[karajorma]

That last one would probably require a large rewrite of the briefing code. The other two might be easier though.

While I'm on the suggestion of advancing Arguments, how about "persistent" arguments.  I'm not saying that they are remembered from mission to mission, but that they can be remembered from event to event.  Perhaps the identifier for persistent arguments would be placed in the type of argument list.  "any-of" would be joined by "any-of-persist" or something like that.  That of course means that we'd need a way of naming argument sets, like we do with variables.  Or could persistent arguments be achieved by tying arguments with variables?  That's more Kara's court.

Actually it's more Goober's since he came up with the whole argument system and all I've done is tinker with it a little

On the occasions where I've needed to persist an argument I've always just written it into a string variable. That's not exactly a perfect solution cause you can only persist the last one used  that way. What we basically need working here is a system where FRED has its own equivalent to the vector class or arrays (huge preference for the former!).

As for the has-destroyed-delay SEXP I'm not certain how easy that would be to implement. I looked at the relevant code when I was working on Team Loadout and IIRC the game only currently stores information on who did the most damage in the log and doesn't record who actually dealt the deathblow at all.

I am however planning some changes to the way the game handles ships which have exited or been destroyed so that the information on who damaged what is better preserved. It may be possible to add a field to say who did kill the ship and store that information so that the SEXP can later retrieve it.

[asyikarea51]

I've got one more, this one is to do with drone pilots. (Vasudan FS1 support ship anybody?)

I know one way would be to do up a mechanical voice and use that as a wingman, but what if you were in a mission where you had authority over the people at the drone control centre or something? Would it be possible to have messages from drone ships come from another source? Say, Command or #Whatever or some other ship / installation in the mission? Maybe apply it to built-in messages as well. Drones probably have cameras too, so the drone controller guy can definitely inform the player of any incoming hostiles...

Only problem is, if the drone control centre gets blown up, then I have no idea as to what happens next...

[Dysko]

Only problem is, if the drone control centre gets blown up, then I have no idea as to what happens next...

The drone can remain blocked in space, not responding to any order. Or it may have a self-destruct device to prevent capture by enemy forces.

[asyikarea51]

I actually have another idea right now [absorb a (single ship / group of ships) into an existing wing], but my explanation of its uses isn't very good.

@ Darth Dysko

I forgot what my argument was when I said "no idea as to what happens next"... I think it has something to do with messages... ugh, I should've mentioned it when I made the post. Now I can't remember it...

[FUBAR-BDHR]

One more multi I forgot to post last night.  Player version display in forming state on host screen.  If that's too hard maybe a red/yellow/green indicator by the name.  Red being old version.  Yellow being same version older build.  Green being same version and build.  Just hit me.  Right where the CD indicator is would be a good place.  Would really help in determining if errors are caused by version incompatibility.  Hate asking every person that joins what version they are running.

[karajorma]

Good idea

[Turey]

One more multi I forgot to post last night.  Player version display in forming state on host screen.  If that's too hard maybe a red/yellow/green indicator by the name.  Red being old version.  Yellow being same version older build.  Green being same version and build.  Just hit me.  Right where the CD indicator is would be a good place.  Would really help in determining if errors are caused by version incompatibility.  Hate asking every person that joins what version they are running.

Seconded.

[DarkShadow-]

Wondering if it's possible to add this:

select-ship SEXP
A SEXP that selects a specific ship for the player.

change-ship-name SEXP
A SEXP that changes the primary name of the ship. Another idea would be to allow string variables for naming ships so we can use the modify-variable SEXP for changing the name.

[karajorma]

Wondering if it's possible to add this:

select-ship SEXP
A SEXP that selects a specific ship for the player.

What do you mean selects a specific ship? I'm not certain what you want the SEXP to do.

change-ship-name SEXP
A SEXP that changes the primary name of the ship. Another idea would be to allow string variables for naming ships so we can use the modify-variable SEXP for changing the name.

Haven't looked at the code but based on the poking about I did earlier this one is not easy.

Unfortunately the game is seeded full of places where it uses the ships name. For instance if you can't have any SEXPs use the new ships name as a trigger as that would cause the game to complain that the ship doesn't exist on mission load (You may or may not be able to get away with using when-argument etc. though). In addition the ships name is also used in the events log and can't easily be altered as it is used by SEXPs like has-departed-delay and is-destroyed-delay.

What may be possible is to add an alt shipname field and have the SEXP change that (along with having the HUD display it). However the event log would still refer to the ship by the original name you gave it.

[DarkShadow-]

What do you mean selects a specific ship? I'm not certain what you want the SEXP to do.

You're right, "select" wasn't the best word. I think target-ship is better to understand. Perhaps it helps a little bit if I explain what I want to do. I have two ships with exact the same coordinates and heading, one is called GTS Hygeia and the other one is, let's say, Baltazar. The idea was that you shouldn't know that the Hygeia-class vessel is the Baltazar until you scanned it. When scanned, the GTS Hygeia departs without warp while the Baltazar arrives without warp at the same position.

Of course the player loses his target and obviously realizes the triggering behind that event. I want the target-ship SEXP to target the Baltazar at arrival so it looks like the GTS Hygeia's name changed to Baltazar. I thought of this work-around because I realized that a change-name SEXP would be hard to implement although it sounds easy.

[karajorma]

Hang on a sec. Is it the name of the ship or it's class you want to change? Cause the latter can be done by simply changing the ship's class with the change-ship-class SEXP instead.

Targeting would be retained. The ship class would update automatically.


I can see why you might need it if you want to change the name though.

[DarkShadow-]

The name, not the class. Always the more difficult one. 

[Trivial Psychic]

I suggested a change-alt-ship-name sexp, which would change the name displayed of that ship, as far as the player is concerned, although for events and scripting the original name would still be used by the game.

[karajorma]

As I mentioned before one problem is the event log (there may be others but I definitely know that the log is one). Any player can call it up by pressing F4 and we can't change the name of a ship on it without breaking SEXPs.

[Mobius]

How about setting x and y dimensions of briefing icons? Also, changing the asteroid field density and coord limit would be ok.

[Scooby_Doo]

How about shootable missiles?

[CaptJosh]

We have those. They're called bombs and torpedoes. Just make a fast one with faster lock time so that it's like a normal aspect seeking missile, only targetable, so it can be shot down, if you can shoot fast enough, anyway.

[karajorma]

No we don't. The difference between a shootable missile and a bomb is largely that the B key becomes useless if every single missile is targetable with it.

What presumably needs to happen is to split the bomb tags effects into two separate flags (One for targeting and another for being destructible) and simply make the original bomb flag equivalent to having both.

[CaptJosh]

Point...

But then there'd be a need for a new targeting key. OTOH, who would have time to target a missile before shooting at it, so...hrm...I don't know...

[Scooby_Doo]

Correct torp/bombs and missiles should be handled slightly different, bombs taget big ships, missiles target figheters (preferrably).
A seperate key would be needed.  Perhaps just have a button for missiles targeting you?