[Gibbusflame]

I keep re-working the SEXPS on freeing up the beam-weapons for various ships, but no matter what type of event I make only 1 ship is constantly "beam-free," yet the others are still locked.
I don't know what the trouble is (Oh and I'm using retail FS2). I've used "is-event-true-delay" functions, time-elapsed functions, and basically everything, yet nothing is working on these ships (I've even double-checked the ships to see if they have beams).
I've just restarted playing FS2 and using FRED2. Am I forgetting an age-old rule? Help, s'il vous plait.

[karajorma]

1) Why are you using retail?

2) Remember that beams are only unlocked when you beam-free-all the ship named in that SEXP AFTER it as arrived in the mission. It does no good at all to beam-free-all ships that haven't arrived.

[General Battuta]

Yeah, why use retail? You could check 'all ships beam-freed by default' in FRED2_Open...

But it's worth learning how to do it this way, too. As Kara points out, it won't work if they're not in-mission yet. Say you want the BillyBob to be beam-freed and it arrives at some later point. 'when has-arrived-delay (0, BillyBob), beam-free-all BillyBob.'

[Gibbusflame]

Okay, thanks!

Oh yeah. I'm not using retail currently cause I still need to download the FSO software plus the openAL's (I haven't gotten around to it, plus I don't have admin rights on this computer so I can't do much by myself   )
Will get FSO soon though.  

[Galemp]

Keep in mind that 'beam-free-all' frees all the turrets on the specified ship-- it does NOT free beams for all ships. That, and make sure you free the beams after the ship has arrived.

[Gibbusflame]

Yes I knew that  but thanks again!

[Syder]

Guys, and how do you unlock the beams so capital ships start using them? Couldn't find this option in FRED

[Kie99]

Guys, and how do you unlock the beams so capital ships start using them? Couldn't find this option in FRED

If you're using FRED 2 Open, go to Mission Specs (Shift + N) and tick 'all ships beam-freed by default'.

[Syder]

Oh thanks!!!! That really helped 

[ReeNoiP]

Guys, and how do you unlock the beams so capital ships start using them? Couldn't find this option in FRED

If you're using FRED 2 Open, go to Mission Specs (Shift + N) and tick 'all ships beam-freed by default'.

If you want more control you can free/lock individual beams using events. You can also free/lock all turrets on a particular ship if you want. Look under change->beams and turrets.

If you are not familiar with events and want to start FREDding you should really do the extended walkthrough under help->help topics. It may seem boring at first, when you just want to make your own missions, but it really pays off.