[Scooby_Doo]

Three actually, (wish search worked but anywhoo)

1.) I know you can set the FOV, but was is the default FOV? I can then setup a camera in max to mimic it and make cockpit views less trial and error.

2.) What is all necessary for animated subobjects (like doors)? I know they need to be subobjects and the trigger is an event but is there anything special in the pof and/or table?

3.) Does surface shields allow cap ships to have shields but not require a shield mesh?

[Trivial Psychic]

1.) I know you can set the FOV, but was is the default FOV? I can then setup a camera in max to mimic it and make cockpit views less trial and error.

From the WiKi, Command-Line Reference:

-fov

Specifies the Field of View for the player eyepoint.

Takes one argument decimal specifying the angle of the viewing cone in radians, from 0 to 2*pi

You can set the cone of view making things look bigger/smaller. The problem with this is that if you choose a small FOV, you will have a squashed look on the edges of your screen - stretched edges with a too high FOV. It is recommended to change the FOV as FS2 normally has some perspective distortion at the screen edges (FOV too high). Set the FOV to something like 0.39 - it will fix the distortion problem, and (as a nice side effect) will make everything look bigger and more realistic scale-wise. The default is 0.75, if you go higher, you'll get the fish-eye effect. Feel free to experiment. This must be entered into the "Custom flags" field

[Scooby_Doo]

Ahh Thanks, it appears I need to know more than 3/4.  It looks like Max cameras already use 3/4 but they seem to also use degree angles. I hope it's 20mm (68deg high X 83deg wide). Looking at it more closely, I don't know if anyone really knows the angles.

[Scooby_Doo]

3.) Does surface shields allow cap ships to have shields but not require a shield mesh?

Nevermind I answered it myself. I was looking in the wrong area, I was looking at command line options and not the tables.