[karajorma]

It's always wise to plan for the eventuality that you'll have a better idea or change of mind later.

I tend to use multiples of ten or 5 simply because I started out programming in Basic and you were always encouraged to use multiples of 10 for line numbers so that you could add more code if need be.

[Black Wolf]

New suggestion - how about a "behind ship" option to go with the "Near Ship" and "In front of Ship" options we currently have in the pull down menu for the arrival cues in FRED 2?

[Goober5000]

You shouldn't really be giving anything a priority lower than 10 as that means you can still add ships in with 9 lower priorities if need be.

You've got that backwards.  Higher number = higher priority.

[karajorma]

You shouldn't really be giving anything a priority lower than 10 as that means you can still add ships in with 9 lower priorities if need be.

You've got that backwards.  Higher number = higher priority.

No I haven't. I know which way the priority scale goes but say I've assigned a ship a priority of 10. I have 9 numbers left I can assign for ships less important than it is.

Say you have a mission with 4 capships with priority of 50 and a freighter with priority of 0. If later in the mission you want to add a ship with lower priority than the freighter (either while FREDding or using this SEXP) what do you do? Your only choice is to go back to the Ships Editor and set it to a higher priority and then give the newer ship something lower than that.

My whole point was that you should have done that in the first place rather than painting yourself into a corner by giving it a priority of zero.

[DarkShadow-]

More suggestions 

A "bomb only" weapon flag. Some capital ships in my mod use a short range defensive laser (beam weapon) to destroy incoming bombs. Atm I'm using the "small only" flag and the weapon doesn't deal much damage to fighters anyway, but I would prefer if the weapon doesn't shoot at fighters/bombers at all.

New suggestion - how about a "behind ship" option to go with the "Near Ship" and "In front of Ship" options we currently have in the pull down menu for the arrival cues in FRED 2?

Additionally, I would really like to have a "Near Location" (or "Near Waypoint") option. This would really help me in one of the Machina Terra missions.

[Goober5000]

No I haven't. ... I have 9 numbers left I can assign for ships less important than it is.

Whoops, I'm sorry.  You didn't actually have it backwards; I misread your post.

[karajorma]

Yeah I figured that was the case but I also figured if you had misread it I'd better explain in more detail for anyone else reading

[ARSPR]

A MUST HAVE OPTION IF NOT ALREADY PRESENT:

+ A launcher flag or any other way to turn off muzzle flashes for the player ship (at least within internal view).


While testing new vps, I can swear that the own ship laser muzzle flashes ARE UNBEARABLE. If we are going to have this improvement, we must have some way to turn them off.

Sorry for the initial red capital letters but if you don't believe me, ask DaBrain a copy of the in-progress vps and check yourselves. (PLEASE, don't do it if you are epileptic or if you are on the edge of going mad ... )

[JGZinv]

Considering my "AI latting" post one page back - is that something
feasible, simply out of the question, or am I posting in the wrong area?

[Kaboodles]

Is there any way you can teach the AI to use the Shield Equalize function at all?  And while you're at it, can you also get them to use their afterburners to catch up when given the "Form on my wing" command?

[Scooby_Doo]

Is there any way you can teach the AI to use the Shield Equalize function at all?  And while you're at it, can you also get them to use their afterburners to catch up when given the "Form on my wing" command?

Also something like evade or divert power to shields when shields are low.

[Kaboodles]

Is there any way you can teach the AI to use the Shield Equalize function at all?  And while you're at it, can you also get them to use their afterburners to catch up when given the "Form on my wing" command?

Also something like evade or divert power to shields when shields are low.

Totally.  Every mission I find myself screaming "STOP EXPLODING, YOU COWARDS!" since they die so damn quickly, especially in heavier fighters like the Herc or INF:A's Antaeus.  They all get ripped to shreds by Valkyries and those INF:A fighters that look like flying dongs because they don't know how to manage shields (or evade in any way, for that matter).

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Probably not too many interested in this one but since I'm getting tired of forgetting to copy files every time I make changes thought I'd throw it out here anyway.  Any chance of configurable directories for missions and pilots?  Say C:\games\freespace2 is your install directory you could tell FS2 and FRED to look at T:\fs2\missions for your mission files and t:\fs2\players for your player files. 

[taylor]

Any chance of configurable directories for missions and pilots?  Say C:\games\freespace2 is your install directory you could tell FS2 and FRED to look at T:\fs2\missions for your mission files and t:\fs2\players for your player files. 

Nope, not gonna happen.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Well that smile probably means you already did it. 

Ok off to the next request.  Wings or lists in the escort list?  Kind of like what you have on the directive side but gives you the ability of using escort targeting.  Also since I believe the current limit is 3 escort ships on the list at one time something like this might be a way around that.  Say you have a group of 7 misc transports/cargo ships and a friendly cap and a wing of 4 attacking ships.  If you wanted them all on the list you could flag the cap in ship screen then add the following event

when
-->has-arrived-delay
---->0
---->transport1 (assuming all have same arrival cue)
-->add-remove-escort-list
----->10
----->GTVA Transports (whatever you want to show up in the escort list)
----->transport1
----->transport2
----->cargo1
----->freighter1
----->cargo2
----->freighter2
----->transport3

when
-->has-arrived-delay
---->0
---->attacker1
-->add-remove-escort-list
----->5
-----><escort name>
-----><wing name> 

So after all the ships show up escort list would look like  this:

<cap ship>
GTVA Transports (7)
<escort name> (4)

I would expect this to probably be limited to lists of single ships or wings with only 1 wave.  Pressing escort key would target first ship in list or wing. 

What do you think?  Good idea or waste of time.  Wrote this down at the bar last night so I'm not even sure what I needed it for.   

[JGZinv]

I was trying to read up on turret and ship size limits and an idea came to mind...

If the turret limit is up in the 130's now (as is somewhat indicated) and if you needed more -
would it be possible to split your ship design in two - to make 2 ships in effect. Like splitting it top/bottom. Doubling
the amount of sub objects/turrets you can use. Then you'd have to have them fly in synced formation
to pull off the look that they were one complete unit...

Is that something that would work, or take that idea and build on it to expand the capabilities?
Perhaps I'm just coming up with something that'd be too much work - there's supposed to be a variable
system being worked on sometime to replace this correct?

[Scooby_Doo]

I was trying to read up on turret and ship size limits and an idea came to mind...

If the turret limit is up in the 130's now (as is somewhat indicated) and if you needed more -
would it be possible to split your ship design in two - to make 2 ships in effect. Like splitting it top/bottom. Doubling
the amount of sub objects/turrets you can use. Then you'd have to have them fly in synced formation
to pull off the look that they were one complete unit...

Is that something that would work, or take that idea and build on it to expand the capabilities?
Perhaps I'm just coming up with something that'd be too much work - there's supposed to be a variable
system being worked on sometime to replace this correct?

I can see targetting becoming a problem and what if one section is destroyed?

I'd like to see the multipart turrets go dynamic, but that looks like that'll be 3.7.0 for that.

[JGZinv]

Gah computer ate my original post...

Targeting:

I would think that the targeting would be an issue with the degree of firing range the turrets
had and the placement of turrets. The type of turret would likely matter as well. You'd have to
make the "ship part B" as a friendly signature obviously... You wouldn't have any turrets on the "interior"
sides of each part that faced each other. On the other hand I've never understood why a cap ship can
shoot through itself.... to hit me on the other side. Yet the cap does not at least receive damage.

Destruction:
Well the best idea I can think of - is that you'd have to have some sort of time/event marker.
So when "ship part A" begins it's destruction sequence - the other section is told to do the same.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

An option or flag to allow mission objective and event scoring to work in multi player coop would be nice.  Currently it looks like all scoring comes from kills and objective and event scoring is ignored.  I'd like to be able to award points for doing things right not for killing the most caps. 

[Scooby_Doo]

How about state saving stack?

For example:
Save ship state
Disable afterburner
Do stuff
Pop ship state

It should save on several fredding commands.

Also have individual state changes, a few exist already (max ship speed) but like afterburner, no afterburner, shields, no shields