack with them.

What im interested in doing is creating a flag where you can command capital ships similarly to fighters, but without the limitation imposed. yeah, i guess you could say that it can be done with poor scripting, but think about it - you're the fleet commander, and you're right in there, mixing it up with your forces. Anyone tried Uprising or Uprising 2? you build bases on planet surfaces and teleport in tanks, troops, fighters and bombers, as well as killer satellites and nukes in a fight to destroy the enemy bases.

[Woolie Wool]

Yes, have Alpha 1 boss the caps around because after all, everyone knows admirals take orders from fighter pilots...

I think the idea of capships telling people what to do is stupid. If you're in a position in which you can tell starship captains what to do, you aren't going to be flying a fighter.

[Stardust]

im not disputing that, im just picturing a kind of game smiilar to Urban Assault or any of the Uprising series games. You command your forces from your host station(UA) or from your tank(Uprising).

Yes, capships behavior is always scripted in order to make missions more interesting, and add realism to a game, but you can activate a ship's beam cannons by selecting the "beam-free-all" method, and selecting which ship in question it is going to be.
But you guys already know that

[Mav]

Originally posted by Woolie Wool
Yes, have Alpha 1 boss the caps around because after all, everyone knows admirals take orders from fighter pilots...

I think the idea of capships telling people what to do is stupid. If you're in a position in which you can tell starship captains what to do, you aren't going to be flying a fighter.

Errm... Darth Vader? [hint]

... Just to remember people to keep TCs in mind when talking about modifications to the source code. It's fine for the FS universe that fighter pilots can't order capships, but there might be others where it might make sense. And if you're worried about that it will screw up scripted missions - all possible orders can be deactivated in Fred, so if the mission is really carefully designed, it still won't be possible. And for old missions - well, make it off by default, as most new features.

[OK, I'm possibly in the wrong forum with this post ... ]


[edit: And another answer to a thread the age of which I didn't realize...  suppose it's time to get pretty nervous ]

[Woolie Wool]

Alpha 1 is not a Dark Lord of the Sith.

[StratComm]

Not that this is related to anything Inferno, but what would be nice would be the ability to intelligently communicate with capships.  Requesting support fire, for example.  You should never be able to tell a warship what to attack though, or where to go, as that's why the things have a captain (you actually can command Corvette-level and below to attack specific targets, as I've pointed out before, and if enabled you can tell any ship to depart.  It doesn't help the realism or even the playability factors at all, in my experience).  But being able to tell a transport to go ahead and dock since hostiles have been cleared, would make sense.

[Woolie Wool]

That makes sense, but giving orders to a capship does not. The captain of a major warship would be at least two ranks above Alpha 1 and probably 20-30 years his senior.

[Zarax]

What about when you get promoted to admiral?
That would place you above most of the food chain

[InfernoGod]

I'm admiral!

[KappaWing]

What about when you get promoted to admiral?
That would place you above most of the food chain.

That's one thing that bugs me about Freespace. Why the heck would an Admiral be flying around in a weak fighter?

I'm admiral!

You forgot the [sarcastic] [/sarcastic] tags!

Either that or you made a mission in Fred where you get a trillion points for blowing up one fighter.

[Ypoknons]

I've always wanted to port FS2 or Inferno to the HW2 or Nexus engine, personally.

[mr.WHO]

Originally posted by Ypoknons
I've always wanted to port FS2 or Inferno to the HW2 or Nexus engine, personally.

:D:D:D:D:D

http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,27852.0.html

[InfernoGod]

Originally posted by KappaWing


That's one thing that bugs me about Freespace. Why the heck would an Admiral be flying around in a weak fighter?



You forgot the [sarcastic] [/sarcastic] tags!

Either that or you made a mission in Fred where you get a trillion points for blowing up one fighter.

Actually, I truly did get to the Admiral status, and with Triple Ace, and with every badge at least once. I can post a picture up if you don't believe me.

[Hippo]

and we subsequently proved that you did not in fact do it in a way that means you actually did anything