[killface]

This one is kind of frustrating, because I'm sure the answer is something that involves maybe 2-3 clicks of the mouse, yet I can't find it.  I'm designing a mission and I don't want the player to be able to see the objectives of friendly cap ships and wingmen when they're targeted.  How can I make that happen?

[0rph3u5]

the easiest way (and the only one known to me) to do that would be turning the "friendly" ships into "unknown" ones...
backside of this is that they are now surronded by purple bacers and the names are being spelled in purple letters in the hud...

if the orders of special military ships on the scene should not be displayed this would turn into a huge unlogical metaphore-I-have-yet-not-found (two kinds of (military) friendlies on the field... what's that?)

if you want this to be a non-military craft ... well than make all civs in the mission unknowns (and "protect ship" off course to prevent any absolutly-not-nice-problems-involving-the-AI-doing-what-you-don't-want-without-telling-it)

[karajorma]

A better solution might be to make a new iff-defs table and use that to create a team identical to Friendly whose orders aren't shown.

[Backslash]

Or would a new flag, "never show orders" or something like that, in ai_profiles.tbl be a good solution for me to implement?  I've been thinking about making an "always show orders" (even for enemies... great for testing and also the TIE Fighter game had it), so this would be just as easy.

[Goober5000]

No, it should be a flag in iff_defs, because it's dependent on IFF.

[killface]

I could go with either method.  Bascially, the issue is I have two opposing Deimos cruisers traveling a parallel set of waypoints, volleying at each other from a distance of about 5000m.  I WANT them to cruise alongside each other like that, instead of going in for a heads-first attack.  But what I don't want is for the player to target the friendly cruiser and see that he's following waypoints, and going to get done with those waypoints in some odd minutes and seconds.  It doesn't make much sense, this is an attack scenario, who knows how long it might last.

My question about the iff table is this: can you still give orders to ships of a differing iff status?  I'd check it out right now, but it'll be days before I get a chance for any FREDding/tabling.

[Goober5000]

1) 5000m is a bit too far for most beams.  Do you mean 500m?

2) That's a very poor example, in my opinion.  It's the default behavior in FS2; all the FS2 missions use it; all the mods use it.  We're used to seeing the waypoint orders.  Just because you don't like it doesn't justify adding a new SCP feature.

3) You can't give orders to ships who aren't on your team.

If you really want the waypoints to be unpredictable, my advice would be to periodically change the ai orders, or else arrange the waypoints in a loop (like in Their Finest Hour).  Travelling in parallel for a long time is boring anyway.

[RazorsKiss]

2) That's a very poor example, in my opinion.  It's the default behavior in FS2; all the FS2 missions use it; all the mods use it.  We're used to seeing the waypoint orders.  Just because you don't like it doesn't justify adding a new SCP feature.

Travelling in parallel for a long time is boring anyway.

Well, I see an objection to that, albeit a small one.

Most ships have a much larger broadside area than front/back.  From wet-navy days, ships have often (traditionally) been designed to pack a larger punch from the broadside than they do head on, or from the stern.

Two ships in parallel could be seen, especially in TCs, as having a running broadside slugfest across the system.  In fact, that's what I thought of first, when I read his post, above.   Sure, it *could* be boring, if all they're doing is just moving - but they're engaged in a long-range duel, as a sort of backdrop to the other action. 

That would justify the addition of the feature, to me.   

[killface]

Precisely.  For this mission, the idea is two opposing cap ships duking it out from extreme long range along their broadsides (and yes, their beams now travel 5000+m, moving at 2000m/s).  Meanwhile, fighter wings square off in the empty space between them, while cap ship cannon fire races by to every side.  The trick is to take out the enemy fighters without getting too near to the enemy cap ship, or it'll rip you apart with greatly-enhanced flak fire.  You're basically just trying to whittle down the enemy fighter force until they're no longer willing to commit any more resources, and they withdraw.  This is part 1 of a 3-part campaign to bring down this specific enemy cap ship.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, Goober: I'm not asking for a new feature to change this.  Never did.  I was only wondering if there was some pre-existing method to obscure friendly orders, which it seems there isn't.

[killface]

What about the instructor?  In the training mission at the very start of FS2, he flies all over the place and his waypoint goals aren't listed on the target ship display.  And yet, looking over that training mission in Fred2, the instructor is friendly status.  So how are his objectives being hidden?

[Snail]

Only because the ship name is Instructor. So that won't help you.

[karajorma]

Yeah the FS2 training missions include a fair few hacks.

[killface]

How mystifying...they thought it important to keep the instructor's exact objectives from view, but didn't design that as an option in FRED for other friendly units?  What other training mission hacks are there?

[Bob-san]

Why not make the deimos corvettes untargetable, just leave them on the HUD? Setup messages about closing too close to the flak guns. Oh, what keeps A1 from simply flying to the friendly Deimos, letting the greatly-enhanced Flak do the job?

[killface]

Alpha 1 could certainly attempt that, but it's no guarantee the whole enemy force would follow.  In fact, given that this is a 5-wing vs. 5-wing battle and A1 has no command authority to force friendly fighters to follow him/her, odds are it won't accomplish much at all.  I don't really understand the bit about making the Deimos corvettes untargetable.  Do you mean invisible to sensors?  The problem with that is that I want them on the escort list.  The mission runs fine as is, I was just mildly curious about the possibility of obscuring objectives, that's all.  All in all, I can live with seeing that the ships are running waypoints.  Just slightly annoying.

[karajorma]

Okay then, here's an alternative. I haven't tested it but it should probably work.

You make a third neutral ship. Make it invisible to detection and place it way off in the distance but in the direction you want the friendly cruiser to attack. If the enemy ship is the NTCv Sevrin you call this ship the NTCv SeverinÀ (You get the character by pressing ALT and then typing in a four figure number. À for instance is ALT + 1463 for me).  FS2 has very poor support for use of these characters and they simply don't appear in messages although they do appear in FRED.

Now simply give the friendly corvette orders to attack it while everything else has orders to ignore it. The corvette will move in the same direction as it did before except that now the order it will display is Attack NTCv Severin.

[Snail]

Score 123245555591928382838211165 for Kara, I guess.

[killface]

!!!  Wow.  Thank you, that's a very creative solution.

[Snail]

Karajorma is also a god.

[killface]

Karajorma giveth, and...well, nevermind, he simply giveth and giveth and giveth!