[Andrew_Cluetain]

  I know there is a limit to the number of ships you can cram in a FS2 Mission before it won't work, Anyone have a hard and fast number?  Having that info will save me a lot of fustration on a project I'm working on.  FYI I am still using retail FS2 and FRED2.

[karajorma]

100 ships.

[Mobius]

Is that the limit for all FRED and FSO builds?

[karajorma]

Nope. It's 400 for more recent 3.6.10 builds.

[Mobius]

Including the Inferno build you compiled a while ago(the one that fixed that FRED-related mission save problem)?

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Yep every 3.6.10 build for quite awhile now. 

[Mobius]

FANTASTIC!

Thanks for the info.

[Daniel P]

Nope. It's 400 for more recent 3.6.10 builds.

I don't Know what to do with 400 ships. Maybe an epic battle.

Edit: Deleted a double post due to my internet crashed.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

I've found several ways of making use of > 100 so far.  Not one is a BOE either. 

[Mobius]

Indeed.

More than 100 ships in the mission file =/= More than 100 ships appearing on the battlefield at the same moment.

[Raskolnikov]

You can get creative with waves, for one. Different waves appearing per the player's slightly differing actions at different times, etc.

[CarmenA1]

hmmm. i might be not understanding what your saying exactly, but here goes:
i found in Fred that if there is too many ships full stop, and not just as one moment;
that it says "Ship has an invalid index?" or the like.
yes the waves are a the way through it.
I had to delete some cargo units so that it was clear of the problem lol
as well it was one of my earliest mission so i didn't do that same outrageous thing twice
i shall post that mission adventually in this site as it works now. Crazy!

[JCDNWarrior]

Just to be sure if I understand this right, by the way; but does this mean you're able to have 400 ships in the mission file, while only 100 at once on screen?

Personally, I would love to have more than 100 on screen at once, as i feel very limited in achieving a lot of things (such as really large fighter battles).

- JC

[Mobius]

Are you sure it's a good idea?

[Topgun]

Get Out ->>>>
more ships doesn't mean BoE.

[Mobius]

More than 100 spacecraft at the same time? Are you sure?

[Topgun]

1. firstly, they don't need to all be at the same time.
2. in some mods, things that aren't what you would call "ships" are listed the ship.tbl. this will give modders more flexibility to do things with "ships", ie, minefields or whatever.

[Mobius]

JC was clearly refering to having more than 100 at the same time to have large fighter battles, so this leads to a BoE-related discussion. More than 100 combat spacecraft in the game at the same time are very hard to manage unless they're following navpoints or they're closing in on a position from multiple areas.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Lets see you make a decent minefield and stay under 100 ships in a mission.  Mines eat up ship slots real fast and can't be in wings.

[Mobius]

JC wasn't refering to minefields. He took combat spacecraft into account and I thought it was the case of linking the BoE article.

Uhm, minefields aren't always supposed to be that big. Derelict featured a nice one without breaking the limits.