[Dwin]

So, do capital ships weapons have some kind of minimum range or something? 

I've set two of them to ai-chase each other. So they start firing at each other and moving closer towards each other. Then when they're close, they stop shooting at each other!

They're weapons systems are still functioning, as are their turrets.

What's going on?

[karajorma]

The problem is caused by the ships getting so close to each other that they are out of the field of fire for their guns.

Don't use ai-chase with capships. You should script capship battles using waypoints. Not only does this solve your above problem but it also looks more like the show. You never saw the caps get really close to each other in the show except when ramming.

[Dwin]

Hmm...I'll try that.

[Dwin]

Not really a problem, just a question regarding TBP.

When you're placing a jumpgate, what's the differents between placing an entire jumpgate and placing the arms individually?

[Trivial Psychic]

It all depends on A, the size of the ship you want to enter through the gate, or B, whether the gate is required to come under attack at some point in the mission.

[Dwin]

Aah...if you wanted a jumpgate to be destroyed, you'd want it to piece by piece.

 

[Dwin]

karajorma, are you working on the BSG mod?

YOU. ARE. GODS.

[Dwin]

Incoming question!

What would I use if I want to trigger an event when a player has moved to a certain area? A waypoint? Navpoint?

[karajorma]

Measure the distance from a waypoint. Once it's less than a certain amount the player is in the new area.

[Dwin]

Thanks. So what about navpoints?

[Shade]

Same thing. Any object that can be placed in FRED, you can measure the distance to. And if you want to measure the distance to the middle of nowhere, just plop down an otherwise unused waypoint there and measure the distance to that, and noone will know better.

All these measurements result in a circular area though, but are simple and need only one distance check. If you want something else, things get a bit more complex.

Say you want the player to be within a square area, things get a bit more complex. Best way to do squares is by checking the absolute coordinates of the player with get-object-x/y/z and comparing that against the boundaries of the desired area. This only works when the boundaries are perfectly aligned with the 3 axes though.

If you want an area that's not circular, but with boundaries not aligned with the 3 primary axes, you approximate it by placing waypoints very, very, very far away for each side of the area, and then checking distance from those. The sides will be ever so slightly concave or convex though, but if you place the waypoints far enough away it will be negligeble.

[karajorma]

Navpoints were added for the Wing Commander Saga team and they basically are designed to give you the ability to autopilot yourself and other wings or even capships to points very far away. IIRC you can use them like waypoints for simple distance measuring. Unlike waypoints Navpoints can be made to show up on the HUD.

Say you want the player to be within a square area, things get a bit more complex. Best way to do squares is by checking the absolute coordinates of the player with get-object-x/y/z and comparing that against the boundaries of the desired area. This only works when the boundaries are perfectly aligned with the 3 axes though.

Actually the best way is to use the new num-within-box SEXP

[Dwin]

Does the "takes place in subspace" feature work in TPB? Cause the game crashed when I tried to play a missionwith that ticked.

[0rph3u5]

no it does not work...
to simulate hyperspace use the full nebula option and use only the both hyperspace pofs (the two ones on top of the list)

[karajorma]

Does the "takes place in subspace" feature work in TPB? Cause the game crashed when I tried to play a missionwith that ticked.

Ironically enough the exact same thing would have happened with FS2. FS2_Open fixed this of course

[Shade]

Actually the best way is to use the new num-within-box SEXP

Nice! When'd that get in? Definitely going to make life a lot easier for those situations

[karajorma]

It was added right at the end of last year by WMC.

I think we need a better way of announcing changes for the SCP. If you don't watch the SCP forum like a hawk it's easy to miss new things. If you missed num-within-box you've probably missed several of my new SEXPs too.

[Shade]

Yeah, I'd be surprised if I didn't. I watch it closer now than I used to though so anything recent I'm probably aware of. Perhaps the wiki would be a good place to keep a list of SCP sexps?

In fact the wiki start page seems practically devoid of any FRED related links or information, so maybe a new FRED portal on the main under which we could have that list of the new sexps, as well as whatever else might come in handy such as the various command line options, a troubleshooting page for common problems, and anything that might already be in the wiki but is hard to find due to there not being a portal for it.

I'd certainly be willing to put in some time to help flesh out such a portal. Would get it started myself actually but I am unable to edit the main page to add it.

[karajorma]

I've been meaning to transfer large quantities of my FAQ to the wiki for some time now. There's a lot of stuff in there that definitely should be on the wiki. Only problem is that every time I try I spot error and inconsistencies in the FAQ and end up updating it instead

[Shade]

That would be a very good start, and the wiki could certainly use some love. Not least in the layout, half of the problem imo is that even if information is there, it's difficult to find. There actually is a FRED category, but it's not readily accessible and, to be honest, not that well stocked with useful information either. Anyway, if we can just get a wiki admin to set up a FRED portal, I'd be happy to help get that sorted out

[Edit] I was wrong, I can create the portal, I just can't add it to the main page. So I'll go ahead and set it up with some basic categories to add stuff in for now.